#nexttosomething

The Last Drop is newer and shinier than Jinx has ever seen, but mostly it feels like home. The nightclub Silco turned it into never felt right, a shimmer-stained bastardization.

All three of her fathers are at the bar, her first dad sitting on a stool, Vander and Silco serving drinks. Her mom is there, too, bouncing baby Vi.

It’s fucking weird. Everything about this is crazy, even by Jinx’s standards, but she’d take all the crazy in the world to see Silco and Vander again. They’re so young—and still friends, no betrayals between them.

Jinx tugs her hood lower over her face and makes her way closer to the bar. Vander has disappeared down the other end to tend to an arguing couple, but Silco stands nearby, polishing glasses.

She always knew Silco was handsome—had noticed it more than she should have—but she never imagined he was once beautiful too. He keeps his wavy dark hair pulled back in a low bun, which Jinx immediately feels compelled to take down. If she gets the chance, she might never stop running her fingers through it. His skin is clear and unlined, his thin lips quick to smile, sea green eyes bright with mischief when he says something that makes Jinx’s mother laugh.

Who is this man? This stranger-but-not, wearing a face she loves but barely knows.

His eyes flick up, searching out the intense stare he can likely feel coming from her direction, and Jinx retreats into her hood.

Damn.

She checks again after a moment, only to nearly jump out of her skin. 

Silco is coming straight for her.

Jinx gets eyes on the exit, a moment from shimmering out of there when an absurdly strong hand wraps around her upper arm.

“Are you following me, darling?”

Her chest tightens, breath trapped and throat closed. Darling. Thank fuck her blushes never show anymore.

“Well?” he asks, his smooth, deep voice sharpening a bit.

“I just heard this was the place to be,” Jinx says. “Was I told wrong?”

“You were told?” Silco pulls her an inch closer. “By the same person who told you about me?”

She can smell him, a mix of whiskey and cloves, nothing like the cigar smoke and fine cologne she’s used to. Different, but entrancing in its own way.

Get it together.

“You gonna interrogate me all night, or can I get a drink?” Jinx asks.

That pisses him off. But it does something else, too. It’s not an expression she recognizes from her world’s version of Silco. Something that makes his gaze heavy and slow, like suspicion but sexier.

“Your name?”

“Jinx,” she says, because it doesn’t matter in a world like this. The truth means nothing and everything, but at the very least, her name is worthless.

“Your real name.”

She grins up at him, the dazzling smile that always throws her enemies for a loop. “I’m as real as they get, toots.”

~~~

This Reylo Hades/Persephone retelling was so good!  Check out A man called winter by reylotrashcompactor and then listen along to your favorite Star Wars Fanfiction book club girls! Also, check out the Fanart made by @southsidestory!

Next month they are reading another crossover! This one is Star Wars (Reylo) meets Animal Crossing! Read that HERE!

All for you, nonny! <3

~~~ Between serving customers, Silco hurries back to Jinx. She’s the most beautiful mystery he could imagine and it’s impossible to stay away from her.

Feli shakes her head at him, Connol makes jokes at his expense, and Vander tries to keep him as busy as possible. They all seem to have developed an odd protectiveness of Jinx, but he can’t judge the sudden attachment. He can’t resist her either, just in a very different way.

If she was rebuffing him he could back off, but she isn’t. She might think she’s subtle, posing in ways that show off her figure, but it couldn’t be more obvious.

He’d like to get her posing naked in his bed by the end of the night.

And she stays. Vander gets her a second plate of food after another couple of hours, but Jinx outlasts even Connol and Feli, eventually pulling out a beat up sketch book and colorful bits of chalk to draw with.

It's Vander who thinks to ask after last call, because Vander isn't trying to sleep with her.

“You got a place to stay, little bit?”

Jinx shakes her head, pointedly staring at the bartop.

“There’s extra rooms here,” Vander says. “You can sleep in Silco’s room. He’s got his own place.”

Or he could sleep in his room with her.

“How does that sound?” Silco asks.

If she invites him to stay, he’ll thank the wind goddess he’s never believed in.

