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~*~
Two things can be true at once, though at first glance they contradict.
One: Jinx loves her sister. Two: Jinx is in love with her sister.
This isn’t news. Her inner circle has known for a while now. If they didn’t know before high school, then they definitely knew after her first of many stints in the hospital. The obsession, the abandonment issues, the guilt and anger and lashing out. And you know what? After taking the time to work on herself, Jinx really thought she might have been getting somewhere. That is, until things shifted.
One: Jinx is in love with Vi. Two: Vi just might love her back.
This is a problem.
Things were easier when Jinx assumed it was one-sided on her part. She just needed time, she needed space, she needed the right chemical cocktail to put her head back on straight. And, sure, with her new meds, and her new therapist (her new new therapist-- that’s another story) the voices in Jinx’s head have faded to a nagging whisper, like an annoying stranger at the movie theater, and she, thankfully, hasn’t felt the urge to throw herself off of a bridge. (Again.)
But the feelings are still there. And now Vi might feel the same way.
One: This is everything Jinx has ever dreamed of. Two: This is everything she’s ever feared.
Somehow, those two things are true at once.
In another world, a kinder world, maybe Vi and Jinx might have sat down and talked this out like adults. In another world, a crueler world, Jinx might have done something reckless, like, say, kidnap Vi’s new girlfriend in a fit of jealousy. But in this world, neither so kind nor so cruel, any attempt at untangling these messy feelings has been postponed. Because Vi has her hands full juggling holiday hours at two different jobs, and Jinx?
Jinx is doing science .
Ah, science. One of Jinx’s three great passions, up there with art and… well, you know. While Vi’s way of coping with stress was diving headfirst into work and letting her mind go blank, Jinx’s own demons never kept quiet, even on her best days. The best she could do was drown them out.
And it’s working, so far. Jinx does some of her best work when she’s wearing her goggles, her headphones, and a worryingly manic grin.
Jinx bobs her head to the rock music blaring into her ears, air-drumming along with a pair of cardboard tubes. She makes it most of the way through a vicious drum solo before she notices Ekko smirking at her from the driveway. She brings her arms down for one last cymbal crash before tugging her headphones down onto her neck.
“Hey, girl genius,” Ekko greets her with a grin.
“Hey, boy wonder,” Jinx grins back. She flips the cardboard tubes in her hands, brandishing them at him like a pair of pistols. “Don’t touch me. I’m combustible. Pew pew.”
Ekko mimes dodging bullets like he just stepped out of the Matrix, before crossing the garage in a few languid strides. Jinx lets him pull her into a one-armed side hug, before tossing him one of the tubes. Ekko twists off the cap and peers inside. He’s greeted by a dark, glittering powder and an acrid chemical smell.
Ekko raises an eyebrow. Jinx really wasn’t kidding about being combustible.
“So, what’s up? Are you here for the test fire?” Jinx grins.
“Nah,” Ekko chuckles. “Just making sure you’re not burning the house down.”
“That was one time ,” Jinx huffs. “And besides, it did not ‘burn’. There was just a mild explosion.”
“Yeah, and Vander finally put his foot down. ‘No science in the house’.”
“Well, I’m not in the house, am I?” Jinx drawls. “Why do you think I’m in the garage freezing my ass off and making homemade fireworks dangerously close to a space heater? The thrills?”
“You do like to live dangerously,” Ekko muses. Fond, but also… sad. A mournful edge that snags Jinx’s attention like a burr on her boots.
“Hey. Relax. It’s not like that,” Jinx says softly. “I haven’t felt that low in months now. I’m fine.”
“Are you?” Ekko nudges. “How are you and Vi?”
Jinx’s eyes go wide. Ekko doesn’t see it; thank goodness for her goggles. But she still anxiously chews her lip, still answers with a shrill, telltale trill in her voice.
