Chapter Text
It was happening again. Jinx was going to die. She had come close to death probably thousands of times. But she only got truly close once. That time, when she was being attacked by an old friend, death felt like relief. It felt like the mission. It felt like she was worthy of death for Zaun. When she had pulled the trigger of that grenade and let it loosely fall to the floor, she let it. She had time to run away, didn’t she? But, she stayed.
It was happening again. It was different, this time, though. This time, she didn’t try to die. For once, she wanted to live. For once in her miserable life, she truly wanted to live. But, of course, nothing ever goes her way. Jinx never thought she would give her life for others. Never. She never expected to love like this. She loved Silco, she did, but not like this. This type of love was different. It wasn’t desperate and, yet, it was all consuming. It ate her whole and made her world foggy and her heart race. It made her feel warm and accepted. Jinx dared to say that this love felt unconditional.
Except, there was one condition to everything in life, wasn’t there? The condition that you could only feel it if you were alive to feel it. That was the condition that plagued everything. The one condition to Lux’s love that would haunt her.
Jinx’s ears were ringing. It was the only sound she heard. She didn’t hear the trampling footsteps around her or the screams. She felt herself cough up blood. She didn’t have the energy to turn over and spit it out. It choked her. Made her cough more. Her eyes were open, she knew that. But, she couldn’t really see anything. It was all too blurry. Parts of her vision were dark and parts were too bright.
Now, there was something close to her. She couldn’t hear her. Her numb skin told her that it was Lux’s shadowy figure above her. It was Lux’s hands that were pressing worryingly on her side. It was Lux’s mouth that was moving inaudibly. Was it Lux’s tears that were splattering all over Jinx’s face, too?
Jinx’s eyelids felt heavy. She didn’t want to die. Oh, god. She didn’t want to die.
~
It had all happened so fast. Why did Lux agree to it? Jinx wanted to go to a riot that was happening on the bridge. She wanted to help Zaun. Lux couldn’t have said no, could she? Jinx had an amazing plan, too. It was perfect, it really was. The only problem was all the variables. Those variables being, well, people. Jinx said that people were uncontrollable, but predictable. Jinx said that she had predicted everything and that she would be okay. Jinx said that she would be okay.
Jinx wasn’t saying anything anymore. She was lying on the ground. Lux was screaming at her. She didn’t mean to be screaming, but that was all that came out. She could barely even hear herself. It seemed that Jinx couldn’t hear her at all.
Lux felt pain all over her body. But, that didn’t matter. The giant hole where skin was supposed to be on Jinx's side mattered. Lux had never seen Jinx act so fast. She had never seen Jinx so worried and scared. Lux had seen the handful of grenades that were thrown into the crowd. Grenades not made by Jinx, though. Something else. Lux was always in the wrong place at the wrong time, wasn’t she? And Jinx was always too quick for her. Too quick for Lux to realize that Jinx was shoving her out of the way and acting as a human shield. Lux would’ve stopped her. Lux would’ve taken the hit. She would’ve.
What was Lux screaming about? She was begging for something. Begging for what? For Jinx to wake up? To hear her? For her to live? She couldn’t figure it out. She was alone. People were there, running around her. But, she was alone. No one was coming to help. Of course they wouldn’t. No one liked Jinx despite the fact that she was probably the best person in the entire world.
Lux’s hands weren’t helping. Blood was spilling out from the cracks in her fingers. Jinx kept reflexively coughing up blood and Lux kept trying to tilt her head to the side and let it fall away. Lux was crying, wasn’t she? She was leaning over Jinx’s face and little droplets of water were falling on the other woman’s cheeks. It wasn’t raining.
Lux pulled off her sweater and tied it across Jinx’s side. Hard. The blood seeped straight through the light yellow fabric. She didn’t know if it was better than nothing. Lux picked up Jinx and carried her like a bride. Like her bride. She didn’t want to think about the possibility of never getting married. She didn’t want to think about that. She wanted Jinx to be okay.
Lux ran. She ran and she prayed to whatever gods existed that she wouldn’t trip. She prayed that people would give way to her and she wouldn’t need to push and shove. And she apologized for everything she had ever done wrong in her life. And she begged to give Jinx’s life for her own. She couldn’t help herself. She was mumbling everything now. Her thoughts were spilling out of her brain and they were tumbling out of her mouth.
