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17 Years Old
*****
“Jinx?”
A small smile tugs at Jinx’s mouth at the sound of Lux’s voice. A part of her hates that she sounds worried. Another part thinks it feels kind of nice to be worried about.
Her leg swings idly over the edge of the fire escape. “Hey, sunshine. How’s Demacia?”
“Um, fine. My parents have some visitors over, so I shouldn’t be missed. At least for right now.”
“Glad I could free ya from the brownnosers.”
Lux gives a quiet laugh, then presses, “you’re up late.”
Like that’s an unusual occurrence. Still Jinx shrugs even though Lux can’t see it. “Can’t sleep.”
“How did things go with Vi?”
Jinx hesitates, then reluctantly recounts the afternoon.
*****
After she and Lux sign off of the game, Jinx sits for a moment in the dark silence of her room. She should move. She should get up, go to the door, and walk out to her family. Instead she waits.
And waits.
And waits, while the jubilant chatter outside gradually tapers off, replaced by weighted murmurs, until a single set of footsteps approaches. Jinx closes her eyes.
Knock knock.
When she opens them, she’s on her feet, moving across the room. Without giving herself time to hesitate, she yanks the door wide.
Her hair is different. That’s the first thing Jinx notices. She used to wear it shaved on both sides, slicked back in a pseudo-mullet she actually thought was edgy. Now she’s got a more manageable undercut. A new tattoo, too. V-I in black numerals underneath her left eye, because apparently the edginess didn’t go away entirely.
Maybe Jinx’s brain hones in on all that, all the ways she’s different, as something to focus on so she doesn’t have to look at the rest of that pale, gaunt face that hasn’t seen the sun in years, or the shy smile stretching across it. “Jinx,” Vi says around that smile.
Jinx forces out, “hey sis.”
She’s hovering in the doorway. She should probably stop that. Jinx steps fully out into the hall and Vi takes half a step forward. When Jinx leans against the wall Vi does this awkward backwards jerk, retracting her step. Fuck. She probably thought they were doing a hug.
You should hug your sister.
Jinx’s arms remain stubbornly crossed over her chest. Vi rubs her own with the opposite hand. “How, uh - how are you?”
“Good. How was prison?”
The tiniest flinch goes through Vi’s body. Fuck. Fuckfuckfuck. That isn’t what she meant to say. At least, not like that.
“It’s - good to see you,” Jinx quickly says instead.
Vi looks relieved, and Jinx is surprised to find she feels the same. At least she didn’t completely fuck this up in the first two minutes.
“It’s good to see you too, Jinx.”
Jinx came out a couple years before Vi was arrested, but it’s weird hearing her chosen name from Vi’s mouth without a glass panel or staticky land line between them. She only chose ‘Jinx’ after Vi was arrested because… shit, pick your poison. Because a part of her blamed herself for being such a burden that Vi went down that road. Because it made her feel strong, powerful - everything she wasn’t without her sister.
And fine, because maybe she has a bit of teenage edginess in her too.
Since then the name has grown to mean a lot more than just that. It’s Jinx. It’s who she is. She’s grown to fit it, or maybe she reshaped it to fit her, but Vi can’t hear all of that in the single syllable. What if, to Vi, she’s still just her whiny baby sister?
She tries to banish the thought from her head as the day goes on. Mylo and Claggor come over from their apartment and they spend hours sitting on the couch, talking, catching up. ‘They’ of course being the three of them and Vander. Jinx wrests herself out of her brooding long enough to tell Vi about school, about a couple of art pieces she’s working on, and that’s about it.
She’s trying. Really. She even manages not to be jealous when Isha ropes Vi into playing Smash Bros. with her while Jinx watches from the sidelines. She just hates that she can’t, for the life of her, find anything to say to her that doesn’t amount to ‘why did you leave me?’
That evening their dads cook a big meal, a classic Zaunite seafood spread with all of Vi’s favorites. The kitchen smells fucking amazing, and everyone’s smiling, and it’s… good. Even Jinx gets the teeniest-tiniest warm-fuzzies seeing their whole family gathered around the table, finally all together again.
