etrayalogs | FEBRUARY MINGLE

Entry tags:

FEBRUARY MINGLE

WHO: Everyone!
WHEN: February 14th - March
WHERE: Etraya
WHAT: The arrival of newcomers, a mini mission, and some new city features!
NOTES\WARNINGS:

⏵ arrival ⏴
Welcome to Etraya!

Arrival goes as expected - characters awaken on hospital beds and are offered an explanation of their situation: that they have arrived in the city of Etraya, and they are their world's only hope. They are welcome to wander the hospital if they would like to - the upper floors are mostly empty, full of pristine hallways and numerous rooms filled with supplies, cots, and things one would expect from a relatively average 21st-century hospital.

In the hospital's lobby are several party tables set out with miscellaneous baked goods: croissants, cookies, breads, cake slices, as well as tea and coffee to accompany them - or hot chocolate, for those who are opposed to the other offerings.

Outside the hospital, the last remnants of snow are melting in the sunlight as the weather begins to warm up. It's still chilly enough one might want to put on a coat, but not so cold a jacket is necessary for wandering around without freezing off one's fingers.

We hope you enjoy your stay.

⏵ heroes return ⏴

As the Quantum Rail train glides to a halt, returning passengers step out onto familiar ground - the train station, right where they had initially begun their mission. When exiting the station, their earpieces vibrate, indicating the automatic download of a detailed map which highlights key locations, transit paths, and notable landmarks. As Aurora promised, she had been working on a few renovations around Etraya! A sleek trolley system now winds through Etraya, following clearly marked pathways through the city bubble to make travel across the city smoother. However, the trolley only moves one way, eternally following the loop Aurora has set it on. And because of this, it takes six hours to complete it's loop all the way around. Don't miss your stop!

Pets and animals have been returned to their usual preferred areas, some awaiting the arrival of their owners, and others keeping to themselves in the forested areas throughout Etraya.

Beyond the small upgrades, things seem relatively unchanged - until one familiar sign catches the eye. One marked by four vertical lines, methodically crossed out one by one: the final slash has now been drawn through. The tally is complete. What it indicates has yet to be made clear, but it has to mean something, right? No one would go through the effort of making an ominous-sounding sign without following through.

⏵ love in the air ⏴

This Valentines Day, Aurora and the companion bots have opted to try something a little different: they have scattered mystery valentines across the city. Hidden within mailboxes, tucked into cafe menus, slipped under doors, on the outside of high windows for those wall-crawlers to spot. There are countless of these little slips of papers, strewn throughout the city. And within each valentine, is a challenge or gesture to complete. Please feel free to make these up yourselves as long as they fit in with the theme!

Some examples include:

Deliver a flower to a stranger.
Write a heartfelt poem for someone.
Share a box of chocolates!
Confess your feelings for another.
Play matchmaker for two people - this can be platonic, or romantic!
Gift a friend with a stuffed animal.
Give five different people a genuine compliment.

While not mandatory, completing five tasks will earn an individual an additional ten points to use towards anything they would like!

Each little Valentine is signed "Your Secret Admirer. ♡", and some of them may even be addressed to specific individuals. Don't be surprised, Eddie, if you see one or two that are specifically addressed to you lurking around your collection of chicken friends!

And while most of these are harmless, some of the valentines cards come with effects for those who come into contact with the paper. Perhaps they thought it was a piece of garbage, or were just kicking it out of the way rather than intending on taking part. It doesn't matter! They get to join in on the fun, too.

Heart Eyes - your pupils literally turn into hearts for a few hours, making it hard to focus on anything other than things (or people) you find attractive.
Love-Struck Stammer - You can only speak in poetic compliments or romantic declarations, regardless of whom you're speaking to.
Chocolate Bliss - Everything feels good. Simple. Easy. As if there's nothing in the world to concern yourself with. You feel happy, without any concerns or worry.
Rose-Tinted Vision - everything looks soft and romantic, as if you're in a romance novel. You know the ones.
Magnetic Attraction - regardless of what you had been doing, you suddenly find yourself unable to leave the side of the person closest to you. Had you been eating chocolates while walking down the street? Well, have fun getting stuck to the guy who'd been out for a jog!
Serenade Syndrome - you find it impossible to resist the urge to sing your words, turning all conversations into love ballads.
Heartstrings - A thread appears, connecting you to someone close by who you share many similarities too. Perhaps you had never met this person before, but the threads tied around your pinky fingers that refuse to let go until you allow yourself to open up to them clearly means you should be a little more familiar with them.

Love is in the air—or maybe just a bit of well-intended chaos! 💕

⏵ NOTES ⏴

Welcome back from the mission, and welcome to Etraya for our newcomers! We've tried to keep this log simple for an easy introduction, as well as some downtime for our mission-goers who worked hard to solve the Quantum Rail mystery.

There is something else going on, but. . . well, no one seems to know what! The computer that had been on the lower floor of the hospital is now missing, and Aurora may seem a little flustered as she flits around Etraya, in search of something.

For all questions relating to this log, please refer to the mod queries comment. All other questions can be directed to the FAQ.

⏵FULL NAVIGATION⏴

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[Vander was keenly aware that Silco had to have a knife on him somewhere, and as far as he knew, magnetism meant that he had to stick close for some time. He would say that it this forced proximity was a disadvantage except that he was Silco's physical superior even if a knife was drawn. There was nothing about magnetism that seemed to indicate he couldn't punch the older man in the face; he'd had to accommodate by standing over Silco when the little weasel fell down that's all.

Double attached? Was that even possible? He hadn't seen nor heard of it, and he wanted to deny the possibility regardless of it staring them both in the face. Was there an official complaints department?

Silco was probably already composing a strongly worded letter of reprimand to the system. He had better not have to hear about it.

He took a pointed step back and away, digging his heels into the floor as he seemed to be bodily slingshot back the way that he had tried to maneuver. He lifted his hand to look at the string; they knew whose that was.]

Sorry, this one is yours, so it's your problem to deal with. Figure it out.

[As for the magnetism, he thought it was a time duration without specifics to it. If they paced around each other in this silly apartment lobby, perhaps it would pass. Or he could still sneak out on a supply run, but there would be no sneaking with this squawking knife-wielding pain in the ass.]

