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Jinx knows her explosions.
Knows her explosions
knows her explosions
knows her explosions
Kaboom pop bang, someone’s in some pain. More than one someone if you’re being efficient. If she’s being efficient, they’ll never even see it coming. But that’s not fun. That’s not good.
The undercity Zaun this Zaun that, everyone finally getting what they deserve Think about what that means you deserve Pow-Pow are you enjoying it goes boom. Not a rin-tin-tin or a clanging that says one of the pipe system’s popped, count your blessings or your gas masks. Thunder crack boom. Someone’s bringing lightning to a party.
(Someone, like she doesn’t hear the footsteps and the beat of her fists. Someone like purple flowers that don’t exist down here but dance on every street corner topside. Someone like Violence like Victim like Vitamin Die.)
Those storms mean shimmer factories up in smoke and a lot of angry barons. Usually. Sometimes? It was the norm for a while, then someone blue blue blue never brought anything good always stole blue blue blew up found a leash and someone stopped barking.
(That’s probably how they fffuck off, Mylo, you’re not funny you’ve never been funny they’re not like that they are they’re disgusting they should keep it all topside and out of her hair)
But Jinx knows her explosions. She knows those blocky monstrosities Golden Hexboy calls innovative. Like trenchers couldn’t have come up with that a gajillion times over. Like they hadn’t. Like Vander shut up shut up don’t go there no one fucking asked.
Someone blows something up. It’s not her. She has her hands up the whole time its echo no bad pick something else rolls down the underZaun. Not hers. Someone’s. Someone who’s having a bad day. Someone who doesn’t mind the rising flames and the soot and the char and the river and thought didn’t think never thought let’s go. Bring the mayhem as your plus one, it’s all that’s left it’s all you need it’s all you’ll ever have now.
Jinx knows her explosions.
She knows something’s fucked.
“It’s not like I care,” she tells Fishbones. “Who would?”
“I think I would.”
“Nope, gonna call negatory on that. You don’t get a vote.”
She loves hates wreckage. It’s the painful bloody gory boring part. No one cares about what they throw away, and everyone throws away what they break. A screw here a bolt there five dozen nails under her skin. It’s whatever and it’s everything, and no one else is even around to enjoy it.
(That’s on you We don’t know that This wasn’t me)
The factory floor is abandoned and loud.
Factory. She’d be looting better stuff if it could fill those shoes. It’s a cozy little spot near the river. The drip drip drip gives that away before the mold and the sludge and the dead fish flopping in the corner.
“My brethren!”
“You’re not a fish, Fishbones. And it’s not real.” She nudges it. It squishes. “Or it is. But don’t worry, no relation.” If it’s not family it can’t hurt you you have no family we have no family we killed our family twice thrice Vice she must be invincible.
Nothing screams important here except the usual ghosts. There’s more rock than metal, even with the broken conveyor belts strewn across the cave floor. Cavern? Hidey hole. Somebody set up shop without any brains going into it, then timber boom.
There was a fight, clearly. Unless the scorch marks got up and walked along the walls themselves. But whoever played around in the hidey hole first thought it was a beginning, not an end. They probably got their face punched in. Boring boring boring.
Ceiling clear, bunch of rocks. Walls clear, bunch of rocks and bad patch jobs keeping the water out.
Drip. Drip.
Floors befuddled with such a lazy botch of metal and stone that maybe it was charity to say the fight broke some of it. She doesn’t mean to be rude, but yes she does, and it’s a dump. Bunch of TLC needed like whoa that it will not be getting anytime this century. You have to live on the other side of the river for that kind of maintenance.
Stalactites gone stalagmites litter the ground, almost covering up some shinier friends. The main action.
Drip drip plunk.
Bullet casings. Fancy. Engraved blue blue blue horns laughter. Gotta tell the people you maim who to swear revenge on or you’re doing it wrong. Everyone down here does it wrong they can’t afford to do it right. But some things are universal. Some tactics. The corner in the corner catches her eye both of them even and that’s where to be when you can’t take a hit, the corner. Extra entrance extra vantage point extra shielding. The joint’s too small for a crow’s nest, settle for being down in the muck like all the other bodies, but in
The corner.
Red on grey no red on brown no pink and smiles and warmth no blue and death and fire and river and gold shining at the bottom.
