Work Text:
16 Years Old
*****
Jinx’s keys jangle as she unlocks the employee door to The Last Drop. She lets it close softly behind her and checks her phone. 5:38AM. Not too bad.
She sneaks on her tiptoes up the stairs to the apartment above the bar, which is still dark. She ducks towards the hallway… right as a voice says, “you’re up early.”
Silco is sitting in the kitchen, no lights on, nursing a cup of solid black coffee. Because why wouldn’t he be? Her father is almost as much of a goblin as she is.
Well, at least she got the cool dad. Vander probably won’t be getting up for another hour or three, given how late he has to close the bar.
Silco goes on: “or should I say, back early.”
“I spent the night at Ekko’s. Save any for me?” She skips into the kitchenette and scoops up the coffee pot.
It isn’t a total lie. She did crash at Ekko’s place for a couple hours, after a long night of tagging police cruisers with graffiti and what have you. He fell asleep after a bit of doomscrolling; she just played video games on his PC until she couldn’t put off going home any longer.
Silco doesn’t press the issue. As long as Jinx doesn’t come home with broken bones or knock anybody up, he pretty much lets her do whatever she wants. She pours herself a mug of coffee, dunks four spoonfuls of sugar into it, and leaves him to his morning news. Once in her room she sweeps a pile of laundry off her gaming chair and plops herself down. Headphones on, slide to her desk, pick up the pieces of the computer she’s reassembling. And so time fades.
The cup of coffee soon grows cold, but the project doesn’t progress very far either. Her head’s drifting, and not in the usual way. Time and again Jinx’s hand lands on her phone, her fingers itching to type… something, apparently. She’s outta luck there. Ekko barely fell asleep two hours ago, and it’s the middle of the night where Lux is. Typically that wouldn’t mean anything in her friend group, but noooo, Lux has to go and be responsible and shit.
Doesn’t stop Jinx from pulling up her contact and spamming the chat. She sends her memes, a picture of Ekko passed out with the caption ‘look at this goober,’ and a long thread complaining about the AC in her homeroom they still won’t fix (ugh, she’s not looking forward to that). She grins at the mental picture of Lux seeing it first thing when she wakes up, groggy brain blearily trying to make sense of what she’s reading. The morning spam is their tradition.
Upon her first impression of her, Jinx never once imagined having a thing with Lux. Why should she? She was just some rich, naive preppie. And kind of a weirdo.
But then… she reached out to her. Made sure she was comfortable. People don’t do that sort of thing for Jinx. Okay, her dads, sure, but they’re her dads - that’s their job. Lux is the sort of girl who usually crosses the street when Jinx approaches. Maybe Jinx is just her ticket out of her repressed Christian cage, but the fact remains that people don’t go out of their way for Jinx. Lux does.
It’s annoying how touching it is. How much Jinx enjoys talking to her. How much she wants to keep her.
She shakes herself - stop overthinking, Jinx - and goes back to her project.
At around seven-thirty she’s interrupted by a tapping on her side. She jumps, then relaxes. Her seven-year-old sister, Isha, is up and wandered into her room when she wasn’t looking. “Hiya, squirt,” she says aloud, then raises her hands and signs, “sleep good?”
Isha nods, then asks, “will you make me cereal?”
Like she can ever say no to Isha. “Sure thing,” Jinx answers, following along in sign. “You want Lucky Charms or Cocoa Puffs?”
“Cocoa Puffs!” No surprise there. Jinx is more of a fruity gal (ha, geddit?) but Isha loves chocolate as much as the next little tyke.
Jinx slips her headphones around her neck, throws back her room-temperature coffee, and follows Isha out into the hall. As she’s about to make for the kitchen, though, something stops her in her tracks.
“...encouraging this behavior from her!”
Great. Vander’s awake, and he’s having another one of those talks with Silco.
Her first dad’s voice drifts from their shared bedroom: “I fail to see the problem with letting her grow up in the real world, as we did.”
“‘In the real world?’ You mean on the streets? Staying out all night looking for trouble?”
“Jinx can handle herself.”
“I’m not saying she can’t, I’m saying she could benefit from some structure, some boundaries! I don’t want her to end up like…”
“Like what? Vi?”
