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“Why did you let me go that night?” Jinx asks one night, twirling one of her braids aimlessly as she lies on their makeshift bed, staring up at the ceiling. The Ionian downpour that evening was intense, and it was drowned out by the soft music playing on Jinx’s gramophone and the thick walls of their temporary home.
“Hmm?” Lux hums questioningly, nose deep into the spell book that Jinx swears wasn’t stolen…. initially. Of course, she didn’t believe her, but she appreciated the sentimental act after she made her go back to bookshop and pay for it. Jinx was grumbling the whole time and the poor bookkeeper ended up having hot pink blasted over his window shop display when he made a snide remark. Lux had to rush both themselves out as the bookkeeper’s face turned red and threatened to explode; Jinx cackled the whole time, sticking both middle fingers up.
“Ya know,” Jinx rolls over to lay on her stomach, “when I was about to let Fishbones sick ya and you were about to shove your glowstick up my ass.”
“Well, that’s one way of describing the night we met,” Lux replies with a raised eyebrow, turning her head to look at her, “and please never call my staff a glowstick again, especially when it concerns sticking it up one’s ass.”
“Not quite answering my question, flashlight,” Jinx retorts, blowing her hair fringe away.
Leaning back against her chair, Lux leans back to contemplate and come up with an answer. Why did she let Piltover’s former #1 Public Enemy go that night? It’s something she hasn’t been able to come to a solid conclusion just yet but it’s also a decision she has never once regret. It was strange, what the two had and their dynamic with each other; they were able to connect in ways that didn’t need words. Jinx was able to read her just as Lux was able to see her.
If she’s remembering correctly, they had only met just 6 months prior, and the circumstances were…less than ideal.
She had led the mages of Demacia to refuge in Noxus and then had gone off on her own. The betrayal of her closest friend and mentor, Sylas, left a bitter taste in her tongue along with feelings of guilt and shame. Even though she parted ways amicably with her brother, it still weighed on her heart heavily.
After 2 years, her loyalty and duty to Demacia compelled her to return to aid the royal army (and her brother) against the oncoming attack by Sylas and his army of mages. It was a battle that turned in their favor only because Lux managed to summon a being so divine that it managed to stop Sylas in his place and forced his army to surrender. The demonstration and revelation of her powers caused much controversy to her family name that for a time, the Royal Council didn’t know what to do with her, despite saving their nation. Ultimately, she made that decision on her own and exiled herself, against her brother’s wishes.
And oh how Garen fought for her, defending her name every chance he could. He begged her to stay, so sure that Demacia would finally see her for the hero she is, but Lux knew better. It would be years if that ever happened and she’s not sure she wants to subject her family through that any longer than it had to be. So, they parted ways again and this time more heartbreaking than the last.
The next thing she knows, she was on a boat to Bilgewater, the last place of someone with her stature to be in. It was an island full of pirates, smugglers, mercenaries, and other dangerous groups she was sure would give Garen a heart attack. Despite the dangerous inhabitants, people of all corners were welcomed there, a place of neutrality and untouched by politics of other nations. So of course, she would meet Jinx there, with a pistol pointed at her face and magenta eyes that radiated an unnatural luminosity that made her wonder if she was a mage too.
“You know,” she finally replies, her gaze softening at Jinx, “I really don’t know myself.”
Jinx fixed her with a hard stare, one that seemed like she was trying to figure out if she liked that answer or not. Then a small pout formed on her face before she rolled over to lay back on her stomach. The silence stretched on for a long time, one that would normally make someone awkward and change the subject, but Lux knew better. Whenever Jinx got stuck in her thoughts, she would mull over it for long periods of time before she replied back to their topic of conversation.
As long as they’ve known each other, they never really talked about their past histories with each other. Sure, there would be hints here and there, about what growing up was like, significant events that mattered, and important people. It’d be a lie to say that Lux never questioned Jinx about her past, but after a while, she learned that Jinx would deflect and change the subjects whenever something got too close to home. So, she learned never to push and Jinx would do the same.