“We’re… fine,” Jinx ventures, as if trying to convince herself, too. “We’re fine. We haven’t really talked since that… that thing at the bar. But what can I say? We’ve been busy. There just hasn’t been any time.”
“See, if you ask me, the people who really care? They make time,” Ekko says sagely. “If I know Vi, she’d spend thirty minutes driving when she’s only got an hour for lunch if it meant she’d get to see you. And if I know you at all, you’d drop whatever you were doing just to be with her while you had the chance.”
“Oh, ‘cuz you know us so well, huh?” Jinx teases.
Right on cue, a car door claps shut on the curb.
“Jinx?” Vi calls, like she’s done a thousand times before, only this time, it sends a flutter through Jinx’s chest and a throbbing in her throat that’s from more than just the pounding bass of her headphones still blaring around her neck.
Ekko and Jinx make faces at each other-- a smug ‘I told you so’ and an impish ‘whatever’-- before Ekko ducks under the half-open garage door and mercifully gives Jinx a second to get herself together.
“What’s up, big red?”
“What’s up, little man? Finally got that hoverboard working?”
“Heh, yeah, until hover tech’s more than just a high school science fair what if, I think I’ma stick with my wheels.”
“Oh, wow. Going low-tech.”
“Man, I don’t wanna hear that from you. You spend all day tuning up fancy cars and you still drive that old hunk of junk?”
They laugh, together. Jinx’s sister and Jinx’s best friend, the boy next door. It’s… nice. It’s normal. Or it’s supposed to be. But now everything’s all mixed up and there’s a strange feeling soaking her spine. Looking her sister in the eyes shouldn’t force her to catch her breath.
Then she hears the familiar sound of Ekko’s longboard disappearing down the block, and the rattling clatter of the garage door being pushed up the rest of the way. Phantoms hiss and chitter in her ears-- and, damn it, isn’t this why she put her headphones on in the first place? But then…
Then Vi is here. Vi, her Vi, in her favorite red jacket, with her dumb sleeves stubbornly rolled up even though there’s already snow on the ground.
Jinx tugs her goggles up onto her head. Their eyes meet for a long moment. Two.
Then, when Jinx remembers how to breathe, she goes:
“...You’re letting the cold in.”
Vi grins, fondly rolling her eyes.
“Shut up,” she laughs, and Jinx loves her so much it aches.
“I thought you had work,” Jinx muses.
“I do,” Vi says with a weary nod, “but I’ve got some time before my next shift. I wanted to see if you wanted to do some shopping.”
Jinx’s eyes light up. She tries her best not to look too much like a puppy being offered a walk.
“Uh-- yeah! That sounds great! Let me just, uh-- let me just put this stuff away,” Jinx says, sheepish. Swiftly, her project gets stuffed back into boxes, jars of powders and chemicals tossed back on their shelves.
Vi picks up a jar and examines it, curious. The list of ingredients makes her head spin, but the exclamation points and skull hazard icons speak a language she can understand.
“Uh, what were you doing in here?” Vi begins, worried.
“What do you think?” Jinx looks over her shoulder and flashes her a grin. “Science.”
Vi raises an eyebrow. “...You’re not gonna burn the place down, are you?”
Jinx sighs and rolls her eyes.
“That was one time! ”
~*~
Two things can be true at once, though at first glance they contradict.
One: grocery shopping is boring. It’s just a necessity, an errand. Go in, get what you need, get out. Browsing was a luxury for people who could afford to stray from their budget, their list.
Two: sometimes love is just doing boring things with the people who make errands fun.
Growing up in Zaun, grocery shopping meant sticking to your list. Getting the basics when you could afford to, and improvising when you couldn’t. Life in Zaun was, while still rough, a bit smoother around the edges nowadays. Jinx’s family was, if not quite rich, at least a bit less poor. And Vander, who so rarely indulges in such things, got the idea in his head to become a gourmet home cook.
