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#wip:a helping hand
x-amount-verbs · 2 years
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onewhoturns · 2 years
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Just a treat for those following on my main, even though you probably already knew this was what’s coming.
One copy for each person involved in the collab lmao
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x-amount-verbs · 1 year
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A Helping Hand - Part 30
[start here] || Part 29 || Part 30 || Part 31
[silco x f!reader] [3.4k words] [no y/n] [during timeskip] [touch-starved reader] [henchwoman!reader] [rated M] [discussion of ptsd] [🙃]
(posting early enough that y’all should have time to read before New Years ^^)
AO3 Link
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“Where’s Jinx?” You’re babbling, just to fill the air, as Sevika escorts you to The Last Drop. By now your clothes have been dried, though you’d grimaced at the mess made of your kit. You’ll just have to buy some new gear, that’s all. An expense you’d rather not deal with, but that’s what you get for unintentionally making pastry soup in your waist pack.
“I assume somewhere at the Drop,” Sevika says wryly. “That’s the benefit of early morning asset retrieval: no babysitting duty.” Asset retrieval. Right.
A valid sentiment from her, you suppose, but there’s a hint of anxiety gnawing away in your stomach. You both want to see the kid and dread her finding out what you’ve done. You dread Silco’s response to your behavior. It’s frustrating, and embarrassing, when your mind just hijacked your body and acted completely out of line. Scary, too, if you look at it too closely. The idea that it could happen again, that you’ll lose time, lose control, lose yourself like that… not the most promising prospect.
It could be a blessing or a curse that you won’t have to dread Silco’s reaction much longer, entering the bar.
“Wait here. Gotta report.”
You settle into the same booth you had that drunken night, glancing up at the floor above, to the shadows that hide the door to Silco’s office, as Sevika trudges to go give him the rundown.
What will she say? The girl is crazy. No; she made a mistake. You cringe. She doesn’t owe you that courtesy, and it would be a lie. She lost control and shot a kid. That’s the accurate one. Accidentally. No; without realizing what she was doing. And that’s the worst part, isn’t it?
Teeth pinch at your lip, fingers fidgeting with the rumpled sleeve of your freshly-dried shirt. Before you know it, you’re back to the calming pattern of wedging your thumb nail between the plates of your prosthetic sleeve, tracing up and down your forearm, plucking at hard thin edges. Just enough to tug at your nail bed, just enough to hurt.
Waiting is its own special torture. You can’t stop remembering the last time you were here. The sting, the burn, the ecstasy…
Cheeks flame, throat feeling constricted as you fend off memories of his hands.
You had bruises after that. Nothing horrible, but a subtle ache that brought the memory to mind if you sat on the edge of a seat, or leaned against anything that pressed into a mark. Not a bad pain by any means, but a bittersweet one. More bitter than sweet, all things considered. The regular shimmer taken for your arm made the pain and marks fade quick, but you may have spent a night admiring them. Wanting more.
You’re such a goddamned sucker. Wanting him so much, when you know better.
The brief flutter of hope in your chest as Sevika reappears gets squashed by your own hand as soon as you notice it. If he doesn’t care, you can’t either.
…Fuck, you should know better.
Her walk down the stairs is silent, and you can’t tell if the slight furrow of her brow and thin press of her lips is irritation, confusion, or - knowing Sevika - irritation that she’s confused. There’s not quite enough on her face to read, or maybe she’s not feeling anything strongly enough to show.
Or maybe you’re paranoid and trying to see something that isn’t there.
“…Head on up. He’s waiting.”
He’s waiting. Your mouth goes dry, anxiety gnawing like a mouse on a wire at the base of your skull. Every worst-case-scenario flips through your mind before you shove that list out of your mind and opt to just stop thinking entirely as you walk upstairs to his office door.
A knock.
“Enter.”
How does one word now carry so much promise?
You try to hide your tells, but can’t help the hard swallow after struggling to breathe past the nervous lump in your throat. Hopefully you don’t start choking. That wouldn’t exactly prove your stability. Is proving your stability even possible?
The chair is back. Cheeks flame as everything that had happened in its absence plays on quintuple speed in your head. Palms— then elbows— then your whole burning face pressed to the desk, the desperate need that had snapped inside you. And how he’d satiated that need. The hand on your back as he thrust gloved fingers into you, the presence of him, rocking against you in tiny sinful movements.
You almost feel lightheaded, remembering. Blinks come more rapidly than usual, trying to push the image out of your mind.
Silco isn’t looking at you. Instead, a long finger taps delicately at a paper set before him. It almost feels like mercy, for him to be focused elsewhere. As soon as his eyes start to rise, you panic and drop your gaze to his collar. That tie, a perfect symbol of professionalism and discipline.
Discipline. Oh gods, wrong word.
“…You stayed at the gym overnight.”
It’s an observation, not a question, but you still offer your affirmation. “Yes.” He makes no comment about dropping the honorific. This is more serious than that.
“Why.”
For a fraction of a second you meet his gaze, before looking down again. “I don’t know.” It’s almost a whisper, voice feeling so small. The silence isn’t oppressive, but you can’t help the shame welling up around you. It wasn’t what you meant to happen, you didn’t even realize what was going on before you felt the cold shower shock you to your senses.
“Why didn’t you come here?”
…What?
You don’t even think to hide the surprise on your face as you meet that uneven gaze, flicking between the pale sea and the hellfire glow.
It doesn’t feel quite like hellfire. Whatever it is you’re feeling from him, it’s not rage or heat. There’s something reserved about his demeanor. Subdued. Not gentle, but barely a hint of that authoritative grip; a statue unto himself.
“I…” Why hadn't you? Weakly, you shrug a shoulder. “I can’t answer that.” It’s a frank answer. No lie there; if the choice was conscious, it wasn’t one you remember now. In lieu of certainty, you can’t offer an adequate response.
He’s silent for a long moment. Hands in your lap fidget, but it isn’t the heavy expectant silence of some other meetings. You can almost see him carefully tasting his words, deciding how to approach the conversation.
“What happened?”
“Sevika said she was going to tell yo—”
“I’m asking you.”
Something twinges in your gut. You didn’t think his calm could hurt you so much, and you can’t tell why it does. Maybe you expected to be berated and ripped apart for your mistake; this even-footed respect is disorienting. Maybe it hurts because he can’t seem to meet you so evenly in… other matters.
Maybe you don’t think you deserve his patience.
Most likely, it’s some conflicted mess of all three.
“…I didn’t realize what I was doing.” Only barely loud enough to reach him across the desk. When he has no reaction, you swallow and continue. “The kid pointed a gun at me.” Eyes go blank as you try very hard not to remember it, but you can feel your chest tightening. “And I— shot him.” Breath coming faster.
You cross your arms, digging nails into your bicep, pinching hard, drawing awareness away from the rush of shame and fear and memory. Eyes drop to the desk, and you gnaw at the inside of your lip with one quick bite that’s too hard, immediately breaking skin and making you wince. Doesn’t matter, it’s serving its purpose. You blink away the empty, forcing yourself to continue.
“It wasn’t even a real gun,” the hint of disgust that turns your stomach is audible, brow furrowed. “He was a kid, with a paintball gun, and I shot him.”
He says your name quietly, but firm. Pulling your attention, even if the look you raise to him is pained. “The boy is fine. You didn’t kill him.”
Shaking your head, you focus on your lap once more, posture hunched, like you can somehow protect yourself from your own mess of frustration, revulsion, trepidation. “It’s not about killing him— or shooting him, even, it’s—” You choke on it, but soldier on. “I wasn’t there. I was…”
“You were here. Losing your hand.”
Drawing in a breath, you hold it, nodding stiffly. Again, he’s read your mind. You don’t think to wonder how he knows exactly what you were thinking in that moment.
There’s a silence again, and you just want him to take control. Give you something to do, someone to be, something to feel that isn’t this mess roiling inside you.
When it stretches on too long, you finally give in and look.
The mismatched gaze fixed on you is guarded: calculating, measuring you up. You’re wary of what it might mean, after… everything. But he doesn’t seem angry, or pitying, or stern, or any shade of malevolent, really. Not like he’s about to say you’re too unstable to be armed. He’s just… thoughtful.
Finally, he scoots his chair back and stands. Walking to you with measured steps, he offers his hand. Not for the prosthesis, either; skin for skin.
The burn of your ears seems to radiate heat as you look at his open palm. It feels— too close. After the disastrous way things ended the other day— and no glove. No barrier. No added protection of games and roles to fall into.
Just his hand, open for yours.
“What is this about?” You’re trying to ask more questions now, to keep things clear. This can’t be another moment he’ll just walk back later, leaving you once more alone.
Again, your name.
You want to take his hand. Badly.
“Indulge me. Please.”
It’s the please that does it. A wary glance up at him before you take his hand, heat zinging through you at the way he squeezes your palm as he helps you to your feet. Like a silly little girl with a crush, blush seeping across your chest and up your neck. Fixated on the ghost of calluses on his hand against yours, even if your eyes watch his face.
The hint of self-satisfaction in that hidden smirk makes your eyes narrow. Exactly what kind of plan is this?
For a second, you’re about to ask, before you realize he isn’t leading you away, but rather escorting you around to his side of the desk. Dropping your hand to lift the paper he’d been reading and set it in the corner of this desk. Clearing the center.
Your eyes linger on the empty space, recalling the last time his desk had been cleared.
Silco pulls the chair back, creating a gap plenty big enough for you. He gestures to the surface. “Sit.”
Warily, you hesitate. You said no more games, and this feels like it might be one— but part of you still wants to play. Or at least see what it is.
…You can call it off, if you need to. That’s your decision: see what he wants, and call it off if necessary. With that decided, you take the offered seat.
It’s a strange place, perched on his desk. Too many bad ideas flicker through your head as you settle, even as you beat them back into their hidden places again. (The things you’ve thought about doing on this desk— particularly after last week…)
“Comfortable?” Silco asks, standing with one hand on the back of his chair as he waits for an answer.
You shrug a shoulder, noncommittally.
A raised brow prompts a more satisfactory answer.
“Seems so.” …Okay, maybe you haven’t completely given up making things difficult.
There’s a twitch to his lips, that hidden smirk that flicks a thrum in your chest. In one smooth move, he’s seated, and you shift back as he grasps the edge of the desk to roll himself closer, pressing your knees open as he tucks his legs into the space beneath.
Involuntarily, your back arches for him, hips shifting nervously at how open and vulnerable your position feels. Thank fuck you wear pants nearly every day. At least there’s that consolation.
An appreciative glance rakes over your body regardless, sending heat straight to your core, though the position you’re in prevents you from properly relieving any of that newfound tension. Instead, the instinct to close your legs just presses them against his hands, earning you a knowing look that makes your face flush and eyelids feel heavy.
His eyes drop to your knees, and one hand flattens, his pinky brushing your inner thigh before he seems to think better of it and pulls away.
Once again you struggle to fend off thoughts of his hands roaming your body.
The clear eye closes, a slow intake of breath one of the most transparent tells you’ve ever seen from Silco. Trying to refocus, but on what?
He wheels back just enough to reach for his desk drawer. Suspicion pricks behind your ear, trying to recall anything you've ever seen him pull from the desk, and what drawer they were located in. You’re ticking through options that all feel too much too quickly when he pulls out the odd syringe you’d seen him use with Jinx. There’s a click as he locks one piece into place, then a soft tk tk of his finger flicking the barrel.
As neutral as you try to keep your face, there’s a certain confused notch between your brows. You can’t help but stare at the device, trying to determine how it works, before glancing to Silco’s face again.
There’s a very slight smile on his lips, but it’s more like a grimace. This isn’t something he looks forward to using, obviously. Fair: it looks painful.
The chair rolls between your legs again, and Silco leans back, gesturing with the device. “Like this.” He holds it well above the intended target, making sure to emphasize where the hand holds and where the fulcrum is on the lever, how low you can choke your grip while still being able to activate it. Squeezing the grip makes a click that reminds you of the injector you use for painkillers, and similarly a needle (even if this is much longer) stings out from the canister, a dose of cool-toned shimmer delivered into the air above his cheek rather than his eye.
Silco wipes the liquid from his skin with his other hand, not bothering to find a handkerchief. “Is that clear?”
“You… you want me to-”
He nods, already offering the syringe. When you don’t immediately take it, he pulls your wrist to him to place it there.
You jump at the contact. Anxiety makes your prosthesis tingle, hyper aware of what you should be feeling where his fingers touch you.
“…You’re sure you want-”
The firm way he says your name brokers no argument. “I wouldn’t offer if I didn’t believe you were capable.”
It shouldn’t steal your breath the way it does. He’d said it to Jinx, when she held his medicine in her hands. I trust you. That’s what this means. More than any I’m sorry, or I was wrong: this is an apology, and so much more.
He pulls the chair even closer, fully invading your space well before he leans back at an angle, watching you with an even stare, hands on the armrests. Ready. Prepared. Trusting.
Your ribs feel crushed, but you try to keep your hands as steady as possible.
“Take a breath,” he advises, voice low. You love that voice, when he speaks for an audience of one. “When you’re ready.”
A breath. Another.
You lean into his space, fully willing to complete the task, but unsure where to place your good hand to brace yourself.
Slim fingers take a gentle hold of your wrist, directing your fingers into his hairline, palm gently pressed against his forehead. The grip on your wrist is enough, but that brief combing hair between your fingers… Heat rushes through you at the contact, and right behind it a thin sparking wire of hurt, remembering the last time you got so close, and how he’d so quickly rejected you, striking right at your weakest points.
And now here he is. Baring his weakness to you, offering you a tool that can strike just as hard.
You look away from your task, examining his face, your own troubled.
“It’s okay.” His reassurance warms the air.
That thing fluttering in your chest won’t shut up. To silence it, you resolutely focus on the assignment, determined to do it right and not hurt him.
Lined up, eye socket in the cradle of the device. Hold your breath.
Click.
Instinctively the hand on his forehead drops to his shoulder, steadying him as he lurches forward, a grimace warping his features. You drop the device back on the desk and quickly steady his head again with the prosthesis. No sorry comes from your lips, because you already knew this would happen— you knew this is supposed to happen, even if seeing him in pain wrenches at your gut.
A trickle of shimmer leaks from the bad eye, and you swipe it away with a ceramic thumb—
A tiny noise of surprise catches in your throat.
Again, you swipe your thumb over the scarred skin. Then your other fingers. The tingling is brief, and settles, but you still feel warmth. You still—
Breath hitches, throat constricting, and you do it again.
You cup his cheek and run the thumb up the valleys of scars, barely brushing against skin. Softer than you’ve been able to achieve until now. Because now…
Tears spring to your eyes, fingers fanning across the scarred half of his face, breath uneven.
“I—” You can’t even find words.
For the first time in over a month, you have a hand again.
Every little divot, every puckered edge of old wounds, the heat of his cheek, the minuscule hairs on those areas left untouched— you feel it all.
There’s no attempt to hide the overwhelming flood that seizes you in its grip. Wonder and relief and bittersweet pain that you’d missed it for so long, all playing out across your face, inches from his. You still stare at his scars, at the ceramic fingers tracing along them— your fingers, finally feeling a part of you.
Flesh hand digs into his shoulder, excitement making you shift on your perch, push closer, reveling in the sensation.
It’s clear this is connected to the shimmer, because not every inch has gained feeling, just the textured finger pads that brushed the medication from his cheek. Realization clicks that that’s why your wrist tingled as well, once he took it with shimmer-touched fingers. Whatever mix he has, whatever specialized formula is in that syringe, that’s the key. Part of you wants to drench the hand in that mix, but you don’t want to let go.
A delicate touch follows the ashen curve beneath his eye, the half-missing eyebrow, then up along one deep scar to finger the start of the distinct light streak in his hair. A short breath breaks from lips parted with amazement at the fine texture freshly available to those fingers. Drawing down the scars again. Back up, in a slow lazy pattern.
Down, up, mapping his fault lines. Worshipping his injuries with your own.
It’s only his sigh of breath that makes you zoom out, to see more than just your fingers caressing skin. His good eye is closed, though there’s a small touch of concern pulling his brows together, just slightly. Lips are tight but not distressed exactly...
Again, it’s an expression you know.
Want.
Need for more, and a refusal to act on that need.
—At least, assuming you’re reading him correctly.
The thing in your chest beats against your rib cage frantically, heart speeding as you consider the choice you’re halfway done making.
Fingers cup his cheek. Ceramic thumb follows those lines again, down to the point where they meet his lip. It brushes across the skin there, running back and forth over lips far softer than you expected, marveling at every little ridge you can feel, how you can suddenly feel his breath hitting skin that no longer exists.
Maybe you didn’t consider this decision at all, because not a single consequence has cemented itself in your mind. Your body acts on its own, bending to close the distance between you. Hardly a fraction of a second of hesitation.
You press your lips to the corner of his mouth, to the spot where the scars end, still cupping his face with your ceramic hand. A kiss without kissing.
[Happy new year! Feels about time we get some real intimacy y’know? 😏
Anyway, I originally intended to post this Christmas Eve, but then I got in a car crash on the 16th (I’m fine, my car isn’t) and had to deal with all that while my parents were out of town, an underwhelming holiday, followed by a 12-to-24 hour stomach bug the day after getting back to my apartment. Overall, a bit of a mess for the holidays 🥲 Thanks go out to anyone who helped me shoulder the cost of all of that, it really did add up when it comes to the ridiculous price of a cross-state-lines car rental. And also, though they’ll never read this, thanks to my fellow Jewish families that I can rely on to feed me when I’m left alone on Christmas Eve/day 😅 Honestly, I was super lucky to have the friends and family I have, it made all of this mess bearable.
ANYWAY.
I only have like 85-90% of the next chapter written, and I want to find some way to bring it to at least somewhat of a conclusion, since I haven’t been able to write for shit lately, but want to give some degree of closure for loyal readers. We’ll see what I can manage, I guess! But the original intention of posting 29-31 before the end of the year… welp. That apparently isn’t going to happen >< Holiday complications were unexpected. Regardless, I have to do the regular plugs and requests, so; if you liked this chapter, let me know! Comments, reblogs, responses on the ao3 post, etc— and if you want to find more content (reverse POVs you may have missed, art you may not have seen (new art coming soon!), fics from friends, etc) you can find all of that on the story’s masterpost here on tumblr. If you want to be tagged in the next (and potentially last?) chapter of this fic, just comment on this linked post to join the tag list.
I love you all so much, it always thrills me to see people’s reactions, and this has been a bright spot in the mess of the last couple weeks. ❤️ -verbs]
Tag list: @hawk4president @mello-jello29 @jennrosefx @dad-dumpster @ellhd-imagination @zuckerwattencupcake @meep-moop-mystic @sherwood-forests @ariaud @witxhy-lexx @mazikomo @leave-me-alone-doctor @antoine-tte @wisteria-songs @imalovernotahater @eriseffigy @leorioaki @artificialwords @hehicular-hanslaughter-lecter @ironandglass @ughhhh177 @faraige @ilikemymendarkandfictional @jennithejester @insult-2-injury @iz-zy5 @rinadragomir @queenofspades6 @cuddlejeongin @differentladynerd @leo-the-undead @silcoitus @stepsonsilco @commotionpotion @averagecrastinator @eurydicethesage @mialobo @wierdestmoppet @bumble-bee-17 @sonicbananawithbowtie @venommie @sheisacryptid @cuckconnosieur @yew-over-there @zaunite-leo @im-forgetful @rando-compilation @valkyrie05x
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x-amount-verbs · 2 years
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A Helping Hand Masterpost [silco/f!reader; no use of y/n; explicit; touch-starved chars; slow burn; themes of D/s]
Reading Order (Main Fic + Reverse POVs) [ongoing]
Denial (pre-prologue) [1.1k] [sfw]
Prologue [1.5k] [sfw] [minor body horror] [podfic]
Part 1 [2.8k] [sfw]
Part 2 [3.1k] [sfw rated M]
Part 3 [3.3k] [sfw rated M] [tw panic attack]
Part 4 [2.8k] [sfw]
Part 5 [3.5k] [rated M] [D/s]
Part 6 [2.6k] [nsfw] [masturbation]
Part 7 [2.7k] [sfw rated M]
Part 8 [3k] [rated M] [light bondage]
Part 9 [3.4k] [rated M] [light bondage]
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(Reverse POV Part 9) [2.4k] [rated M] [D/s]
Part 10 [3k] [sfw] [minor painkiller abuse]
Part 11 [2.8k] [rated M] [unhealthy relation to pain]
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(Reverse POV Part 11) [2k] [nsfw] [D/s] [addt’l tags on post]
Part 12 [2.4k] [rated M] [D/s]
Part 13 [3k] [sfw rated M]
Part 14 [2.5k] [sfw] [soft silco]
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(Reverse POV Part 14) [2.5k] [sfw rated M] [soft silco]
Part 15 [2.7k] [sfw]
Part 16 [3.4k] [rated M] [therapy dom silco]
Part 17 [2.5k] [explicit] [masturbation]
Part 18 [3.1k] [rated M] [tw panic attack, body image issues, descriptions of body modifications]
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(Reverse POV Part 18) [1k] [sfw] [soft silco?]
Part 19 [3.4k] [sfw rated M] [tw body image issues, descriptions of body modifications]
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(Reverse POV prequel) [1.6k] [sfw] [gun violence]
Part 20 [2.8k] [sfw rated M] [tw body image issues, body modifications, bastard behavior]
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(Reverse POV Post 19-20; collab with @insult-2-injury ) [3.3k] [explicit] [masturbation] [addt’l tags on post]
Part 21 [3.4k] [sfw rated M] [gun ptsd]
Part 22 [2.5k] [sfw rated M] [gun ptsd]
Part 23 [3.7k] [rated M] [gun ptsd] [drunkenness]
Part 24 [3.7k] [nsfw] [D/s]
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(Reverse POV between 23-24) [2k] [rated M] [non-consensual drugging but no funny business]
Part 25 [3.3k] [nsfw] [D/s] [discipline] [corporal punishment] [impact play] [addt’l tags on post]
Part 26 [4.3k] [explicit] [D/s] [impact play] [glove kink] [sexual content] [addt’l tags on post]
Part 27 [3.5k] [rated M] [welp. boundaries I guess?] [angst]
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(Reverse POV Part 24) [2.3k] [nsfw] [D/s]
(Reverse POV Part 25) [4.8k] [nsfw] [D/s] [addt’l tags on post]
(Reverse POV Part 26) [6k] [explicit] [D/s] [sadist!silco] [addt’l tags on post]
(Reverse POV Part 27) [2.5k] [nsfw] [addt’l tags on post]
Part 28 [2.6k] [rated m] [gun ptsd]
Part 29 [2.9k] [rated m] [gun ptsd]
Part 30 [3.4k] [rated m] [discussion of ptsd]
Art
@dad-dumpster for Begging Forgiveness, and Self Control and Chapter 25 👀
@thesaltybuns commission of Ivy
@deny-the-issue the cooperative hair braiding from 15/16
@steponmesilco RIDING CROP SILCO 👀🥵
@echonidae Zaun-lit Ivy commission 😍
@elie-fluff did a reader portrait as well 👀❤️
refs for the prosthesis
AU Bonus Fics (ft OC name)
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Taking the Shot by @insult-2-injury [6.5k] [explicit] [glove kink] [mirrors 👀] [addt’l tags on post]
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Make Me Melt [3.1k] [rated M] [D/s themes] [jinx unwittingly creates date night]
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Taste Test by @sweatandwoe [5.8k] [explicit] [D/s] [under-the-desk mischief] [addt’l tags on post]
Other:
Join the taglist; comment here
Anything Ivy and anything silvy
All my tumblr fics on a (janky) Masterlist
Ao3 for Arcane works
If you want to buy me a Ko-fi
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x-amount-verbs · 2 years
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A Helping Hand - Part 26
[start here] || Part 25 || Part 26 || Part 27
[ @dad-dumpster ’s art for 25 if you missed it!] [Ivy art by @thesaltybuns ]
[silco x f!reader] [4.3k words] [no y/n] [during timeskip] [touch-starved reader] [henchwoman!reader] [explicit] [D/s] [glove kink] [impact play] [light humiliation] [sadism/masochism] [good tears] [sexual content] [edging] [crop, cane, hands]
AO3 Link
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It’s a long pause.
Did you do something wrong? Say something wrong? Oh gods, did you cross some line?
Tempted to bite your cheek, you instead opt to apologize. “I’m s—” The word becomes a yip of surprise at the firm snap of the crop.
“Again. Correctly this time.”
Another snap.
The words are mostly just breathed, but they’re clear in the silence of the room. “Thank you, Sir.”
The feeling coursing through you is fucking amazing, some combination of shame and bliss and indulgence, the pain a perfect complement to the guilty pleasure of it.
“…I seem to have lost count.” The evenness to his tone suggests otherwise, the smooth soft leather of the crop’s tress soothing heated skin. Little taps make you startle, anticipating another blow, but no, just teasing little thip thip thips before the flat presses between your legs again.
There’s not enough pressure to grind against the implement, but just enough friction for you to feel the damp pull along your folds. Mouth pressed tight, trying not to hum or whine, you fail on both counts.
Silco’s voice is low but lacking the usual cocky edge. Like all his attention is on staying even-keeled. “You are always welcome to voice your gratitude.”
And then it begins again, never dropping much below the highest level of the last set.
You’re practically panting by the fourth strike. By eight you’ve thanked him twice more, and have melted forward, half-collapsed against the desk. The next strike seems to miss its exacting target, instead hitting half on skin and half on the edge of your underwear.
To your mortification, you realize you’d rather not be wearing any. Your hand is halfway down to its target when Silco steps back, crop well away from your skin.
“Do you need-” to stop?
“No!” You interrupt before he can ask. “No, I just-”
You hesitate, fingers twitching as you register your own action. What are you doing? This is— this is—
…It’s not asking, though. It’s not pleading or begging or asking for him to touch you, not with words. Just…
Hesitantly, you bring fingers to the waistband of your underwear, plucking at the hemline unintentionally. Eyes stay squeezed shut, nervous sweat beading on the forehead you have pressed to the desktop.
The room falls into silence so complete you can hear the brush of fabric against your skin as you tentatively hook your thumb in the waistband and drag down, feeling the radiating heat from your reddened ass and thighs as you do so.
Cool air against your sodden heat makes you draw in an audible breath, movement faltering. Your courage wanes— or maybe your stupidity passes— and you clumsily bring your hand back to the desk, back to the position you know is acceptable and comfortable despite the pressure on your elbows, without finishing the job. Just half-lowered underwear left to barely cover you from Silco’s gaze.
It’s silent.
Completely silent.
Your brain starts to whirr, starts to panic, to replay the last few minutes and determine if you went wrong somewhere. He wants you, doesn’t he? Or is it a case of him finding you less attractive than the power he holds over you? Did you cross a boundary again? Will he pull away again? Leave you wet and wanting, displayed across his desk in all your shame?
The longer the stillness stretches, the tighter your head feels, the louder your labored breaths seem, the more constricted your throat.
Your stomach starts to sink. A different kind of fear, a different kind of anxiety, a nausea at the prospect that you have made a terrible mistake.
It simmers for too long.
The brush of the leather tress against your bare ass makes you jump, a pathetic sound of relief and blatant need pulling in your throat. On the verge of tears as the crop catches to - painfully slowly - finish the move you started, dragging fabric lower. The way the last bit clings between your legs is damning.
He’s so quiet.
The crop pushes the fabric down along one leg, until your spread stance offers resistance. Then it moves to the other leg to trace its way back up. The slow tease only serves to make your need that much hungrier. Fists tighten on the desk, lip between your teeth.
“Ah-!” The little snap against your sex makes you cry out, the wet of it making the slap sound that much more obvious. Toes curl, and you find yourself subtly shifting, opening your stance like it can tempt him to alleviate your gnawing hunger.
The crop drags against your lips before pulling back.
Still no words.
Please say something. Please. Tell me I’m good, tell me this is okay, tell me you want me, please.
Nothing.
Your disappointment is overshadowed, however, as you hear him - feel him - step forward. No longer a crop’s distance away.
Then soft leather brushes burning skin: two of Silco’s fingers whispering against the reddened marks, tracing the curve around, then down. Two fingers hardly making contact, splitting to a V to skim around where you truly need him as he pushes his hand between your legs.
Your frustrated whimper breaks to a sharp breath as his path back drags one gloved finger firmly down the center of you. It’s a hint of friction but not nearly enough, even if the slight press of his fingertip teasing at your entrance makes you clench.
Fucking hell, you need him. He’s so close, can’t he just—
Your groan of frustration burbles in your chest, followed by another whine. This is what he does to you: reduces you to wordless noise and carnal appetite.
As on-edge as you are, your ears practically prick up at the hint of noise behind you. A heavy exhale. A low hum.
Anticipation shivers up your spine.
A dry digit brushes one flushed thigh, very briefly. “…Step out of them.” His voice doesn’t need to be loud in such a quiet space.
Mouth dry, you hurriedly obey as best you can without being able to see your shoes, nearly falling sideways the first time one boot gets caught, and leaning forward to at least get one foot free and resume your position.
Please touch me. Please.
You can’t say it - won’t say it - only feel it: a mantra on repeat in your head.
Please please please.
The slight huff of a laugh sounds at your back, and then you hear fabric shift again. You startle at the feeling of his elbow knocking one sock-clad calf while hands skim down the other, and you curse high boots for existing and stopping you from properly feeling his hands as he lifts one foot for you so he can untangle the fabric.
He must turn his head, because an involuntary little squeak escapes you when breath breezes against you. The prospect of being face-to-cunt with him was not something you expected today. You feel entirely too seen, too examined, too self-conscious to have him staring straight at you so shamelessly.
But gods, you want more.
Hips shift like you can get him closer, already imagining his tongue rolling against you—
And then he’s standing again, so soon. The disappointed breath sighs out of you.
“Six more strokes,” he reminds you, smirk audible. “And four more, for staining my tools.” The smug tone of that smoky voice wraps you around his finger, toying with you like a cat with a mouse. “Impossible to get the smell of cunt out of leather. …As you may very well know.”
The rush of heat to your face makes you dizzy. Silco very rarely swears, and to choose to use it in this context, for your body…
Without any preamble, still distracted by his taunting, you’re caught off guard by the particularly harsh impact of the crop in just the right spot, and the keening cry you let loose is uncomfortably loud until you hide it against your good fist, still left breathing heavily.
The tongue of the crop smooths over the sting, but you need more. One taste of his hand wasn’t enough. You crave his touch, hunger for—
His hands rubbing away the pain, fingers straying to toy with your pussy, kneading your ass like a damned masseur—
His satisfied hum vibrates low in the air, and it has you whimpering against your own skin.