Jinx strains her ears for Vander’s response - like he’ll say anything different from the million times they’ve had this argument already - but ahead of her, Isha raps on the wall, drawing her attention with the sound. She cocks her head at Jinx, wondering why she stopped. “Sorry,” Jinx signs, circling her fist over her chest, and hurries into the kitchen.
Her fathers’ words bounce around in her brain like a loose ping-pong ball as she fixes a bowl of cereal.
I’m not saying she can’t handle herself -
Sure he wasn’t.
Don’t want her to end up like Vi -
And why not? At least if she was in prison they wouldn’t have to deal with her anymore.
Milk spills over the rim of the bowl, jolting her out of her brain. Jinx curses and yanks her hand away. She mops up the spill with her sleeve, then plops the bowl in front of Isha - it only sploshes a little.
“Papa says you shouldn’t do that,” Isha informs her, indicating her unorthodox style of breakfast damage control, “because your clothes will stink.”
“Bold words coming from such a stinky little stinkbug.”
Isha giggles and a hint of pride squeezes through the tangle in Jinx’s chest. While she digs into her cereal Jinx takes out her phone. She texts Ekko, ‘up yet?’ and a minute later he replies.
7:41am
Yeah hittin the gym b4 school
7:41am
ur commitment 2 ur health disgusts me
7:41am
Har har
7:43am
See u at school
7:43am
go build that t lil man
And that’s it. They don’t say ‘I love you.’ It’s not their style. They know they love each other.
… Right?
Ekko would probably say it to you in a heartbeat.
There’s this ugly voice in the back of Jinx’s head. Sometimes it’s amorphous, nothing more than her own shitty self-esteem made material in her thoughts. Sometimes it takes on the voices of her family and friends. She can manage it - she has the meds (which she remembers to take… sometimes), attends the therapy (usually) - but it never really goes away. It’s always lurking in wait, just in case she dares to get too happy.
You’re the one who’s clingy and emotionally closed-off at the same time.
Is it that they’re intimate without needing words? Or is Jinx holding Ekko back from something he wants, like so many people in her life?
Jinx can’t be the only one who feels like things have been… weird… between them lately, right?
Isha is signing between bites of cereal, telling Jinx a banal story about the beetles in her terrarium. Jinx tries to listen, she really does. Her kid sister hangs on to her every word. The least Jinx can do is afford her the same attention. But her brain’s got a brain of its own on her best days. Now it’s decided to take her away to that other, liminal place where it can be off instead of having to deal with offness.
She jumps when Vander materializes at the table. “Sounds exciting, Isha,” he says. “Now it’s time to get ready for school.”
Isha nods, hops to the floor, and scurries away to her room, the too-long sleeves of her pajamas flapping around her wrists. Jinx shoves her chair back and scoops up the abandoned cereal bowl. She places it in the sink, then fidgets, waiting for the inevitable.
Vander doesn’t broach anything immediately. “Have you eaten yet?” he asks, taking a carton of eggs out of the refrigerator.
“I had coffee.”
“That’s not breakfast.”
“I’m fine.”
Silence. Vander warms a pan and starts whipping egg yolks together. Jinx leans against the counter and flicks through Ekko’s socials, still waiting.
“You uh, given any more thought to that gallery?”
Theeeere it is. Vander cooks up oodles of schemes to get Jinx to do something productive with her life. The latest is this namby-pamby art competition thrown by the few city officials who actually give a shit about revitalizing Zaun’s communities. A noble endeavor, to be sure. But nobility is so g’damn stifling.
“I told you I’m not gonna enter,” she replies, doing her best to keep her tone from sounding caustic, because she really doesn’t hate Vander for trying. “Half of my portfolio would get me arrested.”
It’s practically bait, but her dad doesn’t rise to it. He just throws the egg on the pan with a satisfying sizzle and says, “well, keep it in the back of your head. It’d be good exposure in case you end up deciding on art school. Not to mention you could make some decent change.”
It’s not a dig at her. It’s not. Jinx bristles nonetheless. The ugly voice is all too happy to remind her that she’s the only one in the family not pulling her weight. Claggor works at a flower shop, and Mylo - well, ‘bookie at a boxing ring’ probably wasn’t what their fathers had in mind, but he’s still contributing. Jinx is the only one not doing anything to help out Silco and Vander, to take care of Isha.
Even Vi was only trying to help.
“I’m sixteen, Dad. Fuck do I need to be worried about college for?”