In another world, a kinder world, Jinx and Vi would just be two daughters helping their father realize his culinary ambitions. They would stand in the refrigerated meat department, pretend to know the differences between cuts of meat, and Jinx would have a good excuse to cling to Vi’s arm the whole time. They kept the place pretty cold, don’tcha know.
And, honestly? It’s nice. Walking arm in arm, taking their sweet time, pointing out things on the shelves and wondering how Vander could put them to use, indulging the fantasy of Vander teaching them how to cook something better than the bare-minimum after-school slop they used to throw together-- after he’d taught himself, of course.
It’s nice. It’s warm.
There’s just one little problem.
“Why is she here?” Jinx grumbles, sparing a glance over her shoulder. Behind her, Vi’s bourgeois, blueberry girlfriend Caitlyn was inspecting a box of something, before putting it back. On the top shelf. Show-off.
Vi breathes out a patient sigh, and thinks better of saying ‘because I wanted to spend time with her, too’.
“Relax,” she says instead. “She offered to pay.”
“Must be nice,” Jinx grumbles, slumping her shoulders and stuffing her hands in her pockets.
“Hey, come on,” Vi pleads. “Don’t get all pouty on me. I wanted to spend time with you, too.”
Jinx, ever the rebel, continues to pout as much as she damn well pleases. But she still leans into the crook of Vi’s shoulder. She fits there perfectly; like they were meant to be.
Then Vi’s arm curls around the small of her back, and Jinx nearly jumps out of her skin.
A jolt of electricity surges up Jinx’s spine. Her eyes snap up to Vi’s, her senses ablaze. For a moment, time stands frozen, Jinx and Vi staring at each other, their eyes brimming with a cocktail of feelings neither of them dared name.
But then they feel it. The pressure of being in public, the weight of judgment, invisible yet suffocating, monstrous. Whatever warmth the moment held vanishes, like the ground being yanked out from under their feet, leaving them to freefall through the bitter chill of shame.
Vi’s phone rings. Reality snaps back into place around them after both desire and guilt had stretched it taut. This world, their world, neither so kind nor so cruel as the world in their heads, but merely comfortably, sometimes disappointingly, mundane.
“Sorry,” Vi coughs, awkward, pulling her arm away from Jinx’s hips. Jinx misses her immediately.
There’s a flash of dark blue in her peripheral vision, and Jinx fights back a snarl. Just for a moment, her treacherous eyes linger on Caitlyn’s hips, imagines Vi’s strong hands settling there. A stab of envy bites into her like a bullet. Vi can hold Caitlyn like that. She’s allowed to. Without any thought. Without any shame.
“...Yes, Dad, I know this is your first time and you want it to be perfect,” Vi is saying, shooting Jinx a knowing look. “No, I’ve never made porchetta before, but if Silco wants to get fancy with it, then he can do the shopping. …Alright, let’s go over your list one more time…”
Vi gives Jinx an apologetic look, before stepping away.
“Wait, wait, don’t leave me with--!” Jinx hisses, but Vi’s already wandered off. Jinx huffs, stuffing her hands back in her pockets, a familiar pout returning to her lips.
She can see her again, in her peripheral vision. That shock of dark blue hair. The tingling sensation of someone hovering nearby, about to touch her, but getting cold feet at the last second, like some poor sap at prom too scared to slow dance.
“Everything alright?” Caitlyn asks, so god damn nice that it immediately frays Jinx’s nerves.
Cait’s hand, so prim and dainty and small and so unlike Vi’s strong, calloused paws, lingers just above Jinx’s arm. Jinx scowls and jerks her arm away.
“You’re crowding me, Top Hat,” Jinx warns.
Cait smiles, despite everything.
“Goodness. I wear a top hat one time and that’s enough for that name to stick.”
“Well, that was a hell of a Halloween party,” Jinx almost smiles. “...Who were you supposed to be, anyway? Abraham Lincoln? Slutty Mad Hatter?”
Cait looks so crestfallen it’s downright cute. “...I was The Greatest Showman.”
