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jammatown919 · 12 days ago

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Mistakes Were Made (Chapter Six)

Relatively Important Disclaimer: Due to the age gap between Seraphine and Renata, I just want it abundantly clear that I am writing Seraphine as an adult in her mid-twenties. Her age in League canon is dubious as far as I'm aware, but at the time this fic is taking place, she is about 23.

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For a while, Jinx ran aimlessly. When her mind raced like this, her muscles also itched to move in a frantic, overwhelming fashion that she couldn't ignore. She crossed half of Zaun, climbing through pipework, bolting through alleyways, and leaping across rooftops, as she desperately tried to puzzle out her current biggest problem.

Lux was still mad at her. She had made Lux cry. And she just didn't get it.

Every ounce of pain Lux had just suffered at the hands of her family had been inevitable. One way or another, they would have turned on her at some point, and that wasn't Jinx's fault. That, she was sure of. All she had done was bring Lux somewhere safe, where she would be loved and appreciated for all of herself. How could that possibly be a bad thing? How could Lux have wanted more time pretending to be something she wasn't for people could've have cared less about her?

How could she be mad at Jinx for rescuing her?

Realizing for the first time that she was getting winded, Jinx stopped in a dimly lit alley in the middle of nowhere between two long-abandoned excuses for buildings. She leaned against a crumbling stone wall to catch her breath, slowing her heart and mind for a moment.

Somehow, she had to make everything make sense. She couldn't stand to see Lux unhappy, and it seemed every word she said only made it worse. She couldn't go back without knowing exactly how to fix things.

But she couldn't do that on her own. Jinx knew many things as second nature, and other things she could study until she did, but she had never had a girlfriend before and likely never would again. This was also the first time Lux had ever been mad at her. She was in completely unfamiliar territory, with everything that made her happy at stake, and she knew of only one way to study this particular issue.

She needed help from someone who knew how to navigate relationships, like her Rift buddy Seraphine, who had plenty of friends, a particular way of understanding and connecting with people, and had somehow recently managed to bag possibly the bitterest old bitch in Zaun. Of course, Jinx wasn't particularly enthused to be asking for advice from the pillow princess whose type was twice her age, but the only other person she knew who had ever managed to get and keep a girl was her sister, so... pillow princess it was.

Somewhat begrudgingly, Jinx reached for a second, smaller holster beside Zapper's, where she kept her Hextech teleporter. This time of night, Seraphine would be asleep, and Jinx had the misfortune of knowing exactly where she tended to do that these days. Jinx had never been inside the towering spire where Chembaron Renata Glasc resided, but she had studied its blueprints and various floorplans extensively. Good practice, Dad had always said. Know everything about everyone, and you were that much more likely to come out on top.

In any case, she had the necessary coordinates to be able to zap herself into the bedroom, fully bracing herself to have to drag Sera out of bed with Glasc. Fortunately, when she appeared with a loud crack and flash of blue light, she found only one pair of eyes staring at her from an almost comically large bed by her standards.

Seraphine, despite the bedhead and generally sleepy demeanor, was sitting up calmly without a hint of surprise. Jinx had popped in on her enough times by now, and Sera had mentioned before that she could always hear a subtle change in the air before that crack signaled Jinx's arrival.

"Rise and shine, toots." Jinx spared no glances for the luxurious room, knowing already that it was entirely too Piltie and completely uninteresting to her. Instead, she simply came to the foot of the bed and leaned on her palms, flashing Seraphine a winning smile. "We need to talk. No Glasc tonight?"

Seraphine paled slightly, like the sight of a smiling Jinx leaning over her in the dark was somehow disturbing. "Working late. She's been... making a lot of necessary adjustments to her business practices recently."

That was one thing Jinx would always have to begrudgingly respect. For as much as Seraphine looked like Renata Glasc's sparkly, sweet pet, she was really holding the reins here. In the months since they'd been together, the employees of Glasc Industries had seen a steady stream of improvements to both their compensation and working conditions that were much more in line with Seraphine's values than Glasc's. Something about oppressing your own people being counterproductive.

Jinx didn't necessarily care about that, but anyone who could get that old bat to do anything she didn't already want to do had to have something going for them.

"Snazzy." Jinx hauled herself fully into the bed, which was large enough for her to sit cross-legged at Seraphine's feet without the latter having to bend or move her legs away. "Anyway, I gotta ask you about something. You know relationships, right? What to do when your girl's mad at you?"

"I... guess?" Seraphine squeaked out, looking more than a little uncomfortable with the proximity. Jinx found that cute and neglected to move. "Renata's not always the easiest to get along with, but we do our best. Did something happen with Lux?"

"Got me there, sweets," Jinx confessed. "Remember that game night I had to cancel a few weeks ago?"

"I've been wondering about that," Seraphine replied.

"Well, you know about Blondie's family, right?" Jinx asked. It made sense, with them both being mages and all. "She talks to you about stuff?"

"To a degree," Seraphine replied. "I know they're awful."

"Yeah, so, I ran into some trouble with that." Jinx briefly recounted that night when she'd tried to play keep-away with Lux. How things had been going fine, until suddenly Lux had snapped at her that she didn't want to play and sent her home. "I didn't get it, but she was crying, so I just wanted to do what would make her happy. But I shouldn't'a left, 'cause then they locked her up and started making her drink something to stop her from using magic, and then she got sick."

"Petricite?!" Seraphine exclaimed, though still politely hushed as if there were someone else in the room she had to worry about waking. She was funny like that. "Her own family?"

"Yeah, they suck." Jinx sort of waved that part off. "But I saved her, and now she's mad at me! She's saying she didn't want to leave and I made everything worse, but I don't get it. I know she got hurt, but it's not like I did it. She'd still be stuck there if it weren't for me."

