#vikco

Not that he resents Viktor's company- they are well past that, at this point, but he's not used to admitting that there's anyone with whom he can stay in silence and just... not mind it. Viktor does still seem to be sulking, ill tempered, but Silco's not particularly taking it personally. He's certain he'd be in a much sorer mood if someone pulled him from a hidey-hole.

Not that anyone besides Jinx would dare.

He entertains the thought, for a moment, that perhaps he'd let Viktor. It was only fair, after all. He preferred to keep even scales with people he was on good terms with, and Viktor had taken good care of Jinx. She had been in less... pain. In some intangible way he couldn't quite put his finger on. Just more comfortable with herself. Less episodes, perhaps. Or the ones she had were less... violent. Perhaps even both.

Viktor stumbled over something and without thinking Silco extended a hand to steady him. Viktor caught it, looking annoyed.

"I do not miss the uneven streets." he says.

Silco snorts. "I can't blame you for that."

"In piltover it's simply-- litter. It's still an issue, but not quite as badly."

"Trash is potentially valuable. Less to leave out." Silco notes, and Viktor nods a little.

"--Where are we going? not to your lair, I hope."

"Lair?" Silco deadpans.

"Headquarters feels a bit too grand."

Silco looks amused. "The last drop, you mean."

"Yes. I am still--"

"--a public figure. I'm not unaware. We're going to neutral ground."

"What is.... neutral ground? In the undercity?"

"Your piltover education is showing."

Viktor rolls his eyes. "Zaun, then."

Silco gestures ahead of them, at an unmarked business next to the river- or at least unmarked with any kind of name. In the window, there's the glowing green neon of chemical light, in the shape of a bottle emptied upside down, shimmering like it's pouring.

"Well." Viktor says. "That would do."

Silco takes that as approval and leads him in.

No one looks at either of them as they come in, not even the bartender, who doesn't even react to the sound of the bell above the door until Silco walks up and slides some money across the counter and taps down two fingers before he heads to a booth, Viktor behind him.

"Not much of a selection, I take it." Viktor notes, looking at the bar. The space behind the bartender is just a single long and absolutely filthy mirror- the occupants of the bar nothing but moving smudges. There's no collection of bottles he can spy.

"This place is for loosening tongues, not picky selections."

"picky, no. I was thinking simply of the options of drunk, drunker, etc. Rot, sweet rot, rot and sump water."

"I will give it this, it certainly isn't sump water."

"Is that the most you can say for it?"

Silco shrugs, and Viktor grins, for just a second.

Silco's oddly proud of himself. He doesn't quite know where to put that feeling, but thankfully a pair of shots are put on the table.

"Didn't you promise me food?" Viktor asks, as he eyes the green liquid in the glass. Silco reaches into the recesses of his coat and pulls out a bag. He neatly opens it and pulls out two carefully assembled lunches- dark bread, meat that was approximately the correct color, a vegetable, a sauce. For a sandwich, fairly remarkable. Viktor looks impressed as he scoops one up, unfolding the parchment paper his is folded in.

"You-- brought lunch. Out to look for me." his tone is odd.

"Jinx insisted." Silco says. A half lie, she'd suggested it after he'd gotten the kitchen going himself.

Viktor nods, understanding. the silence settles over them again, a little more tense this time, but Silco just eats his own sandwich and waits Viktor out.

Viktor accepts it and takes a careful bite. "If I can't eat much, it's not a reflection on you." he says. "Unsettled stomach. I doubt the shot will help."

"The shot's simply a reason to hold a table." Silco says, with a shrug. "Drink it or not."

"---What is this?" Viktor asks, and Silco almost chokes.

Before Silco can quite clear the sandwich from his airway, Viktor is continuing, tone absent, seemingly not noticing how badly he's thrown Silco off.

"You don't trust anyone with your daughter, and yet she climbs into my house, completely unafraid of me, and you seem relieved and not any more scared. You let her keep climbing back into piltover. You come get me when I dissapear. Why?"

"....Jinx cares for you." Silco says, tone neutral.

"Than have me killed and tell her I ran away." Viktor deadpans. "Isn't that the easiest way of handling it? Like pilties telling their children the poro went to a farm outside the city."

Silco swallows his sandwich, suddenly slightly uncomfortable.

"I don't lie to my daughter." he says, and that's true, but it isn't the whole truth. He's sure he could have scared Jinx into avoiding Viktor again, and he's sure Viktor knows it too. Viktor shrugs.

"Still. you didn't have to come looking for me."

"Yes, I did."

"Why?" Viktor asks.

Why, indeed.

Silco sets his sandwich down, neatly, folds it back into the paper. He notes that Viktor's hand is coming down to set his down, times it so he's not waiting for that motion to be complete- a few extra folds of the paper as Viktor moves, eyeing him suspiously.

Viktor lets go of his sandwich.

Silco completes a paper fold.

Silco leans across the table, taking Viktor's collar in one hand, and kisses him.

Viktor kisses him back, and it's-- cautious, almost, but he warms up under Silco's hands as Silco reaches his other hand up to cup Viktor's jaw, and Viktor leans into the contact, kissing him till they both need to come up for air, and Silco lets Viktor up, but doesn't let him go.

"That." he says. "Is why."

Viktor bites his own bottom lip a little, as though trying to place a taste, and then answers--

"I think I find your answer sufficient."

"Good." Silco says, and kisses him one more time, for good measure, and then lets him go.

"Eat." he says, tone brokering no argument, and Viktor snorts.

"this is the last time i'm following your orders." He informs him, as he picks his sandwich back up.

"We'll see." Silco deadpans.

“Silco had another argument with Jayce today.” he continues. “Or– councilor talis. Whatever. He cried. I think he actually cried.”

It had been...weird. Less because Jayce cried. From Viktor’s stories about Jayce, he seemed like the kind of person who did that a lot. Naph had not been surprised by literally anything about meeting Jayce. What had been weird was that Silco had reacted to it. Seemed genuinely concerned by the crying. That was weird. That was not in the plan. The plan was not going well.

"Viktor didn't fight him, either." He says. "They just argued for a bit. Viktor took off his visor at one point and jabbed Silco in the chest with it and I thought he might actually do something but instead Silco just got all weird and then Sevika made me leave the room. I mean, she also took me to rob a Piltover ice cream truck, and that was actually pretty fun."

Naph has to remind himself again that having fun is not the plan.

"—Jinx is cool, too." He says, despite himself. "I mean. Unhinged. But cool. She showed me how to make bombs today and said she'd never been the big sister before."

None of these people knew how to do a proper kidnapping. He'd actually been kind of impressed by the speed with which he'd been stuffed into a bag and dumped in front of Silco after going to try to break the tank at that shimmer factory. This had been off to such a good start. And then Silco had given him a speech about recognizing himself in the ambitions of younger saboteurs, and Naph had mentioned Viktor just to save himself from getting stabbed, and now this was happening. This was happening so much.

The machine herald was supposed to be against the chem barons. Not...doing whatever this was. It had been such a good plan. All he had to do was get Jayce and Viktor to both hate zaun enough to just level the place. Write it all off. Fuck it. Instead, he got... this. This. He didn’t know what genre of hell he was in at this point. He was starting to suspect it was a romantic comedy. He hated those.

He groans, muffling it with a pillow.

“I’m–” he says. “–Going to go sabotage a gas main or something. Naph out.”

Maybe day nine would go better, he reflected, swinging his legs out of bed.