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Caitlyn pulled her hood over her face ever so slightly more. She couldn’t be too careful–though, especially in the pouring rain, there wasn’t likely to be anyone around. Caitlyn knew for a fact that this block of luxury houses were all abandoned.
It was why Jinx chose one to squat in, after all.
Though she was no longer Commander, and Jinx no longer the most feared criminal in the city, it would not do for a Kiramman to be seen abetting in Jinx functionally stealing a mansion.
When the Hexgates opened Piltover to the world, wealthy people from all the different continents bought property in the city in hopes to invest in all the wealth Hextech had to offer, building extravagant manors, even by Piltover standards. They did not move into the city, though. Visiting only whenever business brought them in, the houses were perennially unoccupied save for maybe a few days a year–and that was if the owner was particularly industrious and fond of travel.
Now with the Hexgates… down, they truly were abandoned. The War was still fresh, and there seemingly was no way to legally purchase the houses from the distant owners, even if there were a Piltover citizen rich enough, brave enough, and willing to move. If Caitlyn happened to disclose all of this information to Jinx when the girl mentioned wanting to move into Piltover for some reason, well that would have just been coincidence.
Now, Jinx had invited Caitlyn to see this home she appropriated.
She had been very specific when instructing Caitlyn on how to access the house. Ya gotta knock on the door three times slowly, then twist the doorknob to the right twice. Then it’ll open, do it wrong and uhh.. Oh relax Hat Lady, no bombs, just some smoke and other tricks that would give any snoops the heebie jeebies.
In the aftermath of everything they had been through together; Noxus, Hextech, Warwick, Caitlyn had a pretty good thing going with the pair of sisters from the Lanes, she thought, anyway. Though her romantic relationship with Vi had fallen by the wayside pretty quickly, the pair were still close.
And being close with Vi these days meant being close with Jinx as well. At first it had been awkward, to say the least. With so much hostility for the other existing in both women at some point in time, there wasn’t exactly a basis for what an amicable relationship between them would look like. Vi, who wasn’t even on the best of terms with either Caitlyn or Jinx, had to do some serious mediating. But eventually apologies were said, and old feuds had been let go of, and in the aftermath Caitlyn found she truly wanted to get to know the younger blue-haired woman.
A leftover symptom from how intensely Caitlyn had been hunting Jinx, maybe? Caitlyn wasn’t sure, but she wanted to know everything. She wanted to know what made Jinx tick, what made her laugh, the trials and…voices that seemed to haunt her. Caitlyn felt drawn to her in a way she couldn’t explain. She was pretty sure Jinx felt the same about her. Hangouts with Caitlyn, Jinx, and Vi, eventually turned into hangouts with just Caitlyn and Jinx. At first it had been because Vi had to leave early with illness one evening, and having already been out and about with plans set, Cait and Jinx didn’t want to waste the rest of the night when Vi assured the two she would be fine. Then that had turned into Jinx offering to teach Caitlyn how to better shoot a pistol in exchange for some pointers on how to use a long rifle.
All that to say, Caitlyn liked to think she was in a good place with Jinx, but they still didn’t know each other very well. Perhaps this had all been a ruse to make Caitlyn trigger a gruesome door trap. She chuckled to herself.
Caitlyn did as she was instructed when she reached the front door, however, and sure enough she heard a satisfying click rather than any booming explosions or spooky theatrics. She opened up the now unlocked door, and walked inside, gently closing it behind her.
“Jinx?” she called out, hearing the whirring of the door trap re-arming itself behind her.
“Up here, Caity-cat!”
Caitlyn stopped to take in the house’s appearance. The foyer was massive, all ornate white with gaudy gold accents, there was a chandelier overhead, and a large staircase directly opposite the front door. Tucked behind the stairs Caitlyn could see a kitchen and a sitting room on either side, but what caught Caitlyn’s eye was the…decor.
