#timebomb modern au

[learties]

slightly shaka brah coded

[lilymoonlily]

Arcane modern AU with eventual Timebomb focus - chapter 1 out now!

https://archiveofourown.org/works/62258773/chapters/159278945

"That was four of Jinx’s parents dead now, and they all walked alongside her into the dark streets, silent ghosts of pain, unintelligible whispers pulling at her mind though her eyes stayed resolutely on the wet cobblestones and the wobbly lights reflecting off of them.

Four. Two she could barely remember, whose shapes wavered when she did allow herself a glance, one forever engulfed in a ball of fire, whose screams still woke her up sometimes at night, and now the drenched, drowned shape of the last, whose steps squished just behind her heels."

Arcane modern AU with a bit less murdering than Arcane. We start all the way at the bottom so the only way to go is up! Eventual Timebomb focus.

Jinx tries to survive after killing a father figure for the second time, both desperate for connection and rejecting affection at every turn. Slowly she will find people to attach to and reconnect with some of her lost family, but still she keeps them at arm's length, deathly afraid of jinxing them.

And then there's the ever-looming threat of the literal skeletons in her closet resurfacing...

[typewriteringalaxy]

okay so modern(-ish) AU Ekko, what kind of snack would he constantly chew on (weird snack or not)

[noodles-and-tea]

[snoozeeroo]

arcane modern au continued !!! (i'm super unwell abt them 💔)

[asparklethatisblue]

Arcane Daemon AU? Yeah. @inja-y-ddraig and I were talking, so here’s the headcanons for the main crew

I think Mel’s daemon could always wander away from her, they just didn’t try. Any mage’s daemon isn’t distance bound to their human. After their infinite embrace in the Arcane Jayce and Viktor touch each other’s daemons freely without feeling any weird recoil

Additional. Isha’s daemon is often a bunny, but also changes to a dragonfly to match Jinx. Vander’s was a Caucasian Ovcharka (disappeared after his first death, sort of fused with him). Silco’s a thorny devil. Sevika’s a ram.

Vastaya have no daemons, they are fused essentially

[beforetimes]

planning a modern/fame timebomb au in my head where jinx is a celebrity recovering from addiction after a public meltdown who's lost contact with most of the people she knew when pre-breakdown/pre-fame. and in completing her recovery program she reaches out to ekko to offer a direct apology for anything she might have said/might have happened in the depths of her addiction, but doesn't hear back from him.

following this she decides to go out and sign up for a program to help at-risk kids like herself—after reflecting in therapy and realizing that a lot of the issues that lead to her being in such a volatile state of mind was because of the lack of support she had in childhood when dealing with losing her family [haven't planned what would work as a stand-in for the powder factory explosion so lets skirt past that for now] she decides that she wants to be that support for other people that she didn't have herself, after spending about a year trying to get better.

basically, she signs up as a volunteer to this big brother/sister-esque outreach program after a few months of anonymously donating to see if she can help someone in person rather than continuing to isolate herself. which is where she meets isha, who immediately imprints on jinx and insists on following her around. and jinx, who is unused to being at the centre of someone's attention without larger expectations that come with her status as a celebrity attached as caveat, starts relaxing by the very nature of her interactions with isha not being as loaded as others. like, this is just a kid! she doesn't know about jinx's issues or how she freaked out and lost it on stage/on a set/made headlines before disappearing from the public eye and ending up here. all isha sees is someone with cool blue hair and nails she wants to try her hand at painting.

after a few months of building a rapport with isha through this community mentor program, jinx accidentally bumps into the last person she really expected to see here—ekko.

ekko is also very surprised to see her here, because the last time he saw her, she was freaking out on him because he wouldn't enable her self-destructive behaviour, their final and most explosive fight resulting in their subsequent falling out where jinx threw a lot of shit back in his face and he did the same and they decided not to contact each other. well, besides jinx's attempt at an apology, but he didn't reply to that.

he sees her here and they both freeze because, like? what do you even do in this situation? they haven't seen each other in a few years at this point, maybe two or three at the most. enough time that it feels so entirely awkward to even try to act like nothing happened while also knowing that it would be equally nerve-grating to try and acknowledge the history between them.