But she’s still Jinx. She still can’t hold on to a good thing if she was tied to a rocket and launched into space with it.
Ironically, it’s when Vander’s bragging on her: telling Vi all about her and Ekko entering last year’s Innovator’s Competition, even if he doesn’t understand the technicalities of their project. “Youngest participants to place in years!” he declares proudly, much to Jinx’s chagrin.
“It’s not that big a deal, Dad,” she mumbles, even though it is absolutely a huge deal and she wants Vi to hear about it and she doesn’t understand why there’s this rottenness swirling inside of her.
“Of course it is,” Silco counters with an equally proud nod.
Vi says, “wish I could have been there.”
And that explains the rot.
“Little late for that, don’t you think?”
The table goes quiet.
“Yeah but, that ain’t her fault.” This comes from Mylo. Much as the two of them pretend to not get along, he knows her well. Knows exactly where she’s going with this.
“Why not? She’s the one who got busted playing Robin Hood.”
Vi scowls. Still got the same temper as she used to, evidently. “You think I meant to get arrested? You think I wanted to leave you for five years?”
“I think,” Jinx says, her voice venom, “that you should’ve seen it coming and you barreled ahead anyway because you look at every problem like a brick wall you can just punch your way through!”
Vander says her name warningly. Silco shoots him one of his ‘let her talk’ expressions. Mylo and Claggor exchange a glance, silently debating if they should get involved. And Isha, who hates nothing more than her family fighting, signs for them to stop. Jinx wishes she could.
“I did what I had to do,” Vi argues, “and I did it for you. You were never a problem to me, Jinx.”
“Could’ve fooled me.”
“Why is it so hard to believe that I was trying to make things better for us?!”
“Because I didn’t need you to make things better!” Jinx cries. “Because we had everything we could ever want, as long as we were together! I didn’t need you to fix everything, I just needed my sister!”
Vi falls into shocked silence. She’s swimming in Jinx’s vision - shit, she’s crying. Vi looks like she’s about to as well, judging by the mist in her eyes.
Jinx pushes her chair back with a violent screech and flees from the room. She’s halfway down the hall before she realizes Isha followed her. She throws her arms around Jinx’s waist and squeezes as tight as she can. Jinx, feeling like she’s tearing out her heart with the motion, slowly pushes her away. “I can’t…” she signs shakily “... not now, Isha. Please.”
She ducks into her - no, their room now - and slams the door. She’s starting to hyperventilate, and there’s static in her brain mocking her, and she fucking hates herself for it. She’s supposed to be over this. She’s supposed to be stronger.
Her hand reaches into her pocket of its own volition and touches her phone, her lifeline to the few people in the world who would hear her out on this. She can talk to Ekko, or Zeri, or even fucking Ezreal… but she can’t, can she? None of them would fucking understand.
And there’s only one of them she wants anyway.
*****
Lux listens quietly to Jinx’s recounting of the reunion, then murmurs, “I see.”
Jinx’s lip is trembling. She bites down until it hurts, but that still doesn’t stop it. “Just say it.”
“Say what?” Like she really doesn’t know what she means. Shouldn’t she know Jinx better by now?
“That I blew it up!” Jinx explodes. Her voice bounces off the surrounding city buildings, throwing her outburst back in her face. “That I ruined everything, again, that - that this was my chance to get my sister back and I took it out back and shot it.”
A bitter laugh forces itself through her clenched teeth. “None of them can look me in the eye and say it, either.”
“Maybe they don’t think they need to.”
Anyone who doesn’t know Lux the way Jinx does might be surprised at the conviction in her reply. Sweet, courteous, angel-faced Lux, with a wall of iron contained just underneath her flowery surface. Jinx wonders if anyone but her knows all of Lux’s hidden depths – actually, she viciously, fiercely hopes no one does.
She also knows it’s pointless to argue with Lux when she puts on that voice. “Maybe,” her friend goes on, “they get why you’re angry.”
“I’m not angry.”
