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“To what do I owe the pleasure of your visit, Sheriff?”
Caitlyn knows that voice, has heard it a thousand times by now. Each a little different, a different situation; sometimes serious, sometimes a game of cat and mouse.
“This is serious Jinx, and you know it.” Caitlyn hears her voice reverberate across the metal walls of the old warehouse.
The tall sliding door behind her slides shut with a loud slam. And Jinx’s shuffling can be heard in the dark corners of the building.
“Jeez Sheriff, it's always serious biz whenever we meet.” The voice is heard from Caitlyn’s right and yet when she turns to face that way, she can’t see into the dark all that well.
“Never any fun.” Jinx whispers, right beside her ear. It causes goosebumps to ripple along her neck and arms. Caitlyn’s body reacts on instinct, swinging a hand behind, which Jinx dodged with ease by ducking.
They were frozen in place, staring at one another in silence. Jinx’s eyes were unblinking, waiting, Caitlyn felt her heart hammer against her ribcage.
Jinx stays in her half crouched position, both waiting for the other to break the silence. Her thinly body illuminated by the silvers of moonlight sneaking through holes in the roof.
They stay like that, only for a few moments more yet it feels like forever. Caitlyn calms herself, soothing her stressed nerves as best she could.
“Don’t do that again.” Is all the sheriff manages to get out, creating distance between their bodies with a few steps back.
Jinx breaks away from their staring contest, standing up with a slouch to her posture, seeming relaxed.
A lazy smile makes its way onto her face, her gun Zapper hanging on her pointer finger from the trigger hold.
Caitlyn's attention is taken by the back and forth swing of the weapon. Sure the question is on her face.
Jinx huffs, it sounded like something that was meant to be a laugh but it came out as a harsh breath.
“Relax hun, I’m not gonna shoot you.” Jinx says, Caitlyn tenses at the little pet name. Shame and guilt coiling in the pit of her stomach like a tight wire ready to break.
“ Don’t call me that.” Caitlyn snaps.
The silence prior once again swallows them, Jinx’s expression is hidden by the dark; her eyes are not. The smallest of motion, the surprise widening of her eyelids. An emotion comes and goes in the violet irises.
It is gone before Caitlyn could decipher the meaning.
“Someone’s in a bad mood.” Jinx drawls, a smile still present on her face. Finally moving from her spot, no longer in the light.
Walking circles around the sheriff. Caitlyn eyes her every movement, time soothing herself would amount to nothing. Jinx didn’t seem to have a care in the world. That was becoming more and more irritating as time went on.
“Do you have any idea what you’ve done?” Caitlyn asks incredulously.
Jinx holds back a laugh, her bottom lip between her teeth. She hums a tune instead, pacing around and around. Circling like predator to prey.
Caitlyn sighs, rubbing the side of her forehead with her hands. Hoping it would help prevent the raging headache she feels coming on.
“You blew up my office and half of the police station.” Caitlyn stresses.
Jinx stops pacing, halting right in front of the sheriff. Caught once again in the moonlight.
“What about it, Lady hat?” A pause, a thoughtful look on her face before it’s gone. “Can I call you that? I mean, I can call you anything and you’ll have to deal with it.”
A muscle flexes in Caitlyn’s jaw with how hard she’s gritting her teeth. “I don’t have to put up with this. I could leave at any moment.” Jinx’s smile falls, replaced with a scowl.
“Then leave.” She hisses; daring.
She is met with silence, Caitlyn squeezes her eyes shut. Taking a few breaths in.
Caitlyn doesn’t have to look to see the triumphant grin on the other’s face. Taunting her.
She needed to not provoke Jinx. Otherwise she would get nothing from this meeting. They both know that she’s here for a reason.
“Jinx.” Caitlyn starts, her voice low and perfectly emotionless.
“Caitlyn.” Jinx copies.
The sheriff sighs again, opening her eyes to find Jinx closer than before. “Prior to the detonation of your bombs,” Jinx raises a brow at her, smiling.
“You stole something important from my office. Paper files on a case that I’ve been working on.”