“…You really are more than I ever imagined…”
The words alone send a rush of arousal to painfully harden your nipples, clenching around nothing. Fuck— that didn’t make anything easier.
Another smack of the crop and you stifle your noise, mouth opening to pant against your fist, top teeth catching on a knuckle and digging in lightly.
Does he imagine you, then? The way you’ve imagined him? The way you're imagining him, cock in hand plunging deep into you in one rough thrust that makes your eyes roll and your body buck. Shit—
Two more snaps against skin in quick succession and you’re shaking. A little hiccup of surprise as the tool slides between your thighs again.
The little taps of the crop against your sex are so fucking teasing, but you swore not to plead, so you’re left with the hot wet breath of a half-gagged thank you moaned against your fist.
You are far from thankful.
Well— yes, you’re thankful, but he’s absolutely tormenting you, and all you want to do is beg him to touch you already, but instead your own stupid rules drag it out further when you just want him to fuck you, good gods—
A particularly well-placed slap of the crop’s tongue hits your clit and your body jerks forward with your muffled cry, eyes snapping open, back arching and hips squirming, legs trembling as you whimper after. Feeling halfway to orgasm already, your gaze is foggy, eyelids weighed down by lust, mind incapable of anything but being present.
It’s fucking amazing.
Any and all anxiety, self-consciousness, doubt— if it’s there at all, it serves a purpose: it’s for him, an offering, and he’s paying you back with unwavering attention. Fear heightens arousal, shame turning it all perverse and delicious, and despite being treated like a damned horse with the amount your flanks are being slapped, it’s validating somehow.
You feel demeaned, maybe, but— but you feel desired.
…Now you just need him to fucking touch you already.
The crop turns on its edge and drags through your folds on the way back, the curve of it teasing your entrance. You’re tempted to chase after it, desperate, needing anything for stimulation. But his hands were right there, even if not skin to skin, and you want more.
Please.
There’s a pause, and you sense words unspoken. What is he stopping himself from saying? You need to know, you need— him, you need him.
Please.
“…Have you had enough?”
“Nnnh-” You whine around your knuckle, remembering just in time that no is off limits.
Silco must be expecting a yes.
“…You don’t want me to stop? To find some alternative way of meting out your remaining punishment?” The question comes with a stroke of the crop against your heat that promises much more pleasant options.
But that’s not the point. That’s what you want (and desperately). But this is about proving he wants you. It’s the only thought left in your addled mind.
You don’t say no. You don’t say yes, either, despite how badly you want whatever alternative he’s offering. And you absolutely refuse to say please.
The crop pulls away and you tense expectantly for another strike. Instead, you almost jump at the sound of the item being placed on the desk.
The way he says your name is stern, but not angry. Being acknowledged that way immediately overwhelms you. The person you are now isn’t her, it’s someone with less agency, fewer expectations, blissfully free of difficult decisions. Reconciling that with your everyday identity is half terrifying, half thrilling.
“Speak freely.” His voice is low, even. “Do you want to stop?”
“I—” You choke on the word. Gods, can’t he just do? Why does he have to make you choose? Teeth sink into your skin again as you muffle your helpless whine.
“Do you want to continue?” This time there’s a touch of exasperation in his tone, and you feel like an idiot. It’s just a yes or no question, why are you making it such a big deal?
Because it matters. It matters that he wants this. That it’s not just indulging your perverse little whims, but something he chooses you for.
When you don’t answer, Silco lets out a tight sigh. “What do you want, sweet, I can’t read your mind.”
‘Sweet.’ Your heart stutters in your chest. It’s not how he means it, you’re sure, the dry delivery made his mockery clear enough, but still.
“I—” You struggle to find the words. “It’s— it’s up to you.”
A pause. You feel him shift closer again, feeling magnetized to his presence behind you. “…Up to me?” he muses.
You swallow. “Yes, Sir.” Please touch me.
The whisper of contact as his hand hovers above your lower back has you sucking in a sharp breath. Yes.
“…Jumpy…” he teases, tracing a finger along where your skirt has been flipped up onto your back, reminding you again of the embarrassing position he’s put you in. Leather brushes skin as he smooths down the round of your ass, delicately— before groping the bottom curve in a harsh grip.
Yesyesyesyes. You stifle your noise even as you throb for him, that itch behind your navel winding tighter.
“So if I chose to give the rest of your punishment a different way…” Silco’s gloved fingers barely tease your slit, rubbing that edge where your inner thigh ends. “You’d accept that?”
Mindless. You’re mindless for him, just needy. “Yes, Sir,” you breathe, trying to press yourself back into his grip, needing his fingers inside you.
The soft breath of laughter makes your face flood with heat for the umpteenth time. Burning up for him. “Hmm, I’m afraid only good girls get their hungry little cunts filled.”
Fuck— the words alone make your eyes roll back, flattening your cheek to the desk with a groan, as you lift to your tiptoes and try to grind on his hand.
The sharp swat discourages you, in theory, but instead you want more. Anything to keep his hands on you. Your hips shift restlessly, panting mouth nearly drooling around the already reddened knuckle wedged between your teeth.
“Rude little sluts get punished.” His kneading hand is rough, but the leather still manages to soothe the earlier heat from his aforementioned punishment.
The term is so completely unfitting that you can’t possibly see it referring to anything beyond your behavior toward him. You certainly haven’t slept with someone in a long while, and yet the filthy thoughts you’ve had about your boss quite easily put your real experiences to shame.
“‘Up to me,’” Silco repeats in a mutter; “You really want to do that?” An audible sneer belies the approving little hum that comes after, the assuring way he gives your hip a short squeeze.
“Yeh thuh,” spoken around your hand.
His thumb draws a little spiral absently as he shifts, and you hear one of the disciplinary implements sliding from the desk beside you, even if you’re turned away from it. You have your suspicions well before he steps back and you feel the cane sliding against your warmed skin.
“Six strokes left,” he reminds you. “And you prefer pain over pleasure?”
Your whine is in place of the no you both want and don’t want to say. Of course you’d prefer pleasure. But all the pain he’s doled out has only served to raise your arousal, blood flowing to those bits of your anatomy that are making you positively ravenous at the moment.
The cane taps lightly against you, making you tense in expectation, but it’s never hard. Just enough to keep you on edge. No answer means it’s not a yes. “Can you take it?”
A better question. “Yes, Si-” You squeak in surprise as the cane thwacks against your ass rather than your thighs. It’s somehow worse and much better. The pain still hurts, but there’s a much deeper satisfaction, a pleasant throb between your legs as you take it.
“One. More?”
You’re breathless, still recovering from your last strike, but manage a weak, “mhm,” of confirmation.
“Words.” The cane taps gently against you again, a warning. He can always add more to your tally.
After a second, you recover enough to say, “Yes, Sir.”
You’re expecting the next strike; it’s a little easier to take once you’re mentally prepared.
“Two. Still want to leave it up to me?” It’s practically a taunt. A warning. You realize he’s asking permission, asking if he can go harder than this.
“Yes, Sir.” After a split second hesitation, while he continues the teasing little taps, you add, “Thank you, Sir.” He could’ve just done it, he didn’t have to ask. Even if he hid it under a layer of mockery.
The cane stops for a second. “…You’re welcome.”
Then he hits hard, hard enough that you yelp, jolting against the desk.
“If you’re not careful someone might hear you,” Silco warns, a hint of wickedness to his tone. “That was three.”
You pant, legs weak. But bow your head to press your forehead to the desk and make sure you’re standing straight. “Thank you, Sir.” Another. You can take it, and you want to take it.
“Four.”
The cry catches in your throat and you hear rather than feel the ceramic against wood as your bad hand flattens from its fist, jerking out sideways as your knees give out just like they did the first time. It stings— and aches, in a way that reminds you of the day after a good workout, only the skin is far warmer.
But that all flees your mind entirely as a gloved hand massages the sting away. The cane makes its little clatter against the desktop and then both his hands are on you, and you have the sudden mortifying urge to cry.
“Good girl,” Silco’s voice is throatier than you expect, one hand rubbing a thumb in circles at your waist as the other soothing you far more gently than before. “Very good,” he hums, and it may be the warmest you’ve heard him.
Your whimper comes out more like a sob. It isn’t even the pain: it’s the affection. That’s what this is, isn’t it? Tears burn in your eyes, and so much of it is relief.
“Taking everything I gave you…” The low murmur is shockingly lacking edge. “Such a good girl.”
Okay, yes, you’re crying. It’s just— it’s such a relief. The pain, the soft touch afterward, the fizz of hormones flooding your system that have you half out of reality. And more than that— there’s something about this, about taking pain. It’s like… the ability to show your devotion without needing to say it out loud. Proving something without having to swallow your pride to admit it. And being rewarded for that devotion, with reassuring touch, even if it's not as much as you want. You want too much. You want to be surrounded by him— you want to touch him.
“I think…” His hand drops between your legs again, “perhaps an alternative, to settle your account.” Petting you, a teasing softness that hardly brushes slick skin.
You shiver and moan and bite your lip, humming to keep the please from breaking free as he strokes you gently, somehow tormenting you again after seeming to promise not to.
Unless…
Firmer, never seeming to fully touch anything quite enough, only ever dipping the tip of his finger but never going inside, only pressing around your clit but never brushing it directly. You try - really try - to get more friction, more pressure, just more— squirming and grinding and trying so damn hard.
The hand on your waist squeezes before shifting to press your back, push you firmly down on the desk. “Hold still, sweet; you still owe me two strokes.” You can hear the self-satisfied smirk.
Tears of relief are forgotten in favor of growing frustration, feeling yourself wound so damned tight that you’re sure you could cum the second he thrust inside you. But he doesn’t. Just rubs and teases and thumbs without ever fucking you like you need.
The throb between your legs is unbearable. The keening whine is as close to begging as you’ll allow yourself, eyes glazed and half closed, face twisted with desperation.
Arousal is smeared across his glove, your inner thighs— every motion lewdly audible in a way that shames you as much as it turns you on.
The next time he massages around your clit and then barely brushes the spot where you want more pressure, you let out a frustrated growl, bucking slightly.
His fingers disappear in an instant, a wet slap against your ass as the hand on your back renews its downward force. He’s moved closer; a more convenient angle to push you down, yes, but also maneuvering his hips to stop your wild squirming. But even better— the thing that makes your frustrated movement falter.
You suck in a sharp breath, foggy eyes going wide, a shock of ice and heat hitting you in quick succession.
If you wanted proof he wants you… the hard hot ridge pressed to your oversensitized backside is clear enough.
Silco’s hand comes around your hip to reach from the front to continue his torment, but you’re so fixated on his cock. Right there. Your subtle little gyrations - the best you can manage while pinned to his desk - rub the swell of your ass against him. You relish the subtle shift of his own hips, the pressure in little rolling motions barely discernible unless you stop moving, but the one time you do, just to check, you feel him continue the gentle rocking a second longer, and it feels so damn gratifying.
You feel yourself light up at the realization, a renewed vigor that fucks your brain far more than his fingers are. Your own fervid panting seems to spur him on, his hand bringing you very quickly to the same spot he had you before the brief spanking. His steadily increasing attention has your pulse racing, breath hitching, on the edge of orgasm.
Need coils in your gut, ready to snap, eyes closed as your motions freeze again, body stiffening, trying to keep his hand in the position it just was, in that perfect position you want to keep the pressure just right—
And he pulls away.
The dry sob is sheer agony.
“Punishment, my dear, this is a punishment.” His dark chuckle has tears prickling in your eyes once more. The mocking little coo of sympathy is too damn hot for what an asshole move it is.
“Only one more, sweet,” he promises, shifting his weight in a way that once again emphasizes the weight of his cock pressing against your ass. “…Though I suspect you may be more eager to make our little meetings after this revelatory afternoon.”
Your brain can’t handle his stupid fancy words. Just fuck me already. Pressing your forehead to the desk you groan as the perfectly wound tension loosens again. But you never say please. Won’t fucking do it. As much as he frustrates you, part of you is maliciously delighting in the treatment, loving to hate it, gluttonous for his attention and feasting on it.
“Just one more…” Silco murmurs, idly stroking your back as that hard won arousal ebbs slightly. He gathers your skirt at the waistband in his fist. You’re sad to feel his hips draw away, losing the reassurance of his hot length grinding against you. But then his hand comes back again from behind.
You sink into pleasure faster this time, eager to get back to the heights, to attain that ecstasy before he yanks it away again.
Apparently, your worry is utterly unnecessary.
Fingers stroke along your folds with that all-knowing ease, pressing and circling and rubbing just right, and then his hand turns and his thumb teases you before pressing in with one purposeful move that makes your mouth drop open.
You haven’t touched yourself since that day he gave you his glove; how fitting it is that his gloved hand be the follow-up performance. His thumb feels thick with the added girth of the leather, and the little hint of stretch feels perfect. (Though you assume his cock would be more perfect.)
His other fingers continue to massage and grind as his thumb carefully circles inside you, loosening any anxious tension, the base finding points around your entrance you didn’t realize could provide pleasure. Then Silco adjusts his wrist, places his fingers just so, and presses down.
“Ah-nh!” The mewling whine that pulls from your throat quickly fades to a continuous stream of moans and whimpers, his ministrations ushering you out of your mind as you rapidly ascend the heights.
Presence of mind is fleeting, but it does occur to you to ask— or attempt to do so.
“Can— nnhh— ca-an I— can—” Words are hard.
His hand pulls out and your needy sob is thin in the air before he simply turns his hand and presses a different two fingers in instead, finding that same spot to undulate against as his thumb finds new spots to play with.
“I give orders that can be obeyed,” Silco reminds you, sounding half-breathless himself.
Tighter. Drawn like a wire filament, with electricity humming through you as the voltage increases.
“That wouldn’t be one of them.”
One of what? You can hardly think. Body stiffens, trying to keep his hand right in that magic spot he’s found, clenching around him, already halfway there before he says it.
“Go on. Come for me.”
[next part]
[ 😳 *cough*
So uh. Anyway, that was 4k of pure smut ahahahah 😅 Hope you enjoyed?? Really got into some of the why of submission in a bdsm dynamic tbh; hopefully it resonates and/or explains something ><
Once again I ask that if you enjoyed you reblog the post, since I have no idea how tumblr tags pick what to boost or not. Also I love love love seeing the tags and comments y’all leave, both here and on ao3. I live off reactions to my work 😈
I may or may not end up writing a reverse POV for this whole business, but if I do you may want to be on the tag list so you know when it goes up, since the reverse POVs go up on tumblr well before they’re ever added to the ao3 series of reverse POVs. You can join the tag list by commenting on this linked post.
Thanks for stickin’ it out. I know this was a long time coming. Please don’t hate me for next chapter ;u; ❤️ -verbs]
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x-amount-verbs · 2 years
Text
A Helping Hand - Part 25
[start here] || Part 24 || Part 25 || Part 26
[Silco POV for between 23-24 if you missed it]
[silco x f!reader] [3.3k words] [no y/n] [during timeskip] [touch-starved reader] [henchwoman!reader] [NSFW] [D/s] [glove kink] [hair pulling] [light humiliation] [hint of drooling] [discipline] [corporal punishment] [impact play] [cane, crop]
(Unrelated, if you like this you may or may not enjoy Secretary (2002))
AO3 Link
Tumblr media
“Bend over the desk.”
You blink. For a second you’re in shock, head whipping around to face him. Look, you knew this would get into some sort of power play, but the blatant—
It’s—
Look, you can’t not see it as sexual, as going 0 (or maybe 10) to 100 in an instant.
Are you gonna fuck me?
The question occurs to you, but you don’t quite have the courage - or audacity - to ask it outright. You aren’t sure which answer would be more humiliating, the prospect of him being so disgusted by you that he says no, or the mortifying prospect of—
Those fantasies had been just that, you didn’t expect them to—
Skirt bunched around your waist and panties around your ankles as he drives into you relentlessly, wrapping a hand in your hair for grip, teeth bared with the ferocity of it.
Your slightly parted lips snap shut, swallowing hard. The rueful thought occurs to you that at least if you bend over right now he won’t witness the obvious sign of arousal tight against your blouse.
Apparently your dumbfounded look prompts clearer instruction. “Face front, forearms flat, and bend over the desk.”
Heat burns on your cheeks, cursing yourself for wearing a skirt last night even as you try to argue with yourself that this is somehow a win, that this will make it that much easier to prove your point.
When you don’t immediately respond, Silco adds, “Can you do that for me?”
Brows pull together slightly, confused why he’d word it in that way. Then you face front and slide your palms forward, leaning onto your elbows and—
“I asked you a question.”
Ah. That’s why.
“I’m already doing-”
THWACK
You fall forward, legs knocking against the desk as they give out, mind gone blank at the sudden sting across the back of your thighs. Did he… Did he just hit you?
Silco is silent for a moment as you regain your breath, pulse hammering in your throat in some messy combination of shock and pain and fear and— and something else. Something dark and pleasant, that you aren’t sure is a good thing.
There’s a noise beside you, and your gaze slides sideways to see a thin cane - too thin for walking - coming to rest by your side on the desk. Clearly showing you what caused the sudden pain.
A knot forms in your gut. You’re not sure how you feel about this.
This may be too much too fast, maybe you’re in over your head, maybe you need to stand up and say no, maybe…
“That’s the worst of it.” Silco’s voice is even, calm. Almost reassuring in its certainty, and… rounded. Free of any harsh edges. If you didn’t know better, you’d think he may even be apologizing.
For a second you think he’ll say something else, but he doesn’t. Still, it feels like a promise, somehow.
Swallowing hard, you take another second to breathe, then pull yourself up onto your elbows, legs getting under you again.
You make no move to leave the desk.
Silence. Tense silence. You can feel his stare on you, making you even more aware of your own body, of the burning welt cutting across the back of your thighs. In that instant you crave his touch, need his hand on your stinging skin, rubbing away the hurt.
Knelt behind you to soothe the marks left in his wake, lips pressed to the reddened lines, kisses working up the back of your thighs, then the inner curve, until his nose brushes your core.
“…Are you ready to continue?”
Are you? …You nod.
“Words.”
“Yes, Sir.” Your voice is a little breathless.
“…Good girl.” There’s a hint of softness, of unacknowledged apology. It makes your stomach backflip.
Another brief pause, before Silco walks back to his side of the desk and half falls into his seat.
A niggling annoyance blooms at the back of your mind as he opens a different desk drawer. He hits you, then leaves you to stew in it, bent over his desk while he continues his work? Rude.
But Silco doesn’t pull out papers. Instead, he pulls out a pair of leather gloves that immediately make your ears burn as you avert your gaze to the desktop. You still can hear his smirk. It makes you wonder if he’s aware of what exactly you did with the one he gave you.
A gloved hand fitting between your legs, finding you slick, sliding digits through your folds to grind teasingly around your clit, then back, then forward again as a leather-padded finger presses into your entrance-
Gods. Everything in your mind today is just… filthy. Sandwiching lips between your teeth, you close your eyes and take one steadying breath.
“Have you been practicing?”
Eyes snap open, face burning. “No,” is the immediate emphatic response, only half a lie.
The pale eye narrows. His seat rolls closer, gloved hand lifting to finger a strand of hair, twirling it. “I told you to practice.” Tighter around his finger, until the pressure tugs gently at your scalp. “Are you saying you’ve disobeyed me yet again?”
“No, I—”
Fingers fan to grab a thicker handful of hair, close to the scalp, and tug you forward across the desk. “There’s that word again,” a grimly amused hum.
You should not enjoy his hand in your hair nearly so much, but you can feel that helpless thrill fluttering behind your navel, despite - or perhaps helped along by - a low level of fear at the threat of the cane beside you. So close. He’s so close, and yet those stupid gloves stop real skin-to-skin contact.
The hooked smirk curls his lip as he tugs you closer by the hair, and you have to go up on tiptoes to reach across the desk as he brings his face just slightly closer to yours. “Let me be clear: you’ve disobeyed me again.” His voice is silk tightening around your throat and the danger is intoxicating. “I gifted you my glove for a reason, and I find it hard to believe you’ve been using it.”
Eyes widen without meaning to, and you quickly look down at his collar to avoid his too-observant gaze.
Too late.
“…Unless you’ve been using it for something else…”
Shit.
Cheeks burn. Just once. Only the once. After his rejection you’ve tried to avoid thinking of him in any positive way, even if it’s just your unfortunate (and seemingly inescapable) attraction. It’s frustrating that his guess is right on a technicality: ‘used,’ not ‘been using.’
“Well?”
You flick your quizzical gaze back to his, and his brow raises expectantly.
“Have you been misusing my gift?”
“No—” The word is hardly out of your mouth before Silco’s grip tightens. To your mortification, the noise that crests your lips isn’t a hiss of pain, or even a grunt of discomfort. It’s a breathy little “nh!” that’s transparently wanting. Or perhaps even wanton.
His soft huff of hidden laughter has you shooting him a sharp look, only to find his smirk not-so-hidden as he reaches his other gloved hand down to slide a drawer open. You can’t see it all from this angle, just the edge of the drawer, but that apparently isn’t necessary, because the item is soon pulled out, then neatly laid across the desk in front of you. Blood pounds in your ears, face flaming as you see it, undoubtedly to be used in the same manner as the cane.
A single riding crop.
It’s— humiliating. That’s what it should be, anyway, the prospect of being treated like a damned horse—
Rode hard and put away wet.
Oh gods. Your breath is a little faster, gaze lifting back to his face, as if you can read his intentions specifically.
Hungry eyes follow the line of your jaw down your neck. You are suddenly glaringly aware that at this angle he has a perfect view of your cleavage, probably straight down between your breasts as well, thanks to gravity.
“First manners, now honesty. We have quite a bit of discipline to teach you, hm?”
You can practically feel his eyes playing across that expanse of skin, tracing the curve, though soon - all too soon - they slide down your arm to the prosthetic hand flat on the desk.
The fingers in your hair loosen, slipping away and letting you rock back onto your heels. You swear you’re not disappointed.
“Again. Have you abused the gift given to you in good faith?”
You frown. “No, I told you-” Your words are cut off with an involuntary flinch as he plucks up the crop, even if he makes no move to strike you.
Instead, Silco leans back in his seat and waits for you to settle, then slowly brings the folded tip of the crop to your hand. It traces the reverse path his eyes took. Up your arm - making you startle as it trips from ceramic to fabric-covered flesh - and across your chest, then sliding up your neck to rest below your chin. Lifting your head with the slightest pressure.
“Open.”
Holy fucking hell.
Is he serious?
That hellfire eye seems to bore into you, and your own shocked gaze quickly cuts sideways to avoid it.
“Look at me.”
The blush burns, a shame that tightens every inch of your skin, as you find his unwavering stare. You wanted attention: you have it.
“Open.”
Slowly, you let your mouth drop open, seeing his gaze drop to it immediately. Suddenly you have the intense need to swallow, but can’t without breaking his rules.
The crop slides to the tip of your chin. Holding you in his unapologetic gaze as he drinks in the sight of you, the thick labor of your breath, the way saliva gathers in your open mouth, and your obvious anxiety over that fact. It has to be purposeful when the tip of the crop runs up your chin and past your lips, delicately pressing to your tongue.
To your absolute mortification, your first instinct is to suck. You quickly curb that instinct, but the alternative is possibly worse, as he exerts the slightest force on the crop and your jaw obediently drops wider— only for a thin line of drool to spill from slack lips as you let slip a pathetic whimper.
Humiliating. So why the fuck are you so turned on?
“I’ll reiterate our rules. ‘Please, Sir,’ ‘thank you, Sir,’ or ‘yes, Sir.’ If you cannot answer truthfully, do not answer at all. If I need you to speak freely, I’ll ask it of you.”
How did you get here? All the power plays were so silent, all implied - though just as intense - and now here you are. Bent over his desk with a crop on your tongue, and uncomfortably aware of your own arousal.
“Is that clear?”
Chills down your spine. Toes curling. Heat flows through you making your body practically hum with awareness. Gaze fixed on his, you only see that expectant quirk of brow.
Oh. “Yeh thuh,” you manage, followed by a short involuntary whine at hearing your own failure to speak with the implement in your mouth.
As soon as the crop is removed from your tongue, your head drops to hide the shame as you hurriedly swallow and wipe your chin against your sleeve. When you raise your head again, Silco is already halfway round the desk, just barely in the corner of your eye, and the crop hasn’t been returned to its place. Goosebumps break out over your skin as you register that meaning.
A second later, your theory is confirmed— and more.
“So.”
You suck in a tight breath of surprise when the still-wet crop teases up the back of one thigh, making you jerk forward despite barely touching you. That quiet tell of his amusement is audible, if only just, above the blood pounding in your ears as it slides higher, breaching your hem and—
A little hiccup catches in your throat as he outright lifts your skirt.
“You very clearly haven’t been—” His words falter.
After a pause, the crop pushes fabric further, until your skirt is fully against your back as you hang your head, eyes screwed shut, horrified that your arousal may be visible through your underwear.
“…Where’s the bruise from?” There’s an edge to his calm: confident swagger settled to a simmering restraint.
You’re trying to think of literally anything except his gaze on your ass, unable to figure what the fuck he’s talking about, when a leather-clad hand cups your thigh - eliciting a squeak as your brain stops functioning - and presses a thumb to a spot on the back of your leg that immediately throbs.
The pain serves to ground you even as Silco’s touch attempts to pull all your focus, and you’re left floating somewhere between the two. Gaze cloudy, but still present.
“It’s—” Now it’s your turn to choke on your words, mouth pressing closed.
“Speak freely.”
(Why does his control feel so— like this? Some kind of— gratifying.) “It’s nothing. I fell,” you explain.
His hand falls away— and in that moment you tense for a slap across your ass, a jolt of anticipation kicking your adrenaline up.
But it doesn’t come. Instead. The crop drags its wet edge over your other thigh. “Did you do this to yourself?” His tone is dark, lower than usual, and you can imagine the glare he’s leveling on you even if you’re not seeing it.
“No,” you assure him, though there’s some plea to it. “No, Sir.” Like that will help your case. “I didn’t have a spotter and my ladder fell, but the hand is fine, I swear.”
“And the host?”
Something in your chest squeezes. Flutters. “…I’m fine,” you say, quietly. “I’ve had worse.”
A moment’s pause. Then his flat look is audible in the sardonic tone. “Yes, I’m aware: that’s what brought you into my care to begin with, you’ll remember.”
…Right. Okay maybe the I’ve had worse was obvious, given the missing hand.
He said care.
Quickly you push that thought aside. He meant it medically. No need to have any kind of feelings about—
THWAP
It’s much less intense than the cane, at least, though it still makes you jump. The soft tress of the crop rests in the spot it hit on the opposite leg than your bruise, mirroring its placement.
“I think we’ve previously established that my investment isn’t to be endangered.” The crop rubs gently against the sting it caused.
A pause. The next slap of leather on skin draws the reply he’s waiting for. “Yes, Sir.”
“And your carelessness and impetuous nature seem to be putting both my property and my investment at risk.”
“I’m sorry, Sir.”
The crop stills from where it’s been soothing heated skin, then resumes. Oops. Not one of those approved phrases. And yet he still accepts it. …Makes you curious what else you can get away with.
What will it take for him to put down the implements and touch you? You refuse to ask for it outright, refuse to beg. You had a point, once upon a time, even if the gentle pain is the only thing keeping you grounded from slipping into a mindless fog now. You wanted to prove his words a lie, to prove he wants to touch you just as much as you crave being touched. So he has to initiate.
So far, so good, in that respect.
“...I’m sure you’ll make it up to me,” he murmurs, the tip of the crop tracing the curve below your ass.
You can’t help but squirm at the sensation, that area far closer to pleasure than pain. His disapproving hum makes an image flash through your mind; a hand pressing your torso down to the desk to keep you still, as the other pets between your legs.
The image is jarred from your mind’s eye as the crop slaps at your inner thigh and you let out another little sound. There isn’t enough space to build up momentum, but that doesn’t really matter, does it? Sensitive skin in delicate areas— it doesn’t have to hurt to make his power clear.
“Impertinent little minx.”
thip thip thip thip
One thigh, then the other, each a little harder than the last until you’re widening your stance with a whine.
“Nhnn-” Your tongue presses to the roof of your mouth and you censor any words as the next sharp snap of the tress hits that curve he traced earlier, and the reverberation lights you up. Another, and you feel your muscles flutter, rocking forward like you can escape the little electric current that links the spot he struck to your clit.
The strikes pause. Give you a moment to breathe. Your heart rate is up. Those last two strikes hit just right to give you a plethora of mixed signals making your arousal go haywire.
“Six days of subpar obedience. Two days of late reports. One day of truancy. One drunken display of willfulness.” Silco tallies up your offenses. “That’s ten.”
The next words out of his mouth take extra long to process, because the edge of the crop has traced that delicious curve again, and this time he takes advantage of your widened legs to press the flat of it against the cotton of your underwear. You can’t think for a whole second, legs shaking, a hunger itching behind your navel. A needy little whine pulls in your throat before you press lips together in an attempt to stop from pleading. He has to initiate. You need his hands on you so damn badly, but he has to be the one to do it of his own volition.
You may not be able to control much, but that’s the one goal you have.
Finally the rest of his words register.
“…Add in your failure to complete the tasks I assigned, and a stunning inability to follow simple guidelines for behavior today… and I think we can tot it up to fifteen.”
The crop taps gently between your legs, and you can’t help the little noise you make. The next tap is less gentle, a firm slap along the length of your slit that makes you cry out, hands curling into fists on the desk and head bowed. Need throbs in you.
“Fifteen strokes.”
When he pulls the implement away, you can hardly stop the thin whine as you bite your tongue.
He replaces that pain momentarily, the leather tress of the crop snapping against your ass. It’s better than your thighs, though not quite so good as the spot where both meet.
“One,” he counts.
Not so bad. Neither is the second, on the opposite side.
The intensity of every other strike amps up, slapping against already reddened skin. And then the unthinkable happens.
“Seven-”
“Th—” You quickly press your lips between your teeth, stifling the words that very nearly escaped.
Silco stops. Heated flesh burns, and you just want him to soothe it away, but the crop leaves your skin entirely. As soon as it’s gone, you crave contact. Any contact. You press your forehead to your fist, swaying hips back as you shift impatiently, eyes squeezed shut.
For a moment, the only sound is heavy breath, and you’re not sure it’s yours alone. Silence seems to ring with the echo of leather against skin.
“…Speak freely.” It’s unusually quiet. Maybe even careful.
“It—” Your own realization brings another rush of heat to your face. “It’s nothing, I— it’s fine, you can— You— nnh.” Nevermind naming what exactly he’s doing to you.