Okay, so there’s a corner spot. For someone. Someone who needed it. Because someone isn’t built for anything rougher. No close combat for the pish posh dainty bloody thieving
There’s a hat on the ground.
It’s got a hole in it.
Two holes.
More, pedantically.
How many holes in a straw how many straws break the camel’s back how many straws to slurp up all the mess when those holes are in a person and everything they are spurts out of them on the floor and
Pedantic suits.
What’s blue and blue and red all over?
(It starts with C.)
The hidey hole (singular) blows up. Again. Very tragic.
River water gushes in and smears her paint smears her blood scatters bullets
It blows up. It won’t come back.
Places don’t come back. They aren’t like people.
Someone must have a big head. The brim of the hat keeps falling in her eyes all along the way across the river. Jinx should ditch it. Set it on fire for good measure.
“I think it’s very fashionable,” says Fishbones.
It’s not. It’s terrible. It smells like gunpowder and is by far the most expensive thing she’s ever had on or near her head, and is so not worth it. It smells like blood it smells like singing and keeping her eyes shut. But she can’t say that. Her mouth’s gone all numb. The most noise coming out of it is a chattering sound that stops when she sits down and covers up all the red decking the silken behemoth with some friendlier pink.
No one can complain about that, putting on pink for a day out is practically her whole thing.
(Can’t complain when you’re dead she’s gone you win you should bake a cake you still lose how do you always always)
The buildings up topside are too high. Too unbalanced. Nothing’s set up for good travel, and every skip across a roof comes with several stories of climbing. Through crisp, cleanly air that lets her spot a bird two blocks away. She can see if she can see she can be seen if someone sees her she knows how to fix that don’t see her don’t look don’t look and it makes her eyes bleed. Too clear too cold her teeth are chattering she’s making noise she doesn’t mean to but no one notices no one ever notices except
No one even stops by to tell her where the hospital is. She’s covered in blood. Someone might think that could be useful information. Typical. Is it because it’s not hers? It’s never hers. No fixing that. She isn’t going to start blocking with her face.
Maybe she should be looking for a morgue.
The hat dips over her eyes. She clambers up some brick. Looks around for someplace bigger and richer than all the other big and rich spots. She finds a roof.
She finds a roof.
She finds a roof.
She finds another roof.
She finds the roof.
She also finds the street.
She knows it’s a ‘the’ this time because she finds the other half of the matching they aren’t shut up don’t call them that set.
She finds a person her person.
too clear too cold too visible
Red splashed on gold, moving and angry and scared and not looking anywhere and hitting a wall and what’s wrong everything I’m still here look at me look at me Look At Me. Someone so angry so alone so without doesn’t look up. She hits the wall again, like it bleeds anything but money. Somebody stole her mittens away, so the whole thing doesn’t come down.
She does.
She falls to the ground and goes still. Maybe she’ll start hitting it next. Hitting everything in sight. Even if they didn’t mean to even if she shouldn’t have left at all even if it bleeds and cries and wails. Maybe she’ll cry.
(She is (it’s Claggor, there’s no telling Claggor to shut up and fuck off.))
She puts her head against the gilded bars keeping the world out of the hospital, and grabs them with hands dripping red. Her eyes drip too. Her world inside the cage is ending.
Good Wrong Finally No no no no I’m still here where are you why are you down there with her she’s gone is she gone did somebody else make her go away when you wouldn’t you wouldn’t you couldn’t you shouldn’t be crying not over her not over anyone please stop stop stop
Before the hat falls back down, Jinx stops being alone.
(“I don’t count? I thought I counted.”
“You count when we shoot people.”)
She spins and finds Pow-Pow in hand.
She spins and finds an owl.
Who hoo.
He hoo.
An owl with a bat and a ticking clock.
And a gun pointed at his head. Her contribution. The rest is all his disaster. He looks cool He does not.
“Not your neck of the woods little birdie.”
His mask doesn’t blink or flinch. Tick tick tock tock.
(Your voice sounds like crap it cracks on all the wrong threats and somewhere down there someone is still crying and she’s up here while it happens and that’s fine and fine and fine and she can’t talk right when her throat’s choking fuck off don’t judge.)
.
She isn’t looking at her gun or her target.
Her trigger finger is shaking.
(Get it ‘cause you’re—)
“Shut up.”
