Chapter Text
When Silco makes the journey to Singed’s lab, the damp cave hiding between moss-slicked rocks, he does not expect a child to be there. The scientist makes no effort to hide the boy, but he seems to be of a shyer demeanor regardless—the first glimpse he catches of the child is a dark shape ducking behind a long line of glowing vials.
He pays no mind to it at first—believing it another one of the strange, twisted creatures that Singed tinkers with. One of the things that, by silent mutual agreement, Silco doesn’t pry into in exchange for similar courtesy. He does not ask about the creatures in vats of formaldehyde, about the locket that the other man occasionally fiddles with, and in exchange, he brooks no inquiries about the darker sides of his own business.
When he greets the man, however, with a quiet dip of his head, there’s the sound of a brief clattering behind him. He turns, sees a crooked wooden cane on the ground—seems it was dropped by someone—and a small, thin hand scrabbling for it.
“Viktor,” Singed calls, voice soft but not unkind, “come out.”
The hand grabs the cane, and, with the implement’s help, a boy rises from behind the table. He has the look that all Zaunite children have—thin and hollow-cheeked despite the roundness of youth, clothes dirty and patchwork, hair unbrushed. Even the twist of his leg, foot turned inwards, is not entirely unique. Silco’s seen enough children like these, sick street rats with nothing to their name but what they can steal, that he feels less pity and more simple curiosity.
Singed is a scientist first and chemist second, merchant far behind those two, and paternal not even upon the list. Logic suggests that the boy is yet another experiment, but the soft tone of the other man’s voice did not suggest that sort of relationship, nor the way he approaches without fear.
The only wariness to him, in fact, is centered upon Silco. He stops a good distance away, leaning heavily upon his cane. He’d estimate his age around ten or eleven, but ages get murky once malnutrition and grime are introduced into the mix.
“I apologize,” Singed says smoothly, “I did not know I would have a guest today. I hope his presence is not… objectionable.”
Silco cannot tell if he’s addressing him or the boy, which one of them is supposed to be the guest. Eventually, he settles upon a, “is he yours?”
Flat. Straightforward.
“No,” is the reply, equally neutral, “not mine .” No elaboration on what, then, he is—experiment is still a possibility. Assistant, perhaps, but Singed is the type of man to work alone, and, failing that, take on a competent fellow instead of roping a child into his delicate sort of science.
Doesn’t matter. Silco is here for one thing only—inquiries on Singed’s progress on Shimmer—and none of the man’s other affairs concern him.
“This is a private matter,” he says, shaking any curiosity out of his mind. Singed nods in acknowledgement.
“Go,” he says, waving the boy away with a pale hand, “feed Rio.”
The boy takes the dismissal swiftly, turning on a heel, limping away deeper into the depths of the cave.
Finally, solitude achieved, he’s allowed to return to his business.
In the progressing months and years, each time he visits Singed, the boy is nowhere to be found—not disposed of, though. He sees the signs. Various canes left leaning against the wall, outgrown or abandoned. Sometimes, the faint sound of uneven footsteps behind one or other of the walls. Most damning, a section of table cleared off in the corner of the lab, where a second inventor works with gears and mechanical trinkets instead of Singed’s signature chemicals. He finds a bit of interest in watching how the projects evolve, each time he drops by—simple at first, a toy boat, childrens’ trinkets, but soon they’re incomprehensible to his eyes, large sections of whirling gears and metal that seem to be only the base components of vaster things yet.
Interesting, but he doesn’t comment on it.
The moment of truth rapidly approaches, and that’s all he can occupy himself with, really.
—
In the weeks after Vander’s disposal, he does not contact Singed at all. After that final culmination of his plan, everything is a jumble of grabbing all those disparate Zaunite threads and tying them into a neat little bow. Stepping into the vacuum of power as easily as plugging a leak, placating the chem-barons and the gangs and scouring the streets of dissidents.
More pressing, somehow, is the girl. Vander’s girl. The blue-haired child, acting younger than her age of eleven, who’s done nothing but cry and attempt to cling to him, only peeled off by Sevika’s force—and who will, then, refuse to leave her alone. She’s a curiosity. An annoyance, at times, but those first nights, he watches her during the only times she’s quiet—when she’s sleeping—and tries to remember what she reminds him of.
The boy, he realizes eventually, Singed’s boy, lab assistant, whatever he was. If he was ten, that day so many years ago, he must be nearing twenty by now. Why does she remind him of that child?