The way he says your name makes your stomach flip. Firm, but soft. Warning, but not intimidating. “What were you going to say?”
Swallowing hard, you have to clear your throat before the words come. Because you hadn’t stopped yourself from begging, hadn’t stopped the please from your lips. No. You’d been about to say-
“Thank— thank you.” It’s weak, choked out, embarrassment making your extremities tingle with pins and needles.
Silco goes still and silent.
[next part]
[Ahem. So uh. Yeah.
Anyway, I posted earlier than I meant to, cause I’m not done with 28 yet, but y’know what I wanted a sinday release. And the goal is for 26 to go up on thirsty Thursday, but tbh it may be a week-long wait and for that I apologize. I promise it’ll be worth it for what’s coming up. 4k+ smutty smutty content.
Standard begging applies: please boost this post if you like it! I load up posts with links and I think sometimes that affects what makes it to the main tags. And after this I am in need of REACTIONS, PLEASE. I know some people aren’t into impact (in which case uh… something else is coming next chapter I promise 👀) so please reassure me if this is something you DID stick around for. 😅 All tags are devoured, and all comments on ao3 get replied to (and most here as well).
If you missed the reverse POV for what happened between 23 and 24, you can find it here: Sobering Thoughts. And if you want to be notified when the next chapter and/or reverse pov posts, you can join the tag list by commenting on this linked post.
Sorry if anyone felt uncomfortable with this chapter >< ❤️ -verbs]
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Text
A Helping Hand - Part 28
[start here] || Part 27 || Part 28 || Part 29
[Silco POV for 24, 25, 26, 27, if you missed them]
[awesome art of riding crop Silco from @steponmesilco icymi 👀]
[silco x f!reader] [2.6k words] [no y/n] [during timeskip] [touch-starved reader] [henchwoman!reader] [rated M] [needle and blood mentions] [tween Jinx] [gun-related PTSD]
AO3 Link
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“Okay, I know I’m probably going to regret this, but… what happened with you two?”
Sevika is propped up against the wall beside where you’re poised with one of Jinx’s paintball guns, while the kid herself is tinkering with the settings of the moving targets, and drawing up new ones on the plywood that used to be a barrier to the first floor of the warehouse.
“Me and Jinx?” You may be being purposefully obtuse. “Nothing. Why?”
Her flat look isn’t fooled. “The old man.”
“He’s not that old.”
Dark brows raise, and you realize too late that she may not have been quite so aware as you thought, but that little slip up certainly helped.
“He’s at least ten years older than you,” she points out. “So I think it’s fair to call him the old man.”
“Younger than my parents would be.”
Her look seems to say that you’re missing something. It screams at you to listen to something, and you can’t tell what hidden message she’s hearing.
“That’s your criteria?” she asks incredulously. “If he’s old enough to be your father?”
“Gods, no, I just— he isn’t, okay? He’s just—”
Wide eyes and a tilted chin warn you you’d better not be saying what she thinks you’re saying. You wince.
“Nevermind.”
Sevika shakes her head. “He’s like 60,” she deadpans.
“What?! Fuck, Sevika, he’s like 42!” You should not feel this defensive over your boss’s age. Sevika’s sidelong smirk seems to agree. “Don’t be a dick,” you grumble.
Her tone is wry. “Actually, he’s 39. Feels ancient, though.”
So much for not getting defensive— “He’s barely older than you!” you argue.
“He’s the most crotchety uptight under-40 I’ve ever seen.”
From the self-satisfied curve of her lips, even if she’s not looking at you, you suspect she may be purposefully bashing him just to get under your skin. Which shouldn’t work. Cause he isn’t anything important to you.
“I swear he keeps like 15 extra years in a pocket dimension,” she drawls.
You scoff a laugh before you can stop yourself. It’s pretty funny.
“Regardless, sure hope you get a handle on this weird crush you have-”
“Not a crush.” Wow, never thought you’d have to have a convo like this. “Definitely not a crush.”
“Yeah, fuckin’ hope so, cause that’s a disaster waiting to happen.”
“—Which is why it isn’t.”
“That’s why?”
What? Wait— “No, it’s— that’s not why, that’s not what I—”
Sevika’s sarcastic mmmhm at your gradual descent to flustered-ness has your ears burning.
“How old is your girlfriend?” you shoot back, going on the offensive.
Her lips press tight for a second, gaze averting. “Don’t have a girlfriend-”
“Your friend, then. The one at Babette’s?” You’ve picked up on a few things through gossip at the Drop.
Grey eyes stay resolutely turned away, but you can feel her sudden rigidity. Ha. Not so nice to be hounded on your insecurities, huh?
“She’s irrelevant.”
“What, like 19?”
“No.” The force with which she refutes your purposefully low guess is insistent. “No, she’s— I don’t know, 24. 25 maybe.”
You snort. “Yeah, and you’re one to talk age gaps.”
“Not the same, we don’t have a employer-”
“You better not be about to say you and your sex worker girlfriend never had a relationship where you paid her.”
You actually see a rosy cast to her cheeks. Good. About time she got flustered instead of you.
“Our relationship is— it’s not exactly…” It’s Sevika’s turn to flounder. “It’s complicated,” she growls, finally.
“Well. Same.”
“Which is much much worse for you than for me.”
She’s objectively correct. “Look, Silco and I don’t have anything like that. We never did.” It’s basically true, right? So he fingerbanged you bent over his desk after thoroughly spanking you with a crop. And a cane. And even his hand a couple times.
That’s… um. That’s… not the same as sex.
Fuck.
“Riiight. So he kicked people out of the Drop a couple days ago because…?”
“He what?”
She blinks surprise. “You seriously didn’t know? People were theorizing. You went up to his office drunk one night, a body got carried out, people thought he killed you then, but the next day you show up and he immediately clears the bar. I’ll be honest, there were bets you’d leave without the hand, if not the arm, and a decent number of people thinking you wouldn’t survive the week. Yet next day he calls me in to say you’re cleared to see Jinx again, which is definitely not what I expected to hear.”
It’s your turn to stare like an idiot. Silco was the one who gave the okay? Well, maybe you should’ve guessed it, but still. It doesn’t make sense, remembering how completely cold he’d been that afternoon.
“So I repeat: what happened between you two? He’s been quiet and it’s creepy. Half the time can’t get him to shut up.”
Nope. Stop it, heart, this isn’t good news, stop beating like there’s hope here. It’s nothing. He’s just… he’s pouting. Or he’s coming to his senses. Or, hopefully, he’s reinstating helpful boundaries, and this is his way of showing it.
Stop, stop the stupid skipping a beat, this means nothing. It means respect, at best, and that should be a bare minimum, not an exciting prospect.
No matter how much you chastise your heart, it’s still fluttering. Like a fucking dumbass.
“I— I just— talked to him. Brought up some frustrations.” That’s close enough. “I didn’t think he’d listen to me.”
“Maybe he did, maybe he didn’t. For all I know this is some elaborate plot; he’s a petty bitch when he wants to be.”
Oh, mood.
Your name is screeched across the length of the shooting gallery, effectively ending the conversation. “It’s working!” Jinx shouts, grinning and waving her spanner in the air as she slams a fist against the button that runs the motor for the moving targets.
It takes you too many tries to get your aim steady.
“You’re being weird.” Jinx kicks her feet against the empty barrel she sits on, licking her fingers with a kebab in the other (paint-stained) hand.
“Am I?” You’ve been settling into the routine surprisingly well, you thought. It’s nice having her back. Feet slotted with hers from your perch opposite, the casual proximity feeding that bottomless pit in you that craves closeness. “How so?”
“I dunno,” she shrugs, pulling a chunk of meat along the skewer until she can bite it off the end. “You an’ Sevika argued earlier and then your aim was shit— sorry. But it’s true.”
“Please consider that I’m operating with a fake hand,” you point out, holding out your prosthesis pointedly. “Remember that part? Big bloody accident, got maimed, replacement hand, all that?”
Jinx snorts. “Yeah but you did better before. I beat you every single round this time.”
“Have you considered that maybe you’re just really good?” you ask, brows raised. “Like really good, Jinx, you would beat me in my prime.” At least, with paintballs. Thank gods she isn’t shooting live rounds yet— both for the risk to your reputation in the local standings, and for other reasons. Three times since you started working with her in the warehouse you’ve spotted her shooting rats with her paint gun. Nothing lethal as of yet, but it can be a little worrying.
“Yeah yeah,” Jinx rolls her eyes, though there’s a self-satisfied smile on her face. “But you’re usually tougher to beat. What did you an’ Sevika argue about?”
You snort. She’s not wrong. Not entirely, anyway. “We weren’t arguing, just talking.”
Jinx’s brows furrow, face falling into a small frown.
“Honest,” you promise. “Not the kind of arguing that matters, anyway. Still friends.”
She pulls a face. “Shouldn’t be.”
Bemused, you raise a brow at the kid, but take another long swig of water before speaking (no food eight hours before meeting with Singed, meaning post-training lunch was your last chance, two hours ago). “Shouldn’t be friends with Sevika?” After making an effort to thaw her chilly exterior? “Why not?”
“She hates me.” Jinx’s lips twist, color high on her cheeks. Angry? Embarrassed, maybe? Or ashamed. Some combo of all three, perhaps. “Hates being stuck with me. Hates me for— just hates me,” she mutters bitterly.
“I find that hard to-”
“It’s cause her arm,” the kid interrupts, before her mouth snaps shut. Her kicking has stopped.
You try to add up the clues you’ve gotten, but they aren’t quite making sense. Scooting forward, you knock your knees against hers, trying to offer some kind of proof that you’re staying close. And maybe partly cause her sudden mood change worries you. Any time she seems upset you’re worried. There’s a bond there, between the two of you, some kind of recognition that resonates feelings, reflects them back, and her anxiety makes you anxious. Just like her joy makes you joyful.
“Hey,” you nudge her foot, pointedly. “If you don’t want to talk about it, you don’t have to. But you’re still my friend, okay? I’m not picking her over you.” You barely refrain from pointing out that you can have multiple friends. Something tells you Jinx doesn’t want to hear that, not in this moment.
The worry in her brief too-open gaze sends a pang through your chest. “I’m your best friend, though, right?” she asks.
Shit. It feels about accurate to that age, at least. Always needing to know you mattered to someone, that you had social standing. Not an insecurity you’d expect from Jinx, but maybe she just never felt threatened before. You were her captive friend.
Maybe you shouldn’t validate that kind of thinking, but— “Uh huh.” Her visible relief encourages you; you hold out a crooked finger. “Best friends.”
Jinx grins as she hooks her finger with yours. “Fuck yeah.”
“Fuck yeah,” you repeat, like an oath. “Now, if I’m not mistaken, I think you insulted my aim.” You hop off your perch, smacking the bottom of her foot with your canteen. “Finish eating so I can beat you fair and square.”
“Psh, yeah right.”
The euphoria of having Jinx so close - the sheer joy you get from having her cling and climb and wrap arms around you - is tempered every other night by your painfully detached meetings with the Doctor.
A day of shooting with Jinx, followed by an evening nap, and then being drained of blood and told your progress is uninspiring but acceptable. Glowing praise, truly.
A day spent dragging Jinx along to training and letting her thoroughly pummel you just as often as you sent her gleefully screeching form soaring into plushly padded crash mats. A long shower, watching the faint shadow of marks from your day with Silco fading, and early bedtime.
A day of Jinx excitedly showing off her prototype for the Poppet gun, an evening spent icing your sore limbs, and a night of blood loss and five total sentences of communication, one of which was ‘stay still.’
A day letting Jinx pick out a buffet of food options on Silco’s dime. (In other words: a mistake.)
A day spent indulging in combing and braiding Jinx’s hair as she read out her history homework, an evening spent sitting in bed slowly braiding your own hair to match - trying not to think about the glove on your hand, and utterly failing - only to have that effort completely ignored by the Doctor in favor of once again taking blood and barely speaking.
You pass out after that one— or at least white out for a few minutes before waking, spluttering, to a face full of cold water.
“Why are you unconscious? Bloodwork shows nothing out of the ordinary.”
“How the fuck should I know,” you growl, wringing out your braided hair. “Maybe it’s all that fucking bloodwork you’re so keen on.” After every unproductive meeting, wobbling home dizzy, grimacing against the roll of the ground as you walked.
Singed frowns. “How else am I to know you’re correctly maintaining your prosthesis and metabolizing the hydraulic bleed?”
“I don’t know— however you did it the last two weeks?” Your voice is biting, lips pressed thin as you turn away, attempting to regain control of your temper. At this point, you’d rather just go back to Silco.
—The thought hurts more than you expect. A twisting pain in your chest, talons dug into your esophagus and tugging.
The Doctor still has that same frown. “I’ll determine an alternative.”
“Can’t you just take my word for it?” It’s so tiring to be doubted so much, you never realized before. “I have no reason to lie to you.”
His loose gesture is dismissive. “Find yourself food. Our next meeting I’ll have an alternate method.”
Things don’t go entirely to plan.
The food part does, at least. On the way home, stopping in at a market halfway between the Doctor’s lab and your lodging house, stuffing yourself on a couple top-notch hand pies and taking a couple more for the road.
But leaving the market you feel the tug on your waist that signals interference (just one of the reasons you only keep part of your coin on your belt), and grab for the wrist automatically with your prosthesis.
Maybe if you could feel what you were doing you would’ve been able to get it right. As it is, you instead feel the scrape of the blade across your arm by the vibrations on your stump beneath.
It all happens so fast.
Feeling the thief snatching for your money, grabbing for their hand, a quarter turned as you feel the blade, and halfway turned as your good hand moves to your pistol.
Finding a gun in your face is unexpected.
Your brain freezes.
Instinct, entirely instinct, takes over as you disconnect.
The next thing you know the shot is ringing in your ears, blood spattering your boots. You stare, unseeing, at the man staggered to the floor, blood leaking from the bullet hole in his shoe, one hand clutching his knee for stability, the other still on the gun.
Another shot hits his shoulder and the scream cuts through.
You stop yourself from aiming for the head. He’ll need to be questioned, have to know who hired him, who thought it was smart to bring a gun into—
A blink, and you’re back in reality, gun cocked at the kid whose hands have raised in panicked surrender.
Some distant part of you feels sick. Heart racing, dizzy, but floating unmoored from your surroundings. It feels like you’re on uneven ground, hovering, or bobbing in the Pilt.
When you have no words to say, the kid turns tail and runs.
You’re not proud of it. You aren’t. It’s habit, or fear, or some confusion between memory and reality. That gun was in your face and you can’t get it out of your head—
You shoot him.
Immediate regret turns your stomach. Your hand buzzes from the recoil, staring unblinking at the kid— fuck, he’s got to be no older than Efin, a teenager, just some kid trying to make a fast buck lifting purses in a crowded market. And now he’s on the ground, wailing, sobbing and clutching his leg, the bloody mess of a wound to his ankle. If he has a lookout, they aren’t rushing to his aid.
His gun is forgotten, and as glassy eyes drift to it, an icy chill seeps into your bones. A fake. It’s so obviously a fake. Of course it is; a kid like him couldn’t get his hands on a real gun, even on the infinitesimal chance he could afford one. A paintball gun painted to look like the real thing, meant to scare people into complying, not to kill them.
Your brain is dead, low static, feeling the feelings but unable to think in words.
There’s noise around you, but you can’t process it, can’t make meaning from the sounds.
You turn on your heel and walk away, already feeling the tremors start.
[next part]
[Ooof. Sorry for the wait guys >< Life, as it often does, has been getting in the way and my brain has been stalling out like crazy lately. I’m not quite done with 31, but I figure I can make y’all stop waiting before I hit the two week mark. Might be another wait, if I can’t get my brain to crank into gear, but at least I have a couple more chapters in reserve for just this sort of thing 😅 At the very least I’ll end up posting around the 15-16th because I’m going out of town and I always like to have that pick-me-up whenever I’m done being stuck driving or flying or on a train or whatever it is. Hopefully brain works before then, but at the latest we’ve got that to look forward to!
Anxiety and depression have been kicking my ass lately, so I can’t promise replies to every single comment right away, but I do always love to see comments and tags and reactions regardless 🥹 Standard plugs apply; reblog if you liked it, check it on ao3, check the revPOVs both here and ao3 if you missed them (I don’t think detachment is up on ao3 yet, but that will probably go up next week). If you want to be tagged in future posts, comment on this linked post to get added to the tag list.
Thanks everyone so much for sticking around. I love the love you all give me, love the support from this super loving bunch of fanatics in this mad corner of the internet. ❤️ -verbs]
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x-amount-verbs · 1 year
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A Helping Hand - Part 29
[start here] || Part 28 || Part 29 || Part 30
[silco x f!reader] [2.9k words] [no y/n] [during timeskip] [touch-starved reader] [henchwoman!reader] [rated M] [gun-related PTSD]
AO3 Link
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Things are mixed up in your head. A jumble of reality and memory, mashing together that night and minutes ago. You don’t even realize you’re going the wrong way until you’re halfway there, limbs feeling stiff and squeaky as you walk.
The Damascus street gym is locked. You stand outside, blank, for some amount of time. You have to be here in the morning anyway. Convenient if you could just blink and have it be morning.
It’s unclear how long you’re there, staring at a locked door. Eventually, exhausted, you press a hand to the metal, rest your forehead against it as you close your eyes. Your body has started to calm down, but your brain is still messy. Voice stolen, mouth sealed shut. A buzz in your head that keeps you from fully thinking anything out, so loud to drown out noise around you.
A questioning voice calls your name, and you turn your head, opening bloodshot eyes to someone half-familiar. You know a name and a face, but only in passing.
“You looking for—” They falter. “…You okay?”
“Hn.” Your single nod shouldn’t be particularly encouraging, not when you can’t even get yourself to speak, but you don’t know each other so they take it at face value.
“Need to be let in?”
“Mmhm.” Lips pressed thin into a polite smile more like a grimace, you give another, “hn,” to substitute for thanks as you peel away from their path after entering, and head straight for the locker rooms.
Should take a cold shower. Something to shock you out of your head.
Leather slapping against your skin, forcing you into the present. An inability to focus on anything else.
That would work, too.
The shot was ranged, not close enough to splatter, so your clothes are free of blood. But you still wear them into the shower as if they aren’t, too tired to change, and sensing the blood there regardless of its existence. Palms on the tile, the cold water drags your mind to the surface, like an anchor pulled to the bow, crystalizing behind, a solid block of ice to stop you sinking deep again.
By the time you realize what a completely fucking stupid idea you’ve had, it’s too late.
“…Shit.” You drag your hand against your face, clearing water from your eyelashes as you push aside the curtain and step out.
Fucking idiot.
You fumble to undo your holster, your belt, letting it all drop onto the floor. So much for saving that food for later, it’s undoubtedly ruined by whatever water made it into your belt pouch. Your gun shouldn’t be submerged either, so who knows what damage that’s caused. You attempt to tug off your boots, unable to balance until you lean against the wall and scrabble at the laces, tipping a good quarter cup of water out of them once you have them off. Dumbly running a hand through your hair, you grimace as the prosthetic fingers tangle in the braids from earlier.
“Stupid…” You grumble, wrestling off half-soaked clothes one item at a time.
They cling. The more you notice it the more claustrophobic you feel. The more claustrophobic you feel, the more desperately you try to pull, the more they seem to cling.
By the time you’ve stripped down to your underwear, panic is choking you. You lurch back into the shower stall, gasping under the cold water, finally feeling able to breathe as you unhook the front of your bra and peel it away.
Just cold water. And breath.
Just breath.
Breathe.
Fuck shit fucking dammit. What the fuck is going on. Why did you do that? Why did you do this?
Goosebumps bloom under the freezing cold water, but you feel more awake than ever. Fingers carefully undo the wet ties on the braids you’d made to match Jinx’s, grimacing as hair tugs and pinches.
This is bad. You’ve never felt so… detached before today. Divorced from your own body, your own mind, somehow gone and trapped at once. It doesn’t make sense, when you’d succeeded that night— the night of the shooting, you’d saved a life, spared another (for the time being), and been completely in control the whole time. Adrenaline had kept you sane and steady, had let you stay calm despite not knowing the fate of your hand.
But one fake gun pointed in your face and it all crumbles?
You comb through wet hair, jaw tight to stop your teeth from chattering. Eventually you let yourself turn up the heat to something warmer than straight ice.
It’s terrifying, if you think about it head-on, if you confront the reality of what just happened. Shooting someone without fully making the decision to do so. So you try not to remember, try not to look at the situation directly. Think around it. Let it stand as a blank space, a fogged haze, as you deal with the rest, to confront later.
Where are you now? What’s your current predicament?
Well, it’s some time after… who knows. After 11? Maybe midnight, or 1. You have no idea how much time has passed. Could be minutes, could be hours. For all you know, the sun is coming up in Piltover right about now.
You’re supposed to be at this gym at 10am. At least, that’s the schedule you’ve been keeping to. You managed to warn Wren one day that you might be late the next, and she’d been shockingly understanding. Hopefully she’ll be understanding of you showing up hours early and - you realize the inevitably of it - sleeping in the locker room.
Well, it won’t be the first time you’ve napped here, at least.
Don’t think about what happened, think about how to fix it.
Right. Yes. Good.
You have to get used to guns again. Whatever it takes. You’ll lurk at the shooting range all day if you have to. Hear gunshot after gunshot.
Stop— stop it, stupid stupid pulse, calm down, this is theoretical. Stop the racing, stop the tightness in the chest, just— stop.
You turn the faucet back to colder water, angrily; if your body won’t cooperate, you’ll just shock it again until it does.
This is sane and normal behavior and I am totally fine.
Gods, you don’t believe a solid third of your self-talk these days.
The cold water does its job, leaving you shivering and blue-lipped, but all signs of panic retreated in favor of responding to the physical shock of it. Turning the heat up again, you shed the last of your forgotten underwear and try to actually bathe, wash your hair, do all of those good reassuring things that make you feel normal and human.
You’ll sleep here. You’ll talk to Wren when she gets in.
You’ll get past this.
You have to get past this.
“Hey— not to alarm you or anything, but what the fuck.”
Opening bleary eyes, you find Wren looking down at you, brows furrowed in a transparent concern you rarely see on anyone in the Undercity.
“Hn. Morning,” you mumble, good hand rubbing at your eyes as you struggle to sit up.
“Gods—” Wren averts her eyes, holding out a hand, “keep the towel on, please.”
You glance down blearily. “Oh. Yeah.” Didn’t have dry clothes. At least you had the foresight to drape the wet ones over another locker room bench. You half ignore Wren’s request, letting the towel fall to your waist as you look around for your stuff. It doesn’t look that much drier than when you fell asleep. “What time is it?”
“6:30.” Again, she pleads, this time by name.
“Fine, fine,” you gesture loosely with the prosthetic hand and use the towel you’d had as a pillow to wrap around your shoulders. “I don’t see what the big deal is, you have boobs too.”
“It’s— different.”
“Not really. So yours came later, it’s all the same general stuff.” Gods, you’re sore. You grimace.
“Not cause— not cause you’re naked, cause it’s 6:30 in the morning and I’m supposed to be opening the gym and instead I come in to find a wanted woman, nude, sleeping in my locker room, potentially drunk-”
“Wanted?” That wakes you up. “Janna, I’m wanted? By who? The kid was trying to steal from me, it was— I mean, at least it was somewhat justified; I didn’t kill him.”
“Kid?” Wren’s gaze sharpens as well, embarrassment ebbing in favor of shrewd evaluation. “What kid?”
“You answer mine first.”
“Silco. Or Sevika. Maybe some other chem baron and they’re getting to you first, don’t know, just know eyes are out looking for you. Didn’t tell me why, just heard you weren’t at your place when they went looking. You drunk?”
They went looking? It shouldn’t make your stomach flip that way. You should feel scared or ashamed, not fluttery. “No. Sleep-deprived, but not drunk.”
“Then why the hell you sleeping in my locker room?”
You stare for a second, the reality of the situation coming back to you. You can feel the pained furrow between your brows as you look away. “I dunno. I freaked out. Or— I blacked out, I don’t know. A kid tried to mug me and I shot him. And then I was here. I’m not—” You feel your heart rate picking up again, and grit your teeth, forcing your breath steady. “I don’t think anything else happened in between. Just came here and— and took a shower. I mean, I have to be here in three hours, anyway.”
“…In your clothes?” Wren’s wry words are almost a relief, and when you look at her she has a brow raised at your clothes draped over the other bench.
“Didn’t want to pay the laundry service,” you say, tone dry.
“…They do like to overcharge.”
Something loosens in your chest. She doesn’t hate you, isn’t mad at you, doesn’t think you’re insane— probably, at least. And maybe you’re not. No: you definitely aren’t insane. It’s just… just bad memories, that’s all. Fucking with your head. You’ll get over it.
“So I guess I’m in early.”
“And you need a change of clothes.”
“That too, yeah.” You hesitate. Finally, some degree of shame creeps in. “…Can you help?”
The look she turns on you is uncharacteristically soft in the eyes, despite the firm line of her mouth. “Thought you’d never ask.”
You never would’ve. Before your injury you never needed to, content to handle everything alone. You are too damn lucky to have allies like Wren. Friends, even.
By the time you’re dressed in some spare clothes from the community storerooms, you’ve realized just how exhausted you are. When did you fall asleep, 1? 2? And awake again just a few hours later? All of that after whatever happened last night - this morning? - that had you a shivering wreck.
Yeah, you’re fuckin’ tired.
Wren gives in to your not-so-subtle pleading to skip out on opening the gym and doing the end-of-night (or earliest morning) drills that some graveyard shift regulars like to do. You will never understand people who go to the gym after work instead of heading home, when it’s any time past 2am.
Instead, she opens up the makeshift infirmary that’s usually locked unless there’s an emergency, and directs you to the cot.
“When you’re awake, we should talk plans for the day.”
Oh good, you were worried she’d ask what happened last night, ask for more details. You cannot handle that right now. Possibly not ever. Ideally this whole incident will be completely forgotten and you’ll never have to think of it again.
They went looking for you.
The sudden rush of heat as your face flushes with mortification makes your head spin, and you roll over to face away from the infirmary door. Gods, they went looking for you. You made enough of a fool of yourself that they had to seek you out to mitigate the damage. And then Wren just assumed you were drunk… You really did humiliate yourself that night at the Drop, didn’t you? If people are so quick to assume you’re a drunken nuisance.
You groan, closing your eyes. At least you can hide from your responsibilities just a little bit longer.
Inaccurate: your responsibilities have found you.
A few hours later, when your body is satisfied that it’s gotten enough sleep, you surface from unconsciousness to find Sevika dozing in a chair. Specifically, in a chair placed unavoidably between you and the door to the infirmary.
For a hot second, you consider pretending to be asleep again, waiting for her to wake up, get bored of waiting, and leave— but 100% you know she’ll wake you once she runs out of patience. Kinda shocked she let you sleep as long as she has. What time is it, anyway?
Habit has you reaching for the spot on your waist where you’d usually keep your timepiece, before remembering it’s still with your wet clothes after your mindless trudge into the shower after midnight. Grimacing, you wonder how ruined your kit is.
“Awake?” You must’ve missed Sevika’s stirring. Or maybe she really was half awake the whole time.
“No,” you mumble, half sheepish half spiteful.
Sevika’s scoff at least sounds somewhat amused. Can’t tell if it’s with you or at you, though.
“Fuck, girl, what the hell happened last night?”
She doesn’t know? “I shot a guy.”
“Yeah, we picked up on that part. But why weren’t you at your place?”
Your brain gradually dissects her loose tone. Not angry, not even strict; she really is amused.
“I shot a guy,” you repeat, pointedly.
Sevika’s brows quirk, bemused. The way she says your name has dry humor to rival Silco’s. “That’s literally your job, kid. You shoot people a lot— or used to, when necessary.”
Ok— well, she’s right, but- “This guy didn’t need to get shot.”
“You didn’t kill him,” she points out, shrugging a shoulder. “I’m sure it was justified-”
“I didn’t mean to do it,” you blurt. A flush burns on your cheeks, your ears, your neck.
Grey eyes narrow. Lips thin. But she doesn’t say anything.
The burn feels hotter, more ashamed. “He pointed a gun at me— it wasn’t even a real gun, Sevika, gods— he pointed a gun, and it was that night all over again.”
Her silence is far from reassuring.
You babble to fill the empty air. “It was a fucking paintball gun. I shot him because he had a paintball gun,” you can’t help the hint of disgust in your tone. “And then I— I don’t know. I just blacked out, and then I was here.”
All amusement has disappeared from her face, the bluish scars on her cheek seeming etched deeper. “…You know I have to tell him that, right?”
You blink. “If I’m honest, I kinda already thought he knew.” You’re not sure why. It just… feels like he’d know, instinctually. Which is stupid. You haven’t seen him in nearly a week, there’s no reason he should know anything about your life, let alone what was going on in your head when you shot a teenaged mugger.
There’s no question of who he is. Sevika is Silco’s right hand, and— Well, your right hand is his.
“You really had people out looking for me?”
Sevika grimaces. “Not quite. There’s a kid paid to keep an eye on your place - to make sure no one’s going after the investment, all that - and he usually gives the ok when you’re back at your place for the night.”
The blank expression you give her hides a flurry of emotions. Surprise, yes, but more importantly some mix of indignant and flattered. Some little spark of hope that you quickly stifle. Some hint of care. Should you be angry that Silco has you watched? Or have this fluttery feeling that he’s trying to protect you? You’re the investment, he’d made that clear— to you, at least, if not his people.
“When that didn’t come, someone traced back to the lab, heard about a shooting, your description, but all witnesses seemed to think it was justified. …Kinda the risk of mugging someone,” she muses with cynical humor.
Brows lift, tilting your head. She’s not wrong.
“He asked me to check your place, so I did. Since you weren’t there, we put out some feelers.”
Is it weird that her use of ‘we’ is as heartwarming as it is embarrassing? It’s nice to know people look for you when you’re missing, even if it’s mildly mortifying that while they were looking for you you were half-catatonic, fully clothed, in a cold shower. You cringe.
Sevika’s tone goes wry again. “We called it a night and then 7-fucking-AM I get woken up and told Wren called it in, and you’re both alive and crashing at the gym.” Her tone makes it clear that she sees absolutely no logic in choosing this place.
“I have 10am practice,” you mutter, cheeks stained.
A beat of silence, and Sevika snorts. “No you don’t.”
Your brow furrows. “Uh, yeah, I do.”
Her lips are curving to a knowing smirk as she shakes her head. “No, you don’t.”
“Yes, I do.”
Another scoffed laugh. “Kid, it’s 2pm. And if you think you aren’t being called straight to the boss’s office, your brain must still be M.I.A.”