At its base the house was blank, fanciful, yes, but a hollow shell, a display of what a manor should look like had it never been lived in. But atop, it was as if a bomb of Jinx’s pure distilled Self went off, the blast covering everything in sight. Bright string lights and other baubles hung down everywhere, mostly in Jinx’s signature pink and blue, some other colors, namely orange. There was neon paint splattered everywhere, some were designs of her signature monkeys and other motifs, some bits seemed like paint for the sake of paint. There were several painted handprints strewn about, one set Caitlyn supposed looked like Jinx’s, but there was also another set of hands, one that looked like that of a…child? There were drawings on paper stapled down on every surface, and hanging from the chandelier were two tires, one quite a bit smaller than the other. Caitlyn was not sure what that was about.
“Jinx?” Caitlyn shouted again, “I won’t find any booby traps between here and you, will I?”
“Booby!” Jinx shouted with a laugh, “no, you’re good. But watch your step, I might’ve missed a spot cleaning up!”
Caitlyn chose not to respond to any of that. But she still took off her rifle, her coat, and her bag, hanging them on a rack. And, reassured that the path was clear, she continued up the stairs to find Jinx.
The rest of the house was more of the same, there was another living area right at the top of the stairs, and the big fancy couches there were a mess, cushions and pillows thrown every which way, some were burst open as if they had been used to hit something, their downy feathers spread out at the impact scenes. Curious. Caitlyn continued on, poking her head in a few doorways, she didn’t find Jinx until she reached the end of the hall she went down.
The master bedroom, Caitlyn surmised.
Finally reaching the room, Caitlyn was not prepared for what she found. Jinx, naturally, but there was a child on her lap, sitting calmly as Jinx put a small braid in her short hair, spottily dyed blue.
“Caitlyn!” Jinx exclaimed, “you very briefly met Isha before. Hat Lady, Ish, Ish, Hat Lady” she gestured between Caitlyn and the small girl.
“This is the child that was with you and Vi when..” Caitlyn remembered.
“Yeah, uh, let’s not re-hash the gory deets,” Jinx interrupted, “point is, she’s here and I wanted to introduce ya.”
“Hello, Isha, my name is Caitlyn Kiramman,” Caitlyn extended her arm to the girl, who only looked back at Jinx, confused.
“Pfft, handshakes aren’t that Piltie, kid, go on”
The child did loosely grab Caitlyn’s fingers and shake, though she did not say anything back.
Jinx looked up at Caitlyn, “she doesn’t speak much. You’ll get used to it,” she picked the girl up, depositing her on the floor as she stood up.
Without thinking, Caitlyn pulled Jinx into a quick hug. Another thing Caitlyn was learning lately? She quite liked hugging the younger woman. From what she was able to learn spending time with Jinx and her sister, physical contact and affection was something Jinx enjoyed and perhaps did not receive enough of as she grew up. Caitlyn wanted to remedy that, she did also enjoy the feeling of the shorter woman in her arms, even though they did always keep it quite brief. Things were still new, and all
“Nice to see ya too, you big softie–oof,” Jinx wrapped one arm loosely around Caitlyn’s torso and leaned slightly into the hold, her sentence interrupted by a tiny set of arms wrapping around both of their legs, “another thing you’ll get used to, every hug is a group hug.”
“So, what do you have planned for today?” Caitlyn gave her most charming smile, hoping to skip the awkward introductions she hated so, “I assume you invited me here for something beyond just saying hello. Though I am glad to do so!”
Jinx quickly furrowed her brow “uh–yes! We can whip up some lunch, kid’s gotta eat, you probably gotta eat, I don’t really gotta eat but I like to”
“You don’t have to eat?” Caitlyn gestured for Jinx to lead the way to the kitchen, “what do you mean?”
“Well I’m sure ya heard that the Shimmer regimen I got was keepin’ me alive, well it’s literally keepin me alive. Changed me physiologically and all, thus the zippy speed, new eyes… uhh, sorry. Point is, I don’t have to eat super often.”
“It’s quite alright,” Caitlyn laughed. As they reached the staircase, Jinx opted to slide down the bannister, headfirst and on her back, before she could slide precariously off at the bottom she righted herself in a quick flash of pink, simultaneously landing on her feet, and catching the small girl–Isha–who also chose to slide her way down, though she at least sat astride the railing like a pony.
Caitlyn opted to walk down the perfectly fine stairs, chuckling at her fellow blue-haired companions' antics.