“Ekko knows where he’s going, doesn’t he?”
Ooo, yeah. Mr. Graduate With Honors, Get a Degree In Civil Engineering With A Minor In Philanthropy, Open A Homeless Shelter Followed By A Successful Career In Urban Planning. Mr. Knows Who He Is And Has His Life Figured Out. Vander must be so glad a train wreck like you pulled a perfect boy like him to help you get your shit together.
Underneath that voice, she knows that’s cruel, unfair. She wishes she could bring herself to care more.
“Maybe you should adopt him then,” she snaps.
That irks him, she can tell. She hates that it feels a little bit satisfying.
“I don’t expect you to have everything figured out, just to have some sort of a plan. You’re too smart to spend your life in a bar, Jinx. You’ve got a bright future ahead of you. It wouldn’t hurt to prepare for it.”
All that does is make her feel shittier. “Who needs a plan?”
He opens his mouth, but she pushes off the counter. “I have to take Isha to school.” She leaves him to ruminate over the burning eggs.
Her get-ready-for-the-day routine takes twenty minutes. Gargle mouthwash, shave, estrogen shot. (Whether or not she sees eye-to-eye with Vander, Jinx loves her dads, really. She could have ended up with so much worse than unconditionally supportive parents - not to mention one that works in pharmaceuticals.) She leaves out the employee door, same as she came in, hand in hand with Isha.
“You’ve got lunch in your backpack?” she asks as they head for the subway station.
“Yes! Papa made me a sandwich.”
“Sticker sheet for Mr. Viktor’s class?”
“Yes.”
“Hearing aids charged?”
Isha rolls her eyes and nods exaggeratedly. “Yes yes yes!”
Jinx holds up her hands in surrender, then signs, “silly me! You’re a big girl!”
They race to catch the train, Jinx feeling a little bit lighter as she giggles with her sister. Twenty minutes later they pull into the stop for the school and Jinx walks her to the elementary building. She hugs her tight, then watches and waves until she disappears inside. It means she saunters into homeroom after the bell rings. Like she gives a shit.
She shoves the tardy slip into the bottom of her bag and slumps into her seat, immediately pulling out her phone. There are two things that can distract Jinx when her thoughts begin to storm like they have been this morning. Usually three, but today Ekko is one of the sources of the storming: their too-short conversation over breakfast, her paranoia about it, her guilt over her paranoia about it. Now that Isha is away too, that leaves only one, so she goes right to Lux Crownguard’s social media.
There are two accounts under her name. The first is Lux’s official account, full of Bible verses, awards from various school clubs, disgustingly professional family photoshoots, and anything else that manages to make it past her parent’s PR censors. Jinx doesn’t spare it a second glance.
She can count on one hand the people who know about the second account: the group chat, and Lux’s roommate Sally. Sammy? Sona? Whatever. And Jinx herself, obviously - she’s the one responsible for it. The instant she found out Lux’s family controls what she posts she gleefully set her up with a secret account. It wasn’t even hard to talk her into it. When it comes to rebelling, Lux pretends to put up a fight, but Jinx isn’t fooled for a second. This is the girl who snuck to a metal concert in a housewife outfit and made it look fabulous. She’s a punk at heart. Plus Jinx can tell she gets so much catharsis from doing her own thing, even if it’s just tiny stuff like having a place to post goofy pictures of her friends or long rants about books.
Also, Jinx is pretty damn sure she’s gay.
She’s too busy reading back over one of Lux’s book reviews (by which she means ‘rambles’), a tiny smile unconsciously pulling at her mouth, that she doesn’t hear the teacher taking roll call. Until he snaps, “Powder Miner! I know you’re here, Powder, I can see you.”
Jinx lifts a soul-piercing stare his way. “Ain’t no Powder here,” she replies, sing-song. He just sighs and marks her down.
And this is the reason Jinx has never once interrogated Lux about her sexuality, even though everything about her screams repressed lesbian. If she can face assholes like this guy in Zaun - one of the best places in the world to be queer - she can only imagine what it would be like in a place like Demacia, in a family like Lux’s. Christian, conservative, and most of all, visible.
Jinx wouldn’t trade it for the world. There are a lot of things she doesn’t have right. There are a lot of things she hates about herself. Being a girl isn’t one of them. In fact, being trans is the only piece of her, amidst all the broken ones, that makes her feel whole.
