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[powerhungry]

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SILCO

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[powerhungry]

[ When he enters the club, the sound of music hits him like a wave. (Like another life. Like Vander and Felicia at the bar, smiles never far from their faces, warm in a way the rest of the Undercity never was. And what he forgets, in this moment, is that that happiness had been temporary.) There's a pause at the door, then the patter of movement. First to the bar to collect a couple of flutes (to check his reflection, fix his hair, his collar — the kind of thing he'd cared about for entirely different reasons, before — registering the faint glow that handsome, from her, leaves on his face); then to the door, knuckles gently rapping against the frame before he opens the door.

The set of his features is more open, though it takes a moment for the rest of his frame to follow suit — ice, frozen for eons, melting in the heat of her proximity — the line of his shoulders rounding as he crosses the room toward her, offering the glasses up to be poured. Then again, maybe it hardly matters when the way he looks at her is nothing if not an open book, as adoring of her laugh as he is of every other part of her. And it's adoration that colors his gaze first, even before desire or lasciviousness, when his eyes track down her frame, taking in the collar, the dress — the effort.

He'd find her beautiful no matter what — already does, a burst of untamed color flashing through his subconscious — but he likes this, too. The peek of her tattoos through the latticed sides of her dress, the way the bow bobs with her breath. For him. (That's the fantasy, in the end.) ]

There's my girl.

[ New phrasing, the shapes of the words unpracticed in the reedy timbre of his voice when he's only ever spoken them to her, and even then, only in the last few weeks. Just as new is the way he leans forward, his nose brushing hers in greeting while his hands remain occupied. Remnants of a kinder life, dug out from under decades of sediment under the auspice of safety, security. ]

I hope the board doesn't expect me to take minutes.

[smudgy]

[ She pours, watching the bubbles through her long lashes, delighted by how quick they fill, the physics of it all, how the angle of the glass slows their rise, the way little grooves in the flutes seem specially designed to create the fizzing trails in champagne. An inventor and a young girl both, distracted by the unfamiliar luxuries of this world until he nuzzles close. She giggles all over again, pleased by the attention.

That’s new, too. The freedom with which he reaches for her after holding back for so long. He always looked, she knows, but she only caught him in the act a few times. And she so prefers this, his attention narrowed to the point of her. There’s my girl, better than any song, spilling from the warmth of his mouth. ]

Hm. [ considering how much she wants to play — to tease — as she kitten licks champagne from her fingertips. ] Bet you can remember everything important without any notes, smart guy.

[ She sips her drink, grin barely obscured by the slim glass. ]

So long as you pay close attention.

[ Unable (unwilling) to keep herself from reaching for him any longer, catching his collar between her thumb and forefinger to tug him closer. He is handsome, after all, delicate-yet-rugged the same way she’s fragile-yet-vicious. Contrarian. Complex. She likes him so much, it makes her heart fill to bursting. ]

— Congrats, daddy.

[ Quick as the cock of her head, the knowing flash in her violet eyes, before she kisses him. ]

[powerhungry]

[ The pitch of her amusement sounds like puzzle pieces clicking into place, the raised crags of abutting tectonic plates suddenly smoothing out, inhospitable land made green again. Green in the way his eyebrows slant up rather than down when he looks at her, his eyes wide as though it might help him see more of her at once. He only recovers, a little of that haplessness coiled back, as she pinches his collar, huffing a laugh — a faint breath, the slight twitch of his features that he knows she's inherited as a habit. Pretty, on her features, but not as pretty as the way she smiles, laughs, plays. Utterly unique in his life, in this world, and if this place is any indication, every world beyond.

Of course he'll remember. There's no world in which he'd forget, just as he's never forgotten the first time she'd made something just for him (cups and ashtrays, decorated with neon markers and paint), or the first time she'd accepted a gift from his hands.

It's a peck, at first, then more — the fizz of bubbly on her tongue, the smudging stickiness of her lip gloss, more intoxicating than any champagne, enough to set his heart racing as if it were one of her toys, wound up and let loose. His breath catches when he pulls away, just far enough to press his forehead to hers, to whisper, ]

Congratulations, my dear.

[ Between them, he raises his glass, the sound of the toast as clear as a bell. One clarion tone to mark good fortune.

Careful, tentative: ] —Kiss me again.

[smudgy]

[ She must have kissed him a hundred times now, but it still feels novel. To meet him somewhere as an equal, at eye level, where his wanting matches and interacts with her own like chemicals, like explosives, a boom that causes a chain reaction. Jinx throws an arm around his neck, swept up in the act. Her nose brushes his, another laugh in her mouth.

Congratulations, he says, as though it’s as much hers as it is his, and — it isn’t, really, in the sense that she remains an observer, hands-off, but she appreciates the sentiment. The inclusion. An improved position from that of the wayward daughter and wily lieutenant. The partner. She’d wonder what the staff thought of it all, except Jinx has never cared how she was perceived before, and she won’t be starting now. ]

Only ‘cause you’ve been so good to me.

[ With a smeared kiss at the corner of his mouth. Like she could deny him this, all dolled up for him and him alone. Glass set aside in the blink of eye so she can walk her fingers up his chest and catch her nails on the buttons of his shirt. ]

—To us.

[ Because that’s what they are now, a union sealed in kisses and claims and stolen champagne. She crashes into him more forcefully, then, loosing a button in the process, unable to be anything but what she is. A tornado of a girl, leaving only destruction in her path. It isn’t so much that Silco weathered the storm, but that he came back and forgave the damage. ]

[powerhungry]

[ And then there's this: the fact that she treats him like something precious, as much father as the last cog needed to make an engine purr, a toy as beloved in adulthood as it had been when she was still a child. Something— someone worth treating affectionately and holding close. Granted, he's always known that to be the miracle of her love. It doesn't sand her sharper edges down so much as it provides a lens into the bright colors of her existence, those soaring highs and lows the only possible explanation for the depth of her feeling and the wild spread of its according blast radius. Not destruction but new life, even if she doesn't see it that way.

For a moment, she's all there is. The warm weight of her in his arms, her fingers spidering over the front of his shirt. His own wander — through her hair, over her cheek, through the gaps in her dress, like he's mapping her out. ]

To us, [ whispered against the bridge of her nose. A necessary echo. Then again, like he hadn't registered it the first time, ] To us.

I'll be—

[ He pauses — to drink her in, to adjust the shape of his mouth to words he's not used to saying, the same way he's learned to adjust the way he moves around her. More open, more tender; clearer, to give her what she deserves, to leave less room for miscommunication. His hand finds hers, holding it still over his chest. When he steps back, their fingers are still intertwined, tugging her gently toward the couch.

He thinks, I love you. He says, ] I'll always be good to you.