Putting the spell book down, she swiveled her chair to face her fully and without even thinking about it, she let everything spill.
“Growing up, I was taught that mages and magic were weapons of terrors, one that would bring destruction and death to nations. Still, that wouldn’t stop mages from manifesting their powers, so Demacia formed the mage seekers as a way of controlling magic.”
She paused, not sure why she was saying this all of a sudden, after months of traveling together and working to survive what comes their way. After all, the two never quite opened up to each other and they were fine with just that. The bright pair of pink eyes looking at her with curiosity prompts her to continue.
“You can only imagine how I felt, when I, a daughter of the so called esteemed Crownguard family, discovered I had magical abilities. I was beyond terrified that I would be executed or exiled from the country, but even worst, I couldn’t even begin to think of what would happen to my family if the royal family found out.”
“Wait, you’re not part of the royal family?” Jinx interjects, shooting up to face Lux with a slightly bewildered look.
“Just because my last name is Crownguard doesn’t mean I’m part of the royal family,” she scoffs, rolling her eyes, “No, my family has spent their lives devoted to protecting the royal family.”
“Well damn, and to think I was shacking it up with a princess this whole time.”
“Sorry to disappoint, but no, I’m not part of the monarchy. Thank gods for at least that, otherwise I’m pretty sure that would make my disappearance a little bit more…difficult to explain why their princess suddenly disappeared.”
“And here I was thinking how much money I could make out of rescuing and returning Demacia’s darling princess,” Jinx sighs exasperatedly, rolling back to her stomach and plopping down unceremoniously on her elbows.
“Ha ha,” Lux deadpans, “anyways, even though I was scared, I also wanted to see what my powers could do and how far I could go with it. I’d experiment here and there, but it was never enough. It got harder and harder to control my magic the older I grew, so I may have bluffed my way into the Mage Seeker’s compound.”
At that Jinx laughs loudly and snorts but waves her hands for Lux to continue.
“I met a mage seeker there named Sylas, but he had been imprisoned for a long time for wanting more for mages. He taught me how to better control my magic, became my confidante, and…my friend. I told him things I could never tell my family or anyone in Demacia for that matter. He called me his Little Light because, well, you’ve seen for yourself what kind of magic I do.”
“Yeah, nearly got blind because of it,” Jinx quips, which earned her a look from Lux.
“I learned a lot from him, that’s true, but he was learning a lot from me too and I didn’t know it at the time. Then one day, he showed his real self,” Lux says softly, creating a small orb of light that she projects from her open palm, letting it float absent-mindedly around. Then, the sphere started making its way towards Jinx slowly, who opened her hands to accept the light.
“People died that day, many more injured, my own brother almost lost his own life, all because I wanted to be me,” she continues, closing her hand to make a fist and the light in Jinx’s hands disappears. “Because I wanted to prove that I was…. more.”
More than anything, Lux was Demacian through and through, there was no denying that. Her love for her nation never wavered, even if she has been unofficially shunned from her home. She still wore her armor proudly and took great care of it whenever she could. The sigil of her house, the proud eagle, etched on her silver gauntlets stare at her every day, reminding her who she was: Luxanna Crownguard, the Lady of Luminosity. Quite an ironic name now that she thinks about it.
She was so stuck in her rumination that she didn’t realize Jinx had gotten up from bed until she was right in front of her, looking at her with such an intensity that it threw Lux off. Then, she knelt down, taking one of Lux’s hands in hers gently, rubbing her thumb in circles over her skin softly. For a moment, they held each other’s gazes and the air between them seemed to shift into something she couldn’t quite place into words. There was a warmth in her chest that spread like wildfire throughout her whole body, but it wasn’t volatile, nor did she feel like she would be consumed by it.
Then Jinx put her head down on her lap and her whole body seemed to just relax at the close proximity. She couldn’t help but start running her hand through endless blue strands. It was quiet, but she didn’t mind; it was moments like these that she could just appreciate being alive, breathing and feeling the rise and fall of Jinx’s breaths, not alone. She had been alone for so long.
