Chapter Text
“Someone worth building It for.”
Hesitation. It’s a good sight on someone who had no qualms pulling the pin that would end their life 4 seconds ago.
Ignore all red flags, abandon rationality, and trust the person you once knew to listen, truly listen to what might be a shot at redemption.
Jinx looks at him expectantly after his last attempt at a speech, but first things come first and he takes the bomb from her hands, with no resistance on her side, and puts his body between her and what would be a nasty fall. She steps back.
“How are you feeling?” Stupid question, he knows. “Physically, I mean”.
“I’m fine” is all she says. But her stomach rumbles at the same time, more evidence that she has been neglecting herself for the past hours? Days? Weeks? No way to know right now.
“All right, there’s something i wanna show you, but on the way there we can grab something to eat, how does that sound?” He moves to leave, not wanting her to feel like she has a choice in the matter. The sound of hesitant footsteps behind him, however, feeds his hope for a second.
…
Jericho’s is one of the only places still open in the market, with most of the undercity barricaded inside due to a threat of a foreign army endangering piltover. At least that's what they were told, Ekko can’t shake the feeling there's something much worse at large, especially when It comes to hextech, the council and whoever else feels like running this damn place.
Still, The big blue creature has a brilliant goofy smile on his face and he seems even happier today of all days, something in his language about a boy and a girl and old times from what they can make out.
She’s a person of interest now, so to ward off any ill intentioned onlooker while they eat she has his hood covering most of her figure and her face Just in case. She looks small in it, he notices, literally and figuratively in a way that makes the larger than life and imposing figure of Jinx seem like a dream or, in his case, a nightmare that seemed to haunt him and the people he chose to look after in particular.
“Don’t you have any questions at all? Something you want to say?” He asks, knowing nobody who wished her ill would try so hard to save her, but hoping for something out of her anyway. “I could be taking you to a trap for all you know, or worse”.
She’s between small bites, hesitant to even eat anything, looking directly at her plate. “You wouldn't do that”, one line, It seems she knows him, or at least part of him, even when she remains a complete mystery. “That thing you’re carrying around? I’d like to have a look at It.”
He nods. The device in question sits on his lap, wrapped in cloth. It’s certainly not the best of ideas but taking the firelights’ number one enemy right to their doorstep so they can talk things out, and try to save a bunch of pilties and enforcers together sounds much more insane, so it's time to test his luck against a world that seems eager to take anything that he cherishes from him.
…