Jinx laughs, and then instantly gets annoyed that she’s getting along with Cait even a little bit. She glances away with a huff, stubbornly returning to her scowl.
“...You don’t have to talk to me, you know,” Jinx mutters.
“There’s no reason we can’t be civil,” Cait offers.
Except that’s not true. Even in this world, not the cruel world where there was far more murder and madness between them to ever overcome…
There was still Vi. And that was enough. Enough to create a chasm between them too far for either to cross.
Jinx takes a deep breath. She clenches and unclenches her fists. She’d picked that up from Vi, without ever really realizing.
“...I get what you’re trying to do,” Jinx says softly. “And hey, credit for trying. But it’s too late. We’re not friends, Top Hat.”
“Maybe we could--”
“No,” Jinx says, firm and yet tinged with something approaching regret. “We can’t. Not now. Not ever. You won, Top Hat.”
Cait stares at her. “I-- what?”
“You won,” Jinx says, a frail, weary whisper. “You get to be with Vi. And you get to do it without any therapy, any second thoughts, any dirty looks. And I can’t say it doesn’t sting. I used to hate you for that. But there’s no point in me getting mad about it anymore. I don’t know who I thought I was kidding. Vi’s my sister. And you’re her girlfriend. We both know how this was always going to end.”
Cait’s seen many sides of Jinx. She’s seen jealousy, anger, despair.
This is the first time she’s ever seen surrender.
It just about tears her apart.
“Jinx, I…” Cait begins, reaching out her hand.
“Forget it,” Jinx huffs.
She turns around just as Vi rounds the corner, slipping her phone back into her pocket. Jinx bonks her forehead against her shoulder without a word.
“Hey,” Vi says, her voice soft with concern. She glances between Jinx and Cait. “Everything okay?”
Jinx looks up, painting on a manic grin. She curls an arm around Vi’s and tugs her down the aisle.
“Everything’s fine,” Jinx insists, clinging to Vi’s arm while she still has the chance. “Hey, check this out! Eight dollars for chips? They gotta be out of their damn minds.”
Cait watches them go, wringing her hands, her brow furrowed in thought.
Two things can be true at once, though at first glance they contradict.
Sometimes, love can mean history. Sometimes, love can mean the future.
Is there a world, any world, where it can be both?
~*~
“So, it sounds like there’s trouble in paradise.”
“Not for me,” Cait primly insists. “For a friend.”
“Uh-huh,” Jayce says dryly. “Well, whatever’s going on with your ‘friend’, things must be really bad if you’re asking me for help.”
Cait fondly rolls her eyes. “You’re right. I don’t know what I was thinking.”
“No no no, wait--”
Cait ends the call with a beep. She rolls over in her luxurious four-poster bed, fit for a princess yet far too big for one, and taps at her phone. One ring. Two. Then:
“Hello, darling.”
“Hello, Mel,” Cait smiles. “I imagine you heard the, ah, situation?”
“I’m still right here!” comes Jayce’s distant dismay.
“I heard,” Mel titters, and Cait can hear her smile even over the phone. “And to start, frankly, I applaud you-- sorry, your friend-- for trying to be diplomatic. I imagine that’s what law school does to a person.”
“Uh. Yes. My friend. My fellow law student.” Cait coughs. “Mel, can you give me any insight into this, given your, ah… particular perspective?”
“Hmm. Well, communication is key. Honesty and openness. Which isn’t to say that everything turns into a negotiation. It can be tempting to imagine every scenario, and plan for every possibility, but honestly, some things are simpler than they appear. Not everything must be agonized over.”
“There’s certainly some overthinking in play,” Cait muses. “But not so much the talking. If anything, they’re trying their best not to talk about it.”
“Well, that changes things. It’s hardly a negotiation if they won’t come to the table.”
“I see…” Cait nods, chewing her lip in thought.
“Although, speaking of tables. This does seem like zugzwang, doesn’t it?”