Hoo hoo. Savior boy’s mask does a 360 better than his stupid hoverboard and the face behind is real and doesn’t have a lick more of emotion.
He isn’t downstairs comforting the mess. He’s upstairs always always always he used to run upstairs and yell and grab her hand and show her what he saw and it was everything all the time but his noise made sense with her. Silent and watching.
(He’s been that way for years and she can dig dig dig and find the spark that killed them:
“Powder!” he shouts, all diamonds that make his eyes glitter in the fumes. He smiles and he shines and he’s alive alive alive and what does Powder do with alive things.
She kicks him in the face and says it for the first real time and her voice does not quake.
“It’s Jinx now.”)
He isn’t there to play. He’s here he stayed she pushed he’s here his graffiti has too much green she can’t scribble over it because green Is him and alive but someone should talk him out of the monochrome he has friends now they should love him better like she can’t and tell him to stop tagging everywhere to give her some room to walk. He’s here he’s everywhere he sees everywhere he sees her he sees her go away get out get out
Pow-Pow is aimed at the roof. There is numbness and cold and a horrible chilled heat running up her spine. Too many of them are here. There’s blue and violence and green and she’s blue too they have a spare but they can’t all be here again it’s the bridge it’s always the bridge they’re not they’re missing one Say something say something say something
“Did Hat Lady kick it?”
He pulls off his face and she was wrong before, this is his real one.
He says something. “Not yet.” He doesn’t speak. He’s not supposed to speak He’s the only quiet ghost because he’s not dead it’s just that they are.
“She going to?”
They don’t look at the crying smear of a person down below.
“Maybe. You here to help with that?”
Off base. Rude. Unfair Fair.
“Not my job to clean up other people’s mistakes.” Anymore. Perfect, Jinx. You’re perfect. Fix this fix it make it work and she always can and when he tells her to fix a person only bullets or explosions work but he asks so she fixes them too. She’s a helper. “How dead’s the guy who put her down there?” In there. Wrong her. Blue bitch not purple.
He doesn’t answer. He never answers. Acid rises in her chest. And something stronger. Something like power. She steps forward. He mirrors her, with an extra shift to the side that blocks her view of the crying. It’s a massive relief it’s a massive pain it’s a massive insult it’s a mass of steel in both their hands and she’s faster she’s the one with range. They’re squared up and he’s standing there like some gargoyle carved out of the night sky between her and family not family sister missed her crying dear friend across the river purple lavender lilac they’re all just funny versions of tick tick tock tick tock
She’s shot that watch before. He’s fixed that watch before.
(He’s good at that, fixing the broken. Reaching into every hole and dragging the beaten blasted burned bruised out into the light and pronouncing them saved and able to fly around the fissures and rooftops and have a family nice happy lives ruining hers he didn’t save her he took a kick and a punch and a kick and a gunshot and stopped he was the only one who always got gets her name right.)
Tick.
Tock.
She shoots by his feet and he launches into motion. In the space of a heartbeat they’re breathing the same air it’s always the same air it’s always the same air there’s no escape no way out she can’t leave she can’t run away it’s always thick and poisonous and it jolts them both. He bobs and weaves but he’s no natural he’s no her she’s got Pow-Pow she’s got Fishbones she ducks she flourishes she blocks and his stupid bat knocks Pow-Pow out for the count but hits teeth and falters and he wears a fucking shin guard who gave him that one kick sends it flying it’s not one of his who’s giving him crap and they’re down down down
Tiles crack under his mask’s beak when Fishbones smashes down on his jaw.
“Sorry, Little Man. I think she’s upset and channeling that into physical aggression.”
“Rocket launchers don’t have speaking rights,” she snaps. “I’m fine. No problems, all good, we’re all fine here, just out for a stroll in the moonlight. Everything was great and then you interrupt and now here we are.”
Just like old times. Hug it out or get out, dweebs.
Tick tick tick tick tock
She punches the watch and he wheezes and knees her in the groin because purple lavender lilac taught winning better than fighting but she grabs him by the hair and they tumble onto a grated metal balcony and slam down together
(she’s five he’s five he’s not scared of heights and she’s not either and when she flubs the jump he yelps and tries to catch her and their clothes rip and grease smears everywhere and the fissure air hurts but then a flash of pink swings them both back to solid ground and)
too much noise.