of course, this stand-off is interrupted by isha, who sees jinx frozen in the hall and immediately stomps over to drag her away because they had been working on a painting together that she's been waiting to finish all week.

and jinx eventually relaxes because ekko doesn't say anything and neither does she, even though she wants to know what he's doing here in the first place. but the day ends without any further interactions between the two.

eventually, after asking around, jinx learns that ekko was the one who set the program up a few years prior, a tentative friend in the program telling her that the community didn't really have a lot of resources on hand and that a lot of the program was personally financed by ekko and he did a lot of work to try and uplift the people and community without demanding financial support in return, like most state-funded programs tend to do.

jinx is just, like, in awe of the fact that this childhood friend grew up to do something so great before being overwhelmed with guilt over the fact that she had been so wrapped up in her own world that she hadn't even noticed.

of course, this doesn't really change things because they're still not talking to each other, but weeks pass and jinx feels like they've gotten into a steady pattern of avoiding each other.

what she doesn't know is that ekko has been subtly watching in on her and isha's little hang-out sessions and is just in awe that this girl who had only a few years ago been so unsure of herself and in so much pain had managed to heal to the point of being able to help someone else and make a good positive impact on isha's life in a program he created.

so, after a while, jinx gets a reply on that email she had sent him nearly a year ago where ekko just asks if she wants to meet for lunch. which she replies to, after a lot of back-and-forth, by saying yes absolutely.

and then the romance unfolds further from there, yadda yadda yadda. haven't decided how this will ultimately end or where vi will play a part or anyone else but i thought that the bare bones concept i had in mind was worth posting here.

in my head maybe ekko's second, scar would be a friend who had seen the majority of the fallout and would be warning him away in the background while ekko was sort of caught up in being both happy that jinx seemed to be doing better while also conflicted on whether or not he wanted to forgive her because their last fight was like, super nasty. awful stuff said

maybe if anyone has ideas for how vi / cait / anyone else could be worked in, you can leave that below?? none of this is super set in stone! just rambling. ^_^

[spicypepperjack]

"The Start of Building Something New" by @fiery-lune (Twitter: https://x.com/fiery_lune), commission requested by me

There's not enough Timebomb Modern AU fanart, so I commissioned one where they're singing together.

Also, despite the circumstances, I really loved Jinx's hair when she first cut it, and I wanted more of that.

What do you think’s on their duet playlist?

[kr-starz]

My Modern Highschool Jinx !!

This felt like me trying to mix Alt Au Powder x Arcane Jinx while making her an average sassy teen.

[nyobunz]

Chatterbox × unwilling listener

[hazelandglasz]

And just like that I am visited by a fanfic idea

Hear me out

arcane Modern AU

Mel is the mayor of Cambridge because come on

Jinx is that person who invents stuff that looks weird but really helps disabled people

Hermeddinger is a teacher at MIT and Ekko is his TA after Jayce quit the position and launched Hextech with Viktor

Vi gives self defense classes and boxes

Cait is in the police but like SVU (BECAUSE I SAY SO)

Vander and Silco run a home for underpriviledged youth #zaundads

Vi and Jinx roll by the Last Drop every now and then

Isha is there too

What do you say? Should I write it?

Shenanigans and fluff, of course ;)

[hungryistrying]

why'd you have to go and make me like you

summary:

Jinx just doesn't know how to behave normally around Ekko anymore; how to stop getting so irrationally angry every time someone else tries to vie for his attention; how to get this feeling out of her system. With a gasp, she shoots upright in her bed. Lightning strikes in the distance as, with sudden clarity, Jinx gets hit with an idea on how to fix this…Alright, so lightning didn't actually strike in the distance but Jinx has such a good idea it might as well have. A plan concocts itself in her brain. One that’s perhaps a little insane, but hey, aren’t her best ideas always?

Or: Jinx gets annoyed (not jealous) when girls try to hit on Ekko. Her solution? Fuck the feeling away.

rating: explicit

word count: 7131

status: ongoing

crossposted to ao3

chapter one: denial is a river

Jinx is having a pretty terrible day. She has no classes on Friday, and so she should be enjoying this beautiful afternoon off (well, she has that one eight a.m. lecture on Fridays but who the fuck actually attends those) by lazing the day away in bed watching TikToks on her phone and playing Mario Kart.