“What?” Cait blinks, owlish.
“Chess, dear. Zugzwang, that’s German. ‘Compulsion to move’. There’s no skipping your turn in chess, you see. If there is a valid move, you must take it, even if it leaves you vulnerable. It’s not a stalemate, because the game isn’t over. The board is still set. The pieces must move.”
“...I see,” Cait nods, as if she’s figured it all out. “Thank you. You’re brilliant, Mel.”
“Eh, I just know how to turn a phrase,” Mel preens.
Cait’s phone beeps. “Ah. Sorry, Mel, I have another call. You’ve been a delight as always. Do say hello to Viktor for me.”
“I, too, am also here,” Viktor says placidly in the background.
“Well speak up, Viktor, I’d hardly have known,” Cait laughs.
“I didn’t want to be rude,” Viktor shrugs.
Another beep, more insistent.
“Sorry, I have to go. Take care, all of you,” Cait sends them off, before tapping at her phone. “Hello?”
“Three rings, Caitlyn. You’re getting sloppy.”
Cait sighs, pinching the bridge of her nose. “...Yes, Mum. Sorry, Mum.”
“Moving along,” Cassandra Kiramman continues, her voice as smooth as porcelain. “I’m afraid your father and I still have business to conduct overseas, so we won’t be able to see you until after the New Year. Sorry for the delay, sweetheart. You know how it is.”
She sure does. Cait is disappointed, but surprised? Hardly. “That’s a shame.”
“Indeed,” her mother says, clipped and cold. “We did make a deposit into your account, so do feel free to get yourself something nice for Christmas. I’ll notify you when we’re due to return. Be well, dear.”
“I--” Cait begins, then stops herself with a sigh. “...Yes. Of course. Take care, Mum. Love you.”
Cait pulls her phone away from her ear, only to find the call already ended. She gathers up the years of bitten-down frustration, and breathes it out in a sigh.
There’s nothing like a phone call from her mother to suck all the warmth out of a room.
This is nothing new, of course. Caitlyn Kiramman has always had a roof over her head, always had fuel for the furnace, always gone to bed with a full stomach. She was privileged enough to know that money couldn’t buy love, but it could buy most everything else.
Still, Cait lies in bed, gazing up at her vaulted ceiling. This place was a church, a cathedral to capital. But what was a church with no believers? Just an empty box. An empty house. Empty chairs and empty rooms.
Cait thinks about her parents. About Mel. About Jayce and Viktor. About Vi. About Jinx.
About love, in all its facets, more brilliant than any diamond, more precious than any pearl.
Cait takes a deep breath. She clenches her fists, pushes off her bed and gets to her feet.
This isn’t a stalemate. This isn’t surrender.
The board is set.
And it’s her move.
~*~
There’s never a quiet night in Zaun.
There’s always something, whether it’s streetside hawkers selling their wares or the rattling scream of the train heading uptown. Growing up both above and below a bar has made Vi a stranger to quiet, so used to the constant noise. When she spends her nights uptown in Kiramman Manor, the quiet still puts Vi on edge. Things are never quiet in Zaun unless something’s terribly, terribly wrong.
So, if anything, it’s a relief when she steps into The Last Drop and the first thing she hears is:
“Fucking hell!”
Vander tosses his cards down on the counter with a huff, as Silco slides the pile of poker chips his way. He looks up as Vi walks in, greeting her with that crooked smile of his. Vi always thought the old scar on his lip turned all his smiles into sinister smirks, but then, maybe she wasn’t one to talk when it came to lip scars.
“Hello, Violet,” Silco says, a comfortingly familiar rasp.
“Uncle Silco. Dad. Tia,” Vi nods at each of them in turn. Sevika acknowledges her from the counter with a grunt and a tip of her glass. It’s like getting a toast from a mountain.
Vi doesn’t like to speculate about her uncle’s love life, but she did always wonder how Silco ended up marrying a brick house like her. They were different in almost every way. Maybe opposites did attract. Either that, or it was tax evasion.
