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renatogpadilla · 1 month ago

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Bright and Early

Jinx didn't know how long she'd been out.

She just knew that she felt like a squeaky door with broken hinges when she came to.

She didn't open her eyes at first. She noticed she was in a bed, soft and large. For a moment she thought it might have been her own, but then she felt all the planks actually hold its weight and quickly put that thought out of her head.

She felt the sun on her face... Okay, so it was morning. So at least one night. Damn. She hoped someone had watered her plants.

When she finally decided to open her eyes, heavy and weary though they were, she thought she might have been dreaming.

The walls of the room were white, with a texture like brick and wood mixed together. The sunlight was coming from a window with bright, soft yellow curtains covering the glass, staining the room with an amber glow. It was a pretty empty room besides that, though. A little nightstand at the side of her bed filled with dirty bandages and wet rags told her she hadn't exactly been sleeping gracefully...

On the other side of the room, there was a little couch-bench-thing made of wood, and on it, sat a middle-aged man with what looked like a clipboard. He looked up as he saw her react.

"Oh, my. You're awake." He said, and he got up immediately. "Miss Isha, I must ask you that you don't strain yourself. Your wounds were quite severe, but you are expected to make a full recovery. As long as you don't strain yourself, of course."

Fat chance of that, knowing her luck...

She barely managed the word. She didn't know her throat would be that sore...

"...Lux?"

The man gave her a smile. "Yes, the Lady was also hurt, but nowhere near your degree of severity. She recovered in a few hours and has hardly left your side since. I'll go tell her you've woken up."

He didn't have to. As it turned out, she was here already. The door swung open and Lux came in carrying a tray with rags and a glass of water.

"How's she doing, do-"

She almost dropped the tray. Instead she practically flung it at the doctor's arms and knelt down next to Jinx's bed.

"You're awake!" She beamed, holding her hand with one of her own and flinging the other around her neck for a hug. Jinx was happy to reciprocate. "Of course you wake up in the two minutes I'm not in the room!"

"Well, I wouldn't want to get predictable now, would I...?" She buried her face in Lux's hair. Like a big, bright pillow made of straw... "Are you alright?"

"Oh, I'm fine, Firework, don't mind me..." She'd been hurting for a different reason. "I'm just glad you're alright."

"Her and I both." Came the voice of Garen from the door, and Jinx almost didn't recognize him out of his armor. He looked a full foot shorter without it! "That was a nasty beating you took, friend. The Dauntless Vanguard thanks you for your bravery. And I thank you as a brother who gets to see his sister safe."

Lux knew Garen being polite to strangers was a rare treat, so she was enjoying every second of this while smooshed against her friend.

"Couldn't help it, sir. She saved me first anyhow."

Garen dismissed the doctor. "I don't doubt it." He said, coming closer to her bed. Yeah, no. He was still huge. "Oh, before I forget... You said a few things while you were asleep."

Jinx was suddenly very self conscious.

"What sort of things...?"

"Not many that made sense to me." He answered. "But we did manage to understand something, so we got you one of these..."

Lux made space for her brother and he opened a little drawer on the nightstand, stuck his hand in and pulled out...

Oh.

Oh, Gods.

That Mage should have killed her. She wanted to die.

He pulled out a flashlight.

Lux immediately let go of her hand, looking away. She was so red Jinx could have boiled an egg on her face.

"We don't have many of these here in Demacia, but you clearly aren't Demacian, and judging by those contraptions in your bag, you seem like the tinkering kind. You also clearly wanted one with how much you kept moaning about it, so we managed to find one in an old curiosity shop." He placed the scrappy thing on the nightstand and walked past his sister to lean on the door. "But let's face it..."

Jinx heard the door's lock click.

"That's not the brightest light you saw yesterday, was it?"

Ah. So that hidden steel in the voice runs in the family. Good to know. She wondered how high up this room was and if the fall out the window would be enough to kill her...

Lux stepped up before Jinx could say something out of pocket.

"She knows, brother." Lux turned on some steel of her own. "And that will not be a problem."

"Right, because if she tells, you will too? You said yourself she's not really a Witch."

"So she should have nothing to fear from you."

"Lux, you know what happens if anyone talks."

"And she won't." Her accent came out a bit. Lux was getting angry. "She's my friend and she has shown me how to be more like myself than anyone I've ever met."

"Right, cause that turned out so great last time."

That shut her up. She was never going to live that down, but she would not let her past mistake shape her whole future.

The room was quiet for a moment that felt way too long.