Well, if it wasn’t, it is now.
[next part]
[Welp. It’s been a bit. In all honesty, my writing ability has kinda up and disappeared, but I had 2.8 chapters in the backlog, so as a holiday/new year gift, have 29 and 30 (and hopefully 31, though I need to figure out how the heck to end it). I’m notoriously bad at finishing things, but hopefully these three chapters will offer resolution on… 👀 a few things.
Funny how last time I said I’d post on the 15-16th, and… well, I guess I’m 3 months late, but it IS the 16th, and I AM going out of town today, so I was technically telling the truth! 😅 I know I haven’t been replying to comments (typical shame and guilt for not updating), but I’ll be getting to those now that I have a plan for posting, and have accepted the hard truth that brain no like write right now. Regardless, I still love reading peoples thoughts and reactions, so please drop a comment or tag!
Insert your usual plugs-per-chapter; give it a reblog if you liked it, check it out on AO3 (I always recommend subscribing, so if/when I update, you don’t have to be checking every single day and be disappointed ><), and you can find the reverse POV pieces on AO3 and tumblr. Get added to the tag list by commenting on this linked post, so you’ll know when the last of the end-of-year gifts drop! ^^
I can’t thank y’all enough for sticking around and loving this fic, even if I’m flaky as hell when it comes to finishing things when my brain won’t cooperate 🤦‍♀️ I adore each and every one of you, and appreciate you to the ends of the earth. Also… I may have commissioned a few pieces of Ivy (reader OC) that I’ll try to post before the end of the year as well. There are some amazing artists on tumblr, and I love just searching the ‘commissions open’ tag and finding cool styles to comm. Some discord friends have already seen me freak out over comms, so they know what’s coming 😁 Thanks for all the support, and hope you’re staying cozy this winter! (/cool this summer, for the Southern Hemisphere folks) ❤️ -verbs]
Tag list: @hawk4president @mello-jello29 @jennrosefx @dad-dumpster @ellhd-imagination @zuckerwattencupcake @meep-moop-mystic @sherwood-forests @ariaud @witxhy-lexx @mazikomo @leave-me-alone-doctor @antoine-tte @wisteria-songs @imalovernotahater @eriseffigy @leorioaki @artificialwords @hehicular-hanslaughter-lecter @ironandglass @ughhhh177 @faraige @ilikemymendarkandfictional @jennithejester @insult-2-injury @iz-zy5 @rinadragomir @queenofspades6 @cuddlejeongin @differentladynerd @leo-the-undead @silcoitus @stepsonsilco @commotionpotion @averagecrastinator @eurydicethesage @mialobo @wierdestmoppet @bumble-bee-17 @sonicbananawithbowtie @venommie @sheisacryptid @cuckconnosieur @yew-over-there
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x-amount-verbs · 2 years
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Detachment (4/4)
(A Helping Hand pt 27 - Silco POV)
[previously, Dominance: pt 24’s reverse POV; Discipline: pt 25’s reverse POV; Desire: pt 26’s reverse POV]
[silco x f!reader/oc] [2507 words] [nsfw] [D/s] [sexual content] [glove kink] [sadist!silco] [silco is a fucking bastard]
(series headers via this piece by @dad-dumpster )
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Pushing her over the edge is incredibly gratifying— the noises, the way her body bows and writhes, the flood of her release dripping down his wrist as she tries to close her legs, tries to escape the stimulation, and he doesn’t let her.
Silco is fairly sure he’d be this rock hard from only one of them - the sound, the feel, or the sight - but he’s lucky enough to have all three. Which is probably why, as soon as she has suffered through an aftershock - and then another little shivering moan as he pulls out - and is resting against the desk (conscious at first, and then undoubtedly unconscious), he finally lets himself indulge.
At first it’s just her own lubrication on his glove, though he’s quickly leaking his own arousal as well, and soon he fully falls to the temptation. Rough strokes, gaze searing into her, drinking in the reddened marks, the sweat on her brow, the glistening flush of her defiled cunt. That soft way her lips open at rest, making him want to do terrible things.
Eyes sting, burning with how intensely he stares at her, letting his mind replay every moment, every depraved fantasy, made so much better now that he knows how she looks - sounds - smells - tastes— feels, around his hand.
He fumbles for a handkerchief, and groans low in his throat when he instead pulls her underwear, with its damning stain, from his pocket. Something perverse in him only grows more fervent, more desperate to mark his territory, to ruin her without ruining her.
It seems like no time at all before he’s spilling over his fist, into the waiting garment. The briefest thought of giving them back, putting them on her, having her wear them home, covered in the proof that he—
And then reality hits.
Gods. This… this wasn’t how it was supposed to go. He’s supposed to be in control of this— He is in control of this, and her— her seduction can’t—
Can’t—
He’s still panting, coming down from the high of orgasm. This is too much, too quickly. He can undo her, but she can’t be allowed to undo him.
Self control. Self restraint.
The shame and disgust as he cleans himself up with her panties is painful. Sick. He can’t behave like this, not in reality, not anywhere outside of his own locked rooms. Well— not anywhere, unless he’s alone.
Suspicious eyes dart to her collapsed form, demandingly, as he rebuttons his trousers. No, she’s still dozing. Utterly destroyed by his hand— as she should be. And utterly unaware of his own self destruction in her name.
Good.
Best she never finds out. Best he gets over this, slows it down, takes his time in setting out a plan if this is to continue. A way that keeps her needing but not needed.
Slow deliberate breaths.
There’s a way to have what he wants, he’s sure. He just needs time to think of it.
She trusts you.
She shouldn’t. Or— no, she should, but—
Is he violating that trust? Is he violating her? No, no— she wanted this. Wants this, he’s sure.
She deserves better.
He shakes his head, trying to shoo the thought away.
How dare she make him feel like this. How dare she make him feel, full stop.
There’s too much too slow in his mind. Nothing wants to stick, concerns and ideas all flowing into one another. He needs to focus, but he can’t, not with her here, like a time bomb ready to go off as soon as she stirs.
It can wait.
Send her on her way, and he’ll think about it later, come up with a solution later.
Just breathe.
Have a smoke.
He sets aside soiled items and retrieves all he needs from the sitting area. Not so callous to leave her fully alone, he posts himself beside her against the desk, awaiting her inevitable awakening. Once she comes to, once she’s had her breather, he’ll graciously excuse her. Let her leave, then think things through without distractions.
Ash tray set on the desk, he pulls the cigar from his lips and rolls it between his fingers, then takes up the guillotine. One snip. Cutter down, lighter up, and he toasts the end carefully before properly lighting. The first mouthful begins to settle his nerves. Smooth smoke and a careful balance of breath and taste to avoid inhaling the brunt of it.
A sideways glance spots her still bare backside, and he delicately fixes that immodesty. That’s done for now. He needs time to process.
He stares at the door, letting the muscle memory of the smoking soothe the panic she caused.
She’s just a girl.
It’s just a game.
No reason to throw a tantrum if he lost a round, he’ll simply get better before the next. Or fix the rules. Or… something.
She stirs, and his breath is frozen in his chest, eyes ahead but mind on her quiet shifting beside him. No words, so he takes another mouthful.
Relax. Calm.
Despite the aid of the ritual smoking has become for him, he’s still stiff. Still holding that familiar neutral mask. Planning out a response, a way to get rid of her so he can think. What’s the proper reaction after that? Well done? Thank you for your cooperation?
She’s awake, he knows she’s awake, so why hasn’t she said anything? Some defensive part of him wants to say the game is over, she’s her own creature, he doesn’t have orders for her.
For too long, there’s silence. Finally, he lets out a stream of smoke and a sigh. Go on, then. Say your piece. With enough time, he may even find a way to answer her inevitable questions.
He turns very slightly to look down at her, and the look in her eyes terrifies him. He feels a shack in a windstorm, frantically nailing shutters closed as she tries to pry them open with that look.
So clear, so plain, like she’s staring straight through him.
His heart races, but the familiar pattern of smoking keeps him calm. He just needs— time. He needs time to think. He can’t deal with her right now.
Something pierces straight through his chest with that tiny pinch between her brows, that twinge of pain and loss.
If she’s looking for guidance, he can’t offer it. There’s no map in his hands. He needs time to survey that future, to plot that course, determine how he can continue— if he can continue.
Guilt is not a feeling he enjoys. Worry and fear and insecurity— if he’d known they would be the aftermath of what he’d done, he never would’ve gone through with it.
Defensive accusations sprout up easily. Temptress. Seductress. Some complex scheme to control him, to get in his head. He waits for her demands, for whatever she’ll say to attempt to wrap him around her finger. Whatever it is, he refuses to fall to it. It’s his game, his rules, and he’s the one in control.
She finally looks away, shakily pulling herself up to stand. He can’t watch. Watching will only put him under her spell. He needs to get rid of her so his brain can work properly.
The sound of her prosthesis dragging across the desktop makes the hair on the back of his neck stand on end, even as his breath stays so even, the pattern easy to maintain. She’s pulled herself to her full height, only slightly propped up by the desk, facing him.
Too close. She’s too close. It’s oppressive, being stared at like that, and he stubbornly maintains his cold gaze, set dead ahead. He refuses to back down to her. Her and her softness. Her vulnerability. That need that pulls at him like a void, dragging his attention away from what he ought to be thinking of.
He spots the motion immediately, the little lift to her hand—
No.
The panic is barely contained, just managing not to flinch as he shifts his leg out of her reach.
No. His rules. His game. She’s— he can’t handle that. Can’t handle her right now. He just needs time, can’t she just give him time? He can’t think like this!
There’s a pause. A moment for him to breathe, but it’s not enough. Not with her right there, forcing his body into high alert.
“You changed your mind awfully quick.” Her voice is neutral. That’s proof, isn’t it? That her softness is fake, her vulnerability a trap, all some complex ploy to— something. It has to be something to want him weak. He can’t think why— can hardly think at all, but surely there has to be a reason.
Too many feelings. She’s forcing emotions on him. He refuses to fall for her tricks.
“About what.” He treats her like an enemy. Like another chem baron, plotting something. It’s easy to keep on the cool facade, measuring her up, meeting her with even confidence as his gaze slides sideways to meet hers.
Is this about the sex? Defensiveness demands he prove her wrong. He didn’t change his mind. “You initiated this.” He would’ve been content just to hurt her—
The twinge through his chest makes his jaw clench for a moment, and he brings the cigar to his lips to hide any sign of it. Not hurt— or— yes hurt, but not— not hurt—
He doesn’t feel guilty.
This is on her. She’s the one who brought it up, last night. She’s the one who thanked him. She’s the one who fucking took her pants off for gods’ sake.
“I gave you plenty of opportunities to stop.”
He stares at the door, willing her out of it. Whatever she’s doing to him, he hates it. Time, he just needs time— can’t she give him some time and some space to think things out, to come up with a plan, an approach, to sort out what’s happening—
“…I can’t do this again.” It sounds like a realization. Almost a revelation, and one she can’t believe she’s made.
Again? He shoots his gaze over to her, neck stiffened in place, refusing to give her his full attention. What’s this ‘again’? Proof she’s done this before? Ruined some other man? “Who else have-”
“We can’t do this again.”
Oh. The relief is frustrating, but the tension in his neck eases, and he grabs back control of the room, forcing her to wait as he takes another mouthful of smoke, slowly. Letting his nerves calm.
This. Right. That makes sense; this was too far. Even if she started it, it was too far. And it can’t happen again. He doesn’t want it to happen again. That’s fine. This is fine.
He pulls out the moment a little longer, just to prove to himself— no, to her— that he can. That he still holds the reins in this dynamic. Even if they never need to view them quite so explicitly again. “…Understood.” No more corporal punishment. Fines will suffice. “We’ll return to financial-”
“I’d like to see the Doctor instead.”
What? The tension is back, barely able to keep himself from snapping his head sideways, resulting in a short motion he stops quickly. The panic hits—
No.
And the anger—
She’s his.
And a shot of hurt he doesn’t expect, confusion, a hit of insecurity that immediately slams his defenses back in place. Chill sets in. She can’t do this to him. His game. He’ll be the one to stop it, and he’s not ready for that. He just needs a day or two to think— he can fix this, get them back to where they were— things were so good, why did she have to ruin it?
He won’t give up his claim on her time. He fumbles for the reins again, that confidence, so assured in his own organization. His rules.
“As I told you; Singed is busy with-”
“It’s five minutes, Silco.”
The interrupting throws him, unsettles him, forces him off balance even without the content of her interruption.
“I’ll get myself to the lab. I’ll do mornings with Wren, I’ll figure out a training schedule.”
It’s only years of practice, a carefully cultivated poker face, that keeps his body still as his eyes dart between hers.
She can’t do this. Don’t leave. She can’t make this choice— she works for him, he’s the one in charge. Please don’t leave. He needs control back, he needs her— needs her under his control, needs to keep her— needs her kept in line. A mess of anger and anxiety roils in his gut. A sneered defense curls his lip.
Why is she doing this?
“You wanted attention,” he points out, coldly. He gave her what she wanted, that’s all.
How can she do this to him?
This is what she wanted. This is her fault. “Practically begged for it, nearly propositioning me— drunk.”
“So you indulged me?”
“Of—” Silencing his tight frustration with a hurried breath from the cigar, forcing himself to calm down, return to chilled arrogance. Gods, of course he indulged her— she thinks he’d do this with just anyone? “What would you call this, if not indulging you?”
“You called it punishment.”
His words are acerbic. “Your particular brand of punishment isn’t exactly standard practices, sweet.” He matches her curled lip. “I merely work to your predilections.”
‘Are you gonna spank me?’ It was her idea that set this in motion.
She looks furious. “I don’t know,” the sarcasm isn’t even veiled anger, “you were the one grinding his cock against my ass.”
He wants to cringe. This was a mistake.
She continues; “I assumed it might be at least somewhat enjoyable for you, too.”
Such a mistake. He never should’ve touched her. Just used her obedience without taking it any further. She’s too clingy, too emotional, she needs too much that he’s not willing to give her. “Your submission is a-”
“That’s really all you want from me?” Her fury is growing, and he refuses to bow to it, even as fingers scratch across the surface of his desk. Her words are practically spat at him. “To play this part for you?”
Honestly, as if he’s the aggressor here! She’s the one who tried to kiss him that day, and she’s the one crossing boundaries he doesn’t want crossed. She likes what he does to her, her body made that very clear. “As if you don’t take every opportunity to fawn over-”
“Shut up. I’m asking you a question.”
No. He absolutely refuses to be ordered around by her. A flash of teeth as he drops his lighter to reach for her— ready to slide his grip into her hair, to remind her how easily she yields under his touch—
His stomach lurches, fear and panic and anger all shooting into his throat as she wrestles his arm down, unbalancing him both literally and figuratively.
This was a mistake.
On her part, on his part, all of it. A horrible mistake.
[😬 What a dumbass.
But hey, now we’ve seen both sides, we can finally move on with the main story :)
:) Right?
Bruh— THIS CHAPTER. I need reactions! Tags, comments, all that! Silco’s denial is so damned strong— he’s so fucking stubborn when he wants to be— they deserve each other, honestly. 🤦‍♀️ This dumbass panicking and being an asshole about it, smh.
Anyway— sorry for the wait! I’ve been working on some audio editing for the podfic 👀 It’s slow but steady, hoping to finish chapter one before next weekend. If you haven’t read the main fic, you can find it on ao3 or tumblr, and the other reverse POVs both on the main masterlist and a series on AO3.
If you want to get notified when the new chapters finally drop, comment on this linked post to join the tag list. Want to finish 31 before I post 28, but so far so good ^^ See you in the next one! ❤️ -verbs]
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Text
Desire (3/4)
(A Helping Hand pt 26 - Silco POV)
[previously, Dominance: pt 24’s reverse POV; Discipline: pt 25’s reverse POV]
[silco x f!reader/oc] [6009 words] [explicit] [impact play (crop, cane, hands)] [D/s] [dacryphilia (tears)] [light degradation] [sadism/masochism] [glove kink] [sexual content] [sadist!silco] [possessive behavior]
(series headers via this piece by @dad-dumpster )
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When this arrangement started, he never thought it would go here. The respect Silco had for her as an employee, the general appreciation for her work, her drive, her skill— he never thought she could be this. Crumbling to want. Discovering her own propensity for this sort of game, her own natural inclinations, purely by chance.
Gods, he wants to hold her face in his hands like a damned gift. So lucky, to witness her degeneracy, to watch the slide from blushing denial to needy acceptance. Like he’s waking her up, making her bloom.
The becoming of a slut.
He shoos that thought away. Less about sex— sensation. This is discipline only. Pain and power. As much as he may want to fuck her, that would need far more consideration.
Still. That thank you, after pain.
There’s an indescribable rush, so much desire to lavish her with praise for such good instincts. You beautiful perfect girl. Such an excellent specimen, and she doesn’t even know. He would kiss her brow, or her jaw, or have her stripped down so he might reward her with more pain— teeth to her neck, her breast, her thighs, bruising her in a way to draw ten more declarations of gratitude.
All words coming to mind are censored. As much as he wants to positively reinforce her saying yes, Silco knows - in theory - that he can’t do anything that might discourage her from saying no if she needs to. So the litany of good girl, perfect, beautiful, excellent girl, is all silenced.
A breath. Then another. If he can’t give positive verbal reinforcement, perhaps the alternative is to give her more of what she’s already admitted to appreciating. Give her more of what she never knew she wanted until now. (The concept of corrupting her is so enticing, so delightful: the thrill of discovery with each new experience.)
If this play does it for her, he is more than willing to provide. In fact, if it does it for her too much, he really ought to pass the point of enjoyment to make it a proper punishment.
It occurs to him that he’ll have to determine a proper reward to make that prospect more appealing than punishment. But as soon as images of her sprawled across his duvet pop into his mind, he has to dismiss them. Later, consider it later.
For now— more discipline.
“I’m s—”
He cuts her off with another snap of the crop to that sweet spot. None of that.
“Again.” To hear her thank him over and over, just from pain alone… Silco’s words come out deeper than before. “Correctly this time.” Another strike, for the sake of symmetry.
“Thank you, Sir.”
The relief in her voice is audible, and it only serves to intensify his own high. The sense of release those three words provide, the honesty of that gratitude. It’s glorious.
For a moment, he lets that wonderful rush swell within him.
Ten could never be enough. Not for him, and - he suspects - not for her, either. Despite the flush to his cheeks, the excitement shivering at the base of his spine, he carefully keeps his voice even. “…I seem to have lost count.” The crop drifts over her thighs, her curves, smoothing across reddened skin.
She can offer the answer. If she really doesn’t want more, she can tell him they were on the seventh stroke— hells, she could opt out entirely, and simply stand. When she does no such thing, even as he places teasing little slaps against skin, he can’t help but reward her cooperation.
Sliding the implement between her legs once more, Silco lowers his hand, allowing a better angle to press against dampened cloth; gods, he can see it, eyes drawn to the glowing heat of her blushing bottom but coming to rest on the crux of her thighs instead. Cotton clinging to her arousal as the tongue of the crop licks across her, and the lovely noises she tries so fruitlessly to hide.
A reward for a moment of good behavior. But this is still a punishment— one that should be resumed.
“You are always welcome to voice your gratitude.” His voice is softer than he’d like, but at least it’s not the overwhelming lechery it could be.
Regardless, he quickly distracts from any hint of weakness with a solid strike of the crop to one cheek. “One-”
The sound she makes after the first strike is practically euphoric. The noise after the second borders on pornographic.
Three. He can’t look away, enthralled by the sight of her mindless surrender, heavy breaths audible as she squirms under his lashings.
“Ah—nh- mmh—”
Four. Perfect. So damned perfect. His perfect girl, and her perfect responsive body, her perfect cries on the border of pain and ecstasy.
Five. “Thank—mphmmmm-” Mumbled, hummed toward the desk, before—
Six.
“—Ah— Thank you, Sir—” Whined into the air, every pitch stoking his own desire. Her knees are weakening, wilting against the desk.
This is a punishment. He has to remember that. Harder.
“Seven.”
She lasts through it, despite the weight of his strikes surely heavy enough to mark her for the rest of the day if not longer.
Eight pulls another lovely sound out of her, a mewling plea of desire, another breathless whispered, “thank you Sir” that has surely contributed to Silco’s impossible-to-ignore arousal, uncomfortably confined by his trousers.
Adjusting himself, his next strike hits slightly off his intended spot, and he’s in the middle of fixing his aim when—
Immediately, he steps away.
One of her hands is out of position, reaching back, and he graciously removes himself from her arm’s reach, stilling his hand, even while his heart rate is still caught in the rush of it. “Do you need to-” His voice is sharp, concern painfully evident, and he’s grateful she interrupts before he can embarrass himself further with the blatant disregard of the game, prepared to ask if she has to stop.
“No! No, I just—” Her words falter. Hand still hovers halfway back.
For all her shame, she can be good at stopping things if they pass her boundaries. At least, she has been. So this could be her preparing to request they turn things down, maybe, or perhaps she’s checking for broken skin (nothing, not more than the welt from that first cane strike to her thighs), or maybe—
Her fingers find the waistband of her underwear.
Silco doesn’t quite register what happens next. Not in real time. Breath stops in his chest as soon as a finger catches against fabric.
Slowly. Tantalizingly. The garment drags down the curve of her backside. The cotton gusset makes a performance of modesty, resolutely covering - while more honestly contouring - her sex. A shaky little gasp catches in her throat and she stops. Hesitates.
He can see the slight shake to her hand as she leaves panties half-removed to place her forearm back on the desk.
For a moment - a long moment - he is completely at a loss. Staring at half-bared skin. Resisting the impulsive urge to step forward, to reach out his hand and finish the job. To unwrap the gift she’s made of herself.
To take those steps. Hook fingers on both sides and take them down as he takes a knee. Hands skimming up the back of her legs, gripping her thighs, kneading that spot he so loves to hit, pressing into what may be bruises tomorrow. Creep thumbs to the inner curve beneath her cheeks, spreading her open. Teeth nipping her thighs. Tongue sweeping to taste her. Drawing out any hint of contact as long as he can.
It is very difficult to think.
What had he expected? Had he been tempting fate, knowing it might come to this? This was supposed to be an exercise in control, and here she is, quite literally presenting herself, and Silco struggles to keep his brain working while all blood flows elsewhere. He can feel the heat on the back of his neck, the burn high on his cheekbones, staring unabashedly at the barely-covered part of her that somehow has his mouth dry and watering at the same time.
Stay calm, stay in control. Slow everything down. Hold the reins and move purposefully.
Breath stays shallow to keep it silent, considering his next move as best he can.
She’s been good so far (so good, so perfectly good and willing and obedient), not threatening her wandering hands. But still. He wants distance. Or— he should. He should stay distant. Prevent any slip ups on her part. This is why he chose the cane, the crop, the other unused toys that allow plenty of distance.
Once he feels securely in command of his demeanor again, he raises the tip of the crop. When it brushes the upper curve of her backside, the sound she emits encapsulates all the clinging she’s refrained from. So much need in her, constantly, craving more at all times.
He resists the pull of that want. The tress of the crop traces down the swell of her bottom, catching on the half-removed fabric and dragging it further down, peeling away from her soaked heat with obvious struggle; a visible damp on the fabric, but a more enticing glisten to her flushed lips. He wants to feel her squeezing around his cock, fluttering and squirming on his fingers, wants to have her in tears from his mouth alone.
Deep breath. Slow down.
Angling the crop allows him to press the fabric further down with the rod of it, the tongue running down her inner thigh. Once it doesn’t want to fall any further, Silco swaps to the other leg, eyes following the path of the tool right back up to her bare sex. It’s like he can feel pupils dilating, focusing in on her.
He told himself no sex. But gods, is he tempted.
Walking that fine line, he teeters toward pain. The wet snap of leather against her cunt makes her cry out, and he lets the tress linger, licking over that wet heat when he cannot.
He’s in control again. Hopefully. The distance of tools, of gloves, gives him some protection from her creeping want.
Or so he thinks, even as he steps forward.
Breath stays so purposefully steady, self-assured by his own control, as he brings his free hand to her skin. Two fingers just brushing the reddened flesh, heat of her punishment evident even through the leather. Tracing the mark of one strike, the visible silhouette of the crop, his fingers slide to the round of her cheek, the curve beneath, and he finds his hand between her legs, fingers splitting to run along her lips without the threat of penetration.
That little noise, though. He’s so curious if she’s as sweet as he assumes. And that guttural groan of need is rewarded as Silco slides his middle finger into her crease, pressing against her as he drags his hand back, and reveling in the little gasp. The tip of his finger presses teasingly at her entrance without dipping in, and he feels her muscles jump under his touch.
Greedy little cunt.
It’s thought almost admiringly, letting her squirm and whine as he inspects his glove. The heady scent of her arousal has him curious, and he delicately licks one finger clean. A satisfied breath, then he hums his approval: just about as sweet as he’d hoped. That mouthwatering blend of bittersweet, a taste he would happily take straight from the source. A taste he’d happily have her take, from his lips or his cock, once he’s done with her.
His grip on the crop tightens.
A hand in her hair, guiding her lips along his length, cleaning herself off of him, all the while a mess still left between her legs.
The wet shine of her is titillating. Running his tongue along sharp teeth, he commits himself to resuming the game. No contact. Just discipline. Just punishment. Once that’s done he’ll re-evaluate.
With that decided, a gloved finger brushes her thigh briefly. In the tense silence, his low command is clear. “Step out of them.”
Her rush to obey has Silco’s lips quirking up, mind sinking into the simple rush of power. Charming, really, her enthusiasm— so needy. She nearly stumbles over in her struggle to get the undergarments clear of the top of her boots, finally going up on tiptoes and practically hopping on one leg to pull the other free. It’s pathetic, and it’s adorable.
With a soft breath of amused laughter, he lowers himself to one knee to fix her disastrous attempt. Gloved hands slide down one knit sock that goes well over her knee, some part of him perversely delighted to have her cunt be the only bare thing about her. Untangling the fabric from how it’s rolled over itself, he maneuvers it free of the top of that boot, and carefully grips her foot - telegraphing plenty of warning for her to adjust her balance - before lifting it enough to remove the dampened garment.
Tucking her panties into a pocket, he shifts, elbow propped on his knee as he prepares to stand— only to find himself inches away from her core.
Running a finger between those slick folds, nudging at her clit. Sinking teeth into the luscious meat of her bottom. Pressing fingers into her as she shakes and moans and knees buckle. Juices coating his glove, proof of what a perfect wanting slut she can be for him.
His satisfied breath breezes against her, and the resulting squeak sharpens his smirk. Hunger - dark, impenetrable, a velvet demon whispering so many promises - settles his confidence. The anxious squirming is tempting, but Silco is well aware he’s not quite done breaking her yet. Standing, he catches the soft sound of a sigh from her. So disappointed, how sad. His grin is wolfish.
“Six more strokes.” Never enough. Then again— “And four more,” he adds; “for staining my tools.” If he sounds cocky, it’s because he is. “Impossible to get the smell of cunt out of leather.” The word hits the air the same way the crop does. “…As you may very well know,” he muses, once more intrigued by just how debauched she may have been with his gift.
The crop comes down hard, and the most beautiful ringing cry of pain is just barely muffled against her hand. One. If he’s going to indulge his sadistic tendencies, he ought to go all in. Perhaps, in some way, it’s a test. He hasn’t found her limit yet, and he’s intent on reminding both of them that this is a proper punishment she won’t forget any time soon. There’s a lesson to be learned.
The smooth tress of the crop slides over the reddened skin, and to his utter delight she shifts open again without needing to remind her with words or little slaps to her inner thighs. Unconsciously indulging his darkest whims, obeying unspoken desires.
The satisfied hum buzzes against his lips, continuing to soothe her with the gentle caress of the tongue. “…You really are more than I ever imagined…” A low murmured confession, half-marveling, enthralled by simply watching her.
He can see the muscles in her thighs twitch, the way her pussy clenches around nothing at all. Cockdrunk on air. No—
Two. Silco brings the crop down again, watching her pant against her fist.
Cockdrunk on pain. On submission. Debasement. Mindless with want from any attention at all.
Pupils dilate like he’s drugged, the fiery iris of his black eye almost nonexistent, as he revels in that observation.
She hasn’t begged yet. Hasn’t uttered a single please despite all her thank yous.
He wants her to beg.
That sadistic part of him grins, contending that he can’t know she’s learned her lesson until she’s in tears, pleading, apologizing— until they find her limit. She’ll beg one way or another.
Three. Four.
Her legs tremble, body shaking. He offers her brief respite from the pain; teasing snaps of leather between her legs, taunting little slaps against her heat.
“Hnnnhth-” Muffled noise against her fist, gagging herself. Maybe he ought to get her the real thing. Then again, that would prevent the sobbed, “thnkoo”: the most pitiful attempt at eloquence he’s ever heard.
Lowering his arm, Silco slides the crop forward and delivers a firm smack directly to his target.
She squeals, bucking forward, rocking onto tiptoes for a moment, body an enthralling mess of reactions, still silencing herself. It’s the closest to breaking he’s seen so far.
If she begged, he wouldn’t be able to say no.
Free hand squeezing himself through his trousers, he keeps his breath level, even if it’s thick, heavy, full of hungry desire. The crop is turned, still pressed against her cunt, the little fold at the top of the tress purposefully dragging over her, rocking into her welcoming entrance ever so briefly.
Tell me you want this. Tell me you’re mine.
Beg.
She says nothing.
Tell me.
He’ll give her an out.
His voice is low, dark— mean. “…Have you had enough?” Just admit it. Just beg him to stop, beg for relief, beg.
“Nnnh-”
Amazing. After all of that.
He can’t help but taunt. “…You don’t want me to stop?” The crop slides forward again, flattening against her. “To find some alternative way of meting out your remaining punishment?”
‘Please fuck me. Please touch me.’ Or, the most sinful, the one most appealing to his most sinister instinct— ‘please hurt me.’
She says nothing.
It’s frustrating. He’s in such a good place, and her hesitating is forcing him to pull back from that. Silco’s fingers tighten their grip, even as he pulls the crop away, lowering it to his side. Free hand chokes up on his cock, squeezing at the base like he can encourage his own arousal to be patient. A breath, then he flexes a foot up, tensing his thigh, his calf, forcing his body to think of something other than his erection.
Surfacing from that place is never pleasant when he hasn’t properly finished.
Setting the crop down on the desk, he breathes, trying to keep frustration out of his voice as he says her name, carefully steady. “Speak freely.” He thought she wanted this, thought she was in on the game. “Do you want to stop?”
“I—” She chokes.
Gods, this is just frustrating. Her little whine is so wanting, but— again: for all her thanks there’s been no please.