I'm going to the store. You're apparently coming with me.

[ Maybe somewhere, Aurora is having a good laugh at their mutual expense. Maybe, she's even hoping this will encourage more honesty between two men who deeply hate one another at the moment — or maybe serendipity and happenstance (and enthusiasm) make up the difference, and that is the reason for their mutual misery.

As it is, Silco stood his ground. He did pull out his knife, and then one of the cigars from his box, using the knife to cut the end off, pressing it against his thumb. He does not draw blood, because Silco knows precisely how to use the damn thing.

His lip curled. ]

I will do no such thing.

[ He said. He'll deal with the other one, but he wants to be as far from Vander as he can be first. Maybe distance will break it. It's just a damned string, after all. ]

Can you even leave? You're trapped.

[ Lighter out, he lit the cigar. Just for good measure, he tried to torch the string.

It didn't catch.

Well, that's one idea down. ]

[Aurora was fortunate that Vander was in control of his temper currently, especially when one considered the mission on the train. He was still aching from that one, hence his wish to be at the store and back here again safely to just punch his bag and maybe the floor a few times.

He still showed more than his fair share of signs that he had been fighting while on the train: yellowing bruises, healing lacerations, scabbed knuckles. The thought alone of having to put up with Silco when those incidences remained fresh on his mind forced him to clench his fists to avoid an outburst. He moved around, circling Silco as the man decided to light up.

He tested how far he could keep away before the inevitable tug drew him back into the other man's sphere. Annoyance bristled tension along his shoulders, and he kept shooting glances towards the door out. He couldn't return to his apartment, and if Silco wasn't move, neither was he apparently.]

I bet if I shove you, I'm forced to follow. That's an investigation I'm willing to undertake. Are you? [The corner of his lips upturned into a mean smile.] Or I could throw you over my shoulder? Dangle you by the ankle in front of me? Drag you by your hair? Options are limitless if we're creative.

[ Silco turned with him, keeping him in his eye no matter where he moved, unwilling to turn his back on the man. He knew what that would do, after all, didn't he? He blew a plume of smoke in his face when he returned, pointedly directing it right toward him, a twitch of his lips as if to say 'oops', but he remained silent while he walked away.

He looked annoyed when he returned. Doubly so when he realized that the string didn't seem to care about the distance.

Just great. ]

Oh, will you do all of those things? What would Jinx say? You don't want to upset her more, do you?

[ Yes, he is invoking Jinx. Yes, he's going to use her to get his way. Silco has never once been the type that would leave an advantage just lying there. ]

[He resented the fact that he would have to stand around until Silco decided to move. He resented more that the man was here and he couldn't just give him a black eye and walk away. It was the least of what Silco deserved after that train debacle, and he should have...

Janna there was so much more he could have done. There was so much more he should have done. He was behind on every turn here, there and everywhere, and it was beginning to frustrate him beneath the normally friendly face he wore. Instead, he had been dressed down by his own daughter... the world was falling to rancor.

He narrowed his eyes in disgust, not caring about the smoke blown in his face but throwing Pow-Jinx out there? He set his hands on his hips and shook his head, mean look melting to one of pity.]

That's your play? You're going to hide behind the name of a nineteen year old? Aren't you the adult in the room with her? [He leaned forward, into that dissipating cloud of cigar smoke.] You're frightened of her. Another pup on a leash that you dispense against your enemies but you don't have control, do you? Let's talk about that, shall we? Tell me how you honestly feel, Silco. Two dogs on a leash in your lifetime and both of them tried to kill you: one succeeded.

[It was unfair. All of his frustration, all of his anger, all of his impotence, all of the hurt, the grief, the sadness, the guilt. It all boiled up like an abscess, bursting in a fetid, infected discharge of sharpness. Vander knew him, knew which buttons to push with surgical accuracy to send Silco apocalyptic. He wanted it. He wanted the man to attack him, to stab, to...]

[ It spikes to life like a fire. It's always there, burning underneath the surface, deep in that tepid cold water he tries to keep facing outward, but there's always that hint from deep within the well. Like his eye, black and bursting with furious anger, what burns below bubbling up toward the surface. He wants to spit in his face, he wants to see that anger reflected in his eyes, he wants to make him hurt for everything he'd done, over and over again, until he sees that Silco is right. That he's always been right.

He puffs on his cigar.

For a split-second, he considers digging the cherry into his eye, but Jinx, she demanded that he behave. Silco's fingers are gripping too tight, watching her become angry, slipping through them like sand. Desperately, he tries to collect what little he has left. She would leave him, if he didn't. ]

I only seek to remind you of where goading landed you the last time. With a nasty scar, and the derision of the girl.

[ Not his daughter, no. She was Silco's. ] Lest you get swept up again, and forget yourself.

[ It's accurate enough, Vander can see it. He's angry. He hides it, of course, a half-composed face, but the little signs. The way the bottom of his good eye twitches, the way his fingers curl just a hair too tight around the cigar. The cut of his shoulders, just slightly up, wound up and angry. It's all there, but only to the eye that knows to look for it.

For a long, long time, Vander had known exactly what to look for, and for all that Silco said that he had changed, was he not still the same man? ]

Because we aren't talking about that. [ He didn't have the right. That wasn't his to know. No matter how he deduced it, no matter how quickly he'd picked up on that.

It made him want to sink another knife into him, just for saying it. ]

So suffer through this, you aren't getting me to... go with you.

[ He sat on a bench, instead. Pointedly. ]

[Despite his own emotional state which was not great, Vander was able to see how his provoking words affected Silco. They knew each others tells, had read one another's body language for years, knew the little intricate details where a pointed comment could strike home and cause a reaction. At one time, it had been them against the world that wished to crush them into forced submission. He knew Silco was on the verge of reacting, to succumbing to the war that he was provoking.

And he welcomed it. After two months, it was like a habit to be itched, a familiarity for a temper he otherwise kept beneath the surface with a practiced ease. A part of him even recognized the self-destructive nature of provocation: Silco would hurt him, and he invited it.