She ran to Singed. She didn’t want to, but she did. He was the only solution she could think of. Except, this time, Lux was not going to let Jinx under Singed care unsupervised. Lux was going to knock out the man and use his tools by herself if necessary. She didn’t trust him.
She arrived at Singed’s cave. She kicked down the door with her adrenaline-infused panic and started screaming. “Singed!” She laid Jinx out on the closest metal table she could find. Lux didn’t dare look at Jinx’s body for too long. “Singed! Please! She needs help!” Lux yelled into the room.
And, from out of nowhere, Singed walked out. He probably came out of a door, but Lux couldn’t tell. She had mistakenly looked at Jinx for too long and now she couldn’t peel her eyes away. “Dear god.” Singed said as he approached. “What happened?”
“S-she got exploded! Can you not fucking tell?!” Lux snapped.
“No, I can tell, dear.” Singed took out a vial of shimmer and injected it into Jinx’s arm before Lux could do anything. “She’s stronger than she looks.”
Jinx’s eyes bolted open with a gasp. She frantically looked around and stopped when she found Lux’s eyes.
Lux huddled over and caressed Jinx’s face. That was all she could do right now, wasn’t it? She was practically useless. “It’s okay, it’s okay. You’re gonna be okay, I promise.”
Jinx weakly touched Lux’s face back. But, it barely had any life in the movement. “I love you.” She mumbled. Her voice was raspy and thin and raw. It was barely audible.
“Don’t say that like it’s a goodbye!” Lux demanded. She started crying all over again. Before Lux could say that she loved her back, Jinx’s eyes rolled back into her head and she started convulsing.
Lux stumbled back. “Do something!” She screamed at Singed.
“We need to wait it out. Nothing we can do when she’s like this.” He replied dryly. As if this was just another day to him.
Lux pulled out a knife that was sheathed on her belt. She waved it at Singed haphazardly. “I will kill you if you hurt her and I’ll kill you if you don’t fucking save her!”
Singed’s eyes widened for a moment. “I know.” He sighed and walked over to Jinx’s convulsing body. He wrapped up her bleeding side with a practiced hand. And then, he stopped. He turned her over, lifted up her arms, put them back down. He lifted up her eyelids and looked at her eyes.
“I cannot fix her.” He said, blankly staring at Lux. “Injecting her with more shimmer will do more harm than good.”
“No!” Lux screamed. Her voice was starting to get raw. She stomped towards Singed and grabbed him by the shirt, pulling his tall frame down to his level. “You have to do something!” She pressed the knife into his throat. What the hell was she doing? Threatening to kill the only chance she had?
“You remind me of someone who loved Jinx very much.” Singed said softly. “He, although, did not threaten to slit my throat.”
Lux found herself hyperventilating. She knew who he was talking about. She knew the stories. She remembered how terrified she was when Jinx told her about the shimmer. How it spilled out of her mouth and out of her eyes. How badly it hurt and how the hallucinations still haunted her to that day. Lux crumpled to the floor.
She looked at her bloodied hands. Jinx’s blood. “Fuck you!” She screamed at Singed. She stood up and started stealing things from around the room. Bandages, needles, vials of something or other, scalpels, and she shoved everything into a dusty bag that had sat in the corner.
“We don’t need you!” Lux yelled as she threw the bag over her shoulder and heaved Jinx’s body into her arms. She seemed to have settled now. She was breathing, but it was uneven. Her chest would rise, stay there for too long, and then fall shakily. It would take an alarming amount of time for her to inhale again. Lux ran out of the cave before saying anything more.
She was dizzy. Her steps were too big or too small and it made her off balance. She could barely look where she was going because she couldn’t help herself from staring at Jinx.
“Don’t die on me, Jinx. Please.” She started begging. “We… We have so much more we have to do together!” She laughed maniacally. “Shhhhh, it’ll be okay. You’re gonna be okay. You have to, you hear me?” Her tears were hitting Jinx’s body. “You have to!”
Lux eventually stumbled into an abandoned building. Her arms were weak and full of scratches and bruises. She had to stop there. She couldn’t have gone much further. She placed Jinx’s body down with the utmost amount of care and started looking her over.
Lux couldn’t tell if anything was wrong with Jinx’s organs. She knew that since she was packed full of shimmer, her healing abilities were better than the normal person. But, an explosion is an explosion. Lux hung an empty blood bag on a piece of the wall that jutted out awkwardly. She shoved a needle into her arm, the tube running into the bag. She didn’t know how everything worked exactly. But, she had done military medical training in Demacia. She had to know enough. She had to.