“When…when I talk to Fishbones, I always hear my dad’s voice talk back to me,” Jinx’s voice pulls her from her reverie. “I’ve had 3 dads, you know, but Fishbone’s voice is always him.”
She didn’t reply, but she also didn’t stop playing with Jinx’s hair.
“He took me in when no one else would, he showed me how to be strong and how to just, be myself, with no constraints or anything. He told me he would’ve never betrayed me and that I was his daughter.”
She hears a sigh, but she still doesn’t stop running her fingers through her hair.
“Crazy thing is, he kinda was the reason my second dad died. Well not kinda, he was the reason,” Jinx takes a moment to think it over, slightly confused herself and then, “Actually no, he kinda was, but it was all me. I killed my second dad. I killed them. I killed her. It was my fault, all my fault.”
All my fault.
The words rang through her head repeatedly, thinking back to their encounter with Fiddlesticks. He had said something about something being Jinx’s fault. All your fault, all your fault. At the time, she didn’t give it much thought since she was focused on escaping the graveyard and trying to survive. Jinx, however, she had been frozen and paralyzed with fear; if her skin wasn’t so pale already, it would’ve gotten much paler by how gaunt she looked. It took some quick thinking to get them out of there, using a combination of incantations and Jinx’s broken hextech portal device, but they survived.
There was also the encounter with the Noxian Grand General Swain, who had said something similar when there was a very close call with Jinx’s life. Both times, Lux questioned her what they meant, but Jinx would always laugh it off with a faraway look in her eyes. She never pushed beyond that, but she always did wonder what it was that would have the Loose Cannon so shaken that she refused to talk about it.
“Fat hands told me to stay back, said I wasn’t ready, and well,” she chuckles sarcastically, “I took that personally.”
“By fat hands, you don’t mean…that Piltover enforcer, do you?”
“Yep,” she pops the p, “the one and only, Vi herself. Of all the things she could’ve done, becoming an enforcer was the last thing I expected. Especially since they, you know, killed our parents and all.”
Jinx waves her hand nonchalantly, like it wasn’t just a big revelation but to Lux, it suddenly made so much sense to her. Why the two had such animosity whenever they were facing off and why Vi could never bring it in herself to deliver a fatal blow, even when the opportunity presented itself. Even the Sheriff of Piltover would never aim to kill when Jinx was involved, something that Lux was thankful for. Granted, it wasn’t easy to explain to both officers why she was accompanying a criminal in the first place, but she was able to appease them by saying their adventures hasn’t gotten anyone…. dead yet. At least, not on purpose.
Thank the gods for Bilgewater and their neutral land otherwise they wouldn’t have gotten away as easily. The look on their faces though as Lux and Jinx walked away, it was one of unease and frustration. Vi had made a move as if it to say something, but Sheriff Kiramman placed a hand on her shoulder and shook her head. And that was the last she saw of them.
You think I’m crazy? You should see my sister.
She had said that so long ago and Lux never once thought that said sister would be Vi, of all people. They seemed like such different people, not exactly opposites, but enough to not even consider it in the first place. Hearing this confirmation though, she could see what Jinx meant back then. Both women were brash headed, thinking with violent methods first before their actual brains. Vi with her fists and Jinx with her bombs.
“The day I saw her in that uniform,” she laughs darkly, “I painted the streets of Piltover in red.”
Lux’s hand immediately stilled, shock coursing through her entire body. It was no surprise that Jinx had taken lives before, most of it being Piltover Enforcers to her knowledge. Even though she never really tried to make an excuse for those, she had always assumed it was a form of self-defense. But the way she’s describing it now, it sounds like a massacre. Jinx tilts her head to look up at her with a knowing look and a lazy smirk.
“I meant actual red paint, doll,” she clarifies, a little amused, “let’s just say I forced Vi to make a public apology statement for all the red dicks painted over their precious statues and marble walls. Didn’t help that fuck you Vi was plastered next to all of them. Oh, and I also may have rescued animals from the zoo while trashing the area.”