The balcony screeches and a plate clatters off the table they send careening over the edge.
They freeze.
The Hat sails peacefully down to plop by their heads.
Too much of the no stealth in the City of Throwing Money Down Wells That Specifically Don’t Flow to Zaunity.
She meets his eyes by accident. He stares defiantly back still bright still alive still ticking.
No noise comes from downstairs.
She chances a glance.
Not more crying purple. No red, no dripping, no punching walls. Panic not panic you’re perfect surges Jinx up and she wrings the balcony’s delicate neck in her fists. Hypocrite. Where Where’d she go Where is she I need you need me why aren’t you here I’m right is she dead is she dead is she dead I didn’t do it this time
She grabs the hat and yanks it down over her face.
Big hat. Big head.
Probably dead. Blue and red and dead all over. Blue goes boom.
The balcony creaks. Without bothering to check, she points Fishbones at her violated personal space.
Heavily gloved fingers tip the hat forward a smidge. “Nice ink.” He says. “Caitlyn’s going to be pissed you tagged up her gear.” He says her name without missing a tick tick tock Caitlyn Caitlyn Caitlyn always her always always maybe now never
“It’s called doing someone a favor.”
“You do them a lot of favors then.”
Them them them like they’re a thing like they’re a unit like they’re a team they are “Thanks for noticing.” He notices a lot he’s nice he’s good he saves people not her.
“They’ve got enough going on. If you’re looking for a fight, pick another block.”
She doesn’t pick another block. There’s her and her and her and him and the hospital. She sits. The Hat tips back. She watches. She seethes. His bat breathes with her, warming her throat with his arm holding it solid and steady. It doesn’t comfort it doesn’t warm it doesn’t laugh and she points Fishbones right back. It doesn’t distract.
Somewhere her sister family person is crying.
Somebody needs to burn.
Their arms give out.
Jinx stands outside the building and hates at it. She hates the glare of the sunlight bouncing off the windows she hates the sagging roof with its shiny new shingles she hates the spots of peeling paint she hates the sea green color of the new paint she hates the door she hates its knob she hates the curtains blocking her view of the inside she hates how red they are and she hate hate hates the fucking sign.
Riverside Investigations
Boring. Uninspired. Blandsville. Printed in neat gold lettering looking like it came out of a stencil. Worse, it probably did. What a name what a building what an atmosphere what a choice.
She can hear the river and it’s real. Probably. The water never really leaves like Mylo like Claggor like Her boots kick up dust from the cliffside, not the barely paved street. Scrunched buildings stand to either side, looking confused and wilted. They don’t have new paint or shingles. They have clothing lines with more personality than what’s leaking out of her destination.
All that money and no taste. Tragedy in one act.
Nosy neighbors, too. They aren’t any good at it, but eyes spy and spy something that starts with the letter P J at her and Fishbones like they’ve never seen a person before. The Hat twirls around her finger.
(Is she a person? Does she count? Do they look at Vitriol Vibrations Vivacious the same way? Does she belong? Does this compromise make her go all warm and fuzzy inside? Does she forget the screaming the hitting the blood she’s Violence forget her family where she belongs where they’re trapped forget her?)
Jinx has a key.
A little birdie gave it to her.
hoo hoo who are you
He’ll probably freak when he realizes it’s gone. Maybe he’ll drop the statue shtick outside the hospital. Maybe he’ll run all the way across town and trip back into the fog, a fall away from muck and home there is no home it’s gone it won’t come back and all the eyes will stare at him instead.
Jinx has a key.
She has a key to a home that’s not her home but her home and her home and he has a key to their home and it’s their home not hers and have they ever had a home that isn’t each other why is that better why is that where she is why are they all gone and she’s here
Go in go in Told you she’s not ready gO iN go in you’re a jinx go in go in go in you’re perfect go in
Jinx pops the key in. Into the single lock.
It’s like an invitation it’s not. They don’t even need a welcome mat. Not that they have one. Inconsiderate.
She walks in.
The door creaks with the floor. Splinters comb half the corners. Very carefully, very distinctly, the path to the desk that takes up a quarter of the cramped room is sanded and coated with varnish. Shelves of books and empty space and garbage handle the other three quarters. Chairs languish around the desk. There’s a tea set on one shelf with a plate of biscuits next to it. She could hock it and take it easy for a month or two or three.
