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It's nights like this one that are always the hardest. The nights when the ghosts are simply too much. The nights when she's screaming and crying and thrashing under the covers.
He tries so hard to hold her still. Hold her steady, but it's so hard because she's gotten so big and so strong and he's just gotten older, weaker. But he has to. Because she's his daughter and she's suffering and he just cannot stand that.
So, he holds her, tries to wake her up just like he’s done a million times before without sparing it a thought, without realizing just how easy it’d gotten to take care of her, without realizing that somewhere along the way she was no longer a child but rather his child.
And, when she does eventually wake up, he soothes her, lovingly cooing at her as he holds her down until she settles, panting and shaking and sweating.
But, despite the fact that she is awake now, her nightmares are still holding onto her. They still make her cry onto his shoulder, inconsolable, as she clings as close to him as humanly possible, so he tries to help her see that she's safe and sound, that the ghosts that are haunting her are just that, ghosts, and that they can't hurt her. Not anymore. Not while he's there.
"Look at me, Jinx. Only at me." he says, running his fingers through her hair and pulling stray hairs out of her face.
"It's ok. You're ok. It was just a dream." he reassures and he kisses her temple, lingering for a moment. She seemed to be burning up. Or maybe it was just his blood that went cold. It did have a tendency to do that whenever she was distressed or unwell, after all.
"Still... hear them..." Jinx mutters, too tired for anything else and her voice hoarse from all the crying and screaming.
"I know. I know." he whispers, soft and worried and feeling his voice shake. "But they're not here. They're gone." he presses his lips to her forehead. Still warm.
"I'm here." he offers as he reaches for the thermometer. "I'm here and I'll keep you safe. Always." he adds and Jinx nods, accepting the thermometer.
She accepts it, of course she does, after all she does feel like she's coming down with a fever. All hot and sleepy in the worst way possible, making her limbs feel both too light and too heavy at the same time, and which had her head spinning.
And she did have a slight fever. That low one that made her body ache and made her want to curl up in a ball and cry until it was over. Too hot to be anything but sleepy. Too hot to fall asleep. Too hot to move. All of her muscles aching. And her ears ringing from the thousands of voices screaming in her head, her body's currently precarious state making them bolder, louder, angrier.
"Please… please…" she begs softly, clinging onto his arm with weak hands when he stands up and his heart aches as he puts a hand over hers.
"Give me just a moment, dear. Just one moment. Let me get you something to drink, alright?" he pleads almost without even realizing- a gesture born out of instinct and not decision-, gentle as he holds her hand while he speaks and then even gentler as he presses a kiss to her forehead afterwards.
"No, no, no, no," she utters out, desperately shaking her head and trying to pull him closer to her, unable to bear being alone in that moment, but she was too sick to do anything more than lightly tug on his sleeve.
He sits back down next to her, powerless to leave until she allows him to and not for a moment does that strike him as odd.
"Please, please, please stay…" she says before he managed to say anything, tears in her eyes as she forced her unwilling body to curl up as close to him as possible.
"Please, dad , please don't leave me!" she adds, sobs following as she starts crying, the thought of him leaving her all alone being too much for her to take on a good day… let alone in that moment when she was felt so sick and so tired that she could barely keep her eyes open. Let alone when she could barely hear her thoughts over the voices screaming in her head. Let alone now when she felt that if he left then he would never come back.
"Jinx, dear…" he whispers, his heart hammering in his chest as he gently holds one of her hands in his own while his other hand is in her hair, running his fingers through a sea of blue hair before reaching to squeeze her shoulder and then rub her back. Soothing circles along her back with shaky hands. One word, a word she has never actually said to him before, echoing in his head.
- 2. 3. 4. 5.
And then she tenses up.
- 2. 3. 4. 5.
And then she relaxes, her sobs slowly subduing.
"Promise?"
"Promise what?" he asks, although he had a pretty good idea what she was talking about.