She just wishes Lux could know what that feels like.
God, she can’t wait until the next time Lux visits Piltover. Jinx considers it her sacred duty to get Lux into the most trouble possible in the short periods of time they have together. That and, though she’ll never admit it under pain of death… spending time with Lux is rapidly becoming one of her favorite things in the world.
The next four periods go by in a haze of droning teachers, sketches doodled in the margins of otherwise blank graph paper, and pictures of Lux. Jinx is back in good spirits by the time lunch rolls around. Another successful battle against the government-sanctioned hostage situation called high school! Not to mention Lux will be waking up any minute now.
She skips to her friends’ table and throws her backpack on top of it with a resonant thunk. “Happy hootenanny, my bitches!” she crows. And all those bitches are accounted for, except Ahri who’s out for a doctor’s appointment today… and Ekko.
When she asks, Zeri shrugs. “He’s sitting outside. Says he’s got something he wants to talk to you about.”
Everyone who knows Jinx knows there are two ways you can drop things on her. One, all at once, which generally has the same effect as slicing the wrong wire on a ticking time bomb. Two, you can warn her in advance, in which case she’ll run through every single worst-case scenario and maybe keep herself from spiraling out of control on a good day.
Today’s not a good day.
She finds Ekko in the pavilion behind the lunchroom, the one with all the blind spots where kids go to fuck or smoke. He’s perched atop the crumbling wall - not eating, just waiting for her.
She stops at the foot of the wall and looks up at him, her knuckles white around her backpack strap. It’s the only way she can pretend she’s not trembling. “What’s going on, Ekko?”
He doesn’t try to smile. He knows how much she hates fake smiles. “Jinx… I’ve been thinking about some things,” he begins.
*****
Isha gets out of school an hour earlier than Jinx, so Claggor picks her up after work. He’s in the apartment when she slams the door open, coloring with her. Isha perks up instantly and jumps out of her chair for a hug. Claggor starts, “hey, Jay. Package came for you…”
Neither of them get farther than that. Jinx brushes past them, snatches the aforementioned package off the table, storms into her room. Dumps her textbooks out on the floor and replaces them with several cans of spray paint, her charger, the manila envelope almost as an afterthought. Vander comes upstairs from the bar right as she’s heading for the door again.
“Jinx? What’s wrong?”
“Nothing. I’m going out.”
He frowns. Torn between parental frustration and concern, no doubt.
“Well, I want you back by midnight this time.”
She doesn’t say a word, just shoulders around him.
“Jinx, will you please listen to me - "
Jinx whirls around. “Do you ever think maybe I don’t like spending time at home because you’re always on my ass!?”
His face falls into a wounded expression. Behind them, Isha looks between them, unable to understand what they’re saying but knowing they’re both hurting. Jinx blinks away tears and races out before either can see them.
*****
Sunshine
Tuesday, 2:17pm
[Laughter reaction to an image]
2:17pm
You and Ekko seem like you had a
busy night. Did you hang out at the
docks again?
2:45pm
[Image of a stack of blueberry pancakes]
2:45pm
How much syrup?
2:50pm
All of it, got it.
3:12pm
Text me when you’re out of class
*****
9:07pm
How was your day?
11:00pm
Well, goodnight
*****
Wednesday, 2:28pm
Hi Jinx! Just wanted to check in.
You didn’t text this morning. No
pressure if you’re just busy obvi-
ously but I wanted to see how
you’re doing.
4:10pm
[Image of several ducks]
4:10pm
Quack quack
6:52pm
Jinx?
7:15pm
Jinx?
7:31pm
Jinx??
*****
Pentakill Babies
Lux, 7:40pm
Has anyone heard from Jinx?
Lux, 8:04pm
Hello???
Ahri, 8:06pm
Explain later.
*****
Sunshine
Thursday, 1:39pm
Please answer I’m getting worried.
2:00pm
Jinx please
*****
The phone picks up after the first ring.
“Jinx?”
“Hey, Lux,” comes the tired reply.
“Oh my god, Jinx. Sorry, I - sorry, I just hadn’t heard from you in a few days. I was worried.”