(She takes a biscuit.
Stale, crumbly. More of a crime than whatever they’re solving.)
Two of the cups are out. One on a coaster the desk’s already a museum piece give it a break full of spoiled tea. The other one’s empty. No coaster. Dragged along the chipped wood without a care with a teasing smile full of warmth All yours, Pow. Those brains need to run on something.
Jinx is on the floor catching splinters.
A shelf has a stack of blankets, and she snags one to tie around her waist.
(Cold? Here I can
I’ve got you I’m here
we’ll always be sisters)
As creature comforts go, she’ll give it a three. All on pity, none on merit.
There are maps, there’s a dictionary, there might be enough legal books to give her one whole new idea— Nothing useful. Nothing that helps her. Nothing that she’s here for.
She takes in the small room with its swaying wooden a candle could burn this place to the ground CLOSED sign. The single room of a two-story building with a seat for customers and no stairs. Jinx is more insulted than bored, but there’s a solid case for both, detective. Time to put two brain cells together. If she were the most boring person in the history of everything who read one detective novel and based her entire world outlook on it—
Jinx flicks through the useless books, steps all over the creaking floorboards, and finds the spots where the seams don’t match. She rolls her eyes and dumps the entire shelf, trailing her fingers over the hollow wall behind it. Knock knock. It only takes a second to find a knot that doesn’t go with the dusty grey remnants of book stuff.
She pushes it.
It moves.
The wall moves with it. Swivels. Like the world’s most imperfect ballerina. Someone should charge extra for being a cliché.
Click click boom. There’s a room.
Or it’s trying to be. That’s the important part, isn’t it? Trying, not the failing? I was only trying to help I was only trying to help I was only trying to help. Nope. Try again, and maybe win next time.
It’s double the size of the office front, the same splintered wood slightly more cared for in between a workshop table goggles solder gears since when does she stacked next to a kitchen table stacked next to an actual kitchen. Complete with sink. A pile of half-cleaned half-uncleaned? dishes sits next to it all. Damp soap suds drip down the sides.
Everything until the stairs primly fitted with a small opening in case someone maybe wanted to walk up them sometime this decade is stacked on top of each other to make room for the only important thing in the whole building. An unnecessarily huge compensating much map of Piltover. And Zaun. She calls it Zaun he calls it Zaun. Uncercity. Topside. Labeled painstakingly and covered in color-coded threads and names written down in an equally pedestrian cipher someone probably thinks is clever. Points for changing it up since last time and not much else.
Kicking the open who let their security be so terrible who’s looking out for them who’s keeping her safe no one someone not her journal sprawled next to the gigantic eyesore into her hands, Jinx gives it a good hard look. For maybe three seconds until the cursive starts hitting her blood pressure where it hurts because it’s her writing her hand did this she shares a home with her she chose her she was chosen.
She snaps the book shut.
A seagull brays outside. She wants to shoot it.
“We can’t do that. We’d blow up this lovely abode!”
Fishbones doesn’t have any taste either. “They can afford a new one.”
They never had a house. Rooms. A fixed roof. Air that might not poison you leaving you with so many lifelong issues you almost forget about the other lifelong issues. She has one now. She does you don’t you never will you deserve this.
Jinx skips over the threads and lands in front of the stairs.
They’re crooked. Wood again, but sanded clean and soft. When she takes the first step, it doesn’t creak. It sits solidly under her foot, and doesn’t waver when it takes another three five eight sixteen seconds to decide she wants to bother with the rest.
There isn’t an opening at the top. Instead there’s an obvious block of ceiling flooring with smudged handprints all over it. Hers are still smaller. They always have been they probably always will be but when she reaches up to shove it away it’s like holding hands again.
It takes a heave and a ho and another heave to push the block out of the way. I’ve got these you’ve got
She steps up into warmth.
There are windows on the ceiling. On purpose. They’re slanted away from the sun and letting in all the ambient light bouncing off the topper topside, and besides a few ancient lamps they’re all that’s there to help out the brightness situation. The window staring directly at her when she clambers out of the trapdoor is 90% rock, 5% weird things growing in the rock, and 5% a slit of light that standing on your tippy toes might let you use to stare out at the abandoned ditch sitting level with the second floor.