"I love you brother, but if I must fight you so you see reason, on the Spirits I will beat you so hard you'll need your armor to hold you to walk."

Garen didn't respond. He could have. He had the ammo for it. He just didn't want to hurt his baby sister anymore. Her friend was alive. He'd let her have that for now.

"Fine. But if something happens, I can't save you."

"I don't think she needs you to save her anymore, G." Jinx said, finally sitting up. "You know, I have a big sister myself. You remind me of her."

"Do I?"

"Yes, quite a bit, actually. She also made decisions for others that she thought were for the best and ended up destroying the things she loved." She wasn't trying to sound menacing, but with how sore her throat was the catscratch was in full effect and she was well aware how unsettling she could be when she got serious. "No harm will come to your sister from me. You have my Word, for whatever it's worth, and the solace of knowing that I am infinitely more terrified of her than you."

"Then at least I know you are wiser than most." He was still weary, obviously, but he couldn't say he wasn't starting to like this stray her sister had brought home. "Fine. I won't interfere. Goddesses know I've dealt with enough bullshit today."

He backed away from the door as he unlocked it to leave.

"Recover your strength. Lux can take the day off, given yesterday's events, so if you feel like walking about the complex, you're more than welcome to ask my sister for the tour." He seemed to relax a bit as he stepped out. He turned with a soft look at his sister. "Just don't knock on my door? I'd like to enjoy my sleep while I have it."

"Alors tu as encore envie de ta rousse?" Teased Lux with a smirk. Jinx didn't have to speak Demacian to recognize sibling banter.

"Tout va bien, ma sœur." He replied, with an aura of smugness. "Je sais que tu les aimes bleus."

"Tu es le pire!" Lux shouted, red in the face, as her brother chuckled and left the room.

And then they were alone, and they hugged again.

"Sorry lunch got cut short."

"You kidding? Food, fighting and a light show. What more could a girl want?"

Yeah... What more...?

It wasn't like Lux was thinking about that moment in the alleyway every single second of the last day since getting Jinx to safety, but... Gods, it had been so... so... What even was the word? Was there a word? 'Tender' might have been it...

It was a perfectly normal, entirely necessary and just coincidentally intimate strategy at the time, and it had paid off!

But... Jinx would know that there was a moment there, right? A small one?

Spirits, Lux was a mess inside right now.

She brought up the courage to say something. "Hey, Jinx?"

"Yes, Lux?"

"Did you..." Okay, here we go. "Yesterday, in the alley..."

"Oh, listen, I didn't mean to make it... weird, it just kinda happened..."

Oh, so she knew. And thought it had been weird, huh?

"Kissing my hand didn't just happen, Firework..." She was almost shaking, but she had to ask. "Is there... Is there something you want to say?"

Jinx had to think about it for a second. When they were invisible, alone with their pursuer, she'd seen a hurt in Lux's eyes she hadn't seen in another face often, because it was usually in her own face... The pain of knowing you were about to lose someone close to you.

"The truth? I saw you were hurting.... And I wanted to comfort you. I never really got to do that with Vi, or Isha or even Ekko... I wanted to be the one that said 'everything will be fine' and mean it. You needed something to numb the pain, so.... you know... smooch." She was pretty sure that's why she'd done it, at least.

Lux nodded her head. "I see... Well, for what it's worth, it worked. I was panicking pretty bad." Just for comfort... That's all. She wasn't sure if that was such a good thing anymore...

"Sorry... I guess my intrusive thoughts won at the moment.

Well, that opening was too good to pass up.

"You get a lot of those...?" Lux couldn't even look at her. She just asked like she wasn't interested at all.

Jinx sat cross-legged. Staring at her with those big violet eyes...

"Every now and again... Not all of them positive... But I'm getting better at keeping them in check, so don't worry. No more unexpected smooches! I'm sorry if I crossed a line."

"You didn't. And I'll admit, I thought it was really sweet. So thank you..." It was taking all of Lux's willpower to play this cool... But you know what? See how she likes it! "And here..."

She finally made eye contact, and it was her turn to scramble Jinx's brain for once. She leaned in and placed a hand on her cheek, brushed her hair out of the way with the other and pressed her lips against her cheek as softly as she could, squeezing her face with her hand, and pulling away with an exaggerated 'mwuah!' for comedic effect, leaving a warm, glowing lip mark on her witch's cheek where her mouth had been.