It comes out without Jinx’s permission. Immediately, her lips seal against the vulnerability. The truth.
Whether Lux hears the anxiety under her tone or whether she comes off as argumentative, Jinx doesn’t know. Lux remains just as steeled as before, a rock under Jinx’s feet. “Then what? Tell me how you’re feeling, Jinx.”
Jinx takes a deep breath. She can’t deny Lux. She hasn’t been able to for a long time.
So: “I’m just so fucking scared all the time, Lux. I’m scared that I’m too volatile and obsessive and too much and that it’s gonna drive everyone I care about away. It almost did, you know, and – and I’m scared of letting people down. My dads. Vi. You.
“I’m scared I can’t be the person Isha needs me to be. I love her so goddamn much, Luxie, and I wanna be someone she can look up to like I looked up to Vi, but then I look at all the people around me and see how far they’ve come… how far Isha’s come already… and that person just seems farther and farther away. Like - like I’m gonna get left behind, and no one’ll miss me.”
She inhales shakily. “And I’m scared that this is all we’ll ever have. You and me, I mean. I would’ve killed to have you with me today, and maybe that’s super fucking selfish of me… but I want you here all the time. Like when you were here last month, but that, forever and ever. I wanna take you to do stuff in Zaun. I wanna hang out in my room. I wanna hold your hand and not have to worry all the time about something happening and never getting to see you again. I…”
Jinx is torn open, and she can’t say if it’s because of Vi, or Lux, or if she did it to herself. She can’t stop it now if she wanted to.
She doesn’t want to.
“I think I love you, Lux.”
There’s a sharp intake of breath on the other side of the phone, but she doesn’t give Lux time to say anything. “No, no, fuck that, I know I love you. You’re everything to me. Maybe it’s crazy to love someone so far away, but fuck it, I’m okay with being crazy. So… yeah. That’s how I really feel.”
Jinx is impressed with herself that her heart is only pounding at half the speed of sound. Damn, maybe she should blow up and let everything out more often.
On the other end of the line, Lux takes in a shaky breath. “Jinx…”
“It’s okay,” Jinx interrupts, “you don’t have to say anything.” She doesn’t know if she’s saying that to spare Lux the awkwardness, or because she won’t be able to take it.
“No! No, it’s – my parents are in the other room, so I’m going to text you, okay? Hang on…”
Jinx nods, mostly for her own benefit. She puts the phone on speaker so she can watch the dots hover while Lux types. It’s a long message. Of course it is. Lux will say she’s flattered, but that she doesn’t feel the same way, or that she’s not gay and even if she was it can never work out. Long distance would kill them. Lux couldn’t risk being found out by her parents. Things like that. And because she’s Lux, she’ll feel the need to apologize for all that.
When the text finally comes through, Jinx has to read it twice.
11:17pm
I love you too, Jinx. Seriously,
I’ve had the biggest crush on
you basically since we met. I j-
ust never knew how to bring it
up before. I know it would be
hard with my family, and I’ve
never dated before so I don’t
know what I’m doing. But if y-
our’re willing to be with a clo-
set case on the other side of the
world… I’d like to try. Do you
want to be my girlfriend?
Something wet trickles down Jinx’s cheek. An incredulous laugh escapes her. She covers both with the back of her hand.
Over the speaker comes a timid, “Jinx?” Lux sounds as nervous as Jinx felt a minute ago, maybe more.
She cradles the phone like it’s Lux’s hand she’s holding. “Hell yeah,” she says, “let’s do it. Girlfriends.”
“Girlfriends.” Lux’s voice is barely a whisper for fear of being overheard, but Jinx can hear how happy it makes her just to say the word.
“Even if we’re worlds apart?” Lux asks.
“Even if we’re worlds apart.”
*****
Lux eventually gets called back to her family, but nothing can kill the giddiness in Jinx’s chest. It’s almost as overwhelming as her earlier panic attack, but in a good way. Which probably doesn’t make sense to anyone but her, but Jinx doesn’t care right now.
