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I can imagine. That's all.

[ Fighting his own smile, murdering his steak. Thinking about alternate applications for that drive to impress. ]

I'm very impressed you henceforth decided to live a life of humble modesty.

[ There it is. A heavenward sweep of his eyes, trying as he might to mute a little the stretch of amusement at his own expense, but it's funny. What can he do? ]

You're laughing now, but I haven't taken you to a single neurological society dinner to watch me speak about my own prowess to a room full of people who paid me to be there, so. You're welcome.

Edited 2025-01-27 14:20 (UTC)

[ Silco's own smile breaks slowly over his face. He tips a shoulder up, not particularly thankful. ]

I like that you know your worth.

[ At a conference or otherwise. They're circling back around to what they actually should be talking about, now, but it feels easier than he expected. Playful. He doesn't even try to redirect into discussion of the food, though there is a moment here where he tries the gammon and pineapple and wrinkles his nose in light bemusement, having not expected fruit. ]

[ That gets him, Stephen blinking surprise, the humor in his face going briefly slack as that point fades into watching Silco try something new. He gathers himself after a short stretch of seconds, pulling on play like a coat to push through the fog of fondness. ]

In that case, I'll make sure to get you a copy of my books.

[ One last little sample of a past they can share more about another time. He can sense the full circle turn of the conversation too - even though he called for it, he's not quite sure how to start, but his expression settles into something calm and comfortable as he lapses into quiet to consider it. Watching Silco, not too concerned by the possibility of embarrassing himself entirely when he finds his next words, plucked from their earlier conversation. ]

Your opinion's important to me, too.

[ Even if it's just the fact that he likes the size of his ego, even though Stephen's wielding it disguised as play - it matters. In that and the rest. It makes a good segue: it's why they're having this conversation at all. ]

[ Silco is coming to terms with the pineapple; he doesn't dislike it, but the presence of sweetness in the meal has been startling enough to temporarily confuse his preferences. The carrots are sweet too, but in a different way, artificial and sticky and expected. He puts the pineapple to the side, to be reattempted later; refreshes his palate with a sip of wine; all of this allowing him to seem stoic in the face of conversation turned confessional. But fllirting has its own unexpected sweetness, too.

He puts the glass down, thumbing the stem a moment. ]

I've thought about you quite a lot these last few days. Mostly in the context of my own history with these kinds of things. Which, I suppose is inevitable, given the mirror becomes a window to the past.

[ But he's digressing. Glancing eye contact, trying to keep himself on track. To actually say something meaningful and honest so Stephen can understand a little better what he's getting himself into, even if Silco is growing concerned that the moment he's seen in any real clarity, this enjoyable flirtation will end. ]

Understand that aside from my daughter my relationships for the past fifteen years have been — transactional, in one way or another. And before that was something ill-defined.

[ There. They're in. Stephen listens, steady focus fixed on Silco as he speaks, dealing with the fizzing, anxious delight of I've thought about you quite a lot these last few days with an almost entirely straight face. He nods at mention of his daughter, at the gulf of time between now and when last Silco experienced any even-fielded ease in another's company.

His thoughts skim over the complex mire of his own more recent relationship history with a flip of the stomach. If not for Rubilykskoye, this might have been a less complicated conversation. But if not for Rubilykskoye, they probably wouldn't have found themselves here at all. He'd have vanished that mistletoe before they had the chance. ]

Is it alright? That this hasn't been [ hm. ] what you're used to.

[ One thing at a time. He'll start adding his colorful history to the pile once they've unpacked Silco's, the question more a prompt for a laying out worries than the sum of its parts. If the answer's no, they're shit out of luck - there's nothing else Stephen can offer him but their shared blind stumble through early days. ]

Edited 2025-01-27 18:17 (UTC)

Yes.

[ One simple word made burningly earnest, silken voice gone rough on it.