A pot of violets sits on the sill. Gag.
There’s a locker with two locks look who’s trying finally next to a dresser that needs a paint job. Inside she finds about a dozen rifles, pistols, gloves, metal and metal and metal that could turn into gloves, hand wraps, a second emergency medical kit, and enough bullets to last a week. Two weeks if you’re careful. All of them printed with the same crest smeared all across the hidey hole in blood in her blood if there’s any justice in the world there’s not.
There’s a gramophone with an open floor in front of it.
(bouncing on anywhere that would hold them shouting the lyrics until someone yelled them down and they kept yelling up and up and up and he grabs her hand or she grabs his and they’re still laughing when her sister jumps in and tackles them both to the bed and Mylo calls them a bunch of babies so she grabs him too and ruins his hair and Claggor finds a new record and it’s good it’s better than good it’s the way it should be it’s what she)
Everywhere else is covered in rugs. That one spot. Clear.
Like in front of the staircase. Like you might want to stand in front of it with someone. Like you might take their hand and maybe not jump like you used to but maybe you could if you wanted to and the floor’s clear of splinters but it’s not clear of wear and tear of hours and hours of stepping over it again and again and together.
The upstairs is neat and cared for in a way that everything below falls short of it’s a metaphor it’s irony it’s life it’s always. It’s full of light.
(They never had this growing up no matter who tried to give it to them they were in basements they were in caves they were curled up together in a tent and their parents were humming them to sleep does she sleep better here is she happy)
There’s only one bed.
There’s only one bed.
There’s only one bed.
That’s fine they never had more that’s fine she knew she knows it’s fine it’s fine it’s not it’s how dare it’s fine soon there will only be one body it’s fine that’s not fine that’s not that’s why she’s here that’s not
.
Jinx is under the one bed. Fishbones joins her. Mylo joins her Claggor joins her the gang’s all here the Hat’s off her head again there’s nothing weird about sharing a bed they did it all the time they have money they want this. She knew she knows she gets it she has it they have each other who does she have they’re weird.
There’s a box under the one bed.
It has three locks.
You aren’t picking it you’re breaking it. Ease up. You’re a jinx jinx jinx you’re perfect you’re stronger than you think I’ve got these you’ve got
The box springs open.
It takes five six seven eight time. There’s pink and blue and
Photos.
Where she’s smiling.
The first one slips and finds Jinx’s fingers.
Not just smiling. Laughing. Caught captured frozen in that moment. Looking happy. Looking elated. Looking like nothing in the world ever went wrong or would again.
She can still look like that. When? When did she before?
Jinx leaves under the one bed.
She dumps the box out and hungrily spreads the pictures over the plush rug, eyes ping-ponging between each new expression. Grins and rolling eyes and soft smiles that used to be hers that aren’t hers that are right here she can still look like that she’s still her a little bit but not hers and wrapped in blankets and pillows that aren’t patched and fast asleep.
Safe. Peaceful.
Someone who’s alive.
There’s one, fluttered to the corner of the one bed.
Pink hair swept so far out of her eyes that she looks young again she looks like a ghost. Sparkling grey shines out from the floor. A smile, a small one, like she can’t believe she can make it happen, stretches the scar around her mouth. A little shy and maybe a little more confused and this is where this is where if they were what they were she could laugh and call it what it is, but a little more amazed. A little more soft. A little more awed. The grey smiles with just as much heart and warmth as the bare glint of teeth, and it’s a moment that feels like it could belong in a forever.
Vibrant.
.
Someone took it.
For it to exist, someone had to take it.
Someone took all of these.
Someone out there can still make her sister smile like that cry like that.
She goes back downstairs.
(She keeps a photo.
Not that one.
It doesn’t belong to her.
It’s a boy and it’s a girl and it’s snickering at something she can’t see and everything is too green too fresh but their arms are around each other like it’s supposed to be.)
Finding people has never been hard. Keeping them is hard. But finding them is quicker and easier than shooting them through the heart. Jinx doesn’t know where the Firelights live you’d betray them you’d get him killed just like all the rest run away don’t look don’t find don’t hear don’t ask but she knows how to get their brave and fearless leader’s attention.
She knows her explosions.
He does too.