Blood started pumping out of Lux’s body and into the bag. She was O-. She thanked the gods, or her parents, or someone. She had never needed it until this point. Lux ripped off the bandage on Jinx’s side and looked. It was horrid. It wasn’t seeping so much, but it was still bleeding. Lux could see shrapnel stuck inside of the hole.
Lux debated what to do next. She sat next to Jinx and placed one hand over the woman’s sternum, and one over her stomach. She gave Jinx light. No heat. She didn’t know what the hell she was doing. She was just focusing on giving Jinx as much life and love as she could muster. Light erupted out of her fingers and lit up Jinx’s inside. It wasn’t hot, though. Lux hoped it was doing something.
She must’ve hit a nerve. Jinx opened her eyes and started gasping and screaming. She was thrashing around and it was hurting her. Lux had nothing to hold her down with. Instead, she put her hands on Jinx’s shoulders.
“Jinx! Jinx, it’s me! Calm down, it’s okay. I’m taking care of you!” She weeped. Jinx seemed to barely register that she was there.
Jinx was frantically looking around and started to hyperventilate. She batted Lux away.
“It’s me! It’s me, Lux! Remember? Lux!” She held Jinx’s face in one hand and petted her hair with the other. That seemed to calm her down. Jinx stopped thrashing and trying to push Lux away, at least.
“Don’t let him do it again!” Jinx suddenly started begging. “Please! I don’t want it. I don’t want it! Please! Don’t let him!” Her pupils were hugely dilated.
“He’s not here. It’s just me. It’s okay. I’m gonna help you, I promise.” Lux tried to make her voice as soft as possible. But, it kept cracking. She could only assume that Jinx was begging not to be pumped full of shimmer again.
Her breathing started to even out. “Not… here?” She asked. This time, she was actually looking at Lux. Her eyes were full of fear and desperation. Lux hasn’t seen them look like that before.
“Mhm!” Lux said as cheerily as she could. “Not here. Just me and you, my love.”
“Mmmmm,” Jinx made some noise of approval. She let out a small smile and let her head fall back onto the concrete. She started to close her eyes.
“No, no.” Lux said, tapping the side of Jinx’s face. “Can you stay awake for me?”
“Mmmff,” Jinx said in, what Lux assumed was, retaliation.
“Please? Just for me? For your Luxie?”
Jinx looked back over to her. Her eyes were still hooded. “Okay…” She giggled. “For my Luxie.”
“Good girl,” Lux petted Jinx’s hair once more. She glanced at the blood bag hanging above them. It was almost full. Lux got out some bandages and wrapped them up thickly. “Can you bite this for me?” She held it in front of Jinx’s mouth.
Jinx was humming now. She bit onto the bandages, smiling. Lux was glad. She was so glad. She was glad that deep down, Jinx really did trust her. She was so vulnerable right now. And, she just sat there, letting Lux do what she pleased.
“This is going to hurt. Is that okay?” Lux asked, moving back down to Jinx’s gash. She brought up the tweezers to take the shrapnel out.
~
Was Jinx dead? She couldn’t tell if she was in heaven or hell. Lux was there. That was good. Heaven-like. But, everything hurt. It hurt so bad. It burned and it ached and it was wet and warm in a bad way. That was hell-like.
Had Jinx responded to Lux’s question? She didn’t remember. She nodded. Better late than never. The bandages in her mouth were getting soggy from her spit already.
“Okay…” Lux said. Her voice was so soft. It sounded like it was coming from all directions. It was enveloping Jinx in warmth and comfort. Lux was so perfect. So perfect.
Jinx felt a warm hand placed on her stomach. To brace her, probably. She felt metal go into her side. Deeply into her side. It didn’t hurt very much. But, something else hurt. It hurt like something Jinx had never known. It felt like her nerves were getting ripped apart and plucked like strings. It felt like torture. It felt like something she deserved. She bit the bandages down with all of her might to try and stop her from screaming and thrashing. It didn’t work. She still screamed. She fisted her hands. She felt blood trickle down from her palms. Probably ripped her skin open with her nails, or something. Didn’t really matter. It barely hurt compared to everything else.