“Do you want to continue?” It’s a yes or no question. Not as satisfying as having her beg, but that sadistic part of him has been shunted aside for the moment in favor of - ugh - responsibility, again.
He huffs out an exasperated sigh. That’s not fair to her. He knows it isn’t, but— gods, why can’t she just say it?
There’s at least some effort made to speak gently, and keep any frustration out of his voice. It comes out mildly patronizing. “What do you want, sweet, I can’t read your mind.”
“I— It’s—” Well at least she’s making an effort. “—It’s up to you.”
…Huh.
Well that’s… interesting. It’s not exactly saying what she wants, but it is, at least, saying she does want to continue.
Silco shifts forward a bit, within arms reach of his tools. “…Up to me?” Is she sure about that? With pain being not only possible but highly likely?
He can hear her swallow, even with her face turned away, toward her wet fist so recently marked by her own teeth. “Yes, Sir.”
Oh, what a good girl. Offering herself up like this, even if she hasn’t quite yet grasped the words.
He can feel himself settling back into that comfortable place, that rich darkness, indulgent in the best worst ways. Not quite sinking deep, but wading into it. Testing himself as much as her.
He does want contact. And just a bit, with gloves on, isn’t the worst thing. She’s being so beautifully pliable, she’s really no threat. She’s handing him all the power, and he doesn’t have to go further than he wants. And he can choose to simply torture her.
That would, however, require touching her.
She’s gasping at the mere prospect of touch— and the slightest brush at the base of her spine makes her jolt.
“Jumpy,” he grins, finger delicately tracing the line of her skirt where it’s been pulled up to bare her backside. Put on display for him. Presenting herself for punishment. His fingers smooth down the curve of her appreciatively. Such a good girl.
With a smirk, he digs fingers into her flesh, groping at her ass, drawing a little mewl of desire as fingers graze her pussy. She deserves a little pleasure, surely, to go with the pain.
“So if I chose to give the rest of your punishment a different way…” Gods, how he could make her writhe— yet still suffer. Silco brushes against her lips, and she pushes back toward his hand like she can impale herself on his fingers. “You’d accept that?”
“Yes, Sir.” A needy breath, soft whines that still aren’t a ‘please.’
Ha. She must be playing at something. Not so hard to beg, is it? He’ll just have to find what it takes. How much teasing before she breaks in a different way. “Hmmm, I’m afraid only good girls get their hungry little cunts filled.”
He can feel her trying to grind back against him, hear the pathetic desperate groan as she squirms on his hand. None of that, she was told to stay in position. He brings his other palm down across her cheek, more of a swat than a proper spanking. That can come later.
Put over his knee, hand slapping and soothing and toying with her, roughly thrusting fingers into her to prove just how much she enjoys his treatment.
Her thin whine, wet panting breaths leaving saliva on his desk, aren’t the begging he wants. “Rude little sluts get punished.” Back to groping, kneading, claiming her with his grip.
“‘Up to me.’” Gods, she had no idea the fate she was tempting. “You really want to do that?” he sneers. She’s stupid for that. But also— absolutely amazing. One hand smoothes up her hip, squeezing it with an approving hum. Good girl.
Her yes, Sir is hardly intelligible around the knuckle between her teeth, the way her tongue licks at it lewdly.
Stupid, stupid choice, agreeing to that, but Silco won’t say the concept doesn’t turn him on. He simply wants to test it. If he won’t let himself fuck her properly, he may as well fuck her mind. Test the limits of her desperation-fueled devotion.
Keeping hold of her hip with one hand, thumb absently rubbing a little circle into the skin there, he reaches for the cane. Then steps back, running the cold rod like the bow of a violin against her flushed skin. Not threatening to hit - yet - but making her well aware of the potential. Just the feel of it has her tensing, but she hasn’t made a move to stop any of it.
“Six strokes left. And you prefer pain over pleasure?” She hasn’t begged for relief yet. So he may as well assume, vindictively, that she only wants the pain, even with plenty of evidence to the contrary. His darker whims are happy to assume.
He’s not sure if her whined response is an unwillingness to admit the yes, or her obedience at avoiding the word no. Perhaps he should reword.
Tapping the cane against her lightly, Silco can’t help but smirk at her little frightened jolt, like she’s expecting something hard. Not yet. Not yet. Just a teasing tapping, bouncing lightly. Devious delight at her responsive little shivering.
“Can you take it?” This is one of those situations where No is acceptable. A situation where a lack of response would require more inquiry.
But her reply is quick. “Yes, Si-” He’s already halfway through his swing.
Not as hard as the first strike, and across a better padded area, but still undoubtedly painful, though her squeak is certainly more surprise than pain.
“One.” So much adrenaline. “More?” Yes is yes, silence is no.
“Mhm.”
“Words.” He taps her across the rear with the cane again, not hard enough to sting.
It takes her a moment. Finally she seems to get herself together. “Yes, Sir.”
Another strike, relishing the rush. “Two. Still want to leave it up to me?” This is the punishment proper. She offered anything; he intends to find her breaking point. But he’s not doing it unless she gives the okay. He can go harder, and he will, and she needs to know that.
“Yes, Sir.”
A few more little taps, offering that respite between strikes, and—
“Thank you, Sir.”
He stops for a second.
My sweet beautiful perfect girl.
Another request for more. That stubborn will applied to masochism is a glorious thing. It feeds into Silco’s hunger, the gnawing clawing thing that wants to corrupt and consume and revel in the power of it. That still needs her to beg.
His voice comes out eerily smooth. “…You’re welcome.”
A solid strike, a heady rush, and she pitches forward with a yelp. So close. He can tell he’s close— she’s close to her limit. And with a grim smile he vows to take her there. “If you’re not careful, someone might hear you.” Teasing her, even though he knows she likely can’t focus on anything at the moment. Just sensation. “That was three.”
Pressing her forehead to the desk, she straightens her legs again. Her breath is shaky, panting, voice tight. “Thank you, Sir.” Pushing herself.
His own pulse hammers, blood rushing, high on her pain.
“Four.”
The strike reverberates through the cane even as she falls against the desk, and the deep breath he takes seems to drink in the sound of her cry. The way she loses her balance, the scratch of ceramic on wood as her bad hand jerks out of place; exquisite intoxication just from the way she whimpers as she breaks.
Setting the cane aside, he revels in that suffering as one hand comes to soothe the sting, the other grasping her hip loosely. “Good girl.” She’s shaking, trembling and dumb and utterly devoted. Beautiful. The small sniffle she makes hits him like sparks, lighting something in his brain that fizzes pleasantly. That’s it. Let it out.
She’s perfect. Broken and needy like this; she’s absolutely perfect. “Very good.” Silco’s hands are gentle, rubbing over her, taking his time to smooth soft leather over every sensitive mark he’s caused. She’ll be wearing these for a while, hopefully. The idea warms him.
That little whimper squeezes something in his chest. He feels drunk on it— cozy and satisfied— oddly validated, in some way. Proud. “Taking everything I gave you…” It’s almost a coo, resisting the brief instinct to lean down and press his lips to the back of her shoulder. “Such a good girl.”
There’s something cathartic in her tears. A sort of empathetic release by proxy, something that has his skin humming and body unusually relaxed. The impulse to press himself atop her, cover her body with his, to luxuriate in the contact—
On the sofa, her shivering form tucked against him, straddling his lap. Clutching tight to his shirt, forehead pressed into his neck as she whimpers against his chest, and his own hands gripping still-stinging flesh, drawing out a little cry of pain even as he spreads her roughly to pull her down on his cock with no resistance. A creature of pure sensation and mindless want; how simple she becomes, just needing. Begging for more.
She’s been so giving, so cooperative— so ambitious— brave, even, to take so much for him.
“I think…” One hand slides down the curve of her reddened cheek to slide between her legs again, a teasingly light stroke of fingers, the motion like rewarding a good pet. “…Perhaps an alternative, to settle your account.” Only two more to go, after all. And she’s been so very compliant.
Her little mewls are adorable, but Silco can’t tell if she’s purposefully avoiding the words he wants, or simply incapable of forming them at all. Fingers stay light, stay teasing, avoiding anything more than an incidental brush against her most sensitive points, instead focusing on everything around it, waiting for her to give in. All she has to do is ask. All he wants is for her to beg.
The longer she takes without uttering a single plea, the less inclined he is to make this pleasant. He’d initially thought to treat her to soft and sweet and satisfying— to watch her come apart under merciful hands— but now…
That mean satisfaction accepts the challenge for him; if she won’t beg, he’ll just make her wish she had. Avoiding any kind of direct pressure to her clit, any full breaching of her entrance, he simply teases everything else. It takes no time at all for her to be whining like a bitch in heat, hips wriggling and rolling in an attempt to grind against his too-light touch.
None of that. His grip on her waist squeezes once in warning, before he flattens his palm to her back, forcing her flat on the desk. Gods, it feels good, having every bit of her pleasure in the palm of his hand. To have that constant yearning directed toward something he’s actually willing to give her.
Eventually, anyway. But—
“Hold still, sweet, you still owe me two strokes.” And he’s more than happy to make these worse than the pain.
How long can he keep her on the edge? Can they find a new way to break her? Fracture a little more sense away? He’s sure if he let her she’d do all the work herself, fucking back against him like the desperate little slut she is.
Needy girl. Cock-hungry whore.
The next stroke of deft fingers draws a growl from the girl, and Silco’s cock jumps, pushing her harder down even as he stops his ministrations briefly to swat her again. The glove leaves a wet trail in its wake, coated in her undeniable arousal.
Hold still, sweetheart, I’m not done with you yet.
The angle is too easy for her to combat, maybe. He closes the distance, pinning her lower half in place with his own body, blood so loud in his ears that he almost misses her little gasp. But he doesn’t miss how her movements flag, cowed into submission again.
Good girl. Suffer a little longer for me, sweet.
His wet glove crests her hip to reach around from the front instead, resuming the teasing touches, the strokes along slick lips, the gentle hint of pressure either side of her clit. When her hips shift slightly, rubbing against the bulge in his trousers, he silences the satisfied groan that tries to bubble in his chest. Muscles in his back tense, toes curling as he allows himself the smallest motion, the subtlest rocking— like the distant echo of the thrusts he craves.
The friction between their bodies isn’t enough to get him off, and will probably only make this worse, so he trains his focus on touching her again. The way she pants, cheek pressed to the desk, eyelids weighed down by lust, breath hot against her hand… Gods, she’s beautiful. Desperate and needy and pathetic, and absolutely stunning.
Ramping up the pressure, the speed, allowing a little more almost-direct stimulation, brushing too lightly.
She falters, body freezing as eyes squeeze shut, and Silco can feel her cunt clenching around nothing—
Immediately he pulls away.
She sobs, and a rush of satisfaction goes straight to his cock, lips hooked to a smirk. “Punishment, my dear; this is a punishment.” All she has to do is beg. Whimpering and whining is good, but he wants to hear her beg.
Admittedly, her tears do help her cause. There’s something so satisfying in making her cry, pushing her to a different sort of release. The power is a big part of it. But it feels good to see her let it out, makes something fizz at the base of his skull witnessing her being so vulnerable thanks to him, but not at him. Something about it… so gratifying.
“Only one more, sweet.” It’s patronizing, but the hint of softness is equally as genuine as it is mocking. He pins her back in place again with his hips, breath slow and even as he relishes the friction between their bodies. A hint of wickedness slips into his murmured words; “…Though I suspect you may be more eager to make our little meetings after this revelatory afternoon.”
The idea of having this be their norm is as enticing as it is impossible. Now isn’t the time for reality. He has her mindless with need, dripping, bent over his desk and groaning her single-focused frustration into the wood.
Still no begging? Or can she simply not form words? Maybe that’s something to work on…
“Just one more,” Silco smooths his clean glove over her back, keeping stimulation away from anything too exciting. Take her back down to zero— or maybe, with her overwhelming need, perhaps closer to 20. Waiting it out.
Bunching the fabric of her skirt at her waistband, he keeps a grip there even as he steps back. Returning to his first angle, he keeps his own body out of the way as his fingers slip between her legs once more. Maybe she deserves some mercy. It’s not her fault she goes dumb when her cunt is in control.
With that in mind, he relents. Cupping her sex, he rubs his thumb at her entrance briefly before pressing in, the motion audible both from how sinfully wet she is and the little catch of breath as her mouth drops open.
Fuck— he can feel her around him, the desperate fluttering of muscles as her cunt squeezes his finger. His throat is dry, imagining how amazing she would be around his cock.
Arms tied at her back for leverage, pulling her back and thrusting forward simultaneously, how deep he could get— and her noises, the pain and the pleasure.
He keeps breath level, carefully soothing her tension, loosening her tightened muscles and massaging gently even as scene after scene flashes through his mind.
Against the bed, against the wall, over the sofa, in the shower, riding him, licking him, using her hands—
No more time for patience.
Silco adjusts his hand, fingers pressing close to either side of her clit as he hooks his thumb down to—
Her audible cry - continuous cries - seem proof that he’s found what he’s looking for. The way she undulates against his hand, grinding, mewling and moaning— the way she milks his thumb, a groan silenced in his chest as he imagines that sensation, her cunt hungrily taking every last drop as he fills her.
“Can— nnhh— ca-an I— can—” So lost in sensation that the girl can hardly form words.
It’s as close to begging as she’s gotten. Any thought of denial was lost the moment he felt her from the inside, but the effort isn’t wasted on him.
Good girl, so polite to ask nicely.
He can’t manage to get those words formed, either. So focused on her body. He unsheathes his hand, skin sparking with the distraught sob that pulls from her, excitement that has him nearly as aroused as she is, and turns his hand. Two fingers thrust back in to find that same spot, and his thumb circles her clit, pressing all those nerves inside and out.
“I give orders that can be obeyed.” He’s well aware how rough his voice is, hoarse with desire. “That wouldn’t be one of them.” Silco couldn’t stop her if he tried, and he has no wish to try. Her orgasm is so close, so inevitable, and he needs to claim it. “Go on. Come for me.”
[next part]
[Heh. Well. Worth the wait, I hope 😈 Thanks to @insult-2-injury @silcoitus @sherwood-forests and @astudyincontrasts for the beta-ing on this and/or 27; it is very much appreciated.
Speaking of 27… Detachment should be posted some time next week, and then we can finally move on with the main story. One step closer to our lord and savior chapter 30 👀
Like this chapter? Let me know! Reblog, tag, comment, all that good stuff. This was a monster compared to my usual 2.5-3.5k chapter length, so hopefully it kept momentum up for that time. If you miraculously found this delicious tidbit without reading the original fic, go find the masterlist here, as well as the main fic and the reverse POVs on ao3. I also have a masterlist of my other works as well.
If you want to make sure you don’t miss the final part of this 4-part miniseries of revpovs, join the tag list by commenting on this linked post. Should be up soon, I’m just not quite sure when. Finally - finally - we get to see what the hell he was thinking when it all went wrong. ❤️ -verbs]
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Text
Discipline (2/4)
(A Helping Hand pt 25 - Silco POV)
[previously, Dominance: pt 24’s reverse POV]
[silco x f!reader/oc] [4832 words] [nsfw] [d/s] [impact play (cane, crop)] [glove kink] [light humiliation] [hair pulling] [dom silco has dirty thoughts]
(series headers from this art by @dad-dumpster )
AO3 Link
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“Bend over the desk.”
The shock is priceless. Silco has to resist grinning at the transparent surprise on her face as her head snaps toward him. He has to stop himself from clutching the handle inches from his fingers, despite the temptation. He stays still, stays unmoving, unyielding, expectant for her obedience.
The play of emotions over her face is less worrisome within this context. Her vulnerability isn’t a threat here. He can enjoy her full range of emotions without feeling taunted by them.
Pink starts to creep onto her cheeks, eyes wide and jaw slack for a moment before snapping shut, swallowing visibly.
Gods, she’s perfect. For all Silco has seen her do, here she dwindles down to a one-track mind, and it is amazing to witness. Even more thrilling to cause.
“Face front, forearms flat, and bend over the desk,” he reiterates.
Fingers slide from the edge of the desk, brushing the handle of the tool waiting there. Rarely given the opportunity to use these particular tools— and, honestly, rarely this eager to use them. She awakens things in him he hasn’t properly indulged in for years.
When she doesn’t immediately obey, he gives her a chance to prove she’s been listening, even if she hasn’t yet decided to physically cooperate. “Can you do that for me?” All he needs is a yes sir. That will tell him she’s still in the game, even if she hasn’t obeyed yet.
The tiny confused frown makes him want to cup her face in his hands and push her down to her knees. Such a small gesture to spark such depravity.
She’s sluggish to respond, facing forward slowly. But she’s responding. Hands flat and sensually sliding across his purposefully bare desk, lowering herself to her elbows.
Grip closing around the cane’s handle, he takes advantage of her averted gaze to pluck the implement from its delicate lean against the side of the desk, stepping away and transferring it to his preferred hand. Like hers; a lefty, though he’s learned to adapt.
Silco already suspects her answer before he verbally nudges again, adjusting his grip as he shifts back for a better angle. “I asked you a question.” Admiring the soft swell of her rear as she takes her position, offering a perfectly tempting target.
He doesn’t need to see her face to know the little frustrated press of lips, the annoyance that tugs brows closer. “I’m-”
That’s not a please, thank you, or yes.
Before she can finish her irritated protest, he tilts his head - caught between cool calculation and that rampant rush just under his skin - judging his swing.
“-already doin-”
THWACK
There’s a loud snap of rod against skin, and she topples forward, collapsing against the desk.
Silence, apart from panted breath.
…Ah.
Hm.
She’s quieter than he expected.
His own body hums with the rush, the thrill of power, buzzing in his very veins. Pupils blown wide from the very first impact. His breath feels labored, pulse picked up.
But he may have made a mistake. Let his own excitement drive his hand— come down too hard.
Carefully - steadying his breath, calming his own excited nerves - Silco raises the cane, and steps closer to set it on the desk.
Too much. It was too much, too fast. He can slow down. He will slow down.
Wait. Don’t leave.
Deep breaths. Let that single surge of panic fade. It’s been a long while since he did this with someone who wasn’t a professional; he’s out of practice. He can do better than this.
Calmly, cool and collected, and gentle as he can manage: “That’s the worst of it.”
He has worse toys, but he won’t bring them out. Not after that. He’s set a boundary, and he’ll keep to it. If she even stays.
He wants her to stay.
Silco wants her to stay so much that he’s about ready to promise leniency, to ask if she needs a break, maybe even to apologize— but he stops himself. Barely. Swallowing all of that down. Forcing himself to sit with that uncertainty until he’s accepted it.
If she chooses to leave, she can, but he’s not going to lower himself to pleas or promises.
It feels like forever, waiting for her decision. Waiting to see if she’ll forgive his heavy hand.
She struggles to her feet— but elbows stay firmly on the desk.
Fuck. Thank fuck. Gods above and below, she stayed. Somehow, he’s surprised. The relief is overwhelming. But it’s still not assured.
He gives her a moment to change her mind. Then… “Are you ready to continue?”
Silently, she nods.
That’s not enough. If he’s going to do this, she has to be sure, and silence isn’t sure. “Words.”
“Yes, Sir.”
The word is like a hit, every obeisance a drop of shimmer in his system. But Silco isn’t stupid; that deference is earned, not blindly given— and he very nearly ruined it out of boyish zeal. He won’t do that again. That’s a promise.
His voice comes out softer, though well aware he can’t break authority. “Good girl.”
Take a breath.
Good. Good, that’s settled then. The fun can really begin.
Limbs are near to shaking as he moves back to his seat. He’s relieved to drop into his chair, letting that anxiety loosen, reassured that all things are a go. Plans can be put into motion. Ideas that have been at the forefront of his mind since last night’s confession.
Writhing with want, hands hooked on the opposite edge of the desk. Her little cries and mews and the way her eyes went glassy last night. No drugs needed to recreate it; sheer desire, pure endorphins, her body providing the high for her.
Middle drawer holds gloves, picked precisely for the occasion. A scarred lip lifts, devious, reminded of the lush feeling of ownership that came from seeing her wear his glove. Knowing she’d probably used it again and thought of him the whole time, watching her hand in the mirror as she braided, trapped with the memory of him.
Then again, now Silco is trapped with the memory of her. The feel of his hands in her hair, the obliging way she bowed her head. How much he’d wanted to lean down, to press his mouth to the skin gradually revealed as hair was tamed into a braid. The rush that had him breathing too deep as he’d leaned close, careful not to touch too much, just the glove sliding down her front as he caged her in. Savoring his arm against hers, his chest at her back, the way her head fit so perfectly against him.
There had been a moment he was so sure he would kiss her. Some delusional part of him had been so ready to brush lips against hers— or her cheek, or her forehead— but luckily she’d grabbed his arm and he’d come to his senses. Her desire to cling certainly sobers him up.
No clinging today. Hands flat on the desk, there’s little to no risk of her damned wandering hands. It’s not hypocrisy; it’s an exercise in power. At least that’s how he sees it. Chooses to see it. She wants him to touch her, so he will; he doesn’t want her to touch him, so she won’t. His choice, her obedience.
The gloves add a layer of distance, a good separation between them. That they come with a memory is simply a bonus.
Fingers drum at the air as Silco’s fingers slide into place, fitted leather snug on his hands. When he looks again, she’s blushing. He expects that to continue for the next long while, if he does his job right. What is discipline without shame?
The best thing about these games is getting to indulge his own whims. He can look as much as he wants, knowing how his attention affects her, even as she craves it. Brazenly, he studies the pink on her ears, watches her wince eyes closed, lips caught between her teeth, embarrassed. He traces the ghost of scars on her jaw, her forehead, her cheek, some deeper than others. The fall of hair over her shoulder.
“Have you been practicing?” He hasn’t seen her in a braid since that night.
Her immediate reaction gives him her answer even before the word hurriedly spills from her, eyes wide and blush spreading. “No.”
Didn’t he very specifically say that word was off limits? And, if it’s true, that’s another assignment she’s purposefully chosen not to complete. …Which means just another reason to discipline.
Pulling closer to his desk brings Silco easily within arm’s reach of his target. His right hand lifts to wrap a strand of hair around his finger. “I told you to practice,” he reminds her; an assignment meant to aid her self image as much as her dexterity. Another twirl of his finger, then another. Pressure starting to throb at the fingertip. “Are you saying you’ve disobeyed me yet again?”
The play of fear and shame and irritation that flickers over her face tugs his smirk sharper.
“No, I—”
The perfect excuse. Burying his fingers in her hair, gripping right against the scalp, he braces a shin against the desk drawers to keep his chair from rolling. “There’s that word again.” It’s a losing game, really: made that way, just to be difficult for her. But she’s a clever girl, surely she can attempt another solution. Even a petulant silence would serve— but her impulsivity has been known to outweigh common sense. Petulance seems to be fading, however, as she freezes in his grasp.
He watches her face, curious to see the moment she breaks, and tugs her further across the desk, enjoying the little wince as she raises up on tiptoes to reach. “Let me be clear: you’ve disobeyed me again.” He hasn’t felt quite this delighted by disobedience since his own youth. “I gifted you my glove for a reason, and I find it hard to believe you’ve been using it.”
The sudden wide eyes, the rush of heat—
Oh.
…Oh. Filthy girl.
“…Unless you’ve been using it for something else…”
The vision of her knuckle-deep in her cunt, wearing his ownership to do it— Thank gods for his desk, because that concept is… ohhhh that’s good.
She looks about to spontaneously combust.
Riding her hand, picturing his cock. Stroking deep, head thrown back, body that glorious arch she’d demonstrated last night. He can only imagine the stifled whines spilling out of her, touching herself in the dead of night.
“Well?”
Admit to it. Oh to hear those words from her lips. Gods, to hear her say it, to say I fucked myself with your hand. Silco is hungry for it. Needs it from her.
Yet somehow she looks confused.
“Have you been misusing my gift?” he prompts, brow raised.
“No— ngnhh!”
The breathy little mess of a moan that crests her lips as he tightens his grip— it’s better even than deference. Better than his title, or his name. In this instance, it’s better than all of that.
And it’s outright delightful.
A short laugh catches in his chest. Finally. No way for her to hide that, not when face to face, not when he’s still got a hand in her hair, and she’s pulled nearly halfway onto the desk.
Oh this game just got more interesting.
She glares (not much of a threat in her current position) and he holds her gaze for a moment. Can you guess what comes next? It’s like he’s taunting her. Keeping his eyes on her as he reaches his free hand for the toy drawer. Glancing down just long enough to pick the proper handle from the arranged implements, he draws the crop out in one graceful movement.
Horses are far from a Zaun staple, but as is often the case, Piltover’s tastes filtered into the Undercity in bastardized ways— one of which being the prevalence of certain tastes in premier brothels.
Ideally, Silco would use his bare hands for discipline, or wrestle her into some proper rope, but all of that is too close for what they currently have. Closer than he wants her, for now. Or, perhaps— closer than he’ll allow her. What he wants is a mess in its own right. For now, implements like cane and crop offer some distance between them.
Still holding his grip in her hair, he sets the crop on the desk before her, watching the reaction.
Gods, that gorgeous struggle of want and shame. Her breath quickens, and Silco lets his eyes wander. He finds his gaze on her mouth. Then her jaw. Her neck. The perfect frame her neckline makes of her cleavage. Even the little clasp nestled down between her breasts. Words drawl so casually as he drinks her in. “First manners, now honesty. We have quite a bit of discipline to teach you, hm?” He, for one, can’t wait to begin.
Eyes trip along her collar, her sleeve, and down her right arm, consideringly. Halting on the hand. The position doesn’t strain her, does it? Elbows should be helping with that.
Still, he loosens his grip, freeing his hand and allowing her to wobble back onto her heels.
“Again. Have you abused the gift given to you in good faith?”
All she has to do is admit to it. Of course, she won’t.
“No, I told-”
He picks up the crop, and she flinches away from finishing her next words. Not bad memories associated with the tool, is it? Just nerves, surely.
Regardless, Silco sinks back into his seat, giving her distance as he thumbs at the grip of the tool. Give her a moment to calm down, to get used to the look of it. Maybe even to let her imagination run wild.
Paradoxically, his own imagination must be carefully neutered. As much as he prides himself on self control, there’s only so much a man can imagine before his lust becomes known. And, as much as he wouldn’t mind her getting a hint of the lascivious tableaux he’s imagined for her, a visible sign of that prurience when he stands might jeopardize his position on the board.
So he reminds himself he’s a fully grown man, not some teenager who can’t keep it in his pants, and lets the crop serve to keep her at arms length. Once she’s no longer flinching, he lets it start at her hand, and slowly drags it up the arm piece.
The jolt as the tress of the crop crests ceramic to skim over flesh (clothed as it may be) only assures him; when she can feel again— when, not if— he’ll take a great deal more pleasure in this. The way she shivers as he pulls the implement across her shoulder, dipping down to trace the line of her collarbone before dragging the folded leather tongue up her neck. He takes an even breath as she so obligingly lifts her chin with hardly an ounce of pressure from him. Good girl.
It’s another little test of obedience as he orders, “Open.”
Heat on her cheeks, surprise half-coated with desire. Her gaze darts away coyly.
“Look at me.” He wants to see that surrender, the guilty pleasure as she gives in. He wants to see her come undone, in every way, as many times as possible.
Her gaze is slow to return, but return it does, and he holds it, imperiously.
“Open.”
As much as Silco wants to hold her gaze, to watch how she melts under his attention, his eyes immediately go to the movement, the soft round shape her lips make, the wet of her lips.
Sliding his length between those plush lips, the soft hum against skin as she whines—
A breath. Calm down. Be patient.
The curve of the tress moves to the tip of her chin. Suck. As much as he tries to curb his enthusiasm, that spark of thought - that order that stays itself from his lips - makes his cock jump. He can’t resist skimming over her chin to invade her mouth with the tool. He may actually be disappointed when she doesn’t close around it. But if he can’t have that, he’ll simply—
Mouth wide and jaw slack, thrusting to back of her throat as her eyes water—
He has to stop himself groaning, as the light press to her tongue has her mouth falling open invitingly, a little dribble of saliva proving just how wet a hole he’s found.
Her whimper makes him twitch again.
Breathe. Calm. Patience.
His words are even, poker face as reliable as always. “I’ll reiterate our rules. ‘Please, Sir,’ ‘thank you, Sir,’ or ‘yes, Sir.’” Even breath. “If you cannot answer truthfully, do not answer at all.” Calm the body. “If I need you to speak freely, I’ll ask it of you.” Have some patience. “Is that clear?”
Silco isn’t opposed to letting her answer when needed. He doesn’t want to truly take her voice, just make her think before speaking.
Her chest has flushed pink, cheeks hued red, that innocent look in her eyes that makes him want to do horrible things. But she doesn’t answer.
His raised brow finally prompts words, her yes Sir muffled by the leather pressed to her tongue. Satisfied - both that his own body is under control, and that she’s ready to continue their game - he frees her mouth and stands, returning to his position behind her, freed from her scrutiny, even if he can no longer enjoy the crystal clear play of thoughts across her face.
Toying with the crop in his hand, he finds the proper grip and gets a feel for its length before— “So.”
Her little gasp and jolt as he touches her with the tip makes him smirk, angling the tip beneath the hem of her skirt to push fabric up over her backside. “You very clearly haven’t been—”
An uncomfortable chill hits as he spots a darkened splotch of bruised skin on the outer curve of one thigh. A flash of pain, jealousy, concern— simplified down to anger.
It wasn’t someone else, that thought was dismissed instantly, but— he expected better from her. For all he’s seen her bite and pinch, he never expected her to punish herself enough to mark so thoroughly. Is this what happens when he doesn’t keep an eye on her? If he hadn’t assigned her work elsewhere— if she’d stayed, would she have resorted to this?
And if it is his fault: no, it’s not. Silco told her to stop, she should’ve stopped. This attention-seeking self harm goes so thoroughly against his plan for her, he’s struck by that mix of failure and righteous indignation.
“…Where’s the bruise from.” It’s a cold demand. He wants the truth.
Stepping closer, he examines the mark. Dark, so it’s still relatively fresh. A day or two. He didn’t spot it last night, but it can’t be from this morning, can it? And large. Raising his hand, he slides fingers around the curve of her thigh, careful not to press too hard, comparing the size. About the same as his palm, if not his full hand.
Her squeak isn’t an answer, so he presses firmly to the center of the bruise. Grimly, he figures if she’s so keen to hurt herself, she ought to enjoy that pain.
“It’s—” She swallows any other words.
Something in his chest twinges. He wants the truth; this isn’t about their game. If his tone softens at all, he doesn’t acknowledge it. “Speak freely.”