He hadn't known, of course, that he was starving himself, had been very deliberate about seeing to the distraction of his needs with ruthless efficiency. But "intimacy with a man his own age" hadn't been on the list.

There's more in him but he doesn't really know how to talk about it without the scaffolding of a negotiation. ]

It does mean I can be, I suppose, defensive. Of my autonomy, of the vulnerability that passion requires of me.

[ Weakness, he'd called it, and he makes Stephen fight for every inch of it, but that's ultimately what it is to him, the soft underbelly, the ruinously exploitable desires, the loss of total control. Silco eyes his potatoes, a little tense. ]

[ A thrill blooming bright behind his sternum with that yes, small breath snatched to compensate. There's a reason he doesn't have these conversations, he thinks. Funny enough, it has quite a lot to do with the next thing that comes out of Silco's mouth. ]

I get it. [ Phrased like this, separate from the heat of their earlier talk and cast in candlelight, it's all too easy to understand the sentiment. Their perspectives not the same, perhaps, but he knows the impulse. Remembers conversations like dark corners, his back unexpectedly against walls, fight or flight or freeze? It's the former more often than not - for both of them, it seems, and that's going to get them into some trouble if this keeps going where it's going. But. ] I know hearing it won't change that, but I won't make a weapon of the parts of yourself you let us both enjoy.

[ At least not outside of the context of that enjoyment. Words do very little to kill fear, he knows, and more of them won't change that, but context might help anyway. Something for him to remember, in the times when fear doesn't drown memory out. ]

I've spent the better part of the last year learning it's worth the risk. [ Being vulnerable. Baring the tender parts that can't hold up to misuse. ] I'll do whatever I can not to be the reason you decide it isn't.

[ It's more direct than he really meant to be, filled with a more fierce, focused determination. But it's important to him. Whatever this is, whatever it becomes, however long it's allowed to last - even if in the end he's only one small stepping stone in Silco's path, he hopes to be sturdy underfoot. To carry him onward, not crack and send him back the way he came. ]

[ This is the main difference, Silco thinks, between the two of them: Stephen is good. He really means that, Silco can see it, studying him carefully, that he wouldn't exploit Silco's avaricious hunger at being made to come apart. And it's true enough that Stephen hasn't presumed anything about him from Silco kneeling in the bathroom to suck him off, or crawling drunk and slutty over the bar to him. There's safe harbour in this, beyond anything he's had before.

He exhales a small slow breath. ]

I trust you.

[ Mostly. When he's rational enough for trust, when trauma doesn't slap that decision from his hands. It's not the first time he's felt it, but somehow it's easy to share here, mild-mannered, almost quiet, in between another bite of steak. He's almost finished his plate, and he's not sure what he's going to do with himself then, how to distract his hands and eyes. ]

That doesn't mean I'm going to make it easy for you. I think it's better when we're both playing to win.

[ Sexually, anyway. This domestication, deeply held truths about himself shared over a candle-lit dinner, this is much less of a battle. If there was still a chance he could return home to Zaun he'd be reluctant, but that death freed him from certain responsibilities. Now there's only Jinx — and, newly, this.

He's flushing again. Maybe he can blame the wine. ]

[ Trust. It pulls at his cheek without the thought to commit to a smile, tugging his mouth up at one corner, marionette. ]

Good. [ Emphatic. Some leftover gladness for the trust oozing into his enjoyment of the game. ] We can agree on that.

[ And he takes a moment here to bask in it. In the colour creeping under Silco's skin, in something new discussed and made real. Not that the conversation's over, but he's lost interest in the meal, and all ten extra meals' worth of sides the staff managed to squeeze onto the table. Wine, then. Another sip, then reaching to top them both up as the few seconds' pause clears out the joy and reminds him that there's more than one conversation that needs having tonight. Just because they've made it through the first doesn't mean he's off the hook for the rest. ]

... I have your history. [ The bones of it, anyway, as it pertains to what they're doing. ] Mine's a little less, uh. [ Past. How to approach it? He's realising - slow, creeping understanding - that the way he's learned to be no longer sits in the comfortable realms of normalcy outside of its context. ] I didn't leave my last life behind on purpose.