“Gods,” she let out a sigh of relief, “you made me think you went bloody murder on the citizens.”
This time, it was Jinx who froze. Her face distorted to something indiscernible, and Lux suddenly becomes afraid. Something changes in the air and she’s terrified, oh beyond belief is she terrified. Jinx lifts her head up and the look on her face is the most vulnerable Lux has ever seen it. Gone are the smile lines that usually adorn her face, the glint of mischief in her eyes missing, and her shoulders drooped low in resignation. It’s weird to say but, this is the most sane she’s ever seen Jinx, almost as if she were a different person entirely.
“Lux, you’re one of the smartest and brilliant persons I know, so I know you know I’ve done things. Things that I can’t ever come back from.”
“Jinx, you don’t ha-” she starts but Jinx cuts her off with a pleading look.
“Yes I do, you need to know just exactly who you’ve been with this past year,” she says shakily, “and you’re such a good person. You are so good, and me? I’m just… well I’m a jinx. That’s all I’ve ever been. I have killed people, Lux, and not just Enforcers. I didn’t always mean to, but there were a lot more that I did. What do you know about the bombing of the Piltovan Council a few years ago?”
“No,” she manages to breathe out, realizing the implication, “that wasn’t… it can’t have been you.”
No longer able to look at her, Jinx turns her head away with a forlorn expression.
“And that was after I killed my third dad. He was the one who told me that Zaun deserved better than the treatment they got from Piltover and that the topsiders could burn in hell for all we care. He…. he loved me, his last words to me were that I was perfect, and that was all it took.”
Lux just sits there in stunned silence, processing all the information she has just been told and it is, to say the least, overwhelming. Of course, she always suspected that Jinx had skeletons in her closet, but this was a lot. It made her question her own perception of things, the company that she tends to keep. First Sylas and now, hearing this about Jinx, she’s not so sure anymore.
But then, she thinks back to all the times she spent with this blue haired genius and although she did feel wary of her antics from time to time, not once did she ever felt in danger. She thinks about how all her explosives have been non-lethal when it came to crowded areas, how she would intentionally shoot at targets to injure and not kill. She thinks about all the times Jinx has saved her life, always coming back for her if they ever got separated and vice versa. She thinks about how safe she actually feels with her around.
“What changed?” she asks quietly.
“Warwick.”
The name sounded very familiar, she remembered hearing it while she was in Noxus making sure the mages found refuge there. Warwick invoked fear in many of those who uttered his name; rumors spread like wildfire that he wasn’t a human being. Rather, he was a wolf-man that relied heavily on hextech and the last variants of shimmer to stay alive. Most of the talk were gossip so she never really paid attention to it, but she made a mental note to never visit Zaun just in case.
“Turns out, he was another experiment that Singed played with and just when I thought nothing else could hurt me anymore, finding out who he was, well,” Jinx takes a moment to breathe, her voice starting to break, “turns out, I still did have a heart in there.”
What happened next was something Lux thought she’d never see: neon magenta tears running down Jinx’s face as the memories of her past finally seemed to catch up to her. Her body seemed so small in this moment, trembling, and threatening to break down any moment. The sight of a fragile Jinx tugged at her and left her feeling heartbroken for this woman.
“V-Vander, he,” she manages to choke out, “he said I was there. I didn’t know what he meant, not at first, but then I remembered. I remembered when I got these.”
Jinx gestures to her eyes, and before Lux could question what she meant, she continues.
“I saw everyone that night, everyone that ever meant a thing to me, good and bad,” she starts hyperventilating now, “And up there, above everyone else, I saw him. The Hound of the Underground, hanging there like a slab of meat.
“I-I was,” her voice breaking even more, “I was so out of my mind that night, actually…... I should’ve been dead. So when, when I found out Warwick was Vander, I-”
Jinx never finishes as she starts heaving for air, hand on her chest and curling up even more. Lux was by her side in no time and holding her close, running her hand through Jinx’s hair again and the other rubbing comforting circles on her back. She feels her shoulder get wet from where Jinx has her face buried in, but she doesn’t really care.