Yet, the anticipation for that knife to be brought to bear between them, linked as they were without an escape on his end, stalled when Silco resisted the urge. It forced him to stand back up to his full height, and by his own assessment, he linked the potential loss of Jinx (or even another outburst of her displeasure) to also be a source of fear enough within the older man that momentarily overrode Silco's own anger towards him.

Interesting.]

You know I don't scar that easily, and this injury is healing just fine. [Yet, he made a point of relenting on that unnecessary detail. His state of health didn't particular matter. Jinx did.] And if my daughter wishes further discussion on my actions, she has every right and opportunity to come to me directly. My door is always open for her.

[He shifted where he was standing when Silco made a point of sitting down, and he once again was forced to test the boundaries of the tether distance between them. It was an odd circumstance where he couldn't simply muscle his way out of a situation with Silco, and while he suspected he could pick the man up and carry him off, the amount of screeching would attract attention. He might try it anyway, but not yet... he'd bind his time.

Instead, he reached into his pocket to pull out a crushed up pack of cigarettes and pulled one of his last three to the pack out. He held it out to Silco.] Give me a light? [For old time's sake goes unspoken. It felt like razor wire over his skin to make the request.]

If your strays turning on you is off the table, what do you want to talk about, hmm? How about Shimmer? You have that set up here yet?

[ He calls her his daughter — and there's a flash of something across his face, an indiscernible, angry, violent little thing that tries to claw its way out of the ice chill water he drowns the parts of him he doesn't want seen in. It still tries to claw it's way out, and Silco's good eye narrowed, twitched, a clench of his jaw so tight he thought his jaw would crack, but Silco fears something more than anything else — she's already done it one, she might do it again.

It does not stop the thoughts, the litany of assertions that she was not Vander's, that no matter what he said, no matter what he thought, there was a truth he refused to accept. That Jinx was his, he'd died for that fact, and that he would try to swoop in and reclaim her as his daughter when it was his foolishness that led her down this path towards Silco — he checked it away, put it against all the other slights. Each one something he would remember, and each one he would punish him for.

It was a promise he'd already sealed. This instance set up on the shelf too. How he would do it, he had ideas, but it was an insidious little plan. Things to put together. Stack them up, watch them fall apart when he kicked them just right.

He was watching, and waiting. He noticed things too. The way his pack of cigarettes were crushed up he's surprised they don't come out bent and broken. His hair two-months too long, the strain, the violence. It's almost familiar. If it weren't for the age that separated them, he would have almost said Vander was closer to the old friend he'd once been, than the neutered, sad dog Silco had seen him as in the end — well, not the very end, but that had been a special occurrence, when he'd drawn that monster out.

He almost refused, but after a moment, he pulled a cheap spare lighter out, and tossed it at him underhanded. ]

Don't even keep a lighter on you?

[ Still? It had been a thing in their youth, too. Hadn't Vander relied on Silco to be the one prepared, slipping anything that they needed away in pockets, sequestered away on his person? ]

So you want to discover my plans, do you? [ He says it with a scoff. ] Think I'm going to use the exact same thing here, in a land of plenty?

You must think me a fool.

[ He still will, if he can find a way. He does not need to be reliant on it, though. They have other options. Other things. He and Sevika will make something work out of this fat land of plenty, if they have to invent crime themselves. It is something to do, after all, and Silco needs some little kingdom to lord over. ]

[Vander could read the reaction plain as day on Silco's face, easily tracking it back to the single boundary that he knew they would fight over. He was respecting Jinx's own wishes to associate with them both similarly, to call them both or at least consider them both, fathers to her. He had offered to back off upon his arrival, and that had been vehemently rejected. So, he was unwilling to relent on that point to anyone, least off to Silco who had always been a possessive, spiteful man though it had clearly become a poison these days.

He almost missed the silent pouting. Now he had to contend with the fact that Silco was clearly keeping score every stand he made on this subject and so many others. Fatherhood had been a point of pride for him but also lead to his own downfall. He didn't regret that part, just in his inability to protect his children when they had needed him most. So let Silco bluster as Jinx being his daughter.

He stared at the man seated, noting the lighter as it was produced. It was tossed, hit his chest and dropped to the floor without a single motion on his part to handle it. No, his cigarette remained extended in hand towards Silco.]

Cherry light. [His eyes moved from Silco's face to the end of the man's cigar and back again. It was how they had done it in the mines more than anywhere else; lighters were expensive, matches just a touch less so. Sharing was common practice.] And I have lighter. I want a cherry light; it's the least you can do since we're going to sit here and smoke the next few hours.

[He pointedly flexed his little finger where they string was tied, linking them together in another manner. He knew what the string meant. He also knew they had no reason to open up to each other aside from in anger, so he expected they would be stuck here rooted in the lobby until one or the other waited out the other, an unlikely prospect.]

You, a fool? I've never thought that about you. Quite the opposite.

[As for Silco's plans, Sevika had all but confirmed it. How much did he want to drive a rift between those two? How much could he even? Who knew.]

History has already proven you could care less about Runeterra and you're going to sew as much discord and organized chaos as you can. Train being case in point. But also, a little birdie told me you needed Shimmer for that eye of yours, and why stop with just a personal use? You're far too much of an expansionist to not explore the opportunity.

No.

[ He says outright. ] Use your lighter, or don't smoke.

[ He remembered the practice well. Perhaps if he was in a better mood he would have been amenable — but who are we kidding? He's never in a better mood — and he shuts down the request automatically. He puffed on his cigar, challenging him to do otherwise, which aw probably the unwise thing to do, but he does it anyway, his good eye at a bored half-mast.

Vander seems to know enough to put together some of his plans, because they could always predict for one another. Silco could see Vander for what he was too, but he held that back for the moment, waiting for the opportunity to point out the things he could see. He would wait, however, like a little spider at the center of his web. Silco wasn't about to let anything he'd captured out without timing it perfectly.

Which is why he stared up at him, he crossed a leg, and let him go on and on about what he assumed.

He was right, in some aspects. Some he wasn't. People could go back, after all, or vanish. What if that happened to Jinx? What if she vanished and went back to where she came from? He couldn't take a chance of that, so he did care, because nothing here was a guarantee.