(He has an entire paragraph on page 206 of the cipher manifesto about how much he wants this new gaggle of baddies gone, how much trouble they’re causing, how they’re dodging every insidious rumor because it’s bad but it’s not shimmer it’s not important none of them are really that important how terrible how atrocious how like life. How he’s a friend how he’s trying to make something good how they need to prioritize this how he asked
He’ll have plans for the bodies.)
The flames are almost gone by the time he shows up at the second hidey hole listed, but he shows up. Melting rafters droop under his massive boots. Silently he’s always so quiet she misses his voice the things she has to do to make him talk he takes up his perch, staring and watching and basically not helping at all.
She keeps her spot, swinging upside down off one of the loosened chains.
“Does anyone here,” she starts, flipping through her pilfered notebook and making great aesthetic corrections, “know who was working your other stash house?”
No one answers.
“It just went up in smoke.”
Still.
“Had a bit of a firefight with some vigilante do-gooders first.”
There’s a terrified edge to the room that she finds almost as relaxing as the flames.
(He tried to make her love the water the way he did and sometimes she could but she always comes back to the burning smoldering wreckage of things never being the same no matter how many times she tries and tries and it’s always the same she always breaks it.)
She settles back, spinning the Hat on one heel.
No one answers.
They never do until they do.
She takes in the bruised and blistered faces just returning to consciousness under the haze of several different kinds of smoke she spent a considerate amount of time selecting. She twists the knife his knife do you know what he did Pow do you remember did he tell you in her hands, making sure to hit all her eye contact goals.
“How about this; you all get to live. Just tell me who you think would have been around to shoot up the ever so sweet private investigators before they cleaned their clocks.”
(Fear alone isn’t enough to make someone talk, Jinx. It can work. It can be the simplest key in your arsenal. But power comes from letting what they want dangle before their eyes and asking them what they’re willing to sacrifice to stop you from choking the life out of their hope. Power is holding the world in your hands and leaving everyone around you desperate for the merest chance of voicing their objections.)
They’re scared and mute, but their eyes come alive. Almost like they rehearsed it, they all dart over to the body that’s still unconscious. The body that has a few more scrapes and bloody bandages than any of her handiwork would have brought in. With a bruise that says someone with large punchy hands went to town all over his face once upon a yesterday she’s had that happen she was only trying to help she is helping.
She unfolds from the chain and kicks the Hat back to a hand.
She saunters she flounces she waltzes over.
The eyes abruptly stop watching, save for one airborne set.
She gives the bruise a friendly ol’ pat. His eyelids flutter open. Blown pupils whiz distractedly around until he widens his eyes enough for the dotted red whites to be fully visible instead of suspected.
She leans forward.
Waiting for his vision to settle. To catch the slowing revolving top hat submerging her wrist.
He blinks.
Once. Twice.
He catches.
Comprehension starts to seep in, if you want to give him credit if you want to give him dignity if you want to think of him like a person and not a frantic mix of heartbeats and bad wiring. Comprehension. There’s another word for it. A word that licks the tip of her tongue and goes down smooth.
Fear.
Her fingers poke through the Hat’s personal bullet hole to twiddle themselves his way.
She smiles.
“Hi.”
The second hidey hole blows up.
Again.
It’s a good thing.
It takes forever to cross the bridge. It takes forever to cross the roof then another roof then another roof then the right roof then turn around double back duck under a recently murdered decorative houseplant scoot back up to the roofs and make her way back to the hospital. She has a room number now. It’s amazing how much that doesn’t help.
Other things people are just as great at not helping.
Dangling in front of her eyes, owl claws reach out and wait.
The bat waits too. She can kick it out of his grip before he makes it anywhere near her he knows this she knows this but it might be fun for a moment does he like cricket they never figured out the rules did he learn. It’s settled against his leg, tip barely brushing the one leaf someone forgot to sweep off the roof.
Jinx, hot off munitions and a fever that she can’t dig out that’s part of her now that’s more like a busted steam pipe than something functional something that works, and a letter in her pocket with rapidly declining prospects for delivery, isn’t here for this. Fishbones is, Fishbones is thrilled, but Fishbones is also loud. Loud like her just at all the wrong times. Loud like a liability loud like She’s a
“What.”
Strong and silent keeps up the resolute stillness that makes him invisible in worse places. Jinx bats her eyelashes and puts on her prettiest smile it’s full of teeth that makes it sharp that makes it cutting that makes her dangerous and that hikes his shoulders up enough to count him in as engaging instead of checking off a chore.