Her harrowed voice makes guilt twist in Jinx’s chest like a dull knife. This isn’t the first time Jinx has dropped off the grid, but she’s never not given Lux a reason. She’s bussing tables for Vander. She’s absorbed in a video game with Zeri. She’s having a bad mental health day and doesn’t have the energy to get out of bed, much less text back. She always lets Lux know what’s going on. Jinx is more diligent about telling Lux where she is than her own fathers.
They’re probably losing their minds, too.
She toes listlessly at an empty soda can by her feet. The overlook gives her a view of Zaun nearly all the way up to Piltover. Normally it’s her favorite spot to think, or to just exist when she needs to get away from it all. Now she just wishes she could see to Demacia from here.
“I - I hope I didn’t annoy you,” Lux is saying, “but nobody knew where you were and I thought maybe something had happe - "
“Ekko broke up with me.”
Silence on the other end of the line. Then: “oh. I’m so sorry, Jinx.”
She shrugs, even though she can’t see it. “I probably had it coming.”
“What? W-what do you mean?”
“I was holding him back.” She hates the shake in her voice. Lux is going to think you’re weak. “I’m needy and emotionally unstable - I smothered him.”
None of that is true, and she knows it. He just thinks they work better as friends, no more, no less, and that was all he said. “You’re my best friend, Jinx. My family. Can we stay that way?”
“And I kind of had a fight with Vander, too, so. Yeah.”
“Yeah.”
Another beat, then Lux asks, “where are you now?” Like a mother hen. Somehow, when it’s her, Jinx doesn’t mind.
“Couple blocks from home.” She started to go back, but stopped herself. Told herself Vander’s tackling the nighttime rush and doesn’t have time to deal with her. Really, she just chickened out. She’s just too ashamed to face him right now.
“Do you wanna talk about it?”
Jinx laughs bitterly. “Which part?”
“Any of it.”
Jinx grits her teeth. “I just wish - "
I wish I didn’t feel like a fucking burden all the time. I wish you weren’t halfway across the world so you could hold me.
“I just wish he would let me live my fucking life. Silco hasn’t got a problem with me, why does he!? ‘Jinx, you can’t be staying out all night,’” she says, gruffly imitating Vander’s voice, “‘you need to be thinking about your future, Jinx!’ Oh, oh, and if I wasn’t a big enough disappointment before, now I’ve gone and fumbled the only shot at a relationship I'll ever have!”
Lux pauses before answering. Jinx just knows she’s drumming her fingers, or twirling a lock of hair around her finger the way she does. “I don’t think that’s true, Jinx. I think if you want someone else in the future, you’ll find someone.”
She chuckles brokenly. “Right, because basketcases like me are just sooo hot.”
Silence on the other end of the line. “Lux?”
“Huh, uh, sorry. I - I don’t mean to say what you’re feeling right now is wrong, Jinx. It’s not, not at all. But, well, for what it’s worth… I know I haven’t known Ekko and the others as long as you have, but I don’t think anybody’s disappointed in you. You’re creative and you’re smart and funny, and you’re not scared of anything, Jinx.”
Jinx takes a shaky breath. Goddammit, what is it with this girl and her way of making Jinx feel better even when she doesn’t want to feel better?
Still, she angrily kicks the can over the ledge. “Vi goes to jail, and I’m the problem child.”
Jinx hates fake smiles, hates lies, but she’s not a sharer by default. Pretty much the opposite, actually - she’s a deflector and a runner and a titanium wall protecting a fragile, vulnerable heart. So nobody was more surprised than her when she found herself returning Lux’s comfort with openness and honesty that felt frighteningly easy. Lux knows everything. The house fire that killed Jinx’s parents when she was nine and Isha was barely one. The years of walking on financial eggshells Silco and Vander endured after taking in three new children with no warning, and the guilt she and her older sister both grappled with for it. The burglary Vi turned to in an effort to help make ends meet and how it eventually backfired on her.
Now Lux sighs deeply. “At least he’s not planning every single step of your life for you.”
The bitterness in her voice momentarily chases away Jinx’s self-pity. A year ago she would have scoffed: oooo, look, the rich girl has to go to a top-notch school and has to have a six-figure nepo baby job lined up for her when she gets out, how sad. It still makes a part of her roll her eyes, but mostly her disgust is for the fact that Lux has so little say in who she is and where she goes. She wonders how much her folks know about her friendship with Jinx. Probably not a lot. Jinx’ll bet money they’d burst a blood vessel.