As they reached the kitchen, Jinx got Isha settled in a chair in the dining room, motioning for Caitlyn to sit as well. Caitlyn, however, would have felt awful sitting down waiting as her host labored away in the kitchen on her behalf, “would you like a hand, Jinx?”
Jinx giggled, “I truly do mean no offense, Blue, but I ain’t exactly cooking Piltover food, I think I’d best do it myself.”
“Nonetheless, Blue, I would not feel comfortable allowing you to just cook a meal for me unassisted,” Jinx looked back and winked at Caitlyn’s repetition of the silly nickname. Caitlyn didn’t know how to describe the feeling in her stomach at that, but she liked the idea of them calling each other the same thing. She found she very much wanted to get to know Jinx, and a matching nickname could be another thing they would have in common, trivial as it may be.
“Fine, you can chop up that bread there, first into slices, then the slices into little cubey things.”
Caitlyn began to do as she was told.
As Caitlyn worked, she noticed the bread felt rather stale, and she was a bit confused by the ingredients Jinx had in front of her, “we’re making a meal with this?” she blurted out, then winced, “that is to say.. Um, what are we cooking?”
Jinx narrowed her eyes slightly at that, before chuckling slightly and answering. “Yes, we’re making an actual meal. I know it doesn’t look like much, but this is a good ol’ Zaunite stew,” she began to heat some sort of stock in a small pot over the burner, “know what happens if you try ‘n grow a fancy veggie in the Lanes? Or even bring an expensive crate of fresh ones down from Piltover? Hot, swampy, chemical-y air turns it not so fresh pretty quick. Same with meat.”
Jinx mixed some sprinkles of spices into the warming stock as she continued, “gotta take what you can get, and make your food stretch a bit–you don’t gotta cut those cubes so precisely, I just need chunks to thicken this a little.”
Caitlyn hummed, taking this in. She never quite considered a vegetable something you would describe as “fancy”, they grew in the dirt, her father cooked with them, as a child she didn’t like to eat them. She chopped away at the rest of her bread slices, making rough chunks for Jinx to use.
When Caitlyn finished, Jinx took the bread, throwing it in the pot, along with some bits of dried beef as the stew began to simmer.
Jinx leaned on the counter, turning to face Isha in the dining room as the girl happily doodled away on a piece of paper. “I know I’m livin’ Topside now and don’t gotta worry about that stuff,” she mumbled, crossing her arms, “but I wouldn’t know to cook anything else. I don’t even know what half the gizmos and doodas in this kitchen do.”
Caitlyn considered this, “there are plenty of old cookbooks laying around my house, if you would like, I could bring some over, we can make a fun evening of it once in a while, teaching Isha to cook.”
Jinx laughed, “Ish is banned from the kitchen, she’s more likely to just cling on my leg than learn anything,” she looked at Caitlyn and smiled, “but I suppose you could teach me. What, with how intricate your bread cubing was, I guess you gotta know your stuff.”
“If I’d known what the bread was for–” Caitlyn flushed.
“Alright, I’m done teasin’ ya. I would like that, though. Learning how to cook Isha healthier food, giving her…” Jinx swallowed, “giving her a better life than I had. ‘S why I asked about there being any empty spaces like this Topside in the first place.”
Caitlyn just nodded, reaching out to squeeze Jinx’s shoulder. She had never seen the other girl vulnerable like this. She had been around for…tense moments, yes, but this was different. Jinx–Caitlyn could already tell–was different when it came to Isha.
Eventually, the stew was ready and bowled, and the two women joined Isha at the dining table. Peripherally Caitlyn noticed Jinx again narrowing her eyes at her before her first bite. Admittedly, she wasn’t quite sure what to expect, but the stew tasted perfectly fine. Caitlyn ate at it relatively slowly, however, slightly more occupied with watching the kid at the table wolf down her meal as if it would be her last. Caitlyn couldn’t quite suppress a chuckle.
After only eating a few spoonfuls of her own, Jinx shot out of her seat, “just remembered! I left a bag full of Chompers at one of my old stashes, really should go take care of that, toodles!”
“I–wha…” Caitlyn sputtered, shocked at how sudden this was, “Jinx!”
“Watch Isha for a little while for me, will ya? Sorry, Blue!”