“It’s nothing.” She sounds breathless— sheepish, nervous, and— gentle. “I fell.”
He’s not sure he believes her. As much as he hopes she’d only tell him the truth, he isn’t sure.
Releasing her, he brings the crop up, avoiding the bruise to find its matching spot on the opposite thigh. “Did you do this to yourself?” If she did, he won’t be avoiding it. A heavy strike against it might remind her pain isn’t always fun. (Or so he tells himself— too much of him feels guilt over it, that he must have neglected her if she fell into that particular habit, frustration that she could do such a thing after he’d specifically told her to keep her body unharmed.)
“No.” It’s given so quickly, and so emphatically, that Silco is inclined to believe her. “No, Sir,” she corrects, and his grip loosens on the crop. She’s trying, at least. “I didn’t have a spotter and my ladder fell, but the hand is fine, I swear.”
Another twinge. This isn’t about the hand. “And the host?” As he told her: she is the investment. And she’s expected to keep his investment in pristine condition.
If anyone’s going to mark her, it will be him.
“…I’m fine.” Said so softly that he’s glad he can’t see her face. “I’ve had worse.”
…She’s not kidding, but she ought to be, with that lack of self awareness. “Yes, I’m aware: that’s what brought you into my care to begin with, you’ll remember.” And he’s not exactly doing his job if she’s still managing to get hurt while he’s supposedly taking care of her recovery.
Or rather: she’s not obeying his directions.
The crop snaps against that mirrored spot on her opposite thigh, matching the location of her bruise. “I think we’ve previously established that my investment isn’t to be endangered.” He slides the leather tongue over blushing skin, soothing the little slap.
When she doesn’t respond, Silco repeats the strike.
That’s enough to remind her. “Yes, Sir.” Very good.
“And your carelessness and impetuous nature seem to be putting both my property and my investment at risk.”
“I’m sorry, Sir.”
He pauses. It’s not a yes, please, or thank you, but it’s still suitably polite. And it’s right for her to apologize; she was careless, putting herself in danger for a whim that would’ve been so easily remedied. Honestly, how hard would it have been to ask for help? Well— knowing her... That isn’t precisely her forte, is it? He can try to train her out of the habit, but she’s far more headstrong in life than in their games.
The crop moves on its own, a gentle motion over the reddened spot on her thigh, before sliding along the lower curve of her bottom. She has a lovely shape. “...I’m sure you’ll make it up to me,” he muses, tracing inward toward her core.
A sharp slap draws a noise from her throat.
More. More of that. Such wonders discipline can bring.
“Impertinent little minx.” He slaps at her inner thigh again. Not hard - there’s no room for hard - but hoping to pull more sound out of her. One side and then the other, watching her stance widen and legs open for him, and the thin whine that pulls in the air goes straight to his cock.
More.
Another snap, a firm strike hitting just below the curve of her rear, a spot perfectly bared by her relatively modest underwear. Thin cotton, covering bits Silco would rather feast on, but leaving a good amount of cheek exposed for him to redden. The next strike hits a similar spot just as hard, one he remembered well after the numerous excellent reactions it elicited from previous partners.
She lurches forward, knees briefly twisting inward in a little bodily tell. His mouth waters, so tempted to touch, to feel the heat of her through that thin fabric, the indubitable dew his punishment causes.
A single twist of legs is practically the equivalent of pressing her thighs together: she’s wet. He knows without being able to feel it— or see it, or taste it. He can imagine the rest of her, too. Glassy eyes and proud little nipples standing at attention, and the slick sign of want between her thighs.
She’s warmed up, so to speak— which just means they can launch into the punishment proper. See just how much she can take.
“Six days of subpar obedience.” Every blatantly rude scrap of paper tempting him to confront her sooner. “Two days of late reports.” When he’d forbade Sevika from being the messenger, hoping to draw her back to face him properly. “One day of truancy.” And the worry he’d suffered thinking something serious may have happened to her. The frustration born of that unwanted anxiety. “One drunken display of willfulness.” Wanting to fuck her up against the door last night, and feeling disgusting for it.
He counts up the incidents. “That’s ten.”
Is ten enough to truly get his point across? Perhaps more importantly: will ten be enough for him? She’s so tempting. Bent over his desk, offering herself for judgment, so open and so clearly aroused by his treatment—
The tongue of the crop goes places Silco won’t let himself touch. Caressing soft flesh, licking that lovely curve of her bottom again…
No. Ten isn’t enough.
“…Add in your failure to complete the tasks I assigned, and a stunning inability to follow simple guidelines for behavior today…” Only a fraction of a second of hesitation before pushing the tress between her legs, pressing flat against the inevitable heat of her cunt. “…and I think we can tot it up to fifteen.” That will have to do.
Her needy little whine kills him. Gods, he didn’t expect it to be this hard to resist. He taps the crop delicately against her sex, and the resulting whimper has him shaking his head. Perfect. So damn responsive, so lost in her own pleasure— and failing so beautifully in her attempts to censor herself. Testing, the next strike is harder, and she bangs fists on the desk, frustration audible in her soft cry, but never steps out of place. Some part wants to reward her for it, but he’s too keen on seeing her lose herself. To break her down.
“Fifteen strokes.” And no time like the present.
Pulling the crop away, Silco lines up his strike. Start low, get harder (—perhaps an inevitability for his own body as much as his strikes, so maybe best to get it over and done with so he needn’t languish).
Each impact is carefully measured, carefully placed to keep things symmetrical, gradually raising intensity. Where is her line? What is her limit, and will she speak up before she hits it, or will he have to be the one to press pause? Each strike without pause has his own blood heating.
Squirming is natural - expected, even - but part of him watches for any signs that she’s overexerting herself. So far no sudden jerks as if to stand, no uncontrollable tremors, no strange stiffness. No word of protest, either.
Until seven.
“Th—”
He lowers his hand immediately. The word was muffled, but it gives him pause. If something hurts - well, if something that shouldn’t hurt hurts - they need to adjust. The current position should make up for her bad arm, but if her back is strained, there’s always the sofa. Even adjusting the punishment altogether. Or just taking a break.
Lips pull into a small frown. Is it simply responsibility that makes him so eager to accommodate her? It has to be. Or perhaps the general eagerness that has Silco’s cheeks flushed and heart racing, keen to continue their encounter.
She squirms, and it doesn’t look pained so much as restless. Though she’s often impatient with herself. If she was in pain, he might expect her to berate herself for it. Her grit is admirable as often as it is pointlessly stubborn. If she wants to say no, she still may stop herself, and that would be a problem.
She offers no explanation in the silence, and he takes a few deep breaths, carefully dialing down his own excitement. Calm. Mind her. This may be her needing to stop, and he has to respect that.
Silence drags. “Speak freely.” No command. No pressure. The guilt of beating a woman who hasn’t truly done wrong would weigh on him. The possibility she’d feel violated in any way makes him immensely uncomfortable. The most efficient method to lose his own arousal; the prospect that she might be dreading a way to tell him no.
“It—” She stumbles over her words, fumbling. “It’s nothing, I— it’s fine, you can— You—” She stifles an embarrassed noise.
If she wants to stop, he needs her to say so. A single instance of her name contains a hefty dose of reprimand without outright threatening. “What were you going to say?” If it was anything close to stop, he needs to know now, before it goes any further.
A choked word is hard to understand at first, though the repetition clears up any confusion. “Thk— thank you.”
Silco’s mind is blank.
That… that’s not a stop.
That is so far from a stop that he can’t even comprehend it at first. That’s a go on. That’s a go further. Go harder.
That’s a more, please.
[next part]
AO3 Link
[Happy sinday! Next one, I assume, will be even longer. 😅 We’ll see if it stays one piece, or gets cut into two. Because of length, it may be another week-long wait, but we’ll see. Regardless, a preview will go up either the day before or a few days before, depending when I decide I’ll be posting. Getting into his head on the next one will be interesting 👀
If you somehow got here without knowing anything about A Helping Hand, you can find the masterlist for the fic here, and the whole main fic on AO3. Most of the rest of the reverse POVs are in a series on AO3, and all are on the HH masterlist and my primary masterlist.
Boost the post if you liked it! I’ve been a little worried things aren’t getting as much engagement since my vacation, though that might just be my own paranoia 🥴 I adore all tags and comments, especially, so 👉👈🥺
Next part will be up soonish, but if you want to make sure you don’t miss it, join the tag list by commenting on this linked post. Have fun with the next one, folks. Depending on if it’s combined or not, the first chunk of the next one, at least, is called Desire. So… fun :3 ❤️ -verbs]
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A Helping Hand - Part 27
[start here] || Part 26 || Part 27 || Part 28
[silco x f!reader] [3.5k words] [no y/n] [during timeskip] [touch-starved reader] [henchwoman!reader] [rated M] [Silco’s an ass] [angst] [tw needle mention]
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You didn’t pass out from it, but… well, it was close. Several minutes later and you’re still collapsed boneless against his desk, breathing heavily, eyes closed and half-dozing. His hands are long gone, which at least removes the risk of overstimulation, but a thin trail of your own release still drips halfway to your knee, nearly hitting the top of your socks.
A shhk-ng sound rouses you somewhat, though it’s more the warmth of his body leaning up against the desk beside you. Not touching. Just radiating body heat from a few inches away.
Eyelids flutter, but the immediate uncertainty that starts trickling in keeps you from turning to face him. The sound of metal on wood has you guessing at what he set down, before the flick of a lighter fills in the blanks. Sure enough, that spicy sweet scent whispers into the air shortly, a slow audible draw of breath as the cigar lights fully.
You’re too tired to jump as cloth is jostled, then your skirt falls to give you back a hint of modesty.
But he doesn’t touch you. Just the fabric.
A deep well of need yawns open inside of you. Even after all of this… even after whatever strange perverse ritual you’ve just shared…
It can’t be true. Not after that. Surely this was proof. You felt how much he wanted you, you could tell.
Swallowing, you blink slowly and shift your wobbly legs just enough to adjust your head to face him. Still with your cheek to the desk. Still exhausted. Looking up at him with too-clear eyes.
Silco is staring straight ahead at his office door, gaze unfocused as he smokes, expression neutral. Painfully neutral, after how intense that experience was for you.
After another solid minute watching him, he finally indulges you, blowing out smoke with a sigh before looking down at you. He’s waiting for you to say something. But you don’t know what to say. Not a single word passes between you, but you worry your pain from that silence shows.
Say something. Tell me you care. I don’t want this to mean nothing.
No words come.
The pain tears an edge of your chest, a little rip that aches.
This… This is… fine.
The usual mantra does nothing to reassure you.
Please touch me. Please kiss me. Please hold me.
It’s not hungry libido, it’s insecurity and doubt and vulnerability bleeding through that tear.
Please care.
He watches you like he’s waiting on some inevitable words, and you have none. He watches you with a challenge, expecting something you can’t offer.
Please love me.
The thought is fleeting, the pain of it hidden as you turn your eyes to the desktop, getting your arms under you and your feet firmly on the ground again as you lift yourself up without his aid. Maybe he’s just… being careful. Maybe, if you…
His eyes slide off of you as you stand, keeping a hand on the desk. Back to his pretentious contemplation of the middle distance, like he’s posing for a portrait. Any sign of arousal from earlier has gone.
Your ceramic hand audibly drags across the desktop until it falls off the ledge as you turn to face him, leaning your hip against the desk. Silently watching him perched on the edge. Willing him to look you in the eye and read your mind.
When he gives you nothing, you throw your vulnerability against the stone wall of his indifference. Prosthesis flexing, you reach for his knee—
And he shifts away.
You tried. You did. And now you’re just… hurting.
This is fine.
No it’s not. This is far from fine.
But you can’t deal with that here. You can’t collapse and crumble into tears over him. You’re better than that. (No, you’re not.) You deserve better than that. (No, you don’t.)
You have to be able to get past this. There is no other option.
He offers the perfect example to imitate, indifference to mirror. Gaze shuttering away the too much you’ve been showing him. Mouth neutral even as your throat feels tight. Shut it down. Shut it all down.
Cynicism fills the void.
“You changed your mind awfully quick.” Your voice is quiet, tone reserved.
Another slow draw, forcing you to sit through his contemplation as he lets smoke fall from his lips. “…About what.” It’s delivered with a flat nonchalance, hardly a question as his eyes drift sideways to you.
You’re not even sure how to answer. Already you can imagine his cold, detached tone as he drawls on about you reading too much into things. How his treatment is to keep you in line, keep you behaving and keep your recovery moving forward.
“You initiated this,” he reminds you, taking another draw as he looks down his nose at you. Another breath out. “I gave plenty of opportunities to stop.” He turns toward the door again.
He did. You know he did. Maybe you should have taken them, if you’d known this would be the aftermath.
…Oh.
Slowly, you shake your head, some degree of disbelief and disappointment dawning on you.
“…I can’t do this again.”
You’re too tired. You can’t handle this along with the rest of your life.
There’s a brief flash in his eyes, a sharpening of his gaze as it cuts to you, even if he still faces away. “Who else have-”
“We can’t do this again,” you clarify. It’s not the situation that’s repeating. It’s the two of you.
He watches his cigar as he takes another mouthful of smoke. Once that’s expelled, he says, almost demurely, “…Understood. We’ll return to financial-”
“I’d like to see the Doctor instead.”
He can’t hide the tiny turn of his head, the flash of confusion - shades of panic and anger - before it all shutters again. Back to cool indifference. “As I told you, Singed is busy with-”
“It’s five minutes, Silco.” It may be the first time you’ve addressed him like this: so informally, so assertively, interrupting him at every turn. “I’ll get myself to the lab. I’ll do mornings with Wren, I’ll figure out a training schedule.”
Eyes dart between yours, giving away the anxiety that otherwise doesn’t leak into his demeanor.
“You wanted attention.” There’s an edge to his voice, an angry clipped tone that belies the nervous tapping at his cigar. “Practically begged for it, nearly propositioning me drunk.”
You blink, unable to hide your surprise. You definitely don’t remember that. “So you indulged me?” Annoyance gnaws at the base of your spine. That’s what he’s calling this?
Never has the game been so clear.
“Of—” A frustrated huff of breath as he turns away, taking another short mouthful of smoke. “What would you call this, if not indulging you?”
“You called it punishment.”
“Your particular brand of punishment isn’t exactly standard practices, sweet,” he sneers. “I merely work to your predilections.”
You grit your teeth. Bullshit. “I don’t know, you were the one grinding his cock against my ass,” you spit, “I assumed it might be at least somewhat enjoyable for you, too.” The heat of righteous indignation serves to fill that hole, a shield serving to substitute for your still weak emotional walls.
The pink in his cheeks might be shame, but you suspect it’s a flush of anger, his cool facade crumbling more and more. “Your submission is-”
It makes you feel sick. You grip the edge of his desk with your good hand as the prosthesis at your side curls to a fist. “That’s really all you want from me? To play this part for you?”
“As if you don’t take every opportunity to fawn-”
“Shut up. I’m asking you a question.”
His eyes flash, and the lighter clatters against the desk as he drops it to reach for you— your throat, or the front of your shirt, whatever he intends to drag to him in a show of intimidation.
He doesn’t get a chance.
Wren would be so proud of the way you get your arms up fast, hook your prosthetic sleeve over his forearm and redirect it, tugging him - wide-eyed - half off the desk, your other hand already up and ready to defend.
It’s silent, both of you frozen.
Silco’s cigar smolders on the floor.
For a second there, you spotted it: fear. Now his expression is a grimace, and you’re sure yours is, too. This was too much. From both of you.
“…Let go of me.”
You obey. And take a half step back, as Silco rights himself, standing in front of you.
When you make no move to push the physical altercation, he lets out a breath. The cigar is picked up from the floor, placed in the ashtray that must’ve appeared on the desk while you were still blissed out. His humor is desert dry, when he finally speaks.
“Is this how you treat all of your sexual partners?”
“Not exactly a partnership, is it?” You keep the venom in your voice to a minimum.
Mismatched eyes examine your face, anger subsiding. His demeanor calms. There’s a short sigh. Then: “What do you want from me?”
Just let me touch you.
That hurts, that thought. How much you need him.
You stare right back, wishing he could just know. He’s just known so much, why not this?
Finally, you find the words. Quiet, but strong. “Do you like touching me?”
The expression is brief - a minuscule furrowing of his brow, tension in his mouth, eye narrowed - before it settles to something neutral but concentrated.
He says nothing.
And isn’t that answer enough?
Your own hurt is hard to hide. But you tighten your jaw and lift your chin, gaze fixed on his shirt collar, prepared to soldier on despite the sting that’s so much worse than any punishment he can dole out.
One long look at him, wishing you could press that hurt into his own chest, and then you shake your head and turn on your heel.
You leave the door open when you leave, but neither man nor words come after you.
There was no guard at the bottom of the stairs when you left. No one to witness your disheveled clothes as you went straight for the bathrooms to clean up, and no one to see the slightly-less-disheveled you that came out some minutes later.
That fucker still had your panties.
But pride absolutely refused to go back, not even for the miracle drugs you’d also be needing later today, opting instead to head straight home to shower. Get that clinging scent of sex and cigar smoke off of you.
As you scrub at your scalp, rinse the residue from between your legs, suds up every inch of you, your brain has already committed every moment to memory.
It had felt good. Freeing. The relief when he’d accepted your mortifying offering, when he still gave you the same attention even after you’d humiliated yourself that way. The firm strike of a disciplinary crop, bearing a clear expectation of consequences.
The euphoria of his hands.
Eyes flutter closed as you rinse.
His hands were… Gods, he played you like a virtuoso, all the perfect pressure and force and give, turning your suffering into symphony. It had been so gratifying, given that attention— that touch.
He’d been so good after the pain. Reassuring you with soft praises, soothing touches, comforting you with his thumb rubbing circles against your waist. But after absolutely unraveling you with his fingers, when your vision went white and you were perfectly limp and blissed out, he said nothing.
All you wanted was—
Your heart catches in your throat, blinking and shoving your face under the hot stream of water again.
You just wanted to touch him. Was that so bad? So unforgivable? He couldn’t just let you cling for a moment? He had to turn away when you felt so vulnerable?
He’d ruined everything with that. Everything. You may have been able to— Look, you know you shouldn’t, but if he’d just… The smallest thing. You don’t need declarations. You don’t even need a kiss, gods, you just wanted to show your stupid naive gratitude and have him accept it— have him accept you.
Cupping his hands in yours. Kissing his palms, his knuckles, the tips of his fingers. Gratitude for everything he gave you.
It’s a subtle but persistent pain. An ache that splinters into your chest, making breath difficult. You grimace through, muscle through, cinch that feeling tighter and tighter into the smallest space you can. If you can’t cut it out of you, at least that misery can languish in its tiny rotten hole while you try to move past it.
He’s seen too much of you.
Physically, sure, but more than that. He’s seen you broken, seen you needing, hopeless, in pain and in ecstasy. And if he can’t respect that, can’t at least suffer himself to receive your touch, then he doesn’t deserve it.
You’re doing the right thing. You know you are. You have to set boundaries if he won’t, have to cut things off when they’ve gone too far, even if it didn’t feel too far at the time.
It was the right choice.
Getting to the Doctor’s lab after practice the next day is harder without the escort you used to have, but you made the trip enough times in the last month to know the way.
He handles the device brusquely, rougher than Silco ever has, tugging it at an awkward angle to examine the base of the sleeve, or prying at the join of wrist and forearm. Asking the same question over and over again in different words.
Have you experienced any oddities around temperature changes? Any unusual discomfort when submerged or otherwise in contact with liquid? Have you noticed strange sensations in relation to elevation or barometric pressure? Have the joints shown any notable sign of wear or rust or chipping?
All this to say: any issues?
Over and over again, you answer no.
Then it’s ten ways to ask if you’ve felt anything, and again you give the same (increasingly curt) answers.
He doesn’t ask about your personal improvement. Doesn’t inquire about how you’re using the device at all, just how the device itself has functioned as part of your body. For all the questions about the hand, not a single one is really about you.
He begins undoing the bolt at your wrist without even informing you, and you snatch your arm away, only to find him frowning.
“I need to examine the residual limb, and I cannot do that if you are constantly fidgeting.”
“I can do it myself.”
“Then do so.” His impatience is clear, and you find your own hackles rising in response.
No asking permission, no pauses to allow you to answer unspoken questions, no care.
Your stomach sinks as you remove the sleeve yourself and grit your teeth at the still-unwelcome (if no longer nauseating) sight of scar tissue beneath. The Doctor’s hands are far from gentle as he jostles tubing and presses firmly against embedded wires. Your audible hitch of breath draws his eye just once, but it doesn’t soften his touch at all.
“You reported no unusual pain, and no sensation in the arm. Is that inaccurate?”
“No, I— the arm I can feel,” you explain through a tight jaw as he tugs a tube to better view the cap on it, and you wince at the disconcerting sensation beneath your skin, “but the prosthesis can’t— ah-” Your composure slips briefly, grimacing as he pulls the bundle of tubes awkwardly from between your metal bones to clamp two syringes into the ends, too-cool liquid seeping into your veins as he flushes the system. You can’t stop the— “Is that entirely necessary?” —from slipping between gritted teeth.
“No,” he answers, plainly. “Not if you’re doing the regular maintenance as you should. But I have no way of knowing that. So it’s more thorough to guarantee a clean line.”
Or you can trust me.
That’s what it comes down to, isn’t it? That’s the difference staring you straight in the face. Singed doesn’t trust you to know your own experience, your own body, to tell the truth. Whatever experiments he runs on addicts and vagabonds and whoever else you’ve heard horror stories of from your coworkers, he doesn’t expect them to speak truthfully, either. He doesn’t respect them, either.
So Silco did?
That seems to be the logical conclusion. The same three questions he asked over and over again, they were tame compared to this exhaustive checklist. And he took you at your word.
It’s strange to realize after the complete shutdown yesterday, strange to only see that apparent respect in contrast to someone who lacks it.
But there are advantages to working with the Doctor; no unbearable tension simmering between the two of you, for one. No stupid fantasies playing through your head, no little skip of heartbeat when he hovers too close, just the general prickliness of being too close to strangers, the discomfort of being touched as he manipulates the hand and arm. Every shift in your seat presses on the bruises from yesterday, subtle little throbs that remind you of Silco’s idea of punishment.
Thank gods Singed isn’t him. And more importantly, you can ask about sensation.
“My current studies are far more important,” is the dismissive response to your inquiry.
Right, okay, well maybe that upside isn’t really playing out as you hoped.
“I thought the goal was to— to recreate tactile sensation, or something?”
“Yes, well, final goal. Still attainable, of course.” The loose gesture is flippant. “I imagine some invasive rewiring may help, but I doubt that was your intention.” He shoots you a pointed look. Invasive rewiring sounds far from pleasant. “The specimen still needs 16 more days of regular treatment as the body conforms to the modifications, before we can start innovating on the skeletomusculature and nervous system.”
‘The specimen.’ That would be you. The concept of having the Doctor innovating your organs, or whatever, feels a certain kind of horrific.
Your uncertain gaze draws a flat look and a short shake of the head. “Give it two weeks,” he clarifies, wiping your arm with a swab that reeks of alcohol. “Once your body has accepted the modification, we can rip out anything that is still failing.”
Rip out? Does he have to describe everything so heartlessly?
“In the meantime, I see no reason to meet you every day when every other will suffice.” —He says, before outright jamming a needle in the crook of your elbow.
You jump, hissing a breath through gritted teeth. Like he couldn’t fucking warn you? But already, he’s drawing blood into a vial. No explanation given.
Put it out of your mind. Professionalism. Treat this like a job. “Silco was having me in at 5 for the whole question and answer session, but I could come in earlier, or later, if you-”
“10pm please.”
Ten. 10pm.
“I’m up at 10am for gym work,” you point out.
“Can you not simply reschedule?”
The idea of cutting your day later, missing that brief window of time where Jinx is free, makes something in your chest twinge. Then something in your arm twinges as he starts to fill a second vial.
“10pm is far more convenient for me. My early day has already been dedicated, and after midnight I have my own personal projects to attend to-”
Not wanting to hear any possible details about those unfortunate subjects, you shake your head. “No no, for now it’s fine, I’ll talk to Wren. I can be here at 10 tomorrow.”
“Good.” He has a third vial halfway filled, and your arm is uncomfortably watery. “I simply want to run a few labs for data collection purposes before regular check-ins…”
You close your eyes and breathe slow, hating the feeling of having blood drawn. “Yeah. No, it’s alright.” Not like you have a choice. He didn’t even ask.
“—have you eaten today?”
You blink at him, incredulously. It’s 3pm.
His raised brows make no assumptions.
“Yeah. I had food before and after training.”
“Hm.” He disconnects the tube from the needle, shaking his head disapprovingly as he chucks the half-filled vial, along with the other two, into a nearby bin. Quickly the puncture is taped over. “For our future sessions, no food for eight hours prior to arrival.”
This fucker really thinks you’re gonna just starve yourself every day you’re supposed to meet? How disconnected is he from the realities of your life? And why the hell would he suck all that blood out of you before asking important questions?
“I can’t do that.”
The divot between his brows is something like affronted or confused. “But I need a clean sample.”
“I have training during the day, I can’t do that on an empty stomach.”
“Then reschedule training to after.”
“After 10pm?”
“Yes.”
This man. This man is completely divorced from reality.
You just blink at him. This is what you have opted for over Silco. This man.
…Shit.
He’s still frowning at you, not looking like he’s about to give an inch. If you have to push back, you’ll do it tomorrow. You let out a breath. “Fine. I’ll figure something out.”
[next part]
[Please don’t hate me. 🥺 Silco has a lesson to learn, and he can’t learn it unless he realizes he fucked up. And don’t worry. He’ll learn it. *cracks knuckles ominously*
Before posting 28, there’s going to be a pause from the main chapters, because a hefty reverse POV is coming. I haven’t finished writing it yet, but I’m hoping to do so over the next week, releasing the parts as I finish them. Oh yeah: it’ll be in parts. Cause it’s gonna cover 24-27. So like… probably gonna need 2-3 parts to cover it. 😅
As always, please boost the post if you want to combat the tumblr tags, and feel free to leave any and all comments and tags for me to greedily slurp up with my chic reusable silly straw. Any comments on ao3 also get replies! Sometimes sparking full-on conversations, even. So hit me up there if you want. And the inbox on tumblr is always open as well, if you want to anonymously (or not-so-anonymously) drop a line there.
If you want to be notified when the first part of the revpov gets posted, you can join the HH tag list by commenting on this linked post. If you have a side blog you want to be tagged instead, you can drop the @ for that blog in the comments, or in my ask box (with context, please).
Hold out for it, guys. Something great is coming. ❤️ -verbs]
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x-amount-verbs · 2 years
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Sobering Thoughts
(A Helping Hand post-pt 23 - Silco POV)
[silco pov x f!reader/oc] [2059 words] [rated M] [tw nonconsensual drugging; no funny business] [dom silco has dirty thoughts] [respecting drunken people’s personal space]
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For a second, she seemed unexpectedly sober. The look she gave him, the flicker of understanding there, the softening of her mouth and the way her brows pulled together. Like she saw something, comprehended some deeper meaning to his simple command to drink.
Which, in a way, is accurate, if Silco thinks about it.
It’s unsettling, when she stares straight into his eyes and drinks it all in one go. He finds the back of his neck heating, even as he frowns.
She’s either very stupid or… or very trusting.
The bourbon in his glass soothes his suddenly dry throat. Trust is a gift he rarely offers— though she’s been given a fair deal more than anyone else in his organization. She saved his life, the child bonded with her: she’s earned some level of trust, loath as he is to admit it after her overfamiliarity last week. And now she’s quite forcefully offering her trust in return.
Again, he’s struck by the aggression of her weakness. Forcing her vulnerability on him, consciously this time, like she’s proving a point.
The most irritating part is— even if he isn’t quite aware what that point is, he has no doubt she’s succeeding.
“There,” she pushes the glass into his chest, eyes falling to where knuckles press into the fabric of his shirt. “Drunk.”
“…Yes, I’ve noticed,” he deadpans.
Her eyes narrow, swaying toward him slightly. “Not what I meant an’ you know it,” she mutters, knocking knuckles into his chest again, frowning.
The drug is generally gradual to set in, but he wasn’t expecting her to drink the whole glass like that. With that little stunt, she should be out of it soon, and out cold shortly after.
Her brow creases as she stares at her hand. Then, like she’s conducting some kind of experiment, two fingers uncurl from her glass, tracing the placket of his shirt. “Never see you without a waistcoat…” she mumbles, absently.
Reflexively, he grabs her wrist, pressing an iron grip at the divot above her wrist bones until she grimaces. Instinct, really, to stop the unwanted touch. His tone is flat. “You seem under the false impression that your behavior is acceptable.”
The anger that pushes her plush lower lip into a pout is, against his better judgment, endearing.
“You seem under th’ fulse assumption that you dnnn-” She presses lips closed, censoring her words to a hum as she silences herself.
Silco raises a brow, voice cold. “That I…?” Don’t seems the closest to what she was going to say. That he doesn’t what?
There’s a brief glimpse of pain on her face, some futility that’s quickly replaced by renewed anger, pushing against his hold to thud her empty cup hard against his chest again, words derisive. “Oh fuck off.”
Unacceptable. Anger flashes in his gaze as he lunges forward, pins the wrist in his grasp against the door, the glass barely avoiding breaking as it rings against the carpet. The angle allows him to bar her throat with his forearm, her prosthesis coming up to grab his bicep.
The sound of the fallen glass reverberates in the suddenly quiet room. Wide eyes blink at him in surprise.
…Surprise that shifts to fear, that turns to— something that shoots straight to his groin. Her lips parted and pupils blown out black. The little whimper doesn’t quite sound like fear. Teeth sink into her lip, the grip on his arm tightening briefly as she whines.
Gods, her noises are intoxicating. The look of her, so thoroughly entranced, at his mercy. He fears his gaze may mirror hers, breath labored through parted lips, even if he maintains a touch of contemptuous curl over chipped teeth.
Taking her up against the door, a hot mouth panting in his ear, his name in her voice as she moans.
He drops her wrist as if she’s burned him, stepping back.
Stumbling at the sudden lack of pressure, she holds the door handle for support rather than risk grabbing him again. Learning, despite her intoxication.
“Sofa,” he orders, voice low and posture stiff.
Her stare is so open, the drug lowering her self-awareness. Some combination of disoriented and stunned, an unexpected innocence in the gentle slack of her mouth.
“You…” Her voice trails away. Then, like the shock has worn off, her eyes narrow. “Are you gonna fuck me?”
Silco balks, unable to stop himself from physically recoiling. “No.”