And she thinks she gets it now, maybe not the whole story, but she gets it. Everything that Jinx has been through, why she craves chaos and bombs and destruction, why she still tries to get Vi’s attention despite basically spitting at her name, it falls into place.
“You never forgave yourself, did you?” she asks, not unkindly, still rubbing her back. “You still haven’t forgiven yourself.”
Jinx shakes her head, not lifting it up to look at her and she’s trembling. They stay like that for a while, sitting on the floor, the only sounds being the acoustic music and her sniffles. The rain had stopped a while ago, almost as if to take away some of the noise that has been running through Jinx’s head for years.
“How could I?” Jinx whispers hoarsely.
“I don’t know,” she replies back softly, “but something tells me you never meant to hurt them, otherwise it wouldn’t hurt you this bad.”
“That’s the thing though, it doesn’t matter whether I meant to hurt them or not, it doesn’t change anything.”
“You’re right it doesn’t, but,” she tilts Jinx’s head up by the chin gently, “your fathers, I’m sure they don’t blame you, and that they loved you up to the very end.
“I know it feels impossible to forgive yourself Jinx, and I can’t tell you how to even do that but, I want to be there with you every step of the way.”
At that, Jinx finally looks at her directly, disbelieving with a little bit of awe in them. “Why?”
“Because, underneath all that chaos and mayhem, you have a good heart,” she answers earnestly.
Jinx wipes away her tears, scoffing with a sad smile on her face and raises an eyebrow at her.
“I can’t tell who’s the crazier one right now between us. I literally just told you I’m a homicidal criminal basically on the wanted list by both Piltover and Zaun. What makes you think any part of me is good?”
“I’ll admit, it was quite a lot with what you’ve told me and I guess my association with you might make me…. an unwelcome guest to the twin cities, not that Demacia had great relations with them since the introduction of Hextech.”
“Not helping your case, lightbulb,” Jinx deadpans.
“Hush, I wasn’t done,” she tuts. “In the times that we’ve been together, when I really think about it, I don’t think I’ve seen you injure someone critically or fatally. You’ve saved my life countless times and in all those times, even when the situation was dire, you’ve not once resorted to lethal actions. You could have but… you didn’t. Also the time I got really sick, don’t think I didn’t notice you checking my temperature ever so often and making sure my canteen was always full with water. Then, on my birthday, which I still haven’t worked out how you found that out, you got me my favorite cake from a Demacian shop in Freljord. I only mentioned that thing once and you still remembered. Then, there was the time with the Noxian orphans wh-”
“Alright, alright, stop telling me all the mushy things I’ve done!” Jinx cuts her off, rolling her eyes and crossing her arms, but Lux could see the light blush adorning her face.
“Jinx, I would never abandon you or leave your side. What you told me, yes, it’s quite a lot and the reality is, there is no going back with your actions, but you’ve proven over and over that you changed, for the better. You’re trying and that’s all that matters to me. You’re…. you’re my best friend and I love you very much; you mean so much to me.”
She was met with stunned silence, and she could see all the emotions welling up on Jinx’s face. It makes her wonder when the last time she was told that she was loved. Lux leans over to place a tender kiss on her cheek, lingering there to further reassure Jinx. The blush that was already on her face intensifies and she couldn’t help but giggle at that.
“I, uh, I guess I love you too,” she grumbles softly, eyes no longer on Lux.
“Huh?” she bats her eyelashes, cupping her hand around her ear with a shit eating grin, “I didn’t quite catch that.”
The only response she got was a pillow to her face and a smug look when she made an oomph sound upon contact. It was on.
As they continued on with their night (Jinx won the pillow fight, because of course she did), laughing their way through dinner, and conversing about random light-hearted topics, Lux can’t help but fall even more in love with Jinx than she already has. Maybe she’ll gather up the courage to tell her one day but for now, she thinks they’re right where they should be in this moment.
Just Jinx and Lux.