He couldn't chance that his daughter would return, only to die. ]

Do you spend a lot of time gossiping about me?

[ He asked, finally. ] I can understand taking it personally when I killed you, but I'd suggest you indulge in better hobbies, Vander. It can't be healthy.

[ Says Silco, king of NeverLettingGoEverlandia. He drew in another long pull of smoke, before he blew it out. ]

Do you really think I'm going to share with you anything I'm working on, really? Or is this just because you're hoping I'll let my tongue loosen enough to inadvertently tell you something? Come now. If you don't think of me as a fool, then do me the service of treating me like you don't.

[It was expected that Silco would refuse. He was actually counting on it, knowing what he did of the man and their current typical interactions with one another. It was a constant push and pull, seeking to hurt one another and control the flow of the conversation. Refusals were easy.

Vander bent to pick up the lighter that Silco had tossed at him, flipping it over his fingers as he walked over to stand in front of the older man. At this angle, he could see the streak of gray plainly in Silco's hair, and the deep lines of twisted flesh from scarring were far more jagged from his greater height.

He made a point of setting his cigarette end between his lips to free up his hand and perhaps make it seem like he had put the request aside.]

Oh, I do my best not to think or talk about you to the people I interact with here. I'll let you tarnish your own reputation with your sour angry little man act.

[Suddenly, Vander stepped closer, swinging one leg up and then simply seated himself on Silco's skinny little crossed thighs. His arms moved up so he could rest his forearms on the wall behind Silco so their chest were nearly touching. He dipped his head to try to set his cigarette to the end of Silco's cigar end long enough to light it.]

Well, if word on the street is correct at all, you're going to have to share something with me so the string attached to us unbinds. I figure you've been dying to let loose on how you really feel about me, brother.

[ Silco's face morphs into something angry, and hateful in that moment — but it masks the very real, momentary fear that flickers behind all of it, when the man zeroes in so close — the flash of memory that brings along that old friend, an acrid spike of fear that makes him sick to his stomach, but he girds himself, and covers it with that old hate, and anger.

Vander lights his cigarette against his, and he very nearly pulls his cigar out of his mouth, and jams it into his eye. A nice nasty one, to match his. His lips twitch, his fingers twitch, Vander can read him well enough that he can see the consideration of violence, the way it flickers to life before it's doused by something more careful, like a Spider at the center of the web almost lunging, before the bug is even caught in it.

He stops, he halts, and finally he takes a long drag of his cigar, holding the smoke in his mouth, before he lets it drift out with his words. ]

You should do that. Die of it.

[ He hissed out, looking every bit like a nasty little creature breathing out smoke with his words. He doesn't struggle, or try to push him off (he literally cannot) but the calm is all affect. It's fake, just like everything about the man, down to the way makeup covers the scar, and the way his eyebrow drawn in is all artifice. ]

Do me the one favor that you could possibly do, and die already.

[ He hisses it out, like Vander's little more than a ghost still haunting him. Like there hasn't been a specter looming over his every step, decision, and action since the night he'd killed him. (Thought he'd killed him.) ]

I already killed you once. Do you think I want to spend any more time than necessary around you? Since you're incapable of dying, you should do me the decency of staying out of my sight.

[ It's tight, and it is controlled. He's talking around it. That Messy Thing that was a mangle of history and old wounds and anger that Silco had crafted into something to flagellate himself when he lost sight of his goal.

The thing he couldn't even use in those last moments.

He's tired of Vander's ghost lingering over his head. He wants to excise it. ]

[He puffed his cigarette to life against Silco's cigar, drawing on it with his lips with hollowing his cheeks to draw. He was keenly aware of the thought on the other man's face to stamp out that cigar on a part of his body, and a small part of him welcomed the potential violence. He could always rely on Silco to take things personally enough to strike out. Too bad there was a moment of self control right now.

The physical pain would drown out the deep yawning black grief that he did his best to never let show to the world at large. He knew he was hiding it well, and perhaps the only exception might actually be the man he was currently sitting on. Was that why Silco didn't strike out yet?

He made a point and blowing smoke into the other man's face, his arms still resting on the wall behind them. The corner of his lip tugged in a smirk.]

If you want me dead so bad, you've got a knife. I'm right here, Silco. Do it if killing me again will make you feel so much better about how things turned out.

[Of course, the alternative was that they forced their way out of this nonsense and they did avoid each other. How many years had Silco spent skulking in the dark depths of the undercity avoiding detection, hiding his little plans, sliding through crowds and stirring up malcontent with a soft word, a proposed alternative, a promise of freedom through violence. Perhaps it was for the best that they didn't interact, that they side-step potential run-ins.

He actually didn't believe that's what Silco wanted. Like a wound that didn't heal quite right, there was a draw to itch at the past. He wasn't immune either. He scratched that itch with these opportunities, unloading and hurting where he could. Silco was like a drug, the craving that overrode the gnawing of that old Shimmer hit. Even now, nearly three months later, he experienced it from time-to-time. So he used this interactions to remind himself that those long hours staring at the ceiling with Sevika's offer creeping across his conscious wasn't worth it. This man would relish an addict, tug on the leash, pick him apart piece by piece....]

If you actually want me gone and never see me again, all you have to do is tell me. We'll break this curse and I'll see we never come in contact again.

[He sucked on his cigarette, a cloud of smoke now surrounding both of their heads.]

The caveat is Jinx. I see her when and where she or I like. If you happen to be there, you can piss off.

[ That's what he wants.

That's not what he wants.

He wants to excise Vander personally, cut him away like a festering, septic wound. He should, he could. It would put an end to this stupid little game he seems to think they're involved in. His lips twitch, and Vander can see it come to life. Almost there, he almost says it, but it never quite reaches his lips.

Because he wants to be the one to do it. Not some tentative peace of no-contact. He doesn't want the man to simply avoid him — it would be easy to do so. He wants the man gone. By his hand.

So he doesn't say it. He instead says: ] The knife has proven ineffective. I'm not so foolish to keep trying methods that don't work.