"Well, Jinx..." Seraphine seemed reluctant, like she had bad news and feared Jinx would shoot the messenger. "When did she first tell you she didn't want to play?"

"She didn't!" Jinx insisted. "I mean, she said I should leave a few times, but I figured she was just worrying 'cause we don't usually play at her place."

"Did you ever think maybe she had a valid reason to worry?" Seraphine asked. "Look what happened."

"Well, yeah, but all the more reason she should've wanted to leave," Jinx said. "She knew I wanted her with me. If she knew that was gonna happen, I could've gotten her out of there any time. Why wait for shit to get worse?"

"Because they're her family?" Seraphine ventured. Jinx groaned loudly, which visibly startled her.

"So what?!" Jinx growled out. All the talk about family was starting to drive her slightly more insane than usual. "What's it matter if they're her family or not? If they suck, they suck."

"And they do," Seraphine agreed. "But family can be complicated. Those people and that place where all Lux knew for a long time. It can be hard to leave what's familiar. It was hard for me to leave my parents' house to move in with Renata, and that was on good terms knowing I could visit whenever I wanted. For Lux, leaving burned that bridge. She can't ever go back."

Jinx wanted to tear her hair out.

"So what?!" she repeated. "She shouldn't want to go back! They hurt her, so fuck em. There's no reason to want to see them anymore."

Seraphine shrank back against the headboard. "People's emotions don't always work like that. Even if someone hurts you, if you've spent your whole life loving them, it's hard to just stop."

That rung a small bell in the back of Jinx's mind, but it still didn't make much sense to her.

"It's only hard if you're stupid," she said. "I was a dumbass about my sister, and it fucked me over in the end. Lux isn't stupid."

Seraphine's expression softened. She leaned forward, all sweet gentleness that Jinx didn't know how to feel about. "You weren't stupid for loving your sister, Jinx. Sometimes love is difficult, and yes, sometimes we're better off without certain people in our lives. But we're not stupid for feeling the way we do."

"So, what, you're supposed to just let that keep you in a bad place?" Jinx demanded. "Never commit to what you actually want because you happened to get attached to some dickhead as a kid?"

"No. And I don't think that's what Lux wanted. I think she just needed to deal with things her own way. There probably were things she loved about her home. Not getting to say goodbye in the way she wanted can't have been easy."

Jinx grumbled softly. That much, she had gathered. But she didn't understand why Lux couldn't just accept that she was better off now. If it sucked, fine, feelings could be dumb, but she didn't have to take that out on Jinx.

"I think, more than anything, she's upset because it's coming across like you don't care," Seraphine said.

"Fuck you," Jinx snapped so quickly it was almost comical. "If I didn't care, I wouldn't have gone through all the trouble of making sure she was safe. I wouldn't be here trying to figure out how to make her happy."

"I know you care about her." Seraphine briefly raised both hands in a surrendering gesture. "It's just that, from what you've told me, she's been telling you exactly what she needed and how she felt and you just brushed her off. She told you to leave because she knew bad things would happen if you stayed, but you didn't listen, and she had to deal with the consequences. Now, she's grieving everything she's ever known, and if you spoke to her like you're talking to me, well... she might think you're not taking how she feels seriously."

"I am taking it seriously!" Jinx protested. "I just don't get it."

"Maybe it's less important for you to get it and more important for you to accept it. We could spend hours getting into the psychology of why Lux might still love her family, but what you really need to understand is the way your actions affected her and how your reaction to that made it worse."

Jinx deflated, slowly but surely starting to see why Lux might have snapped at her. She'd been so wrapped up in her game at that time that she hadn't given Lux's objections much consideration. She didn't understand, so she'd acted like it didn't matter, but it did matter to Lux. Maybe that was it. Maybe it wasn't that she was wrong to think the other Crownguards were a bunch of losers who didn't deserve someone as amazing and fun as Lux. Maybe it was that she'd made Lux feel ignored.

"Y'know, toots," Jinx said, "I'm starting to think I might be kind of a shitty listener."

"Well, the nice part about that is there's nowhere to go but up." Seraphine offered her a smile. "And now you know what you need to do."

"What if she doesn't want to talk, though?" Jinx asked. "What if she's still pissed at me?"

"You'll never know or get through it if you don't try," Seraphine replied. "An apology might be a good place to start."

Jinx nodded. Yeah. She could apologize, now that she knew she had something to apologize for. She didn't know exactly how she would, but it was a step forward nonetheless.

"Thanks, doll." Jinx reached out and gave Seraphine a firm pat on the shoulder, which seemed to make her squirm at first. "I got a pretty girl waiting for me, so I should scoot. Say hi to Glasc for me, yeah?"

"I think if I did, there would be armed security here the next time you popped in," Seraphine replied. "She won't like you appearing in our bedroom while I'm alone."

"Old bat doesn't trust me?" Jinx inquired lightly.

"Well, how would you feel if she got into bed with Lux while you were out?"

Jinx took a moment to mull that one over, then said, "point taken."

She quickly removed herself from the foot of the bed, leaving the two of them in a much less incriminating position if Glasc decided to walk in. Retrieving her teleporter from her side, she began to fiddle with the settings.

"Keep an ear out," she said offhandedly as she punched in coordinates. "Once everything's all good with Blondie, we're gonna have that game night."

Seraphine smiled at her, and Jinx saw a flash of the person she became on the Rift. Like Lux, she was at her best and brightest when allowed to let loose with no consequences. Bleeding heart as she was out here, all her inhibitions disappeared when they played, and Jinx loved her for it.

"Can't wait," she said as Jinx vanished from the room in a flash of blue.

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#lightcannon #jinx league of legends #jinx arcane #seraphine league of legends #renataphine #mistakes were made #my writing

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