Lux contained her smile and pretended to be as proper as she could. "There. That's for saving my life. And now you can say you got kissed by a princess!" She was technically the princess of Knight's Rock, when she really thought about it...

Jinx beamed a big smile. She hoped the lip mark would stop glowing soon, or Garen would probably jump her as soon as she was out the door. "Well, now who's having intrusive thoughts? Thank you, Flashlight. You're wonderful."

Jinx also hoped Lux didn't notice how her brain did a full factory reset right there and then.

They giggled together and Jinx asked her glowy friend for something to eat. Lux nodded and left the room to get her some food. As soon as she was out of the room, her cheek stopped glowing.

Jinx ran a hand where the mark had been. Now that she was alone with her thoughts (which was never a good place for her to be) she had to ask herself something: What the hell was she feeling about Lux? Yeah, the girl was sweet and cute and beautiful, but that wasn't it... She had checked out plenty of girls in Zaun during her time as Silco's closer and none of them had felt like this. It was a mix of the friendship she'd built with Lux and how she wasn't afraid to reciprocate in kind. How she, despite being much better raised and educated, was fully willing to match her crazy when it came down to it.

She guessed the mutual life-saving had something to do with it, too. And she admitted it, to herself at least: The moment in the alleyway had been hot as all hell! She could admit to feeling that! She hadn't intended it to be, but looking back, she had really liked just being held... No, that wasn't it. It wasn't just being held.

Jinx, for once, noticed she liked being protected. She felt a bit wrong for that, but maybe she was being too tough on herself. Too tough... That's right. She'd had to be tough her entire life in Zaun. If anything happened, she'd only had herself to count on. Sure, occasionally, there had been Sevika, but come on, that was Sevika! She could understand how some people might find her hot (everyone had their own issues over there) but at most she'd been more like another big sister to pester...

But Lux...? Damn it all...

Jinx liked Lux. (She grabbed the little flashlight on the nightstand and played with it a bit.)

And a part of her felt guilty... This was different than the love she felt for Ekko. She knew that was real. Was this real too...? She'd hallucinated people and voices before... Was hallucinating feelings that far-fetched?

And speaking of Ekko, none of this was fair for the guy! What the hell would she even say when she saw him again? 'Hey, love! Surprise! I'm not dead! I just fucked off to another city so I wouldn't curse everyone that loves me and then fell for someone else! I know, crazy right?'

How fucked up would that be?!

And 'fell for'...? Would she go as far as to say that's what she felt? Between fighting Fiddlesticks and this moment, there had been a full 2 days, and she had been unconscious for most of day 2... This could be just a crush! Or maybe it was a spur-of-the-moment thing... Either way, she saw Lux as someone who radiated joy and comfort, and she had needed those in spades when she first faked her death... She was so bright and sunny aside from her powers that Jinx thought she could take on the world if she was there! Like there was nothing wrong in the world... She wanted to feel that more. She wanted to forgive herself, but how can you when you're literally a jinx to everyone you know?

And suddenly, here comes Lux. No 'I wish you were still Powder!'. No 'I can't love a criminal, Jinx!'. None of that... And then it clicked. Something so obvious that she couldn't believe she hadn't thought about it before!

Lux was the first person in her life, more than Ekko or Vi or even (and this thought made her recoil) more than little Isha, that had seen Jinx for who she was, as she was. Without Silco. Without the accusations and the terrorism. Without the drama of who she had been and where and how she had been raised...

Lux wasn't just a loving friend.

She was a clean slate.

And she could be anyone, and figure out who she was now without fearing breaking the illusions of whoever knew her before...

Lux was safety in a bright, glowing, admittedly gorgeous package. (Jinx had caught her staring a lot... She was glad Lux hadn't caught her. Teasing her was fun, but damn, she had to keep her cool sometimes!) And now that she accepted that...

Jinx didn't know what the fuck to do...

She slumped on the bed and swore under her breath staring at the ceiling in frustration.

She wouldn't push it, she decided. She was still into Ekko, and she wasn't ready to love like that again. She wondered if she'd ever been ready for that... If she had would be when she went home...

Would she go home...?

Too much to think about at once. Put it out of your head.

She resigned herself to just be the raggedy witch friend. She would not hurt Lux on a fling. She would not break her heart like that. Gods know that girl had been through enough on that front!

Yes. This was what she wanted...

She thought.

*****

Lux was coming back with a hot cup of coffee and a croissant when she walked into an empty room. A little note on the nightstand explaining her missing friend.

'Went out for air. Be right back!' it said. It had a little Jinx face drawn on the side with a big smile.