[ Don't think that he won't keep stabbing you, if necessary. ]

Don't worry, Vander, I will never see you again, and it will be by my hand. [ He leans forward. They're very close. Memories could encroach, push this otherwise, but instead he hisses out something low, and threatening. ] I'll make sure to make it permanent next time I make an attempt on your life.

[ He wouldn't let him just disappear. That was dangerous. He would insidiously ingratiate himself to Jinx, he knew he could wear his daughter down, then the rest of them. Work through Sevika, too. She was loyal to Zaun, but Zaun was not here. No, he could not allow him to work in the shadows. Vander was not the type, but Silco understood that the man was craftier, smarter than people thought he was. Silco would not underestimate him like so many people had back when they were boys. ]

Now get off of me, before I make you.

[He watched it rise towards the surface. Wasn't that just Silco's theme too? With his own life. With his near death. With Shimmer. With the Chem-Barons. Ready to rise to the surface? Like a fevered dream, those faint silken words could slither through his mind, entrapped by the fear of a father watching his daughter face down a monster and losing epically.

But it didn't slide passed those thin tightly smiling lips. No, Silco wasn't so easily baited on such an important and fundamental subject. After all, when had Silco ever stood higher than Vander? Stood over, yes but never higher when they were both active.

His own downfall was fresh enough to sting, seeing and experiencing what Silco's monsters would do to the Lanes, to the Undercity, to their people. A tool yes, but for an oppressed people desperate to feel powerful, he knew it would be a catalyst for interpersonal wars. The Chem-Barons had always been an entity of power with their gangs and their collections, but with Shimmer? That person that held the bigger monster would rule the underground.]

You so certain? You've spent a few encounters putting knives in my body. What's another?

[He had the healing injury on his left forearm to prove that point, bandaged though it was. Yet, as Silco leaned in, he shifted his cigarette to the corner of his mouth so there was no actual risk of a burn on the older man's face, and he refused to give ground on that point. No, their faces and bodies pressed closer together; he was aware of the smell of Silco's breath, the warmth from the man's cheek on his own, the shift of those legs under his weight.]

And what little lie will you weave to Jinx to explain my permanent erasure, hmm? She called you a liar on the train; we both know she's sensitive to untruths. [It was his turn to lean forward, his forehead resting on Silco's, the sides of their noses sliding against each other, lips a whisper apart. He felt the heat of their cancer sticks of choice.] Don't think I haven't set up people who will provide her my last words in writing. She's my daughter too.

[Vander operated differently than Silco. He invested in people, plans and opportunities. He brought people together, made friends, resolved interpersonal conflicts at times. His social and emotional intelligence rivaled his physical presence when he needed it to; he knew how to play the game to rival Silco. Unfortunately, Silco's game was shorter and easier to put in place; Vander was forced to play the long game to pull people in; he had to find and match agendas, personal interest and emotional investments.

So he remained exactly where he was, a physical presence holding back and holding together the layered reasons he wanted out of this apartment building in the first place.]

Why? Your legs going numb. Afraid someone might see us together and assume we have some kind of romantic attachment.

[ As fast as he came in, Silco was out, leaning back to look at him as imperiously as he could from his shorter vantage point. He made it work, somehow, but he didn't bother playing this game. He knew Jinx would worry about her other father. She'd be disappointed. Oh, she might even hate him. This is why he wasn't dead right this second.

No, Silco was careful, and he was patient. He would erode this if he could, carefully, quietly, cautiously. Silco had plans upon plans, upon plans. He didn't need the social cohesion that vander did, but that didn't mean he wouldn't manipulate it to his own benefit. Silco had his own way about him, it was just borne of Zaun's dark streets and back alleys. Bullies and thieves who spoke a different language, while Vander had tried to build something more traditional. Like them. ]

I want you off of me, because I don't want your hands anywhere near me.

[ Sneering, nasty. ] Just like I'm sure you don't want me near your back. Do me the courtesy and keeping away. Maybe then I'll tell you something honest.

[ Or maybe he won't. The man is like being haunted by a ghost he can't get rid of.

How long is he going to be haunted by this specter? Why hadn't death cured him of that?

Would anything? ]

[He didn't pursue Silco, letting the other man give ground physically. That had been much of their dynamic for many years, and once he remembered being the protective physical force and using his body to allow Silco to slide in and out of combat with a knife when they engaged. And he knew he used his physical body to contain the situation; it was a habit he was aware of.

Yet, his arms remained raised and resting his forearms on the wall above Silco's head. He had to do so to keep his weight leaned forward otherwise he might simply slip right off the slim thighs and knobby knees that he was sitting upon.]

My hands are above you and not touching you. That's what I'll give you, nothing more, nothing less.

[He shrugged his shoulders at the sneered words. When he had been high on Shimmer, there had been considerable assaults on his back and front, but it had healed immediately. He knew Silco could damage him, and he had not questioned why he didn't particularly care about it. The older man was by far one of the largest threats in any room.

He huffed, carefully dropping one hand to grasp his cigarette so he could tap off ash on the floor before returning it to his lips. All the while, he continued to watch Silco.]

I've spent a lot of years with you at my back. I miss that, even if I know it's never possible to have it back.

[And that was his honesty. He glanced at his pinky to see if it was enough to free him at least from the one curse. He still unfortunately wouldn't be able to be apart from Silco with the magnetic physical barrier. One down and they could wait out the other.]

If you missed it, you shouldn't have just tossed it aside, then.

[ He snaps. Here Vander was, still sticking close, inserting himself into the space, using his bulk and size to overwhelm enemies as always. Silco knows it, because he'd directed it over the years, he'd known the tactic, and yet it still fills him with that annoyance and fury, because he's being subjected to it. No matter how much it seemed to get him into trouble with Silco's daughter.

Jinx made him promise no blood, but she didn't make him promise no bruises and no burns. He puffed at his cigar, narrowing an eye at him. ]

If you don't want to end up burned, get off. [ He'll honor exactly what Jinx asked him, but more than that? Absolutely not.

He's starting to get a picture of that. That Jinx thinks that this — the two of them — are broken, and that it can be fixed. He can tell her all he wants that it isn't, that he isn't broken, that none of this is something that can be fixed because there's nothing to be fixed. (Deep down, there's a nugged of the truth, it settles in his stomach like lead in his belly.)