“Shall I deal you in?” Silco offers, a dangerous glint in his bad eye.
“Don’t do it, Red,” Vander warns. “That’s the big, bad wolf talking. He’s waiting to gobble up your wallet, even though he already makes a fortune filling our streets with stimulants.”
“Shimmer is perfectly street-legal,” Silco says, clearly not for the first time, “and, in fact, it has already been approved for its therapeutic effects on--”
“You know what? I don’t want to argue this with you. It’s Christmas,” Vander huffs.
“Yeah, it’s Christmas,” Vi echoes. “I’m surprised you’re still at the bar.”
“I decided to keep the place open,” Vander shrugs. “Keep a light on for anybody with nowhere else to go tonight. Though so far my only guests have been these two ugly mugs.”
“I’ll not hear that from you,” Silco teases. “It’s Christmas. Surely you could have gotten a little dressed up for once.”
“What, like you? That coat makes you look like a vampire.”
“Do keep my poor circulation out of this, Vander,” Silco chuckles.
Vander swats at him with the towel he uses for wiping glasses. They share a look that has Vi instinctively glancing away. As if this is something she isn’t meant to see.
“So, Vi,” Vander begins. “Care for a drink? Or are you just passing through?”
“Just passing through,” Vi shrugs.
“She’s next door, if you’re looking for her,” Vander says knowingly. “You two alright?”
Vi can’t hide the anguish that flicks behind her eyes. It’s there for a moment, then it’s gone.
Vander grunts. “...Right. Well, if you want to talk about it…”
Vi shoots him a look. A look that hopefully says ‘it’s under control’ more convincingly than the worry on her face just a moment ago.
Vander relents. But as Vi turns to go looking for Jinx, Silco calls out.
“Violet.”
“Huh?”
“I know everyone in this family likes their privacy,” Silco muses. “And none of us like to pry. But if you never ask, they’ll never tell. Remember that.”
Vi exhales through her nose. She nods, pensive.
“...Thanks, Uncle Silco. I will.”
“You should ask how your uncle and I first met,” Sevika chimes in, grinning. “I thought he was a dyke.”
Silco snaps around on his bar stool with a glare as Vander wheezes behind the counter. Vi just shakes her head, and smiles.
She steps outside The Last Drop, stuffing her hands in her jacket pockets. One day she’ll buy a proper winter coat, or at least stop rolling up the sleeves on her favorite red jacket when it’s this cold out, but some habits die hard.
Out front, she discovers the first of Vander’s lost souls for the evening. A shivering blonde, her face wrapped in a scarf a familiar shade of blue. It clashes terribly with the rest of her outfit, looking pretty in pink like peaches and honey. But then, it was a gift.
A flicker of unease simmers in Vi’s stomach, before she immediately feels foolish and squashes it down.
“...Hey,” she begins. “Jinx isn’t here. She’s actually next door. Were you standing out in the cold this whole time?”
“N-No,” Anna says, her teeth chattering. “I was in my car, mostly. Then I was standing in front of the door, thinking about what I was going to say. I was looking for you, actually.”
“Me?”
“Yes,” Anna says, glancing at her shoes. “I, um… I wanted to apologize. For what happened last week. Seeing your sister like that, outside of the office… it was totally inappropriate for me to meet a patient like that.”
“Better your patient than your own sister,” Vi mutters. Anna winces.
“Um,” she tries. “Would you like to, um--”
Vi sighs. “...No offense, blondie, but I don’t really want to talk about it.”
“With me,” Anna nods. “I understand.”
“Not just with you,” Vi says. “With anyone. Shit, I have a hard time opening up to my own girlfriend. Much less my dad, or my sister.”
“Why do you think that is?” Anna asks gently.
