#also ekko cherishes jinx as a whole not just powder

[amblebamble]

Arcane Season 2 Spoilers - RE: TimeBomb

“Her name was Isha.”

Ekko does not stop painting her arm, neon green on cloudy blue. His lines are knife-sharp, thin where the tip of the brush caresses her skin, and the paint barely runs as she watches an hourglass unfold.

“Who?”

“You said something… about creating a better world for someone,” she can’t remember his exact words, “her name was Isha.”

“A friend?”

“A baby, really.”

She doesn’t care to elaborate, and Ekko doesn’t ask for more. He releases her elbow to drag his fingertips down to her wrist, pausing a moment, then slips his hand into hers. Jinx does not reciprocate.

Instead, she locates the paintbrush previously dipped in neon pink, the brush-end fatter than Ekko’s choice, and – ignoring how paint splatters across Ekko’s trousers – paints a streak across his chest. He jumps back, a half shout bitten down, hands flying to his chest and patting around. Jinx waits for him to look back up at her to raise a brow and wave her brush with an eyeroll.

Ekko doesn’t apologise for the misconception. Jinx doesn’t apologise for every action it took to lead him there.

He settles back down in front of her, scooting his stool closer until their knees are slotted together, giving her access to his chest. Her hand trembles. His hands remain face-up in his lap, a slight curl to his fingers, lax. She prefers the caution.

The second line she draws with involuntary care, an X forming unhurriedly where her brush ghosts his sternum.

“Sorry I’m not her,” she says.

Ekko had told her of his time away, of a world without Vi, of green trees and abundant produce flooding the clean streets of Zaun, of a Powder that—

“I don’t want you to be.”

He takes the brush from her, and without it she is bereft of places to rest her hands.

“It was—” everything “—a good place, but I left it.”

His own encase her face, a palm cupping her jaw, the other hand curled around the paintbrush and resting on her cheek. It is cold where he swipes beneath her eye.

“I realised I had given up on you,” he ducks lower, peering up at her until she meets his gaze, “Jinx.”

Her eyes flutter, stinging with stale air as he paints another line beneath her other eye. When the brush is set in his lap, his hands return to her face. Her fingertips graze his chest, curling back into her palms, but when he remains in place she settles more securely against him, poised to push, instead snagged on the erratic pulse white-hot against her palm.

“I’m not coming back,” she whispers, eyes wide, her own pulse off-beat. “Whatever happens, whatever outcome, I don’t make it back.”

She had decided, when she heard him out. A private thought. It seems an impossible secret now - had burst from her in traitorous confession.

“Okay,” he says, though the word catches in his throat, and he repeats, “Okay.”

Jinx presses her lips tight together, rocketing forward to wrap her arms around his neck, her nose shoved in the crook of her elbow. His own arms encircle her, one hand at the base of her neck, simply holding her.

"You've wasted it - on me,"

Always a dance with them; cyclical, endless repetition. She speaks every word around 'sorry' without ever saying it, can never say it, isn't sure anymore who she means to apologise to.

"It was a choice," he tells her, "not a waste."

Silco had said killing was a cycle, was a mistake. This is another kind, a different cycle, she's just not sure where the mistake starts. She simply has to leave.

--

Later, when they’ve let go and Jinx fiddles to wrap a pink tie around Ekko’s hair, he’ll jokingly point to the transferred X along her chest and pick up the paintbrush to define it better, all while they ignore their reddened eyes and the pink trailing alongside her mascara.