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“Your girl - your girlfriend… She’s not… She isn’t all that bad… You know… For a Piltie, I guess.”
Her words startled her, and must’ve startled the person sitting right next to her, if the other’s little glance at her - full of surprise and the smallest bit of hope - was anything to go by.
“She’s… She’s nice. When she isn’t being all… Prissy, at least.”
Prissy.
Was that the right word?
At the edge of her vision, Claggor looked thoughtful, almost, as if he were connecting the word to the girl she was talking about and trying to make the connection make sense.
(It made sense, because of course it did. What topsider wasn’t prissy?)
(The one she was talking about was prissy, without a doubt, but maybe she was less prissy than the other topsiders. Maybe that’s why the person sitting next to her liked the girl so much in the first place; she was different compared to the others. Special, in a way. Kind.)
(Mylo always snorted, somewhat disbelievingly, whenever she thought of the topsider as kind, but it was true - he couldn’t deny it, though sometimes he tried.)
“She’s gonna hate that you called her prissy.”
The person - no, not just a person, her sister, her family - Vi - spoke quietly, her tone amused.
Her reply comes easily.
“She hates a lot of the things I call her. She likes me anyways.”
“Hm, yeah, I guess so. And you like her?”
“I didn’t say that.”
Mylo raises a brow where he sits in front of her, mouth opening as if he’s about to argue, about to call her out on her lie, but Vi cuts him off with a chuckle.
“No, I guess not.”
She guesses.
It’s always guessing when it comes to Vi, she thinks, her lips pursing.
Vi is always so unsure of her own actions when it comes to who she is, how she acts, how she has to be treated.
Her girlfriend - the topsider - the enforcer - the nice person - Caitlyn , on the other hand, is the one who’s as certain as can be. She’s different from Vi, so different that sometimes Jinx can’t figure out why they like each other so much, but at the same time - opposites attract , or so they say.
(They? Who’s they?)
(Mylo laughs at her, at the question. He probably thinks it’s a stupid question. She considers shooting at him, then remembers, no, no guns. She can’t shoot things, not here. Sometimes she does anyways, when she has her gun with her, and when she does he only laughs harder. Sometimes she doesn’t shoot him, even with the gun just sitting a few inches away from her, just to try and prove she can make the choice not to. He laughs anyways. He’s always laughing.)
What was she saying?
Was she talking out loud in the first place?
She glances at Claggor and, silent but helpful as ever, he shakes his head no.
She hadn’t been talking.
She sends Claggor a small smile.
(When he isn’t frowning at her, when his eyes aren’t reminding her that it’s all her fault, all of it, all her fault her fault herfaultherfaultherfault, he can be somewhat pleasant company.)
She tries to find her lost train of thought, fails, and shrugs it off.
She turns to Vi, the real one, the one who always insists on sitting within her reach, and sees her looking right back.
“You said she’s nice, right?”
“When she isn’t being prissy.”
“Right. Prissy, heh. Yeah, I can see that.”
She hums, eyeing Vi and the way she smiles so fondly as she speaks.
Her right eye twitches slightly and she gnaws on her lower lip, looking away and pointedly ignoring the look Mylo is giving her as his cackling echoes through the room.
Her hands clench, then unclench when she catches Claggor looking at them, and then she makes a move to sit on them, deciding it’s not worth it leaving them to do things while he’s staring so judgmentally.
If Vi takes notice of her actions, she doesn’t say anything.
Jinx knows Caitlyn probably has something to do with that - Vi isn’t really the type to keep her thoughts to herself, not in most cases, not without being advised otherwise.
She can’t think of a time Vi willingly kept her mouth shut in favor of saying something dumb, or something reassuring, or something that made her mad. There must be some occasion in her head where Vi chose to stay silent aside from this moment now, but wherever the memories are, they aren’t leaving their hiding places.
Mylo laughs at her small struggle with her own memories.
(Always laughing.)
(She would shoot him if Vi wasn’t here.)