He tipped his head back, looking at him with one lazily half-mast blue eye. Like Vander wasn't worthy of his full attention. Of course, the other... it always burned. ]

Don't worry, if it burns, it doesn't bleed.

[ Getting real honesty out of Silco is like pulling teeth, of course. Everything he says is true, but that hardly makes it honesty. His slithering, snake-like words slip around the truth like obstacles, meshing with it as if they were all the same. ]

Agreed. [Vander's large shoulders shrugged like this was a perfectly normal topic of conversation. He even sounded as agreeable as the word he intoned. Conversational even.] What would it require to get you back like that?

[His expression remained curious, contemplative, but his eyes showed no interest in the fulfillment of that question. They had both caused the loss of everything they had been, him first then Silco. Both of them had suffered losing everything at the hands of each other, and he had no interest in striving for that regardless of his reasonable nature. If it had just been Lanes, he might, but his kids? No, he'd sooner put Silco back in the Pilt than entertain a scenario where he allowed the older man to cover his back like that.

He also didn't move. Not a single inch. The most that could be said about his current position was that he flexed his biceps as he leaned a little more on the weight of where his arms were resting on the wall.

The threat wasn't a bluff, he knew. Silco had never been the type to make a threat that the other man wasn't perfectly willing to carry out. He made a point of sucking a drag on his cigarette still hanging between his lips, the cherry end lighting up in a silent returned threat. Sometimes it was not saying the reply that made it a more potent response.]

The longer you dodge actual honesty, the longer I sit in your lap. This could be over, but things are never easy with you. The path of least resistance is just a weakness for you, I suppose.

[ He stared at him for a long moment, at the first question. Silent. He didn't even deign it with a verbal answer. He wouldn't, and he couldn't. If it had just been him, had just been his eye, he would have forgiven him, perhaps. He thinks it, even though it is clear from the fact that he is here that he is still so angry is a reminder of that old, festering wound. Silco could promise it, but the truth of the matter was that he hadn't. It had banked, yes, but he's reminded of it. Over, and over, and over and it stokes that old angry fire back to life.

Discounting the fact that he'd done the unforgivable. Tossed him aside, and made a deal with the very people who had pulled the trigger. He had made a mistake, their actions had been intentional. How could he forgive that?

So his eyes only just rolled slightly, because he starts going on and on about how it could just be easy, if he did what he wanted. As always.

He instead pulled the cigar out of his mouth. He tipped it in his fingers. ] I have two choices.

To simply tell you something real, or remind you that I am not to be pushed around simply because you want me to.

[ His lips twitched into a shark's smile, and he let the cherry of the cigar dance close to the edge of his shirt, right over the skin there. ]

You could have gotten off of me when I asked, but you refused. Who is being unreasonable here? Why, I might even be more inclined to honesty if I didn't feel boxed in by the man who tried to kill me —

[ This time, he does punctuate it with a jab of the cigar. It's slow, slow enough that he could dodge, if he wants. He would have to back away.

Jinx told him to call her, if Vander tried to do this again. Or Sevika.

He considers it, but he knows that doing so is a weakness, and he refuses to show it in front of him. Instead, he punctuates it with a language they both speak: dodging the spirit of the law for the letter. ]

[He didn't expect an answer, but it was interesting to watch the parade of subtle emotions over Silco's face. Most of it was anger and resentment, but he thought there may be something more under all the conniving fury and petty holier-than-thou that so often suffused Silco's demeanor around people. The bad blood between them had only grown since arriving here, lines in the sand drawn and crossed on both sides.

After all, if this came down to them being angry over the other attempting murder, they were at least even on that score. No, it was all the other transgressions. A part of Vander was already tired, worn from the battles because he wanted to return to being that man who was protector and pillar of the community, but Silco had dragged him back to a form that he couldn't stuff back in that box anymore.

He'd lost everything good in his life and regained the aspect of himself that could terrify everyone, himself included.

He made a soft humming noise at the choices, as if it were all told to him with a reasonableness of a normal conversation. He nodded his head, cigarette dusting ash down between them.]

Ah, so you're naturally go with option two. Stand your ground, be the big man, not let yourself give ground regardless of the circumstances. Just remember: that is your choice.

[He could feel the heat radiating from the tip of the cigar, and he was not intimidated by it dancing closer and closer to his skin. If anything, his eyes narrowed just enough to dare Silco to do it. He knew why too: Jinx told them not to bleed each other but burns didn't bleed. Circumventing the stipulation was just like Silco - and him he thought with chagrin).]

We've both being unreasonable. [He huffed a chuckle of mock amusement.] You're actually trying to pull the 'tried to kill me' card with me? You do recall the cannery, right? When you beat me, tried to and in some cases successfully killed my kids and killed me? Come on, Silco. At least throw the enforcer deal in my face.

[Vander did not dodge. His arms remained on the wall, his eyes intent on Silco's face as the cherry pressed to his skin. The burn made his arms twitch but he didn't move. No, his eyelids fluttered as pain suffused his system, and he fought all natural instinct to pull away. His lips parted in a soft 'ah' and he was reminded that this behavior was not as unusual as he might otherwise claim.

After a minute, he closed his lips and took a drag on his cigarette before leaning in to try to reply in kind to Silco's neck just at the edge of that shirt collar.]

[ He has very, very carefully avoided that. You see, Silco is angry, he's always angry about that, but he's kept it relatively under control. He's managed to lob a barb out, over and over again, because it is the easy one. The one that they both acknowledge. The one that he knows that Vander regretted, or at least said he did. The admission of guilt leaves it as an open wound for him to poke and force to fester.

The other one... that is a wound that cuts only to him. It is what makes him rage, that rot that could fill and swallow him whole. Oh, he still was angry with Vander for the first, but the second made him rage, violent and angry. It's that open festering wound that he even now shields to protect — he can never actually shield it, it's worn on his face — the murder attempt was only part of it. The second was that it was him who he tried to kill, while the people who did the deed were rewarded.

