Chapter Text
Silence grows electric as it stretches and our breathing sounds like a further presence in the room.
A curious sense of ineluctability descends upon me. I consider the myriad of circumstances that led me here, behind the very own desk of the most powerful man in Zaun, standing by his chair, his odd gaze fixed on me. I wonder if he feels the same. Has it come by accident, our unlikely acquaintance? Has it taken him by surprise, too, or am I being played, a pawn on a chessboard too vast for me to see?
Yet he doesn't look his usual self, that much I can tell: an eyebrow twitches, disrupting his aloof demeanor; his left hand stops swishing the brand in the glass it's holding and lowers it to the table. It's enough to speed up my heartbeat.
I bite my lip. It's not a sultry display: I don't have the right kind of face for such things. My lips are pale, my face too long, forehead too high; a few years younger than him I consider myself too old to excite the imagination of dangerous, sophisticated men. Still it's me he's staring at, a vague panic in his eye. He turns his swivel chair to face me.
This is going to happen.
I gulp down the brand he poured me earlier on, when this was still an ordinary meeting and we were making small talk. One mouthful, ice cubes and everything: my throat burns, then aches for the cold; my eyes water and my nose itches. I welcome the distraction from the furious elation that's eating at me, I even wipe my face with a sleeve as an act of defiance: I'd rather appear more preoccupied with my snot than him. He pauses at my sudden movement, but stands from the chair anyway, covers the single step separating us and gently takes the glass from my hand, places it aside his own. He doesn't offer me a second drink. His eyes take a long time to travel back to mine; they linger on my now empty hand, slowly trailing up my arm, collarbone, mouth. He inches closer, enough that I can smell him: the stench of his cigars hits me first, followed by the fading notes of cologne applied hours ago; hair grease. Sweat. His first breath adds a sting of alcohol. I think confusely that not many people get to smell Silco without being in dire troubles. Do I belong to the same cathegory? My skin prickles with adrenaline.
He's not much taller than me, his mouth roughly at my eye level. It's not a pretty mouth: stern to a pout, jagged by scars and early expression lines, thin lips to guard chipped, crooked teeth that he frequently grinds. A mouth so full of pain... and I crave it, so hard that my ears rumble and my temples throb.
How dares this man bring me to such a state without saying a word nor laying a finger on me? Why those hungry eyes, those deep, deliberate breaths, why me? Is this a test?
-Is this a test? - I hear myself say. He shakes his head no. There's a feverish tension in his posture, his gaze dancing around my face, hands hanging a hair from mine and yet they don't shake, all in all he's collected. In control.
-Say something! - I blurt out. -Please...
Silco leans in; a strand of his hair brushes my forehead. I catch a whiff from his collar, an animal scent under a flaking coat of domestication.
-Say yes - he says.
I do.