She slips back in through the window, smiling at Isha’s sleeping form, curled up in their new bunk bed. Every night’s a sleepover now (as if Isha didn’t cuddle up with Jinx every other night anyway).
But there’s no way Jinx is getting to sleep now, not when she feels like she could jump over the moon. She slips her devil headphones around her neck, then pads into the hall to hang out in the living room and read Lux’s ‘I love you’ text a trillion times.
That plan fails two steps down the hallway.
The light is on under Vi’s door.
For a few seconds (or maybe minutes, she can’t tell) Jinx stays frozen, unwilling to let her shadow pass under that door. Guilt twists in her chest - you’re sister’s losing sleep over you - but she doesn’t know if she’s ready to face Vi either.
Then she thinks about Lux, how she can do anything in the world and, for some reason, believes Jinx can too. Screw it, she decides.
Vi’s, “come in,” sounds caught off guard. Wasn’t expecting somebody to come a’knockin’ on her door nearly midnight, no doubt. Jinx braces for whatever her reaction will be when she sees it’s her. She doesn’t know what to do when Vi looks happy to see her.
“Hi Jay,” she says softly.
“Hey.” Jinx hovers awkwardly in the doorway for a minute, picking at the skin under her thumbnail. “Can’t sleep either, huh?”
“Guess not.” A low chuckle. “You’d think it’d be the best sleep of my life, but I guess I got used to my cell. Though this still sure beats that.”
“Don’t be so sure. We picked that bed up at an end-of-year yard sale up by the Academy. Satan only knows where it’s been.”
Vi laughs, and Jinx cracks a smile. A little more confident, she clears her throat. “Can I, uh, come in?”
When Vi nods she cracks the door and tentatively crosses the room, socks shuffling on the carpet. Her sister scoots over and pats the mattress beside her. Jinx only hesitates for a second before sitting down beside her. Tucking her hands between her thighs to stop herself from picking all her skin off, she forces out, “I’m… sorry… about earlier. What I said was stupid.”
“No, it wasn’t,” Vi replies weightedly. “It’s just… everything felt like so much. I felt - I felt helpless. I hated feeling that way.”
Jinx offers her a little smile. “Yeah, I know a thing or two about that. Two peas in a hairbrained pod, us.”
Vi grins and nudges her shoulder, and it feels like something finally settles into its correct place.
Jinx’s head falls against Vi’s shoulder. Suddenly she’s choking back a sob. “God, I missed you.”
Vi’s voice is equally hoarse. “The only thing that kept me going was the thought of getting back to you.”
That’s almost too much for both of them, but fortunately Vi wipes away her tears a second later and smiles. “So, Innovator’s Competition, huh? What else has my prodigy sister been up to?”
“Eh, the usual. Bothering Silco at work, giving Vander heart attacks, taking Isha swimming.” She clears her throat like she can’t bite back the news any longer. “I have a girlfriend.”
Vi shoots upright. “What?! Since when?”
“Since, like, thirty minutes ago,” Jinx says, smiling so hard she thinks she might bust.
She finds a picture of Lux and shows it to Vi, who shakes her head and teases, “sorry sis, you’re way out of your league.” Jinx punches her arm and they both dissolve into chuckles. “So, when can I meet her?”
“Good fuckin’ question. It’s long distance. She lives in Demacia.”
“You think you can make it work?”
A reasonable question. Everything was perfect when she dated Ekko, and that path diverged simply because it was meant to, even though they were together practically every minute. Knowing the distance and the vast differences in their family lives, there’s every reason to believe that something will go wrong, or that even if everything goes right it still won’t work out. But Jinx has never been more assured of herself when she answers: “yeah. Yeah, we can.”
They spend the next half hour scrolling through Jinx’s many, many saved photos of her girlfriend (holy crap, her girlfriend) while Jinx regales Vi with her many, many favorite memories of her. Eventually, she perks up. “Hey, now that you’re a free bird we gotta find a hottie to hook you up with!”
“Well,” Vi answers, “my parole officer is pretty smoking to tell the truth…”
“Anyone but that.”