Lux goes down the list: “graduate at the top of my class, go to college for business, join Crownguard Security, find a nice man to marry, and start popping out lots of little Crownguard babies.”
Jinx scowls. “They can’t make you do jack shit with your life you don’t wanna, sunlight.”
“No. But they can create consequences.”
Then she clears her throat. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to make this about me.”
A little smile tugs at Jinx’s mouth. That’s her Luxie, apologizing for feeling things even as she preaches the opposite. “Actually,” she says, “I wanna hear about your day.”
Lux doesn’t fight. Clearly she can tell this is what Jinx needs right now. A friend. The comfort of knowing she hasn’t pushed everyone away yet.
“Well, I’m in the library right now, working on my manuscript.”
It’s ten o’clock in Zaun, so Lux will be between her afternoon classes. Jinx pictures her tucked away in the back of the library, surrounded by tall stacks of books, her face knitted in concentration as she thinks of the perfect line to add to her novel. She’s neck-deep in the third (fourth?) draft of a book she apparently started writing when she was just thirteen. It’s a fantasy story about a princess secretly hiding magical powers in a medieval kingdom that hates mages and one of the biggest contributors to Jinx’s belief that Lux is in the closet. She reads Jinx every new chapter.
“How’s it comin’?” Jinx asks.
Lux sighs heavily. “I’m a bit blocked, honestly. I just can’t get this execution scene to work.”
“I still say he should betray her and blow the place up.”
“He’s her friend, Jinx! He would never!”
Jinx laughs, the first time she’s done so in days. It’s a relief, even as it bounces around inside the hollowed-out shell of her.
“Oh!” Lux says abruptly. “Just so you know, I got you something. It should be coming in the mail soon.”
She says something along the lines of, “I know how you feel about surprises, so I thought I’d give you a heads-up…” Jinx almost doesn’t hear, suddenly remembering the manila envelope, forgotten in the bottom of her bag. Now she digs it out and checks the return address. Just as she suspected: Silvermere, Demacia.
“I’ve got it here, actually. Can I open it, or am I supposed to wait for my birthday?”
Lux giggles. They both know Jinx’s birthday isn’t for months. “I just saw it and wanted to do something nice for you.”
Jinx swallows a sudden lump in her throat. She distracts from it by ripping open the packaging. Inside is a gold cylinder: a tube of lipstick. Holy shit - it’s the good kind too, the fancy shit you can hardly find in Zaun and then only for exorbitant prices. She pops the cap off, revealing a rich, dark purple.
“Hey,” she breathes, “you remembered my color.”
“Of course I did.”
Another lump wells in her throat, along with a prickle of something she doesn’t have a name for.
She lets Lux bounce ideas for her book off of her for the next forty-five minutes, feeling… not lighter as the time ticks by, but a bit more ready. “I should probably be getting home.”
Before she hangs up, however, she clears her throat. “And, sunshine?”
“Yeah, Jinx?”
“Thanks. I don’t know where I’d be without’cha right now.”
She can hear the smile in Lux’s voice. “Anything, Jinx. I love being friends with you. Goodnight.”
“Good afternoon, Luxie.”
They share a chuckle, then the line goes dead.
Jinx wishes they had more than phone calls and social media pictures. She wishes Lux will get to be a writer like she wants, to be who she wants. She wishes she could make her see it’s her self-doubt that’ll hold her back more than anything, and that a human star like her has no reason to doubt herself.
For now, all she can do is pick up her backpack and head home.
Vander spots her the instant she pushes through the doors of The Last Drop and rushes to meet her. He stops just short of pulling her into a hug, though, as if waiting for a signal from her. He doesn’t demand to know where she’s been, or if she’s okay. All he says is, “Ekko told me.”
Jinx breaks. She throws her arms around him and cries into his chest.
He holds her until the tears run out, at which point she draws back and mumbles. “I’m - I’m sorry I worried you.”
“I’m just glad you’re okay. Do you want to talk?”
“‘S okay. I think I wanna go to bed. I’m… I’m tired, Vander.”
He nods. Then he adds, “no pressure, but if you could wake Isha up and let her know you’re here… she’s been worried about you.”
Jinx agrees immediately and heads upstairs. She’ll be up to text Lux in the morning.