[ The start of a point that ends and people have a habit of showing up here. He doesn't get that far, lapses into quiet and his own turn to look uncomfortable, tension clear in his jaw and the skin around his eyes for all he tries to will himself relaxed. It's been all too easy up until today to consider this almost as if it were simple, truly simple, a new shoot in empty soil. Unfortunate, then, to have to take a point to the bubble of that self-delusion. ]

[ Silco has a manipulators acute awareness of how power flows — politically, sexually, conversationally. Stephen stutters, tenses a little, and it shifts the direction of what they're doing. Silco's defenses (around research, autonomy, weakness, sex) were being, if not attacked then softened.

And now they're not.

He puts his fork down with a careful click, sits back in his chair rather than leaning in. Dabs his mouth with his napkin, letting Stephen stutter through what he's trying to say, considering the spaces of what he doesn't, words swerved. It's fine, he finds that as much a game as the rest of it.

He resists the urge to point out that nobody's here on purpose. Not the point. ]

The place with 'a lot of sex'.

[ Tenderness you took where you could get it. He can imagine where this is going, or at least the shape of it. Regrets doing it on the table rather than with the advantage of touch and teeth to stop Stephen stepping so carefully. Though Silco isn't any less deliberate. ]

Will you tell me about it?

I can. Not much of it is pleasant story-telling, but I don't mind if you don't.

[ The place isn't the problem. He can spill his hate for it happily, all his rage and resentment, the horrors and the things he can't help but miss. Some of the tension seems to slip at mention of that part at least, no resistance to be found.

But. This isn't a conversation about pasts in the general sense. Is it better to be honest now, whatever extra pressure or inference of expectation that might pile on something too new to have to bear it, than have it break under unexpected weight without warning down the line? ]

It's more that I had people there. Some of them have been and gone, here. Some of them are here and don't remember. Some of them aren't.

[ People, is the point. He's not unattached, for all that he's been torn from those attachments. It isn't— straightforward. ]

[ Silco doesn't particularly catch the plurality simply because it doesn't strike him as odd. Piltover has monogamy, of course, it's how they solidify their power, by creating houses and passing wealth and title down to their offspring. But it's not the same in the undercity.

No, what strikes him is the usual need: to be the best. The most valued, of many. But it's without particular jealousy. They've known each other a month or two, things are only newly unfolding between them. Silco knows that his history, with so few people allowed in it, is not the norm. ]

All right.

[ He props his chin in his hand, fingers covering his mouth. Considers his emotional response: it doesn't quite correspond to that logic. The drugs — the ReSculpt — does tend to twist the psyche towards insecurity. Irritating. He ignores it; if it bothers him once the withdrawals are past he'll revisit the topic. ]

My ex showed up, as it happens, so I do take your point.

[ Sometimes the world simply shifts on its axis and takes the best laid plans with it. ]

[ Any intention he might've had to interrogate that reaction dies here. Stephen's eyes gone wide under sharply furrowed brow. ]

The bartender?

[ The bartender, like that's really the thing of the few things Silco told him that Stephen actually defines him by. ]

Vander.

[ There's a yes in his tone, the tip of his head. Silco at least seems unperturbed. Death doesn't stick here, so he can't just quietly make the problem go away, but he's got it handled. ]

He's agreed to a — truce. For Jinx's sake. Missed her whole teens and still considers himself her father. It's touching, really.

[ Silco does not seem touched.

He spears the pineapple he set aside with a fork and bites into it, considering the flavour more seriously now that it's not such a surprise. ]

[ A cant of his head, this information new. Concern is etched deep in his frown, the betrayal Silco shared with him somehow made worse by the implication. ]

She was both of yours?