For some reason, her response isn’t the contemptuous ‘good’ he expects, or even a rush of relief. No, instead she frowns.
“Why not?”
Why not? So many reasons why not. His brow furrows briefly. Is she offended? Why on earth is she offended that he doesn’t plan to take advantage of her? Shaking his head, he dismisses the obviously poorly considered question. It doesn’t merit a response. “Sofa.” His tone is stony. “Now.”
That angry little pout is back, eyes narrowed as she walks to the couch, wobbling as she does so. Gods, of course he’s not about to deal with her like that. For a multitude of reasons, up to and including the likelihood that she’ll pass out in the next three to eight minutes.
Her melodramatic flop down makes him increasingly aware of the outfit she chose for tonight. Not that he’d overlooked the skirt as she entered his office, it’s just… her squirming to settle more comfortably on the cushions makes every hem roll farther from where they should be, the tailored shirt that sculpts her figure exposing a few inches of midriff, the skirt and stockings riding up or pulling down respectively to reveal smooth thighs— and he forgets his thought, eyes trained on bare skin.
…He may have missed that skirt in the last week. He may have only seen it once, but hadn’t been able to purge the promise of it from his mind.
Silco looks away, shaking his head. He simply can’t deal with her at the moment.
The snicker pulls his attention back.
Her smirk looks disbelieving. “You want to.”
Carefully, he examines her face. The delight dawning there, the overconfident grin, the too-bright unfocused look in her eyes, face flushed.
“You wannn to,” she accuses again. Arching her back makes a lovely silhouette, a soft hum in her throat as she drags her prosthetic hand down her front, and all his eyes can do is follow. Ceramic skims across soft skin of her midriff and the gentle noise she makes pulls his attention back to her face— eyes half-lidded somewhere between lusty and drowsy. Hopefully the latter.
“You’re embarrassing yourself,” he points out, gruffly, turning his back to walk to his desk, now that she seems settled out of the way.
“Hmmmm.” The guttural hum is far more seductive than it should be. “Mhm.” She nods absently, once again squirming against the sofa as her eyelids flag. “An’ what’re you gonna do ‘bout it?”
Absolutely nothing, at the moment.
The thought is irritable. His hands are metaphorically tied as he sits in his desk chair and glares. She’s too— important to him.
He likes— her too much.
…She’s an important piece of his experimental ventures.
He simply shakes his head, attempting to turn his attention back to work. She’ll be out soon, hopefully. Already her limbs appear too heavy to do more than roll over.
“…You gon’ pun’shhh me?” she asks, drug slurring her words and taking all the bite out of her taunts.
Silco raises his eyes to her. Her blinks are slow. Getting more and more tired.
Cool, dry words. “Yes, actually.”
Her little laugh is muffled, hand too heavy to do more than loosely wave. “What’re you gon’ do. Talk a’ mee? Say meeeanthins. Yer so mean…” Her taunt slides into a whine, the pout on her lips exaggerated.
He lets out a sleepy breath. She’ll be out soon. He doesn’t have to witness her humiliation much longer.
“Or ar you g’na spank mee?” She snorts. Pauses. Huffs a laugh again, cheek pressed to a cushion and eyes closing.
When he’d first brought up corporal punishment, it had been a dark joke, playing on her ignorance more than any intention. The longer they worked together, the more her— her tendencies made themselves known, the more he thought such a thing wouldn’t be out of the question, if she seemed receptive to that particular brand of discipline. And in the last few days the prospect has certainly appealed, to demonstrate how brats receive their consequences.
And she has been quite the brat the last few days. One might suspect she was trying to get his attention.
His lips form a grim smile: undoubtedly trying to get his attention, tonight.
And she certainly has it. His undivided attention, after that taunt. He examines her, sleepy form sprawled across his sofa, hair a mess across the cushions and limbs akimbo, offering a very tempting view up her skirt, if he were so inclined. (Which, admittedly, he is, though it seems in bad taste to do so while she’s unconscious— or soon to be. It’s just a flash of inner thigh, really, as much as his fingers itch to slide across that bare flesh.)
Her face is settling, drug easily calming her down for the oncoming dreamless sleep. That’s its purpose, after all: a sedative draught most often provided to the anxious or distraught in need of rest. Something that will keep her from making a fool of herself in public, and give her body the rest she clearly hasn’t been taking, if talk from Wren and Sevika are anything to go on.
He told her before, didn’t he? At some point, grit becomes willful ignorance, self-destructive— he should know. How many days had he lost to overworking himself, burning out, failing to delegate and ending up stretched too thin and scattered? Only important tasks get his full attention these days.
She just happens to be one of them.
His silence is full of thought, before he gives in to impulse. She’s drunk, drugged, and drowsy: honest and forgetful.
One pale eye narrows. “…Is that what you want?” Smoothly, he puts the question to her, more intent on her answer than he’d like to appear.
“Hmmm?” It’s like she’s already forgotten the question. The gentle undulation of her body as she stretches out makes him want to pin her down and slide his tongue up her neck.
He clears his throat, pushing the thought away. So much for her absence cooling his unhelpful obsession.
“Is that what you want,” he repeats, tone wry. It’s far from dirty talk, instead half-mocking. “To be spanked?”
A short scoff. “Hm. Hnnnmmm.” It’s not a clear answer. Quite literal hemming and hawing, eyes closed and half asleep as she squirms against the sofa. Yet her heated drunken blush darkens, pink tipping her ears and staining her cheeks and neck flushed, teeth sinking into her lip. From noncommittal her tone turns almost wistful, a whine that becomes a sigh, and half a minute later Silco is sure he’s losing her to the drug.
Sure enough, her excellent sounds soon lapse into silence, just even breathing.
And here he thought a lecture and a hint of private humiliation may serve as punishment. This certainly changes the prospective activities of tomorrow’s inevitable meeting.
Breath slow and steady, he carefully sets aside all thoughts of warming her backside with his palm, kneading soft flesh and thumbing the heat between her legs. A dangerous precedent, if he starts there.
This entire endeavor is dangerous precedent.
Hm.
Again, he watches her sleep, lips loose and undoubtedly due to drool on the pillow she’s got her face pressed into, eventually. With an exasperated sigh, Silco rolls his eyes. He should get her home before she starts snoring and interrupts his work.
Tomorrow. Tomorrow, when she’s sober, they can discuss her unacceptable behavior. A list of sins, and he intends to make her repent. Not bare-handed, though; best to keep distance. He’ll find some alternative.
Paper is smoothed beneath his hand as he writes out a clear message. To encourage cooperation, he hands it to Lock with instructions to leave it somewhere obvious, and retrieve those items he generously gifted her. Come morning, he expects a girl chastened, ready to atone. Tonight, he sends her away, a sheet-wrapped body slung over his henchman’s shoulder.
AO3 Link
[I couldn’t just not say what happened, I mean c’mon. I’m a sucker XD Besides, I needed to know what was said. For uh… reasons.
If you want to know those reasons, perhaps check out A Helping Hand if you haven’t, since 24-26 are sure to get… interesting. The fic starts here, and can also be found on ao3. The rest of Silco’s POVs can also be found in a series on ao3, or on my unofficial masterlist.
If you liked, please boost the post and maybe even drop some tags or comments to feed my brain and get me writing. The faster I finish 28 the sooner I can post 25! If you want to be notified of future Helping Hand content, join the tag list by commenting on this linked post.
Wonder where this will lead, huh? 😘 -verbs]
Tag list: @hawk4president @mello-jello29 @jennrosefx @dad-dumpster @ellhd-imagination @zuckerwattencupcake @meep-moop-mystic @of-the-argonath @ariaud @witxhy-lexx @mazikomo @leave-me-alone-doctor @antoine-tte @emprixnix @imalovernotahater @eriseffigy @leorioaki @artificialwords @hehicular-hanslaughter-lecter @ironandglass @ughhhh177 @faraige @ilikemymendarkandfictional @jennithejester @insult-2-injury @iz-zy5 @rinadragomir @queenofspades6 @cuddlejeongin @differentladynerd @alternativeforensicscientist @leo-the-undead
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A Helping Hand - Part 24
[start here] || Part 23 || Part 24 || Part 25
[silco x f!reader] [3.7k words] [no y/n] [during timeskip] [touch-starved reader] [henchwoman!reader] [NSFW] [d/s] [well well well if it isn’t the consequences of my own actions]
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The alarm cuts through the somehow-very-loud-fog of your brain, a pulse blaring behind your eyes as it rings. Stumbling out of bed, you cross to the clock and make it shut the fuck up.
After a long moment just standing in blissful silence, head feeling overpressured and mouth full of cotton, you finally look down at the clock.
Shitting fucking cocksucker—
It’s nearly 12:30. Two and a half hours late for morning practice with Wren.
You jolt, and nearly trip over your own feet on your way to the dresser, only to be brought up short by the paper stuck to the top, angling off the edge.
MY OFFICE. 1PM.
…Gods; what happened last night?
The last thing you remember is downing a glass of the most disgusting cocktail you’ve ever tasted. And somehow you ended up back in your lodgings, with a note left carefully in view.
Goosebumps break out across your skin.
Somehow you got from there to here. Someone must’ve come with you. And that someone either was Silco or, more likely, had instructions from Silco to leave your drunk ass with orders for the morning.
And you can’t remember a fucking thing.
You didn’t expect to find that so troubling.
The steady throb behind your eyes pushes you to seek out your usual injector of painkillers. Which is when you realize… you don’t have any.
Not just the shimmer— your injector is missing, when you’re 90% sure you left it on your desk yesterday before heading to the Drop. You rummage through drawers, stomach sinking, only adding to the nausea you feel.
No painkillers.
And not just that: no prosthetic maintenance kit.
Whoever brought you home stole all the shimmer you had, even though it wasn’t even the good stuff. (Arguably, it was the better stuff, but it wouldn’t have the desired effect of the street drug.)
Shit.
Shit shit shit.
Your gun equipment is still there, so you’re able to pop open the reservoirs in the sleeve and verify that you’re not dangerously low, but you do need a top-up. Shouldn’t have gone this long without refreshing the chem fluid, honestly, after breaking your spare vial, but you were trying to avoid your shitty ‘dealer.’ Now you have no choice.
Temples pounding and stomach rolling, you rest your head in your hands.
Oh, the misery.
A low groan rumbles in your chest. All you want is the good drugs that will lighten the weight of both your hand and the throbbing massive thing in your cranium at the moment. If you have to hightail it to Silco for that… ugh. Fine. But you’re not happy about it.
The walk to the Drop is painful for its noise, and the buzzing lights in the ever-present darkness. Somewhere up topside it’s midday, but the sun got lost some levels above, and down here everything needs neon and its alternatives to trick residents into keeping their bizarre hours. 1am and 1pm look very much the same.
You’re certainly feeling more 1am than pm as you walk into The Last Drop, but the practically empty building proves it’s the latter. No bartender on to provide you some hair of the dog— not that you have coin to pay for it after last night. But also, no blaring music to put you through the next level of hell.
The bodyguard at the base of the stairs barely reacts to you, simply shifting to their outside foot, making it easier to pass and head up to the boss’s office.
You’re screwed you’re screwed you’re screwed, your brain hums, dully. You can’t exactly argue. Last night you’d taken drunken delight in taunting the most notorious kingpin in the lanes. And then you’d blacked out. There is no doubt in your mind that, to some degree, you are most certainly screwed.
You pause outside his door, feeling the weight of your hangover like a damned anchor around your neck. Or through your head. For a moment you just lean your forehead against the wood of the door, pausing to let your brain stop rattling.
Eyes fall closed. The wood smells nice, soaked in that hint of spice and shimmer that you find so intoxicating. Your heart rate is too low, threatening unconsciousness as you breathe out a long breath, swaying a little on your feet, but staying propped up against the door.
A clearing throat from inside the office stirs you from what may have been microsleep.
You swallow, blink too-dry eyes, and then knock softly on the door.
“Enter.”
It’s familiar, this little ritual. The knock, the admittance, and going to the chair placed right in front of his desk.
Only there isn’t a chair.
You pause against the door, and your eyes linger on the open space in front of his unusually clear desk. It feels ripe for dramatics, is how it feels. A feeling he seems to confirm.
“How are we feeling this morning?”
On the plus side, he doesn’t sound angry.
He does, however, sound smug.
Narrowed eyes raise from the empty floor, to the surface of his desk, and above it you find him staring at you with an intensity that makes the hair on the back of your neck stand on end.
“Lock the door,” he orders, coldly.
You hesitate, still just barely inside the room, muddied brain struggling to keep up. The space feels so charged so suddenly.
Silco stands in one smooth movement, eyes fixed on you. All you can do is blink, and try to reconcile that predatory expression, with the missing hours from last night, with the mix of dread and thrill winding in your gut. Obviously the thrill bit is the problem. You blame it on lingering drunkenness.
Slow, languorous steps bring the man to the side of his desk, and you can’t stop your eyes from flicking down over him. Evaluating the threat, you tell yourself. Not just appreciating his gravitas, his visual impact. (It’s almost a shame to see him in a waistcoat again, though he does wear it - and the resulting authority - remarkably well.)
You still haven’t locked the door, or come any closer.
Silco’s head cocks slightly— that 2° tilt that shows his particular consideration of the problem you present with your mere existence. “…If I were to ask you to stab yourself, would you do it?”
The reaction is immediate, your whole body balking. The no is clear without saying a word, back stiff and brows drawn together.
“Theoretically,” he adds, like it’s clarification.
“No.”
“Good.”
What? What is he getting at? Your confusion has to be evident, eyes flicking between his as you try to get your poor addled brain to interpret what the fuck is going on.
“I have learned, in my time, to not give orders unless I think they stand a very good chance of being obeyed.”
It feels like he’s saying something else. Like there’s a layer under his words that you’re not quite getting.
“If I commanded you to…” his pause is theatrical, fingers gesturing loosely, “oh, let’s say glut yourself to the point of illness. You’d say…?”
“No.”
“Good.”
You’re only more confused.
“Now.” His eyes fix on yours, and that will slams into you so hard it takes your breath away, knees feeling weak. “Lock the door.”
There’s only a fraction of a second of hesitation. Then, without even looking, your good hand reaches back and turns the bolt. The audible click has something fizzing at the base of your skull.
“Good girl.”
The words reach straight through you and tug behind your navel, eyelids fluttering for a moment, throat dry, thighs pressing together absently. So much from two little words.
Your head throbs, even as his mismatched eyes rake over you in a look that scalds.
Shit. You’re still in the clothes you changed into last night— looking as touchable as possible, as some part of your ill-advised plan to make him admit he was a fucking liar. Skirt, long knit socks, a low-buttoned button up that would be very flattering to your figure if everything wasn’t horribly wrinkled from sleeping in it. You probably reek of booze, too. Fuck, you didn’t even think to drag a comb through your hair, too busy swallowing your bread and water breakfast before the unexpected meeting.
I am way too hungover for this. Whatever ‘this’ is.
“Before we get started, is there something you need?”
‘Before we…’ “Before what?”
The hook to his lips is sinister. “Surely you didn’t think your impudence would go unpunished?”
The flutter of anxiety is uncomfortably tame. It’s a dark promise, yet you aren’t nearly as terrified as you should be. Just… some kind of thrilled. The back of your neck heats as you swallow.
“Before.”
Before.
There’s something you need? He’s prompting you, so there must be some right answer he’s expecting. What do you-? Oh. “Shimmer.”
His approving nod should not inspire the mix of pride and immediate frustration at that pride that blooms in your chest.
Silco turns to head back for his desk, lifting a hand to tap a commanding finger to the front edge, where you - apparently - should be standing.
With his back turned to you, there’s a moment to consider your response.
Was he giving you an out? When he gave you outlandish theoretical commands, was that for something? To prove you can say no? But he still expects you to submit.
For this, at least - for getting the shimmer you need, when you have a splitting headache just strong enough to overshadow the usual morning pain of your arm - you’re willing to obey.
It’s only once you’ve stepped to the front of his desk that you realize the other half of this situation, and feel slow for not seeing it before. Not stolen: whoever brought you home last night took your shimmer in order to guarantee you’d come crawling back to Silco on that short leash he keeps you on.
Lips purse as you make that realization.
“Have you been keeping up your maintenance? You were missing a spare.” He says it so casually, that force of him turned down, like he didn’t just tug the invisible lead he holds. The bastard is so pleased to have you dependent.
“I broke a vial of chem fluid,” you tell him, voice careful, wary of being too expressive in any way. Can’t be too angry, even if you’re tempted. Can’t be too casual in case you’re seen as ‘impudent.’ Gods— who even uses that word?
He’s seated, his desk drawer already half open, and sure enough the kit from your room is soon placed on the table. Well that confirms that theory. “Can you refill it yourself? Or do you need-”
“I can do it.” You say it quickly enough - harshly enough - that it earns you a warning glance. You glare right back. He should be so grateful; it prevents him having to touch your deformity a second longer than necessary. Just the thought makes your lip curl.
Silco slides the kit across to you, silently, then finds another vial of green liquid in the same drawer.
You are more grateful than ever that you took your time to practice. Even with pain jabbing behind your eyes, and anxiety demanding your attention on your boss, you focus on the single task, and get your fingers to cooperate. To prove you can do this. You don’t need him.
It’s a short task, refilling the reservoirs, but by the time you’re done, you’re grimacing. You put any tools back neatly (just more proof that you are perfectly fucking competent, thankyouverymuch), and slide it back to his side. Your voice is cool, superior, as you add: “My painkillers?”
That hellfire eye seems to gleam as he shoots you a brief look, lips twitching into a barely-hidden sneer as he clears his desk once more.
“The past few days, you have been increasingly impetuous.”
That draw around him is getting stronger, the force of his aura ticking up. His gaze examines your face to a degree you find almost unsettling, like he’s committing your struggle to memory. You swallow, not liking the direction this may be going.
“You barely submitted required reports, twice late, both times offering hardly more than a handful of letters.”
Two, actually, if you remember last night correctly. Some part of you feels vindicated, like all your spite has paid off, even as another part dreads what happens next.
“You skipped your assigned work, without making a single effort to contact your supervisor about accommodations.”
Something in that files to the back of your mind, too focused instead on his tone, on the humming tension building around him.
“And last night you showed up, drunk, to embarrass yourself in the most humiliating display of impertinence I’ve seen from anyone on my staff.”
Your ears are burning, throat closing, but you keep your chin up. Serves him fucking right for taking Jinx from you. For saying you were disgusting. For implying that he was only deigning to touch you. You could think of more reasons, too, if your head wasn’t so buzzy. Too much of you is almost… eager, for his attention. Hungrily soaking in it.
“You think you deserve my mercy?”
Mercy. Ha. Lips press to a humorless smile as you meet his gaze head-on. “You told me to take medication before our meetings. If you refuse to provide it, I think you’re the one falling short on his end of the agreement.”
His smile matches yours. False. Unamused. But he stays silent for too long.
The longer he’s silent, the thicker the air feels.
Your stomach flips.
“I said something else that day, too.”
“You say a lot most days. …Sir,” you add, as an afterthought to your potentially insulting observation. What? It’s true. He never shuts up.
It could be your risk of baiting him again, or maybe it’s just the title that has his eye looking… different. Darker, maybe? Less focused? It takes a second to register why, to spot the subtle dilation of his pupils, so much harder to notice in his damaged eye where sclera melts into fiery iris.
“I’ve warned you before,” he reminds you, “of…”
The memory flashes into your head. On your knees in this very spot, his thumb pressed to your broken lip. In that instant the sudden rush of heat nearly makes you lightheaded, skin burning and pulse pattering in your ears. Lips tighten as you try to keep composure, even with that mortifying - intoxicating - memory. You can’t handle this, on top of everything else.
His brow lifts, expectantly.
Cheeks flame. “…Consequences,” you breathe.
“Very good.”
One memory. It only took his triggering one memory and you’re back to that pathetic touch-starved needy mess you were before. Your eyes squeeze shut, trying to regain that confidence you had. The lump in your throat is tough to swallow.
“I tried financial consequences. But your means are rather modest to begin with; I don’t think it has the intended effect.” His voice is like a purr, wrapped in superiority and self-satisfaction, like he’s been waiting for this moment of justification.
Maybe he has.
You’re not sure when your chin started falling. Your brow is furrowed, mouth stubborn, trying to hold onto your anger when his voice alone is picking you apart and unraveling you. And so much harder to concentrate with your head pounding.
“Hands on the desk.”
Your breath is thick, eyes sore as you open them slowly, watching him.
Mismatched eyes dark. Careful composure. Breath so even you suspect it’s an act.
‘Therein lies the difference.’
Something settles in the pit of your stomach with that memory. Renewed determination, fueled by a hunger that’s eating you from the inside out. He may be good at faking. You will make this the challenge of all challenges. This bastard, this liar.
You will force his hand.
Eyes never leave his.
Lips part slightly in a short breath as you lean over just enough to press your palms to the desktop. Then lift your fingers to drum them against the wood, audible.
T-t-t-tap. … T-t-t-tap. … T-t-t-tap.
Like the snare of an army going into battle.
He says nothing. The steady rhythm of your drumming lets you keep your breath steady. Gaze still locked.
“My treatment,” you remind him, lowly, “Sir.”
It has to be the title. You swear the fire in his bad eye flares up at the word, his throat bobbing. He’s not the only one who can find trigger phrases.
You’re the first to break eye contact, gaze flicking away at the smooth movement as slim fingers slide deeper into that same top drawer, and there’s a faint scraping noise as it’s dragged to the front, then plucked up into that deft hand. Your injector gun is spun on one long digit, and you find yourself wetting your lips without thinking.
As soon as you notice your own tell, your eyes find his again, like you can spot if you’ve been caught.
He’s just staring. Something twisting in the inky depths of those pupils. Writhing in the flames.
You hope he’s suffering. That he’s realizing what a fucking liar he is. But it will probably take more.
Something lights in your own eyes, spiteful and calculating. And you spot the moment he sees it too, the brief pull of his brows, the flattening of lips, just a tiny microexpression of concern that clears back to haughty control. Hopefully less assured of that control.
Silco shifts his chair back to stand, pulling himself to his full height. Your lips twitch in the smallest hint of a smirk, that he needs to feel big. His eye narrows very slightly.
All the tiny exchanges between you in silent intentions and attitudes, a steady stream of attention glued to each other.
The tiny contemptuous press of his lips, the short dismissive huff of air as he raises his chin. The flutter in your gut that this time you know his game, this time you’re not just being toyed with, if you stay aware of the manipulation.
That will be much easier without the headache, though.
His burning gaze slides off of you, a soft tink sound as he flicks at your injector and begins a gradual stroll to your side of the desk. You drum your fingers again.
“Hands flat.”
Your short breath is the closest you’ll get to a laugh as you obey. Wanting to taunt him, you slide a finger of your prosthesis back and forth, tapping the ceramic against itself in a steady rhythm just as your drumming had been. You shoot him a look, brows raised. Following the letter of the law - palms flat on the desk - but not the spirit.
He stops less than a foot away, and his gravitational pull alone threatens to break your resolve, feeling a subtle wave of goosebumps prickling your skin within this weird magnetic field of his. His look seems to be evaluating, examining your face, and you refuse to back down, not looking away. As much as some part of you wants to avert your stare to his collar or his tie or his shoulder— something to avoid his scalding gaze— you don’t. You won’t.
For a second you think you see a hint of amusement on his face. And for once you feel like you’re in on the joke.
“You’ve had quite a bit of practice saying no this week.” His voice, so close, sends a shiver down your spine. That voice that gets you every time: quiet but not whispered, simply spoken just for you. The only one who has to hear. The only audience that matters in this moment.
Your closed lips twitch into a tiny polite smile. You’d answered honestly.
“And doing so very rudely, might I add.”
So what exactly do you plan on doing about it? Because this doesn’t feel the same as his glares and cold threats. The charge in the air promises something much darker.
“…For the rest of our session today, we’ll focus on teaching you respect. ‘Please’ and ‘thank you’ and ‘yes Sir.’ ‘No’ has been struck from your vocabulary, with limited exceptions. Do you understand?”
“No.” You can’t help the hint of a smirk, even if you try to train your face to something more innocent.
Silco keeps his eyes on yours, even as his hand reaches out to still the quiet tapping of your fingers. “Impertinence demands consequences, my dear. And your account is coming due.”
Gods you wish you could feel him right now. He’s so close, and yet the only contact is a part that hardly belongs to you. Thrill pools in your belly.
“Now, let’s try this again. Do you understand.” Not a question anymore. A command.
You take your time in studying his face, considering the implications. You’re certain that those limited exceptions include this. That you can opt out now— opt out anytime you feel he demands too much of you. Just staying in this position, hands where he told you to put them, proves your consent for the time being. If you change your mind… all you have to do is walk away.
So, do you understand? This game is about all the respect he craves from you. What he demands, yes, but also… what he wants. And you fully intend to prove that he wants more than he’s willing to admit.
“…Yes.”
The breath he takes is slow and deep, and you can feel the satisfaction with your answer ripple in the air.
“Face front,” he orders, “and try that again.”
You turn your face away from his, looking forward, eyes falling to his hand on your prosthesis, only now noticing the subtle stroke of his thumb against the back of the hand. For some reason, that little detail fizzes behind your navel.
“…Yes, Sir.”
There’s a minuscule flex of his hand at the title, before it’s sliding up your prosthetic sleeve. Your eyes flick forward to his desk chair, even as you feel body heat when his other hand nears as well, hitching your sleeve up a couple inches.
“Good girl.”
You barely flinch at the little bite of the injector, eyelids fluttering for just a moment.
He steps back, and you can’t help the way your jaw flexes, frustrated that he’d disappear so soon after such promising threats.
“I gave you a gift,” he reminds you. “For that, you say…?”
A short huff of breath escapes. Already the shimmer is thawing the lingering aftereffects of your hangover. A gift, indeed. “Thank you. Sir.”
His hum of approval once more reminds you of a purr. “…Let’s get started, then.”
[next part]
[ :))))
No more comment needed really.
Wonder what happened last night, huh? And what happens next? :)
Anyway, if you liked it please boost the post; comments and tags are a renewable energy source metabolized within my person (and all ao3 comments get replies!); and if you want to be notified when the next reverse pov posts (spoiler, it’ll be Thursday) comment on this linked post.
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A Helping Hand - Part 23
[start here] || Part 22 || Part 23 || Part 24
[silco x f!reader] [3.7k words] [no y/n] [during timeskip] [touch-starved reader] [henchwoman!reader] [rated M] [hints of gun-related ptsd] [passive aggression] [drunkenness] [hijinks]
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Days seem to pass so much faster when you don’t have your evening meetings with Silco to look forward to dread.
Mornings are hell.
You’re sore all over the second day, but power through, stubbornly. Your nap (in the locker room, this time) feels justified, and Jinx’s eventual appearance makes up for it, pouncing on you with an affectionate hug. Sevika takes your identical message to Silco, even if she shoots you a warning look before doing so. The second floor of the warehouse (once you access it via ladder) is, as Wren told you, full of old reserve storage. Keeping Jinx away from the cans is easier now that they’re established as potential target practice.
Sevika returns from her break from Jinx with no further word from Silco.
The third day, you’re slower than the first, and your ass gets handed to you several times, each time darkening your mood significantly. Wren - notorious for making people practice (albeit in a modified manner) even when they’re not in full working order - actually takes pity and calls you off halfway through, so… that says something. You outright fall asleep in the shower.
Still no reaction from Silco.
The fourth day, you’re renewed, and Efin gets the short end of the stick (quite literally). The kid is absolutely terrified of you by the end of combat practice, and that fear feels good. No wonder Silco likes it.
By the end of the evening, Jinx has motors working for a moving target practice, even if there aren’t any targets clipped to the wire carousel yet.
Sevika informs you, grimacing, that “he called it charming.”
So it’s a war of attrition, then.
Day five, you sleep in.
Or, more accurately; you wake up, spend a while watching your clock, and then make the purposeful choice to go back to sleep.
It’s a bit of a thrill, wondering how long it will take for him to do something.
(If you’re at all aware of the problematic nature of your behavior - tempting fate - you don’t acknowledge it.)
That afternoon, you have a whole spread of street food available for Jinx when she shows up, even though Sevika informs you that the kid doesn’t need the food. Jinx’s delighted hums and messy fingers seem to contradict that, but Silco was right; no one in the Undercity should turn down a free meal. So you shrug at Sevika, and offer a skewer of mystery meat when she looks suspicious.
“I can’t take your death wish back to the boss today. And I need to bring the tripping hazard back early.”
You frown. “He told you to do that?”
Her sidelong glance gives you the answer.
Asshole.
Without Sevika to play messenger, you’re left with either finding someone else, or taking the message yourself. And come on, that’s not really a choice, is it?
You scour the gym’s inhabitants and are delighted to find Efin. With a hard enough glare, he agrees to take the note and drop it off with Orid.
If Silco is going to cut your Jinx time short, you’ll shorten his note as well.
NNN
Bastard.
Guilt drove you to morning practice (albeit late) on day six, but as afternoon approaches… comes… passes… you’re left stewing.
That absolute bastard.
He took Jinx from you.
Your timepiece reads 3:54, and no Jinx in sight. Theoretically, you can wait to see if she shows, but you have a niggling suspicion that she won’t.
Silco is punishing you. Punishing you, by taking away the one shining thing in your life you regularly look forward to. The one person who greets you with hugs you can eagerly return, who stands too close and you don’t mind it, who tugs on your clothes and invades your space and you only feel affection for it.
Glaring at the clock, you try to stay calm, even if… you’re not.
It’s not fair.
Sure, he’s her dad— or guardian, or whatever— but she’s your friend.
…Okay, that… Look, that’s not as sad as it sounds.
Brows pull together, a frustrated frown as you fend off thoughts about how pathetic your attachment is to this child. Or how pathetic your attempts to act out are. Replace those thoughts with righteous indignation.
You watch the clock another few minutes, foot jiggling impatiently. If you can’t find someone to take your message by 5, you’ll be in trouble. But, as is very apparent, you’re already in trouble.
Chewing your lip, you opt to avoid just a little longer.
Distraction isn’t your friend, which you realize about half a second after the end of the ladder pulls away from the second floor ledge. You drop down, but not fast enough, as the thing comes down right after, falling on top of you. It’s not too bad, though the metal jarring against the back of your thigh is far from pleasant.
No blood, no broken bones, just a reminder not to be an idiot. A nice painful reminder every time you step.
After a second to breathe, you reset the ladder and take your time getting to the half-finished gallery, grimacing.
You have time to reconsider your actions as you set up a row of old cans. Plenty of time to opt out of this particular display of childish frustration. But you don’t feel like it.