Well, that was rude... But Lux guessed she had the right to some alone time. After all, they'd been practically glued together since their big hug and after yesterday...

Gods, yesterday.

Lux now had some time to think about something other than her friend's safety, and her mind just kept replaying the look she'd given her in the alleyway...

Lux knew she liked Jinx now. She wasn't fooling herself anymore. That moment while invisible had opened her eyes. And it wasn't lust, or just temporary crushing, either. She'd known those before. This was different. This was more honest than any love Lux had felt before.

Because here were two people that were hated by their own societies, who had had to hide or run away from themselves and the people they cherish to be accepted, and in each other they had found a solace and a homelyness that neither could have gotten from the places that birthed and raised them...

Thing is, she knew Jinx's story now. And she would never judge her for it, but she did have a boy back home... And Lux genuinely admired the guy! Plus, she'd heard how Jinx had deflected the whole hand kiss thing earlier...

She didn't want to get in the way of anything that she might be saving herself for. 'Hah! Add that to her list of titles!' she thought to herself. 'Lady Luxanna Crownguard: Illuminator! Mage! Homewrecker!'

Part of her wanted to be selfish. She deserved love, dammit! But not at the expense of joy for her friend.

...

Fine then... She wouldn't push.

But she felt like she should let her know... It would feel wrong if she didn't say anything.

But how to say that? Would it be mean? 'Hey, friend! I know you're going to go home to the hottest guy known to man and your amazing punk sister and her mega rich dictator girlfriend to make up and live adventures beyond my wildest dreams, but can I tell you how I'm in love with you and how your loss would break my heart...?'

To be fair, that's probably how Jinx would put it...

Lux slumped on the bed. She brightened the blues in her vision and sure enough, scattered on the pillow were a few strands of hair...

She felt like she was twisting the knife on herself.

"You have a type, Lux..." She told herself. And that type is 'unhinged criminal'. She noticed she may have some issues to work out.

She also noticed that the flashlight was gone.

Well... That was slightly comforting.

...

That coffee's gonna get cold.

******

Jinx was pacing through the bastion halls, smacking the flashlight on her palm to stim until she found somewhere nice to stop. She was wearing her dress... guess someone must have put it back on her as she slept... Had it been Lux?

She kinda hoped it had been... Her face had probably been priceless, the prude!

She chuckled to herself. She kinda enjoyed not having her braids for once. With her hair down she looked like a ghost, roaming the halls of some ancient castle, haunting the poor knights stationed here for a crime they didn't commit... She made sure a couple of the knights that passed her in the halls were properly unsettled. For the vibe.

Eventually, she came across a small balcony overlooking the city. 'Lots of overlooking over here.' she mused. 'That is a Piltie-ass view!'

She was slumping on the brick railing when she heard familiar footsteps behind her.

"Weren't you going to sleep?" She called out to Garen, who was seemingly making his way back to the room she'd stayed in. He was carrying her rucksack.

"Forgot to get these back to you, now that you're awake." He said, leaving the bag at her feet. "My sister not with you?"

She didn't answer that. She looked at the massive man. Same eyes as his sister. She figured she'd ask, if only to get it off her chest.

"About that..." She'd never been nervous around a soldier before, so what was it about talking to her friend's brother that made her watch her tone...?

Oh, right. He's Lux's brother.

"Can I talk to you...?" She patted the railing next to her and Garen leaned on it as much as he could without going over. (Have I mentioned he's HUGE yet?)

"What ails you?" He asked more out of genuine curiosity than concern. "And does it have to do with my sister...?"

"Nothing gets by you, huh?"

"You don't make Lord Commander by looking without seeing, friend."

Oh, great. Whole family had jokes...

"I'm going to feel incredibly weird asking this, but... Lux. Does she... I mean, has she..." She just kept stammering, but Garen was patient. "I'm sorry, I'm trying to find the words."

"She cares for you." He said. Well, his sister glows. Jinx thought. Maybe he reads minds and just doesn't know it! "Deeply, as a matter of fact. She's been happier than I've ever seen her since coming across you, if the way she ran out of my office yesterday when I caught her with a strand of blue in her hair was any indication."

Oh, fuck. She HAD to clean her pillows better.

"Well, that's... I'm flattered, but I don't think I'm doing that much." She was trying not to look as red as she felt and failing miserably.

"Two of my men died. And she showed up the next morning damn near skipping down the halls, like she hadn't just witnessed it. Whatever you think you're doing? It's more."