"Promise you'll come back?" she says, so quietly that for a moment she doubts that he heard her, but then…
"Of course. I will always come back." he answers, far more truthfully than he'd like, but none of that mattered in that moment. The only thing that mattered was the rush of relief that washed over Jinx's body when she heard his answer, a rush of relief that his own body immediately mimicked, and her little nod as she let go of his arm and settled more comfortably under the blanket and into her mountain of pillows.
He presses one more kiss to her forehead, now being his turn to refuse to leave as the image of his daughter suffering all alone, even for just a moment, was simply too much to bear. That thought, that resistance, and that one word that he just cannot stop thinking about, making him realize just how much he’s grown to care about her, something that he’d normally reprimand himself for, but it was just so easy to care about her and for her. So easy to love her as if she were his own, maybe because in so many ways it did feel like she was his own.
But, still, he forces himself to stand up.
Wills himself to put one foot in front of the other, because as much as he wanted to stay by her side in those moments, he knew that leaving her alone for just a minute was the better, smarter, more prudent choice.
She needed to drink some water, maybe do more than that… but no. No.
It was just a low fever. She could handle it.
Or at least that’s what he tells himself as he stops himself from prying open the medicine cabinet on his way back.
A little low fever, one he’s certain his daughter - who is so much stronger, so much more resilient than he’s ever been- can handle, isn't worth taking precious limited resources away from someone for whom those resources might be the difference between life and death.
But it would be so easy. All he has to do is use the key. His key. But he can't. It would be selfish, too selfish.
So he doesn't, his steps growing quicker as he passes by his office, then his bedroom, and, lastly, as he enters her bedroom.
He finds her curled up under the blanket, only a hand poking out of it and giving her presence away. He carefully sits on the edge of the bed, slowly pulling the blanket off her face so he could look at her, but he quickly stops when she sobs and curls up onto herself even more than she already was.
"It's alright, it's alright," he soothes, pulling the blanket aside and reaching for her hand. She reaches for his hand gratefully, holding onto it as tightly as she can as sobs ripple through her body.
"Thank you, thank you, thank you," she murmurs, her hand seeming warmer than before and, when he reaches for her forehead, it too is warmer than it was when he left.
"No, no, child, do not thank me. I promised I would come back, didn't I?" he asks, once again reaching for the thermometer as fear rises through his chest and into his throat until he feels like he cannot breathe from it.
"Ya' did… I know… but…" she tries to protest, but she gives in when he offers her the thermometer, too tired to fight a fight he won't let her win.
His suspicion turned out correct, her temperature higher than it was just merely a couple of minutes prior, although not by a lot. Still, he can’t help but worry as he helps her sit up. He lets her lean onto him, holding her as he helps her drink some water and he instantly regrets only bringing one glass. She was going to need way more and he knew that.
He also knew that it would be best to treat her affliction the proper way, with the appropriate medication, but the medicine cabinet was still untouched, so that night was clearly not his brightest one (as far as night could go, that is).
The night was not over though and he still could get Jinx’s fever under control. With enough luck, she might even get some restful, peaceful sleep that night.
“Jinx…” he says, already dreading leaving her again so soon, but if he had just gotten the medicine the first time around like he wanted to then this wouldn’t have happened, which meant that it was all his fault really, for trying to convince himself for even a moment that there could possibly be anything more important in all of Runeterra than his precious daughter- a thought that made his chest tighten, but that made so much more sense than any other thought he’s ever had before in his life.
“No, no, no, don’t go...” Jinx mutters, weak and just so, so tired it crossed into exhaustion, and he smiles, in awe of how smart and intuitive she can be even in a moment like that one, when her health was precarious at best.
“I’ll be gone for just a moment,” he reassures, giving her hand a gentle squeeze in hopes that it might help ground her and remind her that he’ll always be there. “I just need to bring you some more water and…” he starts, avoiding the word medication like the plague, because now she was old enough to be aware of just how scarce medication of any kind was in Zaun and also old enough to start living like a true zauntine, which meant walking off any injury until you truly couldn’t do so anymore.
He, of course, knew, understood and experienced all of those things, but he did not plan to allow his daughter to live like he did if he could help it.