Could he not see it? The stain of it? How that one choice would infect every high-minded ideal he had? He didn't want to fight? Fine. Let someone else do it for him. It was the fact that he used them, the very people who beat them down, kept them down, forced them into this very position — had killed her — Oh...

He doesn't even blink. Doesn't wince. He presses the cigarette to his neck, and Silco's already too angry to even feel it. It's in his eyes, it's in the way his lips peel back around chipped teeth, and the way his fingers very nearly snap his cigar in half. ]

Oh, you want me to bring up your real crime, do you? [ It's taut, like a tightrope. The control, that careful, oh so careful control is there. He's been obfuscating. Throwing that old chestnut about murder around because it is the easy answer. The one everyone can understand, without being given a lesson in history, in what it meant, the significance of it. He'd not thrown it at Vander, because he didn't feel he needed to. Not right now, not until he was ready. He wants to drag it out, does he? He wants honesty? Well. Perhaps he could have it.

He didn't care that he took the man's life — he asserts to himself — that was his due. He didn't kill his children — that was Jinx — and yes, perhaps he would have put them in his factories, or even kept them separate, as long as they complied. He didn't care about them, that replacement family that he'd used to fill the hole left by losing part of the one he'd had before, and throwing away the other one. ]

You want me to remind you that the very people who beat us, kept us in those mines, who wanted nothing more than an excuse to mow us all down like animals — those people — were the reasonable ones that you thought were worth dealing with?

[ Oh no, this is too close. This has the danger of being too honest. There's a spark of it, somewhere beneath the rage — and oh there is so much rage — like looking down and seeing the barest flash of something else amid the shadows hidden by murky water. This time, he reaches out with his cigar, and starts to press the cherry against his exposed collarbone, pushing it. Putting it out.

There's the smell of burning flesh. His nostrils flare. ]

You want honesty, do you? Very well. [ His lips peel back. He turns his back on the real truth, as if by even brushing it, he turns it aside. Unwilling to examine it further. There is a part of that he cannot, will not hold in hand. It is too dangerous, too fragile, and far too much like handing Vander the handful of broken pieces he'd already taken off of him when he'd done what he did. He holds those back, and buries them back down. Forces them deeper into the water. ]

Here is something honest. I hate you.

You are like a ghost that will not leave. If you would do the decency to extricate yourself from my presence, I would be all the more satisfied, but you simply cannot handle that, can you? You want to insert yourself into my business? My family? [ It is just them. It's all he has. ] By all means, I know you will. But I will make you pay tenfold for each and every offense.

That is a promise, and a truth. If that does not satisfy this thing, then go around the corner and stay there until it leaves, and don't force me to deal with you this close again. I will weather Jinx's distaste if you do not leave, and I am forced to make you.

[Vander already was fully aware of his real crime. He had lived that crime for years, but at the same time, he had been there when it happened, when he had made a choice between complete destruction or saving what little they had left. While he liked to think he did it for her memory, he also knew it was a delusion. He had done it for him because the alternative was a fate he couldn't endure for as long as they would have made him. He had already been on the tipping point, ready to die, denied and threatened with far worse.

He took the lifeline. He let the proverbial collar settle on his neck, the leash held tight in Grayson's hand and from there, he had done what he had to in order to build what he could out of the ashes of that day.

Benzo was the only one who knew. Benzo who had been waiting on the docks when they dumped him back in the Lanes, collected him up and taken him to the shop and offered nothing more than a stiff drink and a change of clothing. Benzo who died in the streets with all of Vander's blasphemous secrets, defending him from Silco who had come for his due.

No.

Vander knew what his crime was. He knew it better than Silco did, the full grimy, filthy, damning details.

Yet, he could see the rage in the older man's face. There always came a point when the true depth of Silco's anger showed and it was in the other man's eyes. Not that damaged, raging orange one but the blue. That was always the key to know where Silco's mood truly lay, the depth of his fury and the pure hatred that lurked behind the twisted narrow sallow face. This close, Vander could stare right into the hurricane that was Silco's rage, but at the eye of that storm, he saw it too: the hurt.]

Oh Silco... [He spoke softly, almost wistfully, and he shook his head.] You don't know the half of my crime then. You think I made peace with them willingly, do you? I had no choice, but... I did it anyway, yes. That's my crime, but if you want to accuse me of that transgression, maybe someday I'll even tell you the nitty gritty details of the ultimatum.

[His cigarette had been extinguished against Silco's neck, though he kept holding it at the corner of his mouth. He didn't fight when Silco purposefully pressed the cigar against him, a shudder running down his spine as renewed pain flared through his nerves. All survival instincts went ignored as he let the older man burn him because deep down, he knew it wasn't even a tenth of what he deserved for the damage to Silco's face. That burning agony may be similar but no... Vander knew just a fraction of what the sepsis caused by that filthy water was like.

And something underneath that too. A tendril of the past, of the shattered pieces of a relationship that had once meant so much to the both of them. How they had once been their best together and yet could still be at their absolute worst to the world beyond them when they needed to be. All those times, all that emotion turned on its head and twisted into this.

He turned his head and spat his cigarette to the floor, listening intently to Silco's first bit of honesty. He weathered the barrage of words still resting in the older man's lap, and he made a point of considering then he leaned his face in to speak against Silco's ear. One arm dropped so he could cup the left side of the older man's face to prevent Silco from jerking away.]

Here's something honest back: I don't hate you. I wish I could. I'm furious with you, and I don't think I'll ever forgive you for what you did to Mylo, Claggor and Vi that day, but... [He sighed, resting their temples together.] I don't hate you.

[He did withdraw after that, dropping his hand away and lifting it to press to the wall, but he also didn't move. He knew relenting where he was sitting was giving Silco what the man wanted, and Vander had lost interest in that. Perhaps they needed this moment to face reality. Too bad it was in a public lobby.]

There was a time we used to be family. First you and me. Then Felicia. [Those days were over, of course. She died, Silco and Vander damaged beyond repair. Now Silco jockeyed for full control of Jinx. He knew why.] Jinx is my family too. I won't stop seeing or having a relationship with her. I am not looking to take her from you, Silco. She clearly loves you and you her. She and I want something similar. I need her too. [Or else... what's the point?] And you're going to let us have that.