"Right... No pressure then." She was all the more terrified for what she wanted to say, but better Garen hear it than Lux... "Listen, G."

"Oh, we are not there yet."

"Listen, Garen. To make a tremendously long story short, I left my home because I brought some terribly bad luck to the people I loved." She might as well just give him bullet points. Context was important! "But I still adore them... And I know at some point I'm going to be ready to go back... To the people I left behind. The people I... the man I..."

Garen visibly cringed. Don't talk about love to me! I suck at it! "Ah. I see... Does Lux know that?"

"Well, yeah, I kinda told her everything..."

"Then she knows it'll happen. But a part of you feels like that would be hurting her."

"And it would be, wouldn't it? And I care for her a lot... She's... Heh. She's made my life brighter. I don't think I even thought about going home before she showed up... I didn't know how much I missed..." She was going to say 'how much I missed being loved', but it just got caught in her throat.

Garen seemed to catch on.

"When you left... Were you hurt?" He hadn't been the most gentle person for most of his life. This was weird for him, but he tried to sound sympathetic. A skill he'd found himself training more since his sister came out as a Mage to him. "Not your body, but your heart?"

"I... Yes. I was a bad luck charm to everyone that knew me and I'd just lost a few people I cared about in disgustingly quick succession..." She said it and her heart squeezed a bit harder than usual. "So yes. I was hurting. Bad."

"And had you been alone the whole time until my sister showed up? Had anyone or anything made you smile or laugh?"

"I..." Nothing. The occasional chuckle when talking to herself, or a performative cackle when scaring villagers that came too close, but never something real. "I had been... And no. No laughter. She changed that."

"Then you're still healing." He said it so matter-of-factly that Jinx got a little angry. It's not obvious when you're the one going through it! "And it's because you're still healing that you need to tell her how you feel. Don't push her away, Isha. Just be honest. I may be overstepping by saying this but, my sister is healing too... The last man she loved betrayed her and everything she believed in. And you got to be someone different for her. Someone she could be herself with for herself. Even I..." He caught himself. He was ashamed of admitting this to himself, and saying it out loud didn't help much on that front. "Even I tried to ignore who she was for the longest time. I tried to ignore and hide from my sister's... uniqueness because I'd been raised to hate it. Her own brother didn't love her for who she was. And then she found you. And I can't say she feels like herself, because the young woman wearing my baby sister's face is infinitely happier, infinitely brighter, than my Lux ever was. And that's because of you."

Jinx felt her tears finally reload from last night. She didn't shed any, of course. He's the fucking Lord Commander! Have a spine! But they were there, waiting.

And then something else inside her clicked.

"I guess you don't make Lord Commander by not knowing how to give a speech, huh?" She allowed herself a smile.

Garen returned it. "I've been told I have my moments. And for the record, I like you far more than her ex."

"The revolutionary mass murderer? Gee, high bar." Oh, he would TWEAK OUT if he knew!

"Well, you haven't tried to kill me, so that's already a better start."

And she actually laughed at that.

They stared out over the city together for a while. So they were both healing, huh? Well... maybe there wasn't a reason why they couldn't heal together... For a while, at least.

"Thanks for that, sir. I really needed to hear it." That might've been the very first time she called somebody 'sir' unironicaly. "I think I've figured something out."

"Glad to be of service." He turned to leave, feeling pretty good about himself. "And if there is love waiting for you back home, make sure Lux knows that the love here isn't any less real because of it, alright?"

"I will." She picked up her rucksack and put the flashlight inside with her Chompers... Huh. A flashlight... "Hey, Garen?"

The walking wall that was the Lord Commander turned on his heel. "Yes?"

"How do you say 'Flashlight' in Demacian...?"

*****

When Jinx made it back to the room she was staying in, she found Lux fast asleep on her bed. Not tucked in or anything, just laying sideways over the sheets, like she'd been waiting sitting up and then dropped.

Yeah, you kinda stood her up for a while there. That's on you.

She was really cute when asleep, Jinx thought.

She saw her and Garen's words swam to the front of her mind. 'Had you been alone the whole time?'

She had been. But she didn't have to be. And she wasn't anymore.

"Lux...?" She whispered. She put a finger out and prodded her friend's face. Nothing. Heavy sleeper!

She supposed she'd earned the rest. Come to think of it, Jinx had earned the rest too.

She laid down next to her friend... Her Lux. Her Lux. And she held her hand as she let sleep take her.

And they both dreamt of flashlights and fireworks...