Her parents were our best friends, once. They died when she was four, in our attempted revolution. And our relationship with them.

[ Those last words dry, bitter. Pain too old to really hurt anymore.

He finishes the pineapple, letting the silence hang for a moment. Just when it seems he mightn't be going to say more, and they can end this digression. ]

He blamed my explosives. Gave up on our dream. Co-operated with Piltover enforcers to bring the survivors to heel. Everyone returned to their miserable lives. I was furious, at the time, but I understand it better now. He would rather Jinx and her older sister live to experience a hard world than lose them fighting for a better one.

[ He'd made the same choice in the end. Is there anything so undoing as a daughter? ]

But no, we never co-parented. So I imagine this will be a learning experience for us all. But we weren't talking about my past.

We weren't, until it made its way into your present.

[ A filler, while he digests what he's just been told. Context makes better sense of sparse details threaded haphazardly together, and he's grateful for it for all it worries. Strange how so much strife can be condensed into so few sentences. He's sure there must be things he wants to ask, surer still that this deserves its moment of silence, consideration... but Silco would rather not. And he'll have plenty of time to think on it later, bring the conversation back around once they've both had a little distance from it.

A long, conspicuous inward breath, a readying. He huffs it out, purging one story to make room for the next. Conceding to the change of direction. ]

Anything in particular you want to know?

[ Lightly impatient: ]

Everything, obviously.

[ He'd much rather hear it from Stephen than from someone else, too, especially since Jemima had been so unforthcoming. ]

Let's start with what you're talking around telling me.

[ That stumps him, briefly. He blinks, thinking he'd been clear enough. ]

We've already done that part.

[ He'd thought the shift in focus had marked it as case closed, but evidently not. Now that it's reopened, he finds his records in total disarray, no idea how to report what's inside. Hesitant to say too much and find he's overshared, out of his depth entirely. ]

Edited 2025-01-28 13:43 (UTC)

[ Silco rolls his eyes so hard his neck actually moves. ]

Barely.

[ And, with insidious honesty: ]

If you won't give me specifics I'll go asking for them.

[ Network post: raise your hand if you or someone you know has fucked Stephen Strange. Silco's eyes flicker wide, innocent. ]

Was it men and women? Were any serious? Platonic? For a long time? Are you married?

[ Chin still in hand, rapid-fire questions accompanied with a stab of his other finger in the air like he's listing them off. It's important to know his competition. ]

[ Well, that's any fear of an overshare dead, but it does also very rapidly pose a new problem: where to start. It's an obvious shift from caution to bemusement, brow tweaking uncomfortably, mouth pulling down, interrogation a not entirely unwelcome surprise. Still a little on edge, maybe, but less because of his own uncertainty than the fact of how many of those questions hit nails on heads.

And yet he started this, no matter how much he'd like the ground to swallow him. ]

Yes, yes, uhh... eh [ undecided on the platonic point, apparently, if only because he hadn't been thinking about it at all ], yes, and— no. Technically. But also yes, twice.

[ That's one way to get started, anyway. ]

[ Strange rattles off answers that really only lead to more questions and Silco gives him a flat look. The tip of his shoe taps Stephen's ankle beneath the table. ]

You're being infuriating again.

[ Though that doesn't usually result in a whole lot of talking, so perhaps it's a strategy. ]

Mm, well, I do that.

[ As they're both well aware. ]

You did ask a question.

[ Several, in fact. But he relents, the brief safety of play not meant to last. A drifting off of his gaze as he tries to decide where to start. ]

I haven't been - great, historically, at casual. Most of the people I slept with were people I'd either already invested in or ended up invested in after the fact. There are a fair few to work through if you want them all.

[ Silco sips his wine. ]

I do.

[ Voracious and unashamed about it. But then he relents incrementally. ]

Only if you're comfortable.

[ With the telling, yes, but with the choice of time and place to tell, too. He can be patient. Neither of them are going to finish this food. ]

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