Just like that, in a lightning strike of pink, Jinx was gone. Caitlyn sat back down, asking the little girl in question, “do you know what Chompers are?”
Isha mimed throwing a grenade and an explosion, accompanied by a small pewwww sound.
“Should have figured. You didn’t want to go with her?”
Isha motioned to her bowl of food.
“Fair enough,” Caitlyn chuckled.
The two finished their food in companionable silence, and Caitlyn got up to wash the dishes when they had done so. She was glad for the brief time of respite, this was something she could do. The upcoming task, however, faced with being alone with a child she had just met, Caitlyn was a bit more nervous.
She was terrible with children.
“Lovely weather we’re having,” Caitlyn winced. Making small talk with the mute child–and poorly–way to go, Cait!
Thunder boomed outside, and the sound of the rain seemed to get more intense, for good measure.
Isha gave her an unimpressed look.
“Sorry. I don’t have much experience around children. Only child, and all,” Caitlyn considered the girl, “what would you like to do now?”
Isha stood, grabbing Caitlyn’s hand, she ran upstairs. Caitlyn happily allowed herself to be dragged to their destination. The upstairs sitting area. Isha paused, taking in the room’s state much like Caitlyn had when she arrived. The girl frowned, grabbing at a few of the punctured pillows, before dropping them when she saw they were in ruins.
“What would you do with the pillows?” Caitlyn asked, curious.
Isha grinned, picking up one of the pillowcases and pretended to swing it at Caitlyn like a weapon.
Caitlyn could see the fun in that, she supposed. “Perhaps I could bring some more pillows next time I visit?” she asked, “or I could teach Jinx and yourself to sew the down feathers back into these ones?”
The little girl pointed to a desk in a corner of the room, with spools of thread and needles on it, shaking her head. Still the girl seemed deep in thought, pillow sparring seemingly out of the picture.
While she wasn’t sure how age appropriate it was, Caitlyn did have an idea for an activity. If Jinx liked guns, and young Isha seemed to idolize Jinx, perhaps she would like this. Caitlyn knew she herself certainly found it fun enough, “has Jinx taught you how to clean a gun?”
Caitlyn wasn't even sure how old the girl was, but she was pretty sure she was around the same age that Cait was when she was first learning the basics of firearms. And while teaching the young girl how to shoot felt far too personal, like a milestone best left for Jinx, boring old servicing should be fine.
When Isha turned to Caitlyn with a wondrous look on her face, Caitlyn felt like she had hit the jackpot. The young girl shook her head, intrigued.
“No?” Caitlyn asked, “well, if I know Jinx, you’ll be around plenty of guns as you grow up. And it’s always good to know the basics” she continued as they walked to the main foyer where Caitlyn had left her rifle, bag, and coat. Isha was hanging on her every word, and Caitlyn was practically giddy, she was doing something right!
Caitlyn slung her rifle over her back, and grabbed her kit out of her bag, she made her way to a back patio she saw outside of the dining room, taking in the area. The backyard space was private, but large and open, with a sturdy stone table that would be perfect to set up shop. Caitlyn asked Isha to grab any spare towels or rags they had in the house as she got everything else ready.
“The first thing–and most important–before you clean your gun, always, always make sure there are no bullets in or even around it” Caitlyn began when her audience of one returned, “see?” she demonstrated clearing her rifle for the girl. “Some of these things will look different depending on the type of firearm you have, but the idea is always the same.”
“There’s a lot more to using a weapon than point-click-boom. Knowing how to use a weapon means knowing how to protect people,” Caitlyn continued, hearing the echoes of a mentor long lost in her words, “and you can’t do that if your weapon jams. Look at my rifle, do you see how many moving pieces and components there are? If one piece rusts, jams, fails, at best I can’t shoot what I want to shoot, at worst something could explode in my hand…”
Caitlyn walked through every step of cleaning a gun with the girl. She wasn’t sure how much information Isha actually retained–Caitlyn remembered when she was young she found this stuff terribly boring at first–but Isha seemed enraptured by the entire lecture, so Caitlyn was counting it as a success.
With the sun beginning to set, Caitlyn figured they should head inside. “What are the two tires hanging from the ceiling for?” she asked her little companion.