“… something to help lower your fever.” he eventually adds, not finding a less conspicuous way to say it and the very obvious implications did not escape Jinx as she shot up in a moment’s notice, her grip strong as she held onto his arm.
“NO! I’M FINE! SEE?!” she shouts as loud as she can muster, her teeth gritted and her balance failing her as she gripped him tighter, not because she had the strength for it, but rather because she needed to if she didn’t want to fall off the bed and worry him even more than he already was.
“Clearly you are not, child.” he says with a smile, helping her lie back down which she begrudgingly accepts. “And I won’t let you pretend otherwise, it’s too dangerous.” he adds, his words coming across way softer than he’d intended them to, but isn’t that what children do to you? Soak you right up in their love and affection until you can’t be anything but soft- or rather, weak- and then turn you inside out, just to be sure that they made a proper mess out of you.
She nods, but her expression is not one of understanding and her gaze is fixated on something which he could not see. He doesn’t need to ask her what she sees, or hears… or both, because she does so on her own, even if she doesn’t put it that way.
“Do you promise I’m worth it?” she asks, serious as she can get and her previously crushing exhaustion seemingly absent now.
He sighs, his heart aching for her as it has so many times before and, in that moment, he is forced to acknowledge and accept that his affliction is not a new one… nor something that he could possibly get rid of without killing himself too in the process.
“I do. I don’t think there’s anyone in the whole world who deserves this more than you do.” he answers, earnest as he can be, but Jinx doesn’t seem pleased as her face twists into a scowl.
“Do you promise you’ll come back?” she asks, her jaw tense as she forces herself to look him in the eye. “I need you to promise that you’ll come back.” she adds, her expression softening at the genuine love and concern on his face.
“Of course.” he murmurs, willing to reassure her a million times if that’s what it takes to convince her that he loves her and that he won’t ever leave her like others have done to her in the past.
“I promise I’ll come back. I promise that I will always come back.” he says, watching as the last of the tension seeped out of her bones at his words.
She nods, trying to convince both of them that his words are enough to silence the voices in her head that keep taunting her, telling her that he’s lying, that she means nothing to him outside of what she can do for him, that he cannot wait to be rid of her. She screws her eyes shut at those words, gritting her teeth and gripping his hand tightly as she tried to ignore the voices screaming at earthshattering volumes in her head.
“Do-do you really have to go?” she asks, feeling her limbs melt and her skin feeling like it was on fire.
“I do, unfortunately.” he says, his body growing tense as he watches her lip wobble, knowing that she’s holding back tears, knowing just how much his words hurt her. “But I will be back in the blink of an eye. I will be back so fast you won’t even know that I was gone in the first place.”
She smiles at that and he knows that under any other circumstances that would’ve earned him a laugh and an eye roll from her. Just thinking about it, just imagining it, makes him smile too.
She nods again, this time far surer of herself as she does. He nods back, a quiet ‘thank you’ before he stands up and makes a beeline for the medicine cabinet.
His hand land on the right key in the first try, something that has never happened before and which almost makes him feel as if those events were fated and well, who he is to stand in the way of fate… especially when fate wants his daughter to be well.
He scans each and every single label once he gets the cabinet open, the bottle he was looking for being right in front of his eyes, another sign that he should never ever deny his daughter anything. Of course, the drug in question is also a very common one, at least in Piltover, so that was his actual reasoning to placing it front and centre, but he just couldn’t help but try to justify himself in that moment. He always had to justify himself when it came to Jinx, first to himself and then to everyone else, so at that point it was just reflex. Just like how caring for her had become a reflex, a reflex easier than breathing.
Once the medicine cabinet is locked up again- the missing bottle, and his weakness along with it, visible to anyone who might happen to pass by-, he goes to the kitchen, fills a pitcher with water- arguing that it should be enough for the next few hours-, and then he stops, looks around.
Does he need anything else? he asks himself, knowing that if he did need anything else then he needed to get it now because he just didn’t have it in him to justify leaving her yet again.
His eye scans the room, again and again until he decides that he has everything he needs and then he practically runs back to her room, briefly out of breath as he opens the door.
