All Stitched Up (Male reader x Arcane)

It Has to Be This Way

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Your eyes wearily slipped open, the environment around you still in a haze. The clicking of metal being hammered stung your ears. You shakily looked to the side to see Vander being dragged by a burly man with tattoos all over his body. Trying to sit up, a knife was quickly placed at your neck, stopping any more advances.

You wrists felt sore, and you looked down to see a mangled pair of cuffs. You pulled on them, but they didn't budge at all. You were on some kind of walkway above... something. Your head hurt... a lot. It hurt to think. I want to go back to sleep.

"It's a little crude, I'll admit. The base violence necessary for change. But we both know topside won't listen to anything else." Vander was chucked to Silco's side, in which Silco leaned over the railing. They began with a back and forth argument, but your focus had landed elsewhere.

There stood Deckard, leaning against the adjacent rail and heaving heavily. He lurched over, and the familiar purple liquid flowed from his mouth. He kept hurling, and the tattooed man beside him only laughed. Deckard clutched at his side and limped forward. He only made eye contact for a second, before walking away.

"You body cannot handle that amount of shimmer. You are gonna down a path you will not be able to walk back from." You told him, your voice still strangled from before.

"You're one to talk." He spat. With that, he shambled over to a room at the end of the hallway. Lime-green light emitted from the room, and two chairs back-to-back were clear to view. 

"You'd die for the cause, but you won't fight for one!" Silco seethed.

"I'm just... not that man anymore." Vander chuckled.

"I'll show you what you really are..." Silco said before walking away. The heavy tattoo man was the first to grab onto you, his iron grip hurting your arm. He picked up Vander next, and your eyes were glued to the floor. You couldn't look Vander in the eyes. You had done a deed that was not worth hearing out.

The tattooed man had sat Vander down facing the walkway, while you were forced by another thug to sit in the chair facing the wall. The had finally left; the one that took you in spat on your foot before leaving. It was an uncomfortable silence, neither party speaking.

"Vander... I-" you croaked. Dammit, you had to say something!

"When I was young... my father was taken away from me. My mother even beforehand... I was just another abandoned kid, roaming the underground in search for something greater. Enforcers eventually found me, and I was on the run once again. I was on my last breath when Pop found me."

"He brought me in under his wing, taught me everything I needed to know to survive. He taught me chemistry, taught me science, taught me things I'd never imagined before." Smiling at the thought, you let out a loose, sarcastic chuckle.

"And look where that's gotten me. Silco had found Pop, promising greater advancements in his scientific future. Pop, being the person he was, took every opportunity given to him. I was Pop's apprentice to Silco's master plan of Shimmer."

You clenched your fist while a cold chill went up your spine before continuing. "My Pop was never one for ethnics. Anything for a step towards science. Anything."

"To think... that this is where I would have gotten while helping Silco... I wouldn't have ever imagined it. I was promised that it'd be use for the greater good; to help the lanes, and to show topsiders what we were - and the justice for my father. I basically owed Pop my life... so I thought by helping him I'd..."

Silence encapsulated the room, before a hearty cough broke the silence.

"You got a good heart, boy. But revenge is never the answer: Take it from me. It only leads to more bloodshed." Vander grumbled.