“Key,” he says. Like she isn’t helpful, like he doesn’t care she just wrapped up one of his many many problems, like he isn’t planning on saying thank you. He isn’t. He won’t. He shouldn’t.
“What do you even need one for?” He’s good with his hands his stuff always works. He’s good he’s good he’s good she’s not she never will be was she once was she ever?
His hand floats in the air, waiting.
Say something say something say something Say Something
She scoffs and flicks the key into the glove, where it instantly vanishes into one of a bazillion pockets.
He doesn’t instantly vanish. Even when she pulls out the battered old telescope she traded off him when he was so little she could see over his head and grab his pan helmet from the top shelf for him and hug him and he would babble on and on about who was doing what where how he was going to put together the junk Benzo let him nab from the shop how fast he could make an engine go how fast he could make the targets in the arcade pop up just give him a sec he’ll make it cool can it be green does it have to be targets.
She can’t look through it while he’s standing in front of the room. She’s flopped down on the roof and palms her chin, staring into his mask until she starts seeing little firelights buzzing around his hood.
He crouches down.
The leaf crunches.
He says something.
“You left my crew on cleanup.”
“Uh-huh.” She flips through the notebook pages, landing on the stolen one near the back, splotched in red. The Hat slides over her ears. He’s looking at her she can’t see his eyes but he’s looking at her and there are eyes she can see over his shoulder and there are whole bodies in the building over his shoulder and he’s still not moving.
“You left something to clean up.”
It’s the telescope’s turn to prop up her chin. They stare at each other. She’s stared at. She doesn’t blink. He might. She doesn’t get to see. She used to he used to meet her eyes across rooms and smile and smile and smile and never blink until one of them broke they all broke he’s not broken he’s okay. She swings the Hat in the hospital’s direction. “The junior detective brigade throws a fit whenever they find a body that’s not breathing.”
“You’d know.”
She lowers the telescope.
He’s not blinking.
She doesn’t need to see it doesn’t matter that he doesn’t want to show her anymore it doesn’t it doesn’t it doesn’t.
(They can’t be friends anymore. They aren’t friends anymore. She’d hurt him has hurt him he remembers her too much he knows her too well when he looks at her he sees everything he sees all of her he’s the only one who stayed he knows.)
He puts out his hand again.
He doesn’t take off his mask, but he puts out his hand, and the staring feels a little less.
He says something, and it’s, “I’ll get her the note.”
The sheet splotched in red waits for both of them.
Cold breezes up topside aren’t like they are in underZaun. There’s no building after building after building bracing against the chill until it’s smoke and ash and burns all the way down unless you have Goggles are great for that, here Pow, try a mask. If something’s cold, something’s wrong.
She’s always cold.
The wind drifts through and snags on her braids, tossing them carelessly.
She takes her smiling teeth to the sheet of paper and rips it free.
He grabs it without snatching, and he knows her but she knows him and he watches the red for so long it almost feels like laughter instead of screaming inside her head.
“It’s paint. Doy.”
He glares and she can feel it and it’s not throwing back his head and groaning and calling it a cheap shot one more time he’ll get her next time but—his shoulders sulk and he’s tiny all over again. He does snatch the board across his back without looking at her again. He does move out of the way between her and the hospital windows.
Jinx puts the telescope to her eye and hums.
It’s a bright sunshiney day, and pink is coiled around blue like she’s afraid she’ll disappear for real and not just a game not just pretend. They’re on top and all over each other, arms slung around waists and necks and the panicked limpness of survival coating both faces in slick tears.
Their chests rise.
Fall.
Rise.
They’re fine.
They’re fine.
The tears are drying and they’re fine.
And Violet’s fist crumples the small sheet of paper a little further, and she presses it to her lips, and maybe her eyes open for a moment, maybe she looks out the window, maybe she sees, maybe she wonders a little, maybe she means to be seen back, and maybe her whispered “Thank you,” floats across the entire courtyard.
To Violence Purple Violet Vi:
I am sorry for putting a hole three holes in your girlfriend partner whatever Cupcake Caitlyn. I physically can’t do it again. Bye forever.
—One Dead Maimed Mook
Love,
Jinx