More than the physical similarities—of which there aren’t many, actually; as Vander’s daughter, this girl is far better-fed and cared for than that boy was—it’s the way she tinkers.
He’s surprised, the first time he walks into his office and sees her taking apart his music box. It’s an old thing, a gift from some sycophant he can’t remember anymore, so the instinctive reaction is less fury at her touching his possessions than curiosity about what she’ll do with the parts. He stands there, watching her light fingers run over the fine gears, prodding and pulling, reassembling the entire thing into…
And then, she realizes his presence, startles and whirls around. There’s fear in her wide eyes, fear that he’s going to reprimand her, but it’s almost endearing, the way she clutches the box despite all that. He beckons her, stooping over slightly, doing his best to appear less intimidating than he knows he is. She takes the bait, pushes to her feet and slowly meanders closer.
“What were you doing?” He asks, lowering his voice.
“I… don’t know,” she murmurs, “I like crafting. I used to…”
She trails off, dangerously close to getting mired in the memories of times before, so he speaks before she can get too lost.
“You’re good at it,” he praises, though in truth he knows next to nothing about this sort of thing. He is, to use that old phrase, a politicker first, a lord, a fighter second, and scientist far third.
Her eyes widen at the praise, looking up to him with the first sign of joy he’s seen, and it strikes him that perhaps she will be useful. Perhaps he can mold her into something that can help him as much as any army of brute fighters.
To do that, though, she will need a mentor. A teacher.
Perhaps it is because he’s been thinking of Singed’s boy, these past few days, but the idea strikes him and it seems almost like fate.
—
The man has a new lab. Closer to the mainline of Zaun, though still hidden in a narrow back alleyway. Silco suspects that he still uses the one near the topside, hidden among the rocks, but this is the new location he was provided to visit, and he respects the man enough not to go snooping.
They’ve had little contact even before he disposed of Vander—once Shimmer was finalized, there was no reason to keep going back. Singed’s enthusiasm for their partnership seemed to have waned, as well, after the accident that burnt him.
He brings the girl himself. Vander named her Powder, but for some reason, the name doesn’t sit right on his tongue, and she flinched the first time he called her that—so, for now, she’s just the girl . Sevika lags behind them both—he technically needn’t have come; he has no doubts Sevika could do this errand adequately, but then again, this is unfamiliar territory.
Despite all their distance, when Singed opens the door—far different from how he once looked, now completely bald, right eye clouded a murky sort of green and burnt scarring rippling down his face, the last remains of Professor Reveck cleansed by fire from his being—he nods as if he’s expected Silco all along. Which, perhaps he has.
The new lab is larger than the old one, and already set up with tall vats that span to the ceiling, filled with glowing liquids and with misshapen things slowly spinning inside like dying tops. Jars cluttered along the shelves, bottles of miscellaneous chemicals, and—he notices—tucked into a far corner, a table cluttered with gears and tools.
He allows himself the ghost of a smile. He guessed right.
“I heard,” Singed says, no niceties such as inviting him to sit, offering tea. All familiar. Silco wouldn’t trust any tea the man gave him, anyways. “About your success.”
“ Our success,” he says, “it was your invention, too.” Laying it on thick.
The other man simply nods in acknowledgement. He doesn’t respond, but the unspoken question is that of, so why are you here now ?
“The boy,” he forges on, deciding there’s no use in beating around the bush—both of them appreciate directness—“Viktor, you called him? Is he still around?”
Surprisingly, when the reply comes, there’s a note of guardedness in Singed’s voice. “Viktor? Yes.”
“Is he yours?” He asks, the repetition of a question from many years before. This time, instead of a certain no , Singed takes a long moment to think.
“Not biologically,” he settles on, “but he has… lingered here.”
Interesting . As clear a declaration of affection that he’s given for anything outside of science, and also more clear tension to his frame than he’s seen before. The man has looked less uncomfortable elbow-deep in a bloody ribcage than he does, right now, at this line of questioning.
Perhaps he means to strike back, because he gestures at the girl clinging to Silco’s side—currently looking around the lab in a mixture of fascination and horror—and echoes the question. “Is she yours?”
She tenses at the question, hand tightening around his coat, craning her head to look up at him. He tries not to meet her eyes—since the previous night, his praise of her inventing skills, she has upped her clinginess by a factor of ten. If he were to say no , he knows she would break. Fracture. Too many people, in her life, have left—if not all by choice.