“Yeah, that’ll work,” Jinx mumbles.

Silco speeds through the rest of his chores, like a child hoping for an invitation to play. It's embarrassing, but at least Vander is the only one around to witness it. His friend has seen him burn out in front of women and men alike over the years, but more often than not, Silco gets what he wants in the end.

Jinx sees him, he's sure of it, and just as she wasn't subtle with her back arching and leg crossing, he knows that he's not being subtle either. But they're both adults, he thinks. There's no harm in being upfront with what you want.

Which is why it feels like a bucket of ice water when she stands up from the bar, placing a surprising stack of coins on its surface before heading straight towards the sleeping quarters, avoiding his eyes.

Vander laughs. “My condolences, mate.”

Silco flips him the bird. “I’ll survive.”

Probably. He feels a little like he might die if he doesn’t fuck her soon.

“You saw her,” Silco says. “She’s interested.”

“She’s also homeless and new to the undercity. Give her a chance to find her footing before you try to get her on her back, eh?”

Silco gestures vaguely. Vander can take it as agreement or not.

“She’s vulnerable,” Vander says, and now there’s that older brother disappointment creeping in. “You’re better than that.”

No, Silco thinks. I’m not.

“Put the kettle on,” Silco says, his eyes trailing after the path that Jinx took. “A girl should have a nice cuppa before she goes to bed.”

“Sil…” Vander warns, his voice deepening a notch. 

Silco sighs. “I'm not going to try anything. I just want to see that she settled in okay.”

When Vander hands him a mug of chamomile and mint tea a few minutes later, the look on his face does not seem to suggest that he believes him. Silco isn't sure that he believes himself, but the idea of seeing Jinx in his old bed, in his old room, is too tempting to pass up.

He knocks, and she answers quickly, peeking around the door. “Yeah?”

Silco holds up the mug. “Tea for you—herbal, so it won’t keep you up.”

Jinx ducks her head, then looks up at him through her lashes. “That’s nice.”

She steps back, opening the door for him… and he finds that she’s wearing a sheet, the fabric wrapped tight around her.

Jinx goes back in time to a Zaun where she meets her family and falls in love with young, long-haired firebrand Silco.

Powder (2x07) tries to follow Ekko to the main timeline but ends up in a post-apocalyptic hellscape led by The Worst Silco Possible.

Only a shell of the city remained, populated by broken dolls where people had once been. At the top of a shattered tower, Powder found the remains of Ekko. She’d seen him as he truly was just once, for a few moments before the anomaly had taken him away. Once, but she could never have forgotten the details of his clothes and hair. It was him, she was certain.

She’d gambled on the right calculations taking her to a different world, to a living boy, and she’d half won, half lost. 

She covered her nose with her hand, her eyes streaming as she looked around. The smell was putrid and desiccated at once, these nothing graves left undisturbed for so long. There were others she knew, Sevika and a shopkeeper who always sold her copper filament. But in this world, Sevika had only one arm, and the shopkeeper—

“Vi!”

Powder would have recognized that pink hair anywhere, but there, lying on the edge of a crater leading down to a darkened shaft…

It took her half an hour to pick her way over collapsed, dusty bodies and through the rubble, but when she finally made it, she knew she was far, far too late.

Powder fell to her knees next to the shriveled corpse wearing a mockery of her sister’s face, her tears coming in earnest now. This was a mistake, a grave, idiot mistake, one that Powder wasn’t sure she could get herself out of. The world around her was silent and dead in a way she’d never experienced.

She’d die here, too. Just like everyone else.

She heard the crunching footsteps too late, saw the shadow fall over her in the diffused afternoon light only after it had blotted out her own. She swallowed, thinking she would be happy to die here, next to Vi, like she sometimes wished she had on that job in Piltover.

Powder squeezed her eyes closed and waited. 

“Hello, little girl.”

~

RATING: Explicit

SHIP: Jinx/Silco

STATUS: Complete - Oneshot

SUMMARY:

How could she possibly want this? And how could he let her have it?