Jinx heard a small metal plop sound. Then, all her pain went away for a moment. It was a relief. But, it was brought back seconds later. What was Lux doing to her? She didn’t know. But she knew it was Lux. Lux always did the right thing. Lux would save her. Save her? Jinx thought that she was supposed to be the one that saved Lux? That she was supposed to protect Lux. This was all wrong. Jinx was being a burden, again. But, she couldn’t help herself.
She was alive, wasn’t she? That’s what she chose to believe, even if she doubted it. Her eyes were squeezed shut. She felt the sharp prick of a needle go into the crook of her arm. It brought back terrible memories. Jinx gasped and shot her head up to look at the culprit. It was Lux. That was okay. It seemed that Lux was giving blood to Jinx. She wondered where she had gotten it from.
“We’re done taking the shrapnel out,” Lux said. So warm. “I need to…” She hesitated. She looked at Jinx with sadness. That made Jinx sad. “I need to cauterize it. It will help the bleeding, but it will hurt.”
Well, what didn’t hurt? Jinx didn’t really care. She felt loved. That was all that mattered. She just nodded and turned her head back to stare at the sky. This building they were in didn’t have a roof. The sky was dark and pink. It was pretty. Not as pretty as Lux, though.
Jinx let her head flop to the side and watched Lux. She was kneeling beside her. Jinx couldn’t see her own injury. She didn’t want to see it, either. Lux was still kind of blurry, but that was okay. Jinx knew it was Lux. She saw Lux’s eyes start to turn golden, and her fingers light up. Jinx instinctively braced herself.
She couldn’t see Lux anymore. She couldn’t see anything. She couldn’t tell if her eyes were closed. She heard screaming and she knew it came from her. She bit into the rolled bandages so hard that it started to rip. It burned. It burned and it burned and it burned. It felt like she was being eaten alive by heat.
“It’s okay, I’ve got you.” Lux said, trying to comfort her. Jinx could hear it. Somewhere in her brain registered it. But, it didn’t get far before the words were replaced by pain. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’ve got you, I promise. You’re gonna be okay.”
It did comfort Jinx, just a little bit. She was crying, now. She was gasping for breath. She couldn’t get enough of it. She absently wondered if she was being melted. This is probably what being melted felt like.
The burning calmed. Jinx found herself in the arms of Lux. She didn’t remember how she got there.
Jinx groaned.
“Shhhh,” Lux said. “It’s okay. You’re okay. I love you so much. You’ve done so well.”
That felt nice. Jinx smiled. She was in the crook of Lux’s neck. She weakly brought up her arm and ran her fingers through Lux’s blonde hair. “Are you okay?” She mumbled. It hurt to speak.
“Yeah, yeah I’m okay. I got bruised up a little bit but I’m okay.” Lux brought Jinx down so she could look at her. She was still softly holding Jinx’s head above the concrete floor. Lux was smiling. She was smiling that big, beautiful, bright smile of hers. She wasn’t crying anymore, either. “All because of you. I’m okay because of you.”
“Mmmmmm,” Jinx replied. “Good.”
“But, I need you to do another favor for me.” Lux said. Her eyes were still bright and happy.
Jinx made a noise of disagreement. “What else?”
“I want to marry you when this is all over.”
“What?” Jinx’s eyes widened.
“I can’t stand the idea of not being married to you anymore. I just can’t. Not after this.” Lux still looked happy, but suddenly also desperate.
“I’m a criminal. I don’t think-” Jinx started. Lux’s words weren’t getting into her skull correctly. She wanted to marry her? Now? Jinx kind of assumed that Lux might want to leave her after all this. Who would want to nurse Jinx back to health? Well, actually, Lux would.
“It doesn’t matter. We don’t have to do anything fancy or official. I just want you to be my wife. I don’t care about the formalities. I love you. I want you to marry me.”
“You really thought I was going to die, huh?” Every word hurt, but it was worth it. She used what little strength she had to rest her hand on Lux’s cheek.
“I… I just-”
“I’ll marry you. Yes. I do. Whatever people say.” Jinx smiled.
Lux gasped and stared.
“So, are you gonna kiss me, or…”
Lux pulled Jinx up with her strong arms and kissed her. It was soft. Softer than Jinx wanted, but she supposed she couldn’t handle anything harder. She had lived. She had lived and she felt love and she gave love. She was getting married. Everything felt right again.