(She didn’t have her gun right now, she remembers suddenly when she feels her hands itching to reach for the familiar weapon; she’d opt to throw something at him instead. Maybe a book. A big one.)
(She has lots of books.)
(Caitlyn had a lot of books, then gave them all to her when she’d noticed how Jinx kept borrowing them and borrowing them over and over.)
(She’s nice.)
(She’s an enforcer, a topsider.)
(But she’s nice.)
She’s patient too.
Real patient, especially whenever Jinx is involved.
More patient than Vi would probably be without Caitlyn’s calm slowing Vi down, telling Vi to think, to focus, to do something other than rush into a situation unprepared, unknowing, un - un… something.
Focus, slow down, focus, focus on this, focus on that, tell me what you see, focus on me, focus on my words, tell me about the book you’ve been reading -
Vi wasn’t patient. Caitlyn was.
Opposites attract, or so they say.
( Again with the ‘they’. )
( Mylo laughs. )
( Always laughing. )
“‘Like’ is a strong word.” She finally settles on, nodding decisively.
Vi hums, looking at her questioningly.
“She’s okay for a topsider. She’s nice. ‘S all.” She trails off into a mumble, but Vi picks up on her words anyways.
How could she not with how close they were sitting? They were always sitting close, close enough that Jinx could reach out and feel her sister’s warm skin in her own cold grip if she needed to, but not close enough to feel overwhelming, not on a day like this.
(A day like this. Mylo and Claggor and Vander and Vi - the fake one, the one who was always just out of reach - and even Silco, all quiet, all lingering but not hovering, all there but not crowding her, all whispering but not tauntingly, not to hurt.)
(Well, Mylo was always crowding. Always taunting. It was the way he was. She dealt with him accordingly and he had his days where even he settled down, played nice. As nice as he was capable of, at least.)
“Yeah, yeah she’s really nice.” Vi’s agreement came easily, and Jinx scoffed a little. Only a little.
“You’re just saying that ‘cause you’re in love with her.”
That dragged a small laugh out of Vi and Jinx smiled, pleased with herself.
(She liked making Vi laugh.)
(Whether she was Powder or Jinx, that had never changed, and it never would.)
“I am a little bit in love with her, aren’t I?”
It was phrased like a question, but they both knew it wasn’t.
(Jinx had heard the phrase “head over heels in love with someone,” before, but hadn’t ever witnessed such a thing until she’d walked into a room and seen Vi and Caitlyn together, relaxed and curled close to each other on a bed, their hands linked and small, practically lovesick smiles on their faces.)
(She’d faked a loud gag, shattering the moment between the two. Caitlyn hadn’t seemed to mind all that much, appearing amused, if not slightly surprised, but Vi had turned redder than her jacket upon realizing she and her girlfriend had an audience. Jinx would never forget the embarrassed look on her sister's face as Vi shooed her away hurriedly.)
“It’s disgusting, how you look at her. Worse than how that Jayce guy looks at himself in literally any reflection.”
It was Vi’s turn to scoff.
“If you ever compare me or my relationship to that man ever again I will murder you.”
“You could try.”
“I wouldn’t.”
“I know. Caitlyn would get mad at you if you did.”
“True.”
Vi smiled, and Jinx felt herself smiling in return.
This was nice.
It was easy, in a way, even if it was… Different.
What wasn’t different between them nowadays?
She was different. Vi didn’t seem to care all that much anymore; she tried her best for her, regardless of whether she was Powder or Jinx.
Vi herself was different. Not too different, but still different. Jinx didn’t mind. If Vi was willing to learn how to understand her, she was willing to do the same.
Everything was different, and yet there were some things that were still, in a way, exactly the same.
Jinx didn’t understand how that worked, but it was one thing she didn’t want to question.
Life as it was was difficult enough to understand without adding her own complications to the mix.
And, as it was, Jinx would think that maybe whatever understanding she already had would be good enough.
She’d figure the rest out as she went.