Because anything Jinx asked for, Silco gave to her, even this. He owed her comfort, whatever kind she desired, and she desired a kiss. He couldn’t reciprocate, but he could let her take what she needed of him. Her mouth opened wider, wet and hungry, and she was making the most pitiful sounds.

Jinx soon pulled away, hanging onto his vest, and said, “Please, Silco. Kiss me back.”

OR

Jinx needed more from Silco than he was prepared to handle—or capable of withholding.

~~

Breathing Underwater

Premise

Powder (2x07) attempts to follow Ekko to his own world, a place where her sister is alive, and instead ends up in a dead and devastated city. Piltover and Zaun are gone, topside and bottom destroyed. The only survivors are holed up at the fortress that was once Stillwater, led by Silco--a man who is nothing like the kind Uncle Sil Powder knows back home.

Anything that was once good in Silco died with his daughter. His perfect Jinx, lost to him forever. Now her lookalike has dropped out of thin air telling lies, and he hates her for not being the girl he loved.

Excerpt

Jinx didn’t bother washing her hair—too much trouble, and her last tumble hadn’t left her roots sweaty. It wasn’t unusual for her to get her clients off quickly, unless they wanted to draw it out, but this man had been particularly easy. Old, too, so he didn’t expect a second round.

She scrubbed her body with a sponge soaked with honeysuckle-scented cream. Not her favorite, but she’d run out of orchid and her lazy maid kept forgetting to buy more. Still, she always enjoyed this ritual. A steaming hot bath for as long as she wished. Any prospective clients willing to meet her asking price—the highest on Rapture Walk—would wait for her.

As if she’d shouted her contentment down the hall, a knock came at the door to her rooms. Jinx scowled over her shoulder. “Go away!”

She rested her head back on the little pillow she had for just this occasion. But the knocking came again. Banging, really. Harder than Perci could manage, for sure.

Jinx got out of the bath, not caring about the water she sloshed. Whoever was bothering her was going to be the one to clean it up. She threw on her favorite silk robe—the one that actually went past her knees—and was approaching the door when the hardest banging sounded yet.

On second thought, maybe she would have to call someone to clean up the water and the blood.

When she opened the door, she had all the filthiest words she’d learned in her years of whoring waiting on the tip of her tongue, but they dissolved like sugar when she saw who was standing there, looking ragged and so very tired.

“Silco?”

“Powder…”

He looked over her, head to toe, then pointedly fixed his gaze above her neck. Avoiding temptation, no doubt. She was good at eroding older men’s concerns about her age, often with one glance. That he didn’t leer increased her respect for him—but did nothing to shrink her anger.

“My name is Jinx,” she said. “What the hell are you doing here?”

Silco ran a hand through his thick hair. Grey-streaked now, wavier and longer than she remembered. The kind of hair that was best to grab onto while fucking.

“Can we talk somewhere?” he asked.

Jinx shrugged. “This is somewhere.”

He looked past her shoulder and into her sitting room, wincing. He was taller than she remembered, somehow, even though she was taller as well. More handsome, too, even with his fucked up face.

Jinx had sucked off worse.

“It’s not… appropriate. Will you consider coming h—coming to The Drop?”

With the slightest shift, Jinx had her robe falling off one shoulder, the fabric barely clinging now to the slope of her left breast. “There’s a bar downstairs if you want to get loose.” She took a couple of swaying steps back, her anger dissipating over her interrupted bath.

“What? No. No alcohol. This is important. I’m not here as a—client.”

Jinx snorted, pulling her robe back in place and going to her liquor cabinet. Sour mix and cherry liqueur until her head hurt it was, then.

“Client or not, you have to pay for my time,” Jinx said. “Can you even afford that?”

Silco’s dark glare sent a shiver over her. Oh, he’d be rough given the opportunity.

“I paid at the door,” he said flatly.

Jinx whistled. “Man, you really do want to talk if you’d fork over that much for it.”

“Indeed.”

Jinx sipped her tart drink as she approached him. “You sound mad about it. Afraid you won’t get your money’s worth?”

~~~