As soon as she hears the door opening, she forces her unwilling body to move until she can look at him, her relief at the sight of him so palpable that he can almost taste it. He forces himself to smile at the sight of her, not letting the concern her relief arose in him show as he sits next to her.
He places the pitcher on the nightstand, holding tightly onto the bottle of medicine as he helps her sit up and lean against the bedframe, a tower of pillows- one fluffier than the other- holding her up more so than her bones and muscles were in that moment.
She accepts the pill he offers her reluctantly, the scowl on her face making it clear that she does not enjoy it, does not enjoy being a burden to him, but he just presses a kiss to her forehead, loving and reassuring, before offering her a glass of water. She sighs, nodding before she takes the glass and downs its contents along with the pill.
“Happy now?” she comments afterwards, her head resting on his shoulder.
“Very much so. Thank you, dear.” he says, knowing that she can hear the smile in his voice but not finding it in himself to care. It is so much easier not to care. It is so much easier to let her make a home out of his heart, so much easier to hold her close and to rub her back until she melts in his embrace and starts to slowly drift back to sleep.
“May I?” he asks as he holds up a messy braid, his words barely above a whisper just in case she already fell asleep.
She nods, clearly not yet asleep. “Please,” she mutters, her frustration with the current state of her hair clear in her voice and in the way her eyebrows furrow against his shoulder.
“Very well.” he says, getting started on undoing her messy braids, taking his time so he can be as gentle and as thorough as possible.
He runs his fingers through her hair once it is loose, carefully undoing each knot that comes his way before he gets started on rebranding her hair, one loose braid that he knows he'll have to redo once she feels better and can stomach sitting through more than that.
Her breathing had evened out by the time he was done, that plus the fact that all of her weight was resting on him telling him that she was fast asleep.
He sighs, relieved to see her sleeping so peacefully, and he rests his palm against her cheek, content only once he notices that she started cooling down.
He then shifts in his spot, tries to lay her down as gently as possible so he won't wake her up but she was simply too light of a sleeper for that to ever happen, the evidence of it being the blue bleary eyes staring at him as soon as her head touches the pillow.
"I'm not going anywhere. Ever. You are my daughter and I will never leave you for as long as I shall live." he promises and she nods, a yawn following shortly after.
She doesn't say anything in response to his promise, doesn't say that she understands him or that she trusts that will keep said promise and she doesn't need to say it. Her content expression says it for her.
The same way she doesn't need to tell him that she wants to go back to sleep for him to see it on her face. The same way she doesn't need to ask him to stay for him to know that she needs him there.
So he stays, because it wasn’t like he would've wanted to be anywhere else in that moment.
Because as much as he wants to be upset with her for softening him up like she has or for making him care for her like he does or for making him weak, weaker than he has ever been before in his life, he just cannot find it in him to do anything but adore her.
She is the apple of his eye, his darling daughter , and he couldn’t ever even imagine doing anything other than loving her with all of his might, something he found he didn’t mind, not even a little.
So he stays, sits next to her on the bed, quick to lie down next to her when she tugs on his shirt.
She curls up next to him, laying her head on his chest, and he doesn't hesitate for a moment to wrap an arm around her. Holds her close. Holds her steady.
His free hand is in her hair moments later, knowing after many nights spent lulling her back to sleep after a nightmare that running his fingers through her hair was a sure way to calm her down and, sure enough, she is asleep again mere moments later, only waking up in the morning once the little sun that shines through Zaun peeks through the window and forces her awake.
*
Silco is still asleep when she wakes, if the steady, languid rhythm of his breath and the gentle, relaxed grip he had on her were any indication and, to her, they were.
She yawns, sleepy still, and she carefully curls herself up closer to him once she notices that he’s still sleeping, allowing herself to enjoy the safety and comfort of her father’s embrace for just a little while longer since she knew that he would have to leave as soon as he woke up.
After all, she is feeling much better now and he is just too busy to just sit and hold when she isn't even sick anymore. So she closes her eyes, tries to lull herself back to sleep, just a little longer. Just until he wakes up, but to no avail. She is wide awake and there’s nothing she can do about it.