“That one big shimmer factory you and fat hands have been trying to track down since last year?” Caitlyn doesn’t nod, nor respond verbally.
Jinx smiles a little wider as the sheriff’s eyes narrow.
“Sorry to say,” Jinx steps closer, inching little by little as she speaks. “I don’t have it.”
Caitlyn rolls her jaw, grinding her teeth together. Jinx was one-hundred percent messing with her, pushing and pushing and pushing.
“Now isn’t the time to mess with me,” Caitlyn struggles to get the words out, anger clogging her throat. “Besides, that’s not the only thing you took.” Jinx grins broadly, and god did Caitlyn want to wipe that smile off her face.
She pushed the thought aside, into the box in her head that had a lock.
“When would you learn hun. After all, how many times am I gonna keep stealing your rifle?” Jinx is close now, close enough to touch Caitlyn by simply reaching her arms out.
She doesn’t.
“You know where the shimmer factory is.” Caitlyn states, she could always get her rifle some other time. This situation wasn’t about her.
She waits for a response. This was always by far the worst part of her rare meetings with Jinx, the waiting.
Waiting to see if Jinx would lend useful information. Waiting to see if she was just going to get tossed around again, played with, left with only shadows to chase.
And Jinx was not an easy person to find. You’ll find her because she let you.
It was beyond irritating, no. It drew Caitlyn insane sometimes, stressed one day and the next mutiple buidlings bombed. No break in between.
A single monkey graffiti was left behind for the Enforcers but the message was clear.
It was to her and Vi, always.
And something screams in the back of her mind, the wire pulling impossibly tighter. Thoughts whispering that she deserved this.
It wasn’t wrong.
“I do but what would be the fun in telling? C’mon Sheriff, use that pretty head of yours.”
Caitlyn feels a headache coming on, the uncomfortable pulsing in her head. “Why are you like this?” Jinx cackles loudly, shoulders shaking. Stupid question. After what feels like a minute, Jinx wipes at her eyes.
“Oh hun, there’s a million things wrong with me.” Caitlyn straightens as Jinx inches impossibly closer. Pink eyes bore into her soul, leaving her feeling exposed.
“Let’s make a deal, Caitlyn.”
The sheriff’s nose scrunches up in half thought and distrust.
Reluctantly, Caitlyn says, “I’m listening.” Because what other choice does she have? Leave with nothing gained?
Jinx smiles, a little fake. A mask of neutrality settled on her face, “How’s Vi doing?”
A second.
Another.
Before a single thought. . . What? Caitlyn blinks, multiple times as she processes the question. Jinx chuckles, “Cat got your tongue?”
Caitlyn swallows, clearing her suddenly dry throat, “She’s… fine.” A pause, “She misses you.”
She sees the cogs turn in Jinx’s head, taking the information, letting it sink in.
“I’m sure she does,” Jinx says slowly, unbelieving.
She steps closer; when her arms reach up and wrap around Caitlyn’s neck, the sheriff doesn’t push her away.
Subconsciously, Caitlyn bends her body ever so slightly so Jinx wouldn’t have to stand on the tip of her toes. The movement is familiar, stored away in the dark corners of her mind.
Caitlyn’s hands rest on her slim waist, hesitant but Jinx doesn’t object. She caresses circles against blue cloud tattoos she finds there.
Jinx seems surprised, cocking her head to the side as she stares up at Caitlyn.
For a moment, Caitlyn forgets why she’s here but it doesn’t last a second more.
“Will you at least give me those files back? Or are you just playing with me?”
Caitlyn’s slightly distracted by Jinx’s fingers playing with the small wisps of hair on her neck. Twirling her dark blue hair around her slim fingers, it’s calming and Caitlyn’s completely undeserving of such physical gentleness.
“Jinx?” A hum in response, Jinx seeming out of the moment, her eyes elsewhere.
“I’ll give you those files back,” She eventually says.
Caitlyn frowns, there was a catch. Always.
Cold slim fingers find sharp cheekbones, the pad of Jinx’s thumbs brushing soft strokes against the skin there.
Caitlyn’s suspicion is rising, at the back of her mind, knowing what Jinx wants. Yet not daring to speak the words, even in her head.