You feel like shooting things.
Ear protection on (thanks, Wren), you start shooting.
Honestly… you don’t remember all of it. After the first shot, your mind is jarred into blankness for several more, focused down to the gun in your hand, and the way your pulse strangles you.
You miss. A lot.
More than halfway through your magazine, you stop, breath labored, a dark ring around your vision.
This panic isn’t helping anyone.
Gun down. Give it a second. Try to focus. Don’t think about the assassination attempt, the flash and heat and pain, hitting you hours after the original event. Don’t remember.
Anger helps. Focus on the anger. The spite.
You will get better at this. You’ll be back in perfect firing order, better than before.
No— beyond that. That’s what he wants you to do. That’s one thing that, unfortunately, seems useful.
You know what’s not useful?
(You reload your pistol with shaking fingers, then bring it up in both hands, breath steadying.)
This stupid check in.
Miss.
And asking the same useless questions every time.
Miss.
Telling you to find someone to bring him a message when he knows perfectly well—
Hit.
—that he’ll have the same three answers.
Miss.
Telling you to come in yourself if you can’t find a messenger.
Hit.
Miss.
And taking Jinx away just because you were a little rude.
Hit.
Hit.
He thought that was rude?
Hit.
Hit.
You can be so much worse.
Miss.
Hit. Hit.
If he wants your same answer over and over again—
Hit hit.
—you can find a way to get it to him.
Hit hit.
In person.
Click.
You lower the empty weapon, mind made up.
4:42, after stopping for a quick change of clothes, you walk through the door of The Last Drop.
You may not be entirely in your right mind— and you don’t intend to be for much longer.
You go straight for the bar, order two glasses of the drink with the greatest alcohol-to-price ratio. Now that you’re medically allowed to drink, you intend to take advantage of that fact to gather a little liquid courage.
Or a lot.
35-ish minutes later, you are definitely feeling some kind of something.
“…You’re sure you want to do this?” the bartender asks.
Things are a little… tight in your head at the moment. Warm. But you resolutely have no regrets as you carefully form the two letters in marker (downgraded from the three you sent him last time).
“Positive,” you mutter, taking a deep breath, face flushed as you place the period at the end of the word. Those two heavy drinks were downed as fast as you could, and now you’re swaying a little.
Juuuust a little.
Just a teeeeeny tiny bit of give, that is entirely negated by propping your arm on the bar (you think).
The woman behind said bar looks down at your cocktail napkin, seemingly torn between amusement and worry. “I’m gonna have to go into hiding after this,” she muses. “Change my name, my face... I’ll be a ghost.”
Very seriously, you raise an even (if foggy) gaze at her. “Chuck. I will always remember you,” you promise. “And your great sacrifice. Fer my death wish.” Oop, you might be slurring a bit.
She scoffs. “I’ll take the message, but I won’t give him bad liquor. This is gonna cost you.”
You snort. “Oh I’m sure.”
“No, like— literally. It’s an expensive shot.”
“So expensive,” you agree. “Like my entire career.” You nod, solemnly. “Risking it all. To send a message.” Nodding, nodding.
This is so important. So stupidly important. You’re gonna fuckin’ show him. He can’t keep ignoring you. You want attention.
Wait. No: you want revenge.
Wait— uh. What do you want, again?
Him.
Right.
—Wait, no, not right!
Your third drink is half finished. You intend to completely forget this evening, if possible, and judging by how swimmy your head is, you’re on track to succeed at that. Load up all the alcohol at once, while on painkillers, and barely any food in your belly. You are on track to be completely wasted by the time you stumble out of here tonight.
You definitely have a goal, even if you’re a little fuzzy on what that goal is. A little fuzzy on everything, actually.
Chuck shakes her head, wonderingly. “Just— give me your purse. I’m leaving a deposit on your tab, in case I never make it back.”
It says more about your level of drunkenness than trust in the bar that you’re willing to hand over the pouch at your waist without question. Usually one to watch your coin, just giving it to her is… something you’ll regret in the morning. She may even realize that, based on her pitying smile.
“Take a seat, sweetheart. Drink some water.”
You shake your head. “Nuh uh. I’m watchin’ this.”
She sighs. “Watch from the booth, then,” she advises, nodding to an open table with a mostly-unimpeded line of sight toward the boss’s office door (aside from some railings). “If you keep at this rate while standing, I think you’re gonna faceplant.”
“Hmmmmm.” You nod sagely, considering her words. Smart. Wise. Good advice.
Personally, you think you remain remarkably poised on your walk to the aforementioned booth. You don’t spill the last ⅓ of your drink, so that probably says something, right?
Once seated, you watch the door. Watch Chuck go up with a tumblr of high-end something-or-other, on your very eloquent ‘NO.’ napkin. He wanted a report. He got a report.
Something in your gut flutters— or maybe flops. Maybe flails about like a fish out of water, violently unsure if you’re excited or terrified by your own boldness.
The drinks say excited. In fact, they say validated and vindicated and justified. You’re practically gleeful to throw that one word in his face, after today.
And maybe you feel a little sick.
Just a little.
Just a little angry and bitter and hurt.
Mostly good, though, that’s what you’re feeling, sure is. Feels good to throw your disobedience in his face. He called you obedient? Ha, not likely. You’re so not that. You’re being soooo bad right now.
Okay maybe water was a good idea, but it’s too late now. Your throat feels dry as Chuck exits the office sans-drink. Sans-napkin. A neutral expression that offers you no insight on Silco’s reaction to your rebellion.
You take another long gulp of your cocktail instead, pulling a face at the undeniable burn of alcohol along with the sweet mixer. Toxic, but effective.
All you can do is watch. And wait. Stewing in a brine of your own choosing. Pickling, even, with the amount of booze in your system.
You wait. And drink. And wait.
Your good mood fades, leaving you frustrated again. Here you are, putting your ass on the line to be a bitch, and he doesn’t even have the decency to be insulted! Fuckin’ basshole. Bastard.
Asshole.
The third drink goes quick, eyes never leaving his door.
What must he be thinking?
You can imagine him, in that silly fitted vest, with his dumb little waist and those stupid arms all corded muscle. Can imagine that superior look he gives you that makes you want to just— to just— makes you wanna kass him. Slap him. That’s the— that’s the word, slap. Yeah.
Cheeks burn as you glare, eyes glazed as your drunk brain casually takes over despite your best efforts.
Hands in his shirt, pushing him into his chair. Hitching your skirt up around your hips to straddle his lap. Giving him a real piece of your ass— mind, a real piece of your mind about his unacceptable bitch behavior. Mouthing off. On. Mouthing on? No, off. Ah, fuck.
The expression on your face is petulant.
It’s been a while since you got drunk with a specific person in mind. You forgot how, uh… Well.
You could ride the shit out of that bastard once he shut up long enough.
Dammit. Your drunk brain is right, but not helpful. It can show all the saucy steamy hot boss action, but that doesn’t help in the here and now, does it?
No. No it doesn’t. Just gives you lots of horrible ideas.
Those ideas are simmering as you sulk and glower, mind churning, focusing on the background functions so much that you don’t even recognize what you’re seeing right away.
However he might’ve been looking at you when he first arrived, by the time your brain processes his appearance, he seems unamused. Not angry, which is a little disappointing, and not entertained, which is good. Just… a subtle frown, which you return (although based on the tiny lift of one brow, you suspect your scowl may not be as intimidating as you’d hoped). (In an effort to correct, your eyes narrow more, 92% sure you have a death scowl going, though it may actually be a pout.) (Regardless, it earns you a flat look that very nearly becomes rolled eyes.)
You finish your drink, maintaining eye contact. (Maybe not the best idea, as the ice all moves at once and hits you in the face.) Silco’s dumb lips purse, and you want to kiss him. Wait no, you want to punch him. However you’re feeling, it annoys you, so you drop your gaze from his face to his hands now spread on the railing as he looks down from his metaphorical high tower. His fingers drum against the rail, and a little shiver hits you, shimmying the discomfort away and trying not to imagine those fingers on your skin.
The next time you look up, his expression is harder to read. Probably thinking about hisself. That guarded, thoughtful look is probably thinking about his stupid fancy clothes or his dumb desk, or shucking the fancy clothes off to fuck on the dumb desk— wait, ugh, no.
You shake your head in frustration to clear the thoughts from your mind, and the motion leaves your head in your hands, still spinning. So dizzy. Ow. Pressing the ice-filled glass to your forehead helps. You haven’t had so few drinks hit you this hard in… oh dear. Well. A while. Uhhh.
A distant memory of the temporary ban on drinking hits, along with the brief clear thought of just because you can doesn’t mean you should, and you wave them off with your prosthetic hand, trying to keep your head still where it is to stop the spinning. Sure, maybe you brought this on yourself, but it’s still his fault. Somehow.
A low voice speaking your name should be enough warning, when sober, to pay attention to the figure whose feet are inches from yours out the side of the booth, but you’re still getting your head straight. Your grunt of affirmation nets you nothing. The next time he says your name, you turn your head just enough to squint one eye at the man.
Oh. Lock.
Recognition makes your head raise and gaze flick back up toward Silco’s office, but he’s disappeared.
“Need you to come with me.”
Shhhhit.
Based on the hulking man’s tired expression, you may have said that aloud.
“I uh— I was gonna um. I was uhhh…” Your brain ticks gears that go nowhere, not a single excuse coming to mind. Not that it would be believable. “Hmm. Right. Yes.”
Your serious stalling nods only serve to make you dizzy again, so you stop, grimacing.
“Are you kicking me out?” you ask, voice notably less confident, though hopefully far from sheepish; there’s still plenty of bravado mixed in with the inevitable dread of being confronted by a massive bouncer.
“Worse,” he mutters. “Upstairs.”
For some reason, you’re thinking that is definitely not worse.
In fact, some not-so-small part of you is practically titillated at the prospect. Whoops.
“Hmmmm.” You try to sound serious and grim, brow furrowed and lips pursed.
Lock lets out the most burdensome sigh you’ve ever heard. Then a grunt. Then, “Get up.”
You manage to make it upstairs with minimal assistance, and you’re proud of that. You’re also not a little grateful that it’s not quite 6pm so the bar is mostly empty, with fewer people to witness both your stumbling and the rather damning fact that you’re being escorted to Silco’s office, drunk.
The door closes behind you, and you try very very hard not to sway as you stand just inside the entrance. A bubbling mess of dread, excitement, shame, anger, and so many bad ideas rolls in your gut.
Oh. He’s not wearing his usual prim waistcoat.
…Nope, no distractions. “You look—” Your mouth closes just in time to stop ‘particularly heinous today’ from spilling out in an act of overcorrected rudeness. Best not to poke him when you’re in such close proximity. Especially when he’s looking at you like that. Chilled anger turning his good eye to ice.
Silco’s thin lips curl in a sneer. “Oh, do continue.” Sarcasm so dry it makes you thirsty. “How do I look, my dear?”
Hot. Wait— nope. Scary? Uh… “You uh. Um.”
“You’re drunk.” The words are flat, inarguable, and yet you’re driven to argue.
“Nuh uh.”
His brow raises, utterly unimpressed. “…You're not drunk.” Oh, he doesn’t believe you. Not even a little bit.
The intoxicated flush somehow feels even hotter than before. “…Nope.”
A single slow blink as he stands from his desk, and begins walking toward you like he has all the time in the world. “So you’re…?”
“Sover.” Not a word. “So— ver…y sober.” Nice.
“Hm.”
“Like a nun.”
Huh. He’s steadily looking less furious, more… well, evil. Eyes flick over you, the sharp line to his lips somewhere between smirk and blade. “A nun.”
“A sexy nun.” Shit- “I mean, a badass uh— a— um—” Your face burns. Frustrated and dizzy and embarrassed. Annoyed. Your brow furrows, eyes shutting tight as you fall back against the door, grumpily. “Shut up, you know what I meant,” you grouse.
That very distinct sardonic flatness to his tone— “I assure you, I do not.” The sound of glass on wood.
“Like a… like a warrior nun or some shit…” you mumble, bringing a hand to your head. Wish you still had that ice.
Eyes closed is nice. Staying still. Just breathing for a second and not trying to move or think.
The scent of spicy sweet cigars and shimmer…You breathe in deep, letting the scent swim in your head. “Mmmmmm...” Smells good.
“How many drinks have you had?” Oh he’s much closer now.
Heavy eyelids half open to look up at him. Barely a foot away. You stare into that hellfire eye and feel it burning you up. “None,” you lie, for sheer spite. A pause, then you choke on a snort. Nun.
The grim line to his smile should be ominous. He moves and you finally notice the glasses in his hands as he holds one out to you. “We’ll make it one, then.”
There’s definitely something devious going on. There’s no hiding the suspicion from your face as you look at the cups. “Nnnno… thanks…”
“Take it.” That’s an order, tone flinty as he presses the glass into your hand.
Shame your brain immediately zips to a completely different interpretation of that command. Hot under the collar, your throat bobs, trying to look casual as you take the glass with your good hand. He doesn’t complain, and for that you’re grateful, because you feel like you’d probably drop anything you tried to hold in your prosthetic hand right now.
“Drink.” Another order.
You look up, feeling your bravado wavering. When he talks like that, it would be very hard to think clearly even if you were sober. Your tiny sip is foul, but you manage to not gag on the stuff, quite proud of the poker face you keep (even if your eyes screw up, nose wrinkles, lips purse— look, the fact that you aren’t sticking your tongue out and trying to wipe it off is a win).
The look he gives you is challenging.
You frown, then take another, longer sip. Gross gross gross.
He drinks from his own glass, never breaking eye contact, and face completely clear of any tells. Obviously he doesn’t hate it. Or maybe he’s drinking something else.
“What is it?” you ask, trying to stay confident.
“Doesn’t matter.” He puts a graceful finger to the bottom of your glass, tipping it toward your mouth again. “I tell you to drink, you drink.”
Oh you hate that. Lips close spitefully, letting liquid overflow the edges and trickle down your chin until he stops pushing and removes his finger from the glass. “No.”
His lips thin, eyes trained on the wet trail down your neck. “‘No?’”
For a second you pause. You wouldn’t take a drink from a stranger, not in a situation like this. You wouldn’t let a stranger give you something you couldn’t verify wasn’t spiked or drugged.
But Silco isn’t a stranger.
What he is, is testing you, you just know it. What, he wants to prove you’re… what, exactly?
Something stirs at the edge of your mind. Something about trust and cynicism and loneliness and loyalty.
For a second, you watch him, foggy brain attempting to interpret the impenetrable gaze he has fixed on you.
Then, without another word - eyes locked with his - you drain your cup.
[next part]
[ :) man, can’t wait to drop the preview for the next chapter ahahahahah
Please keep an eye out for tags in the next few chapters! And tag changes on ao3 as well. Speaking of ao3, HH recently hit 100 public bookmarks! :0 Thanks so much to everyone for loving on this fic, and I super duper hope that I don’t disappoint you as I fall into a well of sin 🥺👉👈
As always, please boost the post if you want to help combat the number of links I put on these posts, and if you want to really make my day feel free to add tags or comments 👀 All comments over on ao3 get a reply, too, so…. Pls? If you want to get tagged in future chapters and reverse POVs (there’s an upcoming one regarding this chapter, actually), join the tag list by commenting on this linked post.
This is honestly one of my fave chapters! Props to @insult-2-injury for the cocktail napkin ideas. And we met Chuck! (My headcanon is that this is the Chuck that worked the bar before Theiram, and Jinx refused to learn the new guy’s name after she left.) God I love intoxicated thinking, it’s very fun to write. Let me know what you thought! ❤️ -verbs]
Tag list: @hawk4president @mello-jello29 @jennrosefx @dad-dumpster @ellhd-imagination @zuckerwattencupcake @meep-moop-mystic @of-the-argonath @ariaud @witxhy-lexx @mazikomo @leave-me-alone-doctor @antoine-tte @emprixnix @imalovernotahater @eriseffigy @leorioaki @artificialwords @hehicular-hanslaughter-lecter @ironandglass @ughhhh177 @faraige @ilikemymendarkandfictional @jennithejester @insult-2-injury @iz-zy5 @rinadragomir @queenofspades6 @cuddlejeongin
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A Helping Hand - Part 22
[start here] || Part 21 || Part 22 || Part 23
[silco x f!reader] [2.5k words] [no y/n] [during timeskip] [touch-starved reader] [henchwoman!reader] [sfw rated M] [tween jinx] [hints of gun-related ptsd]
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Previously: Besides, you’ve got nearly four hours to figure out how to get the ‘report’ back to Silco.
Scratch that, you have one hour.
More like 49 minutes.
Luckily, the wake-up call that has you scrambling to determine that information may also be the answer to your problem— once she stops giving you that half-lidded gaze that screams ‘Really? You’re an idiot.’
“The morning was rough,” you mutter, neck heating with embarrassment over being found completely unguarded and unconscious.
“So you decided to be a sitting duck for a while?” Sevika’s eyes roll. “Honestly, not even trapping the doors…”
“Trapping the— you trap your doors?” Sure, you learned how, ages ago, but rarely do so. More likely to trip one than set one, in the last few years.
“I can trap doors!” Jinx answers instead, bouncing into view as you slip off your perch, your name bubbling over and over again on her lips. The excitement is nice, but you had definitely been appreciating the peace and quiet— that doesn’t look to be returning any time soon, with the kid around. “Wanna see how? I can show you how.”
Actually... “You know what, I could use a refresher,” you admit— then turn a wheedling expression on Sevika, who immediately looks suspicious. “And while we’re doing that… Sevika can go take a message to Silco?” The suggestion is a request. One you’re hoping she’ll take.
The look you get says everything. Oh no you don’t and don’t go dragging me into this, and it’s a sentiment you fully empathize with. But you also have the advantage of enjoying the charge Sevika can’t stand.
“Jinx and I can hang out here,” you offer, brows pulled together even as you avoid pleading. A flatly joking— “I’m well-rested” —draws her lips into a reluctant smirk.
“What’s the message?” It’s not a yes, and you’re well aware of that, but she’s gradually migrating to your side of the argument.
You pull out the note from your belt. “Check-in. The five o’clock stuff. I have to get it to him by then.”
Sevika’s eyes drift between the folded paper and your face, wary as you raise brows. She holds out fingers, her flicked gaze questioning, and you hand it over. It’s not private. Unfolding it, she frowns. “This is six words.”
“Yeah,” you agree. “Seems like a load of bullshit to me, too, but he’s the boss.”
Jinx, apparently bored by your talk, taps fingers against the barrel you’d been sitting on, then starts to climb.
Spotting Sevika’s eyes cutting toward the girl, you take the opportunity to act first.
“Hey Jinx, hop down for a sec?”
When she complies, you shoot a look at Sevika. Come on. She listens to me, I can keep an eye on her for the amount of time this will take.
Sevika seems to be reconsidering her position. But then Jinx gets close, knocks her shoulder into your arm, hands closing around your prosthetic sleeve, and it takes far more effort than you expect to not immediately wrap your arms around her. Focus. Concentrate.
“Forty minutes.” It’s a plea, even if you try not to sound like it. “The Drop and back, it’s gotta be forty minutes— an hour, max. Jinx can help me out with the trap thing. We can hang out.” AKA she’ll be out of your hair.
There’s a moment of silence as Sevika’s lips purse, and you are hyper aware of not letting your fingers twitch, not giving a single tell as to how badly you want to indulge in this new bad habit of feeling close to Jinx.
“…Yeah, fine. This once.”
“Yes!” Jinx expresses your gratitude for you, popping up on tiptoes and rocking back and forth as she keeps clinging to your numb arm.
All you manage is a crooked grin. “Thank you Sevika,” your impish singsong is quiet, not wanting to set a bad example for the kid (or no worse than Sevika already is).
“Oh fuck off,” she rolls her eyes, turning her back and giving a two fingered gesture with the folded note pinched between, that feels like the equivalent of flicking you off. Almost to the door, she adds, “Cover your exits. And I’m telling Wren to send someone over.”
You weren’t lying about having Jinx brush up your trapping skills. It gives the two of you something to do, that allows you to use the hand to some degree without being horribly taxing. The kid apparently carries plenty of random bits and bobs on her, and salvages plenty from the junk left in the warehouse as well, even if you’d initially thought the place thoroughly scavenged already.
The two of you are working on an alarm for the back exit, but Jinx’s eyes keep straying to the empty barrel you’d been (unintentionally) napping on, and up to the twisted broken metal that was once a stairway.
“…Bet there’s really good stuff up there,” she hedges, shooting you a sidelong glance. If she’s trying to be subtle, it’s not working, not with the way those big blue eyes get so round. Puppy dog eyes.
“I don’t think I can get up there without a ladder.” And neither can you, kid.
“But if you stand on the barrel, you can boost me.” She says it so quickly, she’s obviously been thinking of it for a while.
You let out a low breath. “Silco is already pissed; if you get hurt he’ll kill me.”
“I’ll lie and say I did it without you knowing. While you were busy.”
Like it’s just that simple. Lips pressed thin, you shoot her a skeptical look, shaking your head.
Jinx frowns, mouth stubborn. “I’ll do it anyway.”
Ah. Right. She’s basically a teenager. Telling her no isn’t as foolproof as you might hope. “Jinx, I like you way too much to let you go risking your neck for scrap.”
Her pout is interrupted by a sudden sunny grin. “I like you too! Which is why you should help me!”
What with one thing and another - your weak-ass spine, mostly, more than her (valid, but also somehow incredibly flawed) arguments - you find yourself braced against the wall and the heavy barrel, Jinx’s shoe cradled in your hands on your thigh as you boost her up to the second floor.
Yeah, it’s probably a bad idea. But she proved she can climb well, breaking into Silco’s office, and— she’s a kid. She’d definitely try to do it without your permission, and without you spotting, and at least this way you can give her a literal leg up on avoiding a nasty fall and/or injuries from the broken stairs.
“Ooh!” She immediately sounds delighted, and you just as quickly realize the downside of this plan is that you aren’t up there to supervise, and for all you know there’s even more dangerous stuff up there than a broken staircase.
“Uh— wait, Jinx—”
“It’s fine!” Far too flippant.
Oh gods. You know that tone.
You’ve been relegated to… an adult.
How mortifying.
Quickly, you rack your brain for some way to rein in the girl you’re supposed to be keeping out of trouble. The only solution seems to be to keep her talking; at least then you’ll hear if the little monkey tries to stick anything in her mouth.
“What’s up there?”
“It’s cool!” she calls back, even as her voice gets farther away and you quietly hope ‘cool’ doesn’t mean ‘full of explosive remnants’ (which, seeing as it’s Jinx, it very well could). “Buncha random shit!”
She’s quiet for a second, and you chide yourself for any rash thoughts you had about her sticking dangerous things in her mouth (she’s not a toddler, after all), but then—
“Old food cans and everything-”
“Don’t eat anything.”
“It’s sealed! You want one?”
You cover your eyes with your good hand, pressing fingers into your temples. Gods punishing you for your hubris, right here. ‘It’ll be fine,’ you thought, ‘can’t get into that much trouble,’ you thought. Now she’s gonna die of fuckin’ food poisoning.
At the sound of cans clattering against one another, you make a snap decision. “Bring them down here, we can do dinner.”
If she’s gonna try to eat suspicious tinned goods, best do it on the same level as you so you can slap the spoon out of her hand.
You’re saved the ordeal of an endless parade of unpalatable canned goods when Jinx comes to the edge and promptly loses hold of one of the stack of cans cradled in the bottom of her shirt. When it falls to your floor, the can dents. The second to fall outright splits at a seam, sending some suspect gravy across the warehouse floor. Face turning pink, Jinx agrees to leave the majority of the tins up top after that.
Pointing to the dents and claiming a risk of botulism saves you from whatever lurks inside the fallen cans. The last one - undamaged - opens to reveal what is probably fruit, but could be a vegetable, or maybe even some kind of fish, it’s incredibly hard to determine.
Both you and Jinx stare down into the opened can.
“…I’ll be honest, kid. This looks a little fucked up.”
It’s definitely a sign in your favor that Jinx is hesitating on any attempt to either dig out her spoon or dig in with her fingers.
“I think I’d prefer something fresh from an actual kitchen,” you state, trying to tempt her around to your thinking. “Better yet, a street vendor— the good shit, like Maggie’s or Jericho’s.”
Her big blue eyes glance up to you as you mentioned your old favorite stalls in the lanes. Something flickers over her face, and you think you spot surprise and hurt as well as a sort of grimace before she looks down, shoulders curling in on themselves slightly. You said something wrong but you’re not sure what. Whatever you did, she’s quieted, and not in a relaxed way. She gives off a vibe of uneasiness, almost dread.
You should try to comfort her, but your first instinct is still to keep the potential biohazard out of her reach. But— two birds with one stone.
“Wanna see something cool?”
The possibility of having to eat whatever the fuck is in that can disappears in an instant as your bullet cracks the air and pierces straight through the tin.
Jinx’s presence (and enthusiasm) helps temper the way your heart lurched at the sound.
Knocked over, spilling contents onto the warehouse floor, your next shot goes straight through the bottom of the can, bits of concrete and dust spraying where it hits the ground. The next shot hits the can next to it. Then the third already-dented can.
The kid’s whooping covers the too-hard pulse in your ears, the way your hand shakes. You can do this. It’s just anxiety. You should be used to conquering that by now.
A moment later your name is called from the entrance, and that’s all that saves Wren from both the trapped door and your own bullet. Luckily, years of practice and discipline has you aiming at the little ringing alarm box instead of her head, prosthetic thumb switching on the safety just in time before you pull the trigger.
There’s a fraction of a second where you’re not sure you successfully switched it, terrified that you may be shooting towards an ally, but apparently even without feeling it your muscle memory knows gun safety. The alarm keeps sounding, and Wren stays standing, and your nervous trigger finger is - thankfully - useless.
“Fuck Wren, don’t scare me like that.” Your voice comes out tight, shrill, throat choked as you swallow hard and try to calm your breathing, finger off the trigger as soon as you fully registered who it was.
It’s good to know your instincts are strong enough to both aim for an inanimate target instead of her, and to stop yourself before taking the shot, but good gods that was jarring.
Wren doesn’t seem to recognize just how close she came to death. “We have a firing range at the gym, you know. Downstairs,” she informs you, voice wry.
I almost killed you. “I’m not—” Your jaw snaps shut as you censor yourself. You are ready. You have to be ready. But— “I don’t want to be training with other people right now, while I’m figuring things out again.” I don’t want to hear any gunshots that aren’t mine. That fact worries you.
Jinx scampers across the warehouse to the door, turning off the little alarm on the trap, and greeting Wren grudgingly. You have to wonder what makes the kid so standoffish, but as soon as the older woman starts admonishing her for skipping out on training sessions, you don’t need to wonder anymore.
Jinx’s firm scowl clears a bit as Wren’s words falter and her attention turns back to you. “If you’re going to be shooting, it should be in a controlled environment. You and the girl both should have ear protection, too.”
Holstering your weapon, you wave a hand dismissively. “Yeah, I know. I’ll figure something out.”
The trainer’s gaze takes you in, then your targets, and finally the barrel still poised below the broken stairway. “Figure out what’s up there?”
Eyes flick to Jinx, spotting her mouth beginning to open, and you quickly interrupt. “Nope. Not yet. Gonna find a good ladder to use.”
Her mouth forms a little ‘o’ shape behind Wren’s back, and she nods once in understanding.
…You’re teaching the kid bad habits. Great. Really an excellent role model.
“Seems like a hassle,” Wren shakes her head, still looking up at the hidden second floor. “Pretty sure it was all old storage. Just-in-case stuff, y’know, that got moved out once the shimmer changed house. Emergency clothes, weapons— …canned food.”
The look she levels on you is openly suspicious, but you keep your face clear.
After a moment of scrutiny, she lets out a breath, apparently unwilling to argue the point. “Done shooting for the day?”
You take the offered out.
By the time Sevika gets back from her errand-that-you-refuse-to-call-an-errand, you and Jinx have already made a plan: clear out a space up top for a shooting gallery. Paintballs only for a bit, whenever you have company. After that scare with Wren, you’re still rattled. And the idea of accidentally shooting any of your people, let alone the kid, makes you queasy.
Sevika’s mood is dark, watching Jinx show you how to arm up a gas trap (without gas, luckily, so it’s more a theoretical demonstration). Her words are unrelated, though, directed at you: “He’s not happy.”
Grim satisfaction pools in your chest, a thin blade of a smile on your lips. “Tough.”
Jinx snickers, but Sevika only raises her brows, giving you a flat look. “Sure hope you have a backup plan once that hand comes off.”
For a second your spite falters. Would he—
But no. If he was that pissed, you would’ve gotten the worst of it yesterday. You may be poking the dragon, but it’s not with the expectation of angering him enough to force his hand.
At least, not like that.
The idea occurs to you that it is his hands you want. The hands he insists don’t want to touch you. That’s the hand you want to force, the liar. He initiated everything. He’s the one using your weakness against you.
And maybe, with the right buttons pushed, he’ll be forced to admit that.
[next part]
[This is a short one, pretty relaxed, with a hefty helping of Jinx cause we love tween Jinx. ❤️ But after this… 👀 Next chapter is one of my faves. And so is 24. And so is 25. And so is 26. Hope you all enjoy what’s to come. (: (And yes, the idea for the shooting gallery is entirely inspired by @insult-2-injury ‘s silvy fic Taking the Shot.)
As per usual, please boost the post if you like it, cause idk how the tumblr tags work and half the time I accidentally publish without adding tags. Also, I absolutely monch and cronch on any and all tags and comments, both here and on ao3, so please feed me 🥺👉👈
There’s a particularly excellent reverse pov coming, so if you want to get added to the tag list to get notified when I post main chapters and supplemental works here on tumblr, you can join by commenting on this linked post. Reverse POVs are also being added to ao3 in a series, but there’s a delay posting there versus here. That’s the place to bookmark such excellent reverse POVs as the one where Silco touches a lip, the one where Silco creepily watches someone sleep, and the one where Silco is jealous of a girl having a panic attack.
Hope you enjoyed, and buckle up for what’s to come! ❤️ -verbs]
Tag list: @hawk4president @mello-jello29 @jennrosefx @dad-dumpster @ellhd-imagination @zuckerwattencupcake @meep-moop-mystic @of-the-argonath @ariaud @witxhy-lexx @mazikomo @leave-me-alone-doctor @antoine-tte @emprixnix @imalovernotahater @eriseffigy @leorioaki @artificialwords @hehicular-hanslaughter-lecter @ironandglass @ughhhh177 @faraige @ilikemymendarkandfictional @jennithejester @insult-2-injury @iz-zy5 @rinadragomir @queenofspades6
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