[Finally - finally - Vander shifting his weight and moved to rise so he could stop sitting on Silco.]

Edited 2025-03-22 17:14 (UTC)

[ He says he has no choice. Silco knows the truth, there is always a choice. He'd chosen that, the collar, the noose, instead of fighting for something. Anything. He had chosen that, over any other option. Silco was already gone then, but he'd known the depths of it, one couldn't not hear about what was happening in the Lanes from anywhere else in Zaun.

That's all Vander cared about, too. It had always been about the Lanes, preserving what they'd built together, claimed and stamped under his control. Silco had made a mess of them, corrupting it into a seedy flare of nightlife in the dark, but there had been life there, thrumming with excitable, uncontrolled energy. Desperate people looking for the next hit, or the next cult, or even a scrap of food — but how was that different than anything else?

The rest of the Zaun and the Lanes had equalized, in their own way, a simmering spread of territory divided amongst the chembarons, with Silco at their head, an iron fist to control them, and Enforcers only allowed so far, not welcome to look too close. Marcus had, for the most part, kept them out. He knew better. Silco had what he needed on him to ensure that he wouldn't falter — the information, the money, and the knowledge of his daughter. Enough that the man hadn't slipped until...

Well. He had never fully slipped, had he? That had been Jinx who did that, if the scorch marks and destruction on the bridge had been an answer.

It was different. Silco had leashed them. Vander could have too, had he twisted and bit. Just once, twice. A sign of something. Life. Anger. Cause.

No. There was a sliver of him still there, but Silco considered that the man he'd once been was dead and gone. Maybe that part of Vander had died in the Pilt too. Choked and drowned right alongside him. He'd been so focused on what he had, that he'd never thought about what to gain.

At least to Silco, who even now thinks he wouldn't have let them leash him. Even if he had gone through with the deal, there would never have been Jinx as payment. They would never have had her, but neither would he have cowered in fear of them. He would have made it work, a deal, a plant, a... something.

Vander holds him down, and confesses a truth to him. Two truths. He doesn't hate him, he says.

What could it have been but hate? Who does what he did to someone he claims was family? Tosses them aside? And doesn't take revenge on the very people that tore them apart? He blames Vander, but he blames the enforcers just as much. They had been forcing him to give up his daughter, and he doesn't see it? The fact that the enforcers had wanted nothing more than a pound of flesh for an explosion — caused by someone else's stock — ah, but we cannot have a lower house pay for all of it? Not when there are scapegoats in the undercity. ]

I don't have a choice.

[ He says, finally. Jinx decreed it. She wants it, too. He can't stop that, because Silco above all else, would always give Jinx what she wanted. ]

Let's hope you don't think to treat her like you did the rest of us who you considered family.

[ A slap in the face, a parting shot. Not just him, but betraying her memory on top of it?

I don't hate you — he says — I don't think I'll ever forgive you for what you did — he says.

He's already mutilated him for less. He mutilated him for an accident — for trying to help — how can he believe him, when evidence pointed to the contrary? He lashes out because despite it all, it still hurts to hear something like that. It hurt, too, when he said he'd never forgiven himself, as if it was his to do. It all hurt, and what does a monster do when it's hurt? It lashes out. Swipes. Cuts. Snaps at. ]

[From his experience, Silco being quiet was never a good sign for any conversation, though it also hadn't been particularly unusual either. After all, when they were young men, Silco was often the quieter of the two of them, working diligently scribbling some plan or note down in a book and remaining thoughtful, and he had often respected that quiet by simply being present and puttering around doing his own thing in and around Silco.

Now, the potency of silence could be deadly or at least bring some form of harm to anyone in the path that Silco had chosen. Was the older man considering his point of view? Briefly perhaps, but then it would be discounted and Silco would layer it with years of bitterness and anger and betrayal to scratch together some argument of how the other man would never falter as Vander had, would plan a way out, would never be so leashed by Piltover. It would turn into a mental pissing contest of how the older man would thrive where Vander shied, and he wasn't interested.

But the silence? That was dangerous. People underestimated how dangerous Silco was in silence, always rating the other man based on the words that he said - and Janna Silco could talk. Many didn't see the slow knife inching in the form of silence, the rising danger as Silco planned out the next course of action and lay waste to whatever stood in the way.

Vander knew though. It had warped and changed over the years, but Etraya had provided him a few opportunities to study Silco in their brief silences. It was no longer the quiet contemplative, sometime fanatical silences, but the ones that raised the hair on the back of his neck with the sense of impending danger. It was just Vander was looking for danger so he hardly bothered to back off, but he was aware of it.

Yet, the topic of Jinx was fraught with an extra layer of tension. They both felt it, digging in, even with the acquiesced to her desires. They couldn't bleed each other, but there were other methods, as they had proved today. There was always creative ways to hurt each other even under her dictated rules.]

Perhaps. [He tossed the word out there as he vacated Silco's space, a callback to that time on the gangplank.] But you always will think your way around every stipulation to get what you want no way or another. That's just who you are.

[The tie around their pinky fingers fell away, no longer binding them from the truths that they had spoken. He was still magnetically tied to Silco though, but he moved to the further point that the invisible force would allow.

It was a good thing too for the words slung at him caused a twitch and a clenching of his fists. He turned his back on Silco to compose himself again. It hurt how much truth there was to that; he had tried his best for his family and failed each time. Silco, Felicia, Benzo, Mylo, Claggor... Vi and even Powder. He'd failed them all at some point.]

You never change. Always lashing out when something you don't like happens. How anyone actually works with you long-term these days is a mystery to me.

FEBRUARY MINGLE

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SNIFFLES MY HTML...

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oh shit, things are REAL

https://youtu.be/N2mqbhpSfdg?si=Syv-l6eHcbqWQxk6

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cw: abuse (i don't even know)

man idek what these two are doing don't fuckin look in here cw more abuse i guess ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

cw: mention of murder, abuse, suicidal hints - these two are a hot mess. don't look

cw: murder, probably asphyxiation & eye trauma etc etc etc weeping this is horrid

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