Chapter Text
Jinx makes it all the way to Vi’s doorstep before her head clears enough for her to remember that Vi won’t want to see her. She’s already deep into Piltover, staring at a door with a disgusting little wreath hanging right in the center, her cloak pulled low over her head to hide her trademark hair.
She should go back to Zaun. If only she had the energy. It feels like all of it’s been zapped out of her, leaving her weighed down in a place she isn’t welcome. She should find somewhere to hide and nap until she can move again, but even that sounds like too much effort. Why had she come here?
She already knows the answer: because she needs her big sister. She knocks on the door.
In the time it takes someone to answer, spots dance in Jinx’s vision and she has to lean against the wall until they pass. When they do, Vi is standing in the open doorway, asking her something. Jinx can’t even try to understand because Caitlyn is right behind Vi, demanding all of Jinx’s attention.
She’d forgotten they live together.
Scribbles and demon horns draw themselves over Caitlyn’s face, turning her into the devil Jinx knows her to be. Stupid sister-stealing enforcer. Jinx suddenly wants to explode something.
“Powder?” Vi asks, raising her voice, sounding and looking like the worried sister Jinx remembers from childhood. “Can you hear me? What are you doing here? Are you hurt?”
And because Jinx is, and has always been, a jinx, the only answer she can give is to vomit all over Vi and Caitlyn’s bright yellow welcome mat.
Time folds and stretches and warps around her after that. When it flattens enough for Jinx to process anything, she’s curled up on the comfiest couch she’s ever felt. A blanket as soft as clouds is draped over her. She wants to go back to sleep, but she doesn’t understand why she’s not in prison already. She needs to leave before Caitlyn returns with an army of enforcers. Even the small explosives she hides in her braids wouldn’t be enough to get her out alive.
Her muscles scream like the voices in her head when she tries to stand. She’s only halfway there when Vi rushes in with a bottle of medicine in one hand and a wet cloth in the other. “You’re awake, good. You should lay down before you pass out again.”
“Again?” Whispers float out from the room’s shadows, telling her she’s weak. She presses her face into the couch cushions to try to tune them out.
“I think you’re dehydrated.” Vi’s hands are warm on Jinx’s shoulders as she maneuvers her back down. Jinx is too weak to resist. She stares at the ceiling as Vi tucks the blanket in around her. “How long have you been sick?”
“Are you gonna lock me up?”
“No, no one knows you’re here.” Vi kisses her forehead, and it’s like she’s ten years old again. She feels safe for the first time in a long time.
She closes her eyes and falls asleep.
The fourth time Jinx wakes up coherent, the worst of her sickness has passed. Vi’s living room smells like sickness and is as dark and quiet as the world outside. The darkness is bigger in Piltover without neon signs to chase it away.
Jinx frees herself from the cocoon of coziness Vi had made for her. She puts her cloak back on and collects the soft blanket in her arms. It’s not fair Caitlyn gets nice things and her sister.
When she begins to move toward the door, Caitlyn appears at the end of the hallway, draped in shadows. The gun in her hand glows with a hextech gemstone.
“Gonna shoot me?” Jinx asks, tugging one of her braids over her shoulder.
“Not right now.”
Jinx smirks and squeezes her new blanket tighter. “You don’t want to upset Vi.”
Caitlyn’s silence is answer enough. Jinx knows why she’s not shooting because it’s the same reason Caitlyn is still alive, despite every opportunity Jinx has had to change that.
“Tell Vi I said catch ya later!”