Isha’s face lit up and she raced up the staircase, before Caitlyn could process what was happening the young girl was jumping off of the bannister from the top, “Isha!” Caitlyn screamed, but the girl easily caught the rope the smaller of the two tires was hanging from, adjusting herself so she could sit on it properly.
My little sister could do that when she was seven. All us fissure folk can Caitlyn remembered. These three Zaunites and their penchant for parkour were going to be the death of her, she was sure. Still, Isha motioned for Caitlyn to do the same on the other side to hop onto the larger tire, and so she did.
Being a six foot one, grown woman instead of a young girl, the jump was naturally easier for her than it was for Isha, Caitlyn still didn’t love the feeling of flying through open air, however. But she got settled on her tire and Isha showed her how to use it as a swing.
It was truly quite fun, actually, to swing around while suspended quite high above the ground, and with Isha giggling every time their tires bumped into one another, Caitlyn was having a blast. She wasn’t sure how long they had spent just swinging around when Jinx finally showed back up.
“I’m hoooooooome!” Jinx announced her presence as she dramatically swung the door open, letting it slam behind her. Grinning when she looked up and saw the two in their tire swings.
Wordlessly Jinx stood underneath Isha's tire and stretched out her arms, Isha wiggled herself out of the swing and hopped down, allowing herself to be caught and hugged easily by the woman.
Caitlyn followed Isha’s lead and hopped down from her own swing, not needing to be caught as she landed.
“Hello, Jinx,” she said, “did you deal with your missing Chompers?”
“Hiya, Cait”, Jinx said as she set Isha down, “yup! Found em, disarmed em, got rid of em,” she answered simply, “thanks for watching Baby Blue, here.”
“It wasn’t a problem. We had fun, right Isha?” The young girl nodded her head emphatically.
“Listen, Jinx, I do hate to leave as it feels like we spent such little time together today, but I should get going.”
“I sorta figured, sorry if I kept ya,” Jinx answered easily, “Ish, say goodbye to Caitlyn.”
Caitlyn was immediately enveloped in a hug by the girl, which she returned easily, “goodbye, little Isha. I’m glad we got to hang out today,” she said truthfully, before turning to the woman, “you didn’t keep me waiting at all, Jinx. And as I said, we had fun,” when Caitlyn let go of Isha, the girl immediately ran off somewhere in the house, winking at Jinx before she left.
“I’m glad,” Jinx said, “did you really teach my kid how to maintain a gun?” she grinned.
“I–yeah,” Caitlyn blushed, “I had no idea how to spend time with a kid…wait, were you watching us the whole time?”
Jinx flushed a little at that, “a little bit,” she answered truthfully, “I gotta admit there wasn’t really a missing bag of Chompers, I’m sorry.”
“It’s quite alright,” Caitlyn said easily, “may I ask why the show, though?”
The younger woman studied Caitlyn for a moment, searching for something in her face, “well it’s like I said just now, Isha is my kid. That is to say, something like an adoptive little sister, or, uhh–a daughter,” Jinx answered, “and if somebody’s gonna get involved in my life, that means she’s gonna be there. So I just wanted to see how you would get on with her because…um, I think I do want ya in my life, Blue,” she flushed, “I don’t know what it is, but the more I spend time with ya, the more I just wanna get to know ya.”
“Oh,” Caitlyn said, taking this all in. Feeling like, suddenly, all the funny little feelings she got when she was around Jinx lately were starting to make sense, “I would like that, Jinx. Getting to know you, and little Isha. Whenever you two would have me, I would love to spend some time here.”
“Yeah?” Jinx asked shly.
“Yeah,” Caitlyn said, then, “I’m sorry if I overstepped teaching her how to clean a firearm, I hope that wasn’t something you were wanting to teach her first.”
Jinx laughed softly at that, “You’re a funny gal, Caitlyn Kiramman,” she said with a quick kiss to the older woman’s cheek.
Caitlyn flushed as she stepped away from the other woman, getting her coat and bag on, finally slinging her rifle back over her shoulder, “When can I see you two again?”
“Stop by sometime next week. Ish and I aren’t very busy, we’d love to have ya whenever.”
“It’s a date, then, Blue,” Caitlyn smiled.