Vi huffs out a sigh. “...I don’t know. With my dad, at least, maybe I just don’t want him to worry. Maybe I’m on some ‘responsible eldest daughter’ shit, gotta act like I’m taking care of things so he doesn’t have to. But with Jinx, and with Cait…”
Vi trails off, troubled. Anna steps closer to show that she’s still listening.
“...We don’t talk about stuff,” Vi continues, urged on by Anna’s presence. “No one in our family does. I think… if we talk about it, if we look it in the face, then that makes it real.”
“Unfortunately, some things will still be real whether we acknowledge them or not,” Anna offers. “But that doesn’t mean they’re insurmountable. And if you do talk, if you communicate, you can coordinate. So when you do face that thing head-on, you don’t have to do it alone.”
Vi nods, thoughtful. She glances at Anna sidelong.
“...You’re good at that,” Vi admits, cracking a smile.
Anna laughs, suddenly shy. “Thank you.”
The moment blooms between them with something approaching warmth. Then, mundane reality reasserts itself, as a car pulls into The Last Drop’s front lot.
“What, is everybody spending Christmas at the bar?” Vi jokes. But when Cait comes marching up to her with a fire in her eyes, her smile disappears, instantly morphing into concern.
“Cait,” she says. “What’s wrong?”
Vi instinctively braces herself for the worst. But the look in Cait’s eyes isn’t dread, or fury. It’s resolve. Defiance. Triumph.
“I have big news.”
~*~
Jinx watches, mesmerized, as a stream of black powder and glittering stars pours out of a glass jar and into a cardboard tube. She caps the tube with a pop, before grabbing a fat-tipped marker and scrawling her tag on the side. Every good artist signs their work, right?
It’s a quiet night-- a rarity in Zaun, much less in Jinx’s workshop. She isn’t wearing her headphones, or her goggles. She’s raw, exposed like a nerve. Ekko sits at a workbench, keeping an eye on her. He doesn’t say much, but after Jinx having it out with Cait this afternoon his silent support speaks volumes.
That quiet gets broken by the rattling clatter of the garage door being pulled up.
“Careful! I’m combustible!” Jinx calls out, brandishing her homemade firework like a pistol. As she turns towards the driveway, though, she lowers her aim, her brow crinkling with confusion.
“Vi,” she says softly. She blinks. “...Blondie. Top Hat. What are you all doing here?”
A poisonous whisper hisses into her ear. Jinx’s eyes flash first with anger, then with fear.
“Is this an intervention?” Jinx wonders, worry creeping into her voice. “If this is an intervention, you all better back the fuck up! I have black market black powder here and I’m not afraid to use it!”
“Jinx, it’s okay,” Vi urges, and damn it, when Vi says it Jinx can almost believe her. “Cait has an announcement.”
Jinx blinks, her paranoia derailed. “Uh. Okay?”
Cait steps forward and primly clears her throat.
“...My parents’ business trip is taking longer than expected. So, because I can’t bear to spend the holidays in an empty house, because they’re not here to stop me, and because maybe I’d like to see the look on their faces when they finally get home… I will be hosting a New Year’s party at Kiramman Manor. And you’re all invited.”
Cait looks Jinx right in the eyes.
“All of you,” she insists.
Jinx stares at her, bewildered. Her gaze flits across the room, across her little circle, Vi, Ekko, Anna, Cait. Something simmers in her gut-- a strange feeling, but one that’s also confusingly, comfortingly warm.
For the first time, Jinx meets Cait’s eyes with a smile. A real smile, not one of her dangerously manic jackal grins, though it swiftly turns impish. It wouldn’t be Jinx otherwise.
“...But what will I wear? ” Jinx says, and laughs.
Two things can be true at once, though at first glance they contradict.
Jinx and Caitlyn aren’t friends. But maybe they can be family.
In this world, their world, neither so kind to be without its conflicts nor so cruel that the chasm between them yawns too wide to be crossed.
Two lives are already achingly, inextricably twined tight.
But three could make a braid.
Or, maybe, a bridge.
~*~