“Yes,” he says, and the lie comes as smoothly as all lies do, easily enough that a lesser man might think it was the truth. “Viktor is a tinkerer, is he not?” He asks, gesturing towards the corner table.
“He possesses some talent.” Singed pauses, before continuing. “I do not mean to insult, Silco, but I would prefer he stayed with me.”
Ah. So he thinks that this is a mission for conscription—which is not actually entirely untrue.
“I would not take him,” he says, trying to push all the reassurance he’s capable of into the words—he does not know what would happen if Singed believed himself backed into a corner, but he knows it wouldn’t be pretty—“but my… but here, I have an inventor as well. Young, but promising.”
The girl can’t suppress her smile at the promising . Singed’s eyebrow—or, perhaps it’s appropriate to say simply brow , given lack of hair—raises fractionally. “You want a tutor? Seek the academy.”
Just the mere statement is an insult, no doubt intentionally, but Silco controls himself. “As if they’d accept her, a Zaunite. Besides, is there not a reason you left?”
He doesn’t offer up a denial.
“I would pay,” he says, the final seal upon the deal—whatever secret projects that Singed is working on on his own, he needs money, as evidenced by their previous longstanding relationship—“quite generously. You’d have protection, too. Upheaval is coming to the undercity. I could ensure you’re unaffected by the changes.”
If it was just Singed alone , he doubts that the last bit would have much appeal—the man is slippery as a greased eel—but he’s banking upon his feelings towards the boy that’s his-not-his.
The gamble works. He knows it has, before the man even opens his mouth to acquiesce—by the loosening of his stance, the lowering of his brow.
He turns his head fractionally, says, “ Viktor! ” Turns back, quietly addresses Silco again, “it’s his choice.”
“Of course.”
In the back of the lab, a door hidden in the shadows swings open, and out steps a boy. Boy nearing man, really—seems Silco’s estimate of age was correct, as he’s now a tall, thin figure suspended in the limbo between child and adulthood. Still, he’s hollow-cheeked, features angular, though he doubts Singed starves him. Seems that thinness is simply inherent to him.
Otherwise, as he limps into the dim light, the broad strokes are the same. Still using a simple wooden cane, leg dramatically bent inwards, right foot curling towards the left. Even the expression upon his face calls back to the first time Silco saw him: wary, mouth drawn tight, curiosity hidden behind that veneer of caution.
“Did you hear?” Singed asks. He nods, approaching ever-closer, stopping only a few feet from the group.
“You-” he addresses Silco- “want me to teach her?” His voice is soft, faintly accented.
“Yes,” he confirms.
“What is your name?” He asks, and it takes a moment to realize that he’s addressing her . She shrinks back for a moment, looking up at Silco for reassurance, but he stays silent. Allow her to choose a name for herself, whether that be Powder or any other moniker.
“ Jinx ,” she says, after a long moment. It startles even Silco—strange name, and the way she spits it out suggests that it’s not one she even particularly likes . Still, he doesn’t contradict her. Viktor glances back at Singed, and then again, looks down.
“Jinx. Why do you do it?”
She’s silent for a long moment, puzzled. After a minute, he prompts her.
“Invent. Create. Why?”
Again, silence, but this time because she’s thinking. Viktor watches her intently, waiting for a response, eyes a brown so light it borders on amber—both narrowed, focused. Reminds Silco of Singed, the way he decides upon a goal, does not let anything sway his course. He wonders what a child raised by that man’s particular psyche might turn out to be like.
He wonders what a child raised by his own would.
“It’s beautiful,” she decides, voice quavering with nerves, “it’s, like-” here, she falters, takes a moment to swallow before pushing on, “making life, and it can be anything you want it to be. And it can hurt, but also… beauty.”
It’s a child’s answer, all muddled and full of odd pauses, but Viktor draws back, the corner of his mouth quirking up into a smile, and Silco would wager it was the exact right answer.
“Yes,” he says, “the machine really is beautiful.”
With the hand not currently leaning upon the cane, he reaches out. A handshake. Not meant for Silco.
For the first time in days, Jinx willingly detaches from his side, taking a single step forward. Clasping his hand in hers, and now, independent and smiling and bright-eyed, she looks not only her age of eleven, but like a prophecy of something to come.
They shake.
Silco looks up, meeting Singed’s one-eyed gaze, and finds the other man is—if not smiling—satisfied as well.
This will be a good partnership.