“Answer a question for me, as simple as that.” Oh she did not like this. Jinx kept pulling that wire, stretching it.
As if she could see it was almost ready to snap.
Jinx is gone for another moment, staring off over the sheriff’s shoulder. Her brows pull down, forming a frown on her face, she twitches. Looking off to the side, hearing something only she could.
Muttering under her breath, they're close enough that Caitlyn can hear the name ‘Mylo’ being said.
Caitlyn’s pieced together some things over the years, or maybe even way back, whenever Mylo shows up; it usually didn’t end well. Jinx shakes her head, dismissing whatever’s whispering down her neck.
“Do you ever regret not choosing me?” She blurts.
There it was. Years spent dancing around the problem, the source. The question that Caitlyn’s been waiting to be confronted with.
She wants to be angry.
She can’t.
That wire inside her pulls taut, pulling tighter and tighter, three years spent ignoring it. Caitlyn doesn’t try to salvage it. She lets it snap. Thoughts that she drowned are floating to the surface.
The words were right there, to the forefront of her mind. Waiting to be uttered out loud.
Instead she doesn’t. Letting the thoughts pester and grow bigger and bigger.
Shutting her eyes, Caitlyn seriously considers leaving right there. And yet she stays, guilt cementing her feet to the floor.
Jinx’s hands are still on her face, a hand sliding to the back of her neck, pulling gently. Blindly, Caitlyn complies, soon feeling her forehead touch with Jinx’s.
Caitlyn sighs softly, the gesture familiar even after the time that has passed.
For a second everything feels fine. The stillness of the moment gives her enough courage to open her eyes. To look.
Violet eyes are watching her intently, they’re hardened at first. Although softening as seconds pass, eventually unguarded.
“Or maybe you don’t think about it much at all…” Jinx suggests, whispers it. Pained. She nudges against Caitlyn’s forehead, “Or maybe you think about it everyday.”
Caitlyn exhales shakily. Gritting her teeth together, forcing the words through. “I don’t know.”
Jinx smiles, maybe the first genuine one Caitlyn’s seen in a while. “You’re a bad liar Cherish.” She could almost cry at the name, feeling her throat clog with emotion.
“Am I?” A small nod in response.
The hold Caitlyn has on Jinx’s waist tightens for a long moment before relaxing completely.
“...I do regret it.”
Jinx’s smile is a little weaker, sadder.
“But?”
Caitlyn doesn’t respond immediately, mulling over her thoughts.
She brings a hand up to cup Jinx’s cheek, brushing a strand behind her ear. Heart stuttering as Jinx leans into her touch.
Taking in the young woman’s features. The dark bags under her eyes, highlighting the pink of her irises. Her lips, which always made her look like she was pouting. Or the tooth gap between her teeth.
Caitlyn feels herself smile, small but there.
“But at the time I didn’t know what to do.” Choosing Jinx meant lying.
Choosing Jinx meant putting her whole world at stake but it didn’t hurt any less to choose Vi in that moment.
Jinx scoffs, cautious. Scared. “We could’ve talked it through.”
Caitlyn sighs through her nose, “We could’ve but you disappeared for months.” Jinx’s face twists in displeasure, Caitlyn adds, “But I made my choice, what would have been the point?”
Caitlyn caresses her cheek, wiping off dirt and grime with her thumb before trailing her fingers lightly across the cold skin.
“Who would you choose now?” The question hangs in the air, between the small space of their bodies. It halts everything in Caitlyn’s mind. Her movements. Freezing the scattered thoughts in her head.
“I- I don’t. . .” Caitlyn stutters, averting her gaze away.
Jinx huffs, slightly amused. Her hands slide down to hold Caitlyn’s jaw, urging the sheriff to look her in the eye.
She waits until Caitlyn does, leaning a little closer in.
“You do know Cherish. So… why don’t you just say it?”
A muscle flexes in Caitlyn’s jaw, resisting the feeling to look away. Her mind is screaming, You. It’s always been you.
Maybe just this once, she’ll let her actions speak for her this time.
Caitlyn leans in.
When their lips meet, nothing has ever felt so right.