After about half an hour of attempts at going back to sleep she sighs, resigned, and then she sits up, examining her sleeping father’s features carefully, looking for any signs that he might be plagued by one of his nightmares or that he might wake up.
As such, she is not surprised when he does wake up, her bright blue eyes staring at him in wonder being the first thing he sees as soon as he opens his eye.
“Hi, dad.” she says casually, as if it were a nothing, but it was the very opposite of a nothing for them. It wasn’t their normal either, the word lingering between them for a moment before Silco gathered the courage to answer her.
“Good morning, dear.” he says, a yawn following.
“Did you sleep well?” she asks before he can say anything else, her wide eyed gaze still fixed on him.
“I did, thank you. How was your sleep?” he says, his voice laced with concern as he studied her features, looking for anything that might point towards her not having slept well while he was supposed to take care of her.
“It was alright.” she says with a shrug, seemingly dismissive but he knew her well enough by then to know that meant that she slept very well.
"Good. I'm glad to hear that." he murmurs with a smile, the soft, genuine one which he reserved only for her, as he brushes stray, sweat stricken strands of hair out of her face.
“Are you feeling any better?” he then asks, pressing his lips against her forehead afterwards and his relief is palpable when her temperature seems normal.
“Yeah… I-I’m good.” she says, forcing herself to keep her gaze steady despite the knot that was rapidly forming in her stomach.
He is right on the verge of leaving and she knows that, the anxiety that though brought being almost overwhelming, but she still couldn’t bring herself to lie to him. It would be so easy to do it and it would solve her problem too- because, after all, he would never leave her alone if she was unwell-, but she just couldn’t do it.
He’s always put so much faith in her that she just couldn’t stomach the idea of ever breaking the trust that has built between them over the years, especially for something as silly as her wanting to be held some more! As if the whole night hadn’t been enough! As if she were still a child!
But what she doesn’t notice, as she was too consumed by her self-hatred and too busy mentally berating herself for her neediness to notice anything other than her own anguish in that moment, is the way his gaze starts to soften the longer she just stares at him, big blue eyes fixated on him and almost unblinking.
“Jinx, darling?” he asks, his words a low whisper but nevertheless loud enough to shake her out of her thoughts.
"Did something happen, child?" he says once she’s present again, as gentle and loving as he can be in hopes that it will make her comfortable enough to admit what it was that so clearly bothered her. “If you still don’t feel particularly well that’s alright. You can tell me, I won’t get mad at you for it. I would never get mad at you for something like this, you know that.” he adds, a kiss on her forehead and a reassuring squeeze of her hand following.
"No, no, it’s… it’s not that… I’m fine, really, I just…” she added quickly, tensing up and pulling her hand out of his grasp as her chest grew tighter with fear. “Do you have to go?" she asks, quick like ripping off a bandaid and her gaze softens and, for a moment, he can swear that he caught her blinking tears away.
"Would you like me to go?" he asks back, despite already knowing the answer.
Her lip wobbles.
"I-" she starts, but then she looks away from him, almost ashamed of her answer. "I know that you're busy so if you can't stay that's fine, but..."
"But?" he asks, patient as he always was with her, and his soft tone makes her brave enough to look at him.
"But I just, y'know... I'd just... preferred it if you stayed, 'tis all." she answers, shy when she normally wasn't and he just knows that she must want a little more than she's willing to say.
"I do have a couple of things to take care of today, sure, but it's nothing that can't wait a little longer." he answers, smiling when she does and quick to welcome her in his arms when she throws herself at him.
"Thanks, dad!" she mutters, relaxing into his embrace so completely that for a moment he wonders if she fell asleep again. She didn't, of course, but the steady rise and fall of her body made it easy to think otherwise.
“Of course.” he mutters matter-of-factly, because to him it was. Nothing was more important than her. Nothing came before her ever since he took her in that fateful night and it was time that he acknowledged that. “I will always be here for you, child. No matter what.”