Instead, she’s outside sitting in the fucking sun, (like, ew) fighting for her life because her paper’s due in twelve hours and she may or may not have forgotten about it until Vi innocently asked how far along she was last night, giving Jinx a rude awakening.

But really, all of this isn’t even the source of her irritation. No, the actual source of her irritation sits beside her, and helpfully comments, "You're never gonna finish that paper in time," before reaching for a handful of Skittles.

“Oh, shut up,” she snaps, pettily slapping the Skittles out of Ekko’s hand.

He just laughs–bright as the sun stinging in her eyes, with his too-white teeth and those dimples of his that piss her off too–and picks them back up, unfazed by her ire.

“I’m not gonna say I told you so but…” He pauses to chew on the candy. “Yeah, no, I’m saying it. I told you so.”

And sadly, maybe, possibly, just perhaps–he's right. But Jinx is on a high fueled solely by stress, sleep deprivation, caffeine, and adrenaline. And she'll ride it out for as long as she can, dammit.

Does she have any clue what the fuck she’s even writing at this point? No. Does she have enough time to actually read through any of the sources she’s citing in her term paper? Well…also no. But whatever! Beggars and choosers, and all that, right?

"I’m finishing this stupid paper if it’s the last thing I do," she insists, not tearing her eyes away from the screen.

"Alright, let’s bet," he replies, reaching for her drink on the table and dangling it in front of her. "If you don't make the deadline, you can't drink Mountain Dew for a whole month."

Jinx abruptly stops typing, snatching it from his hand so she can down the rest of the drink. She slams the empty can back onto the table with more force than necessary, before turning to him and responding, "One week."

He smirks at that. "So you know you won't make it?"

“I’ll make it, and when I do,” she pauses in consideration before turning her head to him with a grin, “you’ll buy me as much Mountain Dew as I want for a month.”

He raises a skeptical eyebrow, but his voice is amused when he answers, “So let me get this straight, you quit drinking that crap for one week or I have to buy it for you for a whole month?”

“Now you’re getting it, little man!”

“What I’m getting is that you’re a swindler.” He flicks her forehead and starts laughing when she scowls at him. “I’ll meet you halfway, though. If I win, you stop drinking it for two weeks and if you win, I’ll buy you as much gross shit as you want for two weeks.”

Jinx graciously smacks his arm in response. “It’s not gross, you’re just tasteless.” Then she lets out a petulant sigh, and concedes, “...But fine, consider it a deal.”

Ekko smiles at her, warm and sunny. That warmth spreads to her chest, leaving her feeling all weird and fuzzy. Damn it, she’s still supposed to be annoyed with him, but now she can’t stop the corners of her own mouth from rising.

“I can see you smiling, you know.” He pokes at her cheek for emphasis.

“Cut it out,” she grumbles, slapping his hand away, but there’s no real heat behind it and they both know it. “I’m trying to get actual work done here.”

“So let me help,” Ekko insists, scooting closer to her until their shoulders press together. They’re both wearing short sleeves, making his skin press directly against hers. His arm feels broad and solid against hers, warm too. 

The fuzzy feelings are getting worse.

“Oh yeah,” Jinx reaches for a handful of Skittles herself, hoping the burst of artificial sweetness is strong enough to steal her attention instead, “and how exactly are you gonna do that, buster?”

He laughs again. She can feel the vibrations of it traveling from his body through hers. Then he’s slinging his arm over her shoulder, pressing them even closer together, completely foiling Jinx’s attempt without even realizing it.

Honestly, she doesn’t even know what he’s foiling exactly. Because Ekko and her are always close, practically always touching too. Jinx just doesn’t know when it went from something as natural as breathing, to something she’s annoyingly aware of. 

“Well, for starters–”

“Ekko!”

Jinx’s mood plummets at the chipper, teeth-grindingly familiar voice that interrupts him mid-sentence.

Seraphine walks up to their table–looking as bright and sparkly as ever–and it takes everything in Jinx’s power not to chuck the empty Mountain Dew can at her.

“Oh, hey there Jinx!” Seraphine smiles, while Jinx does her very best to glower at her until she hopefully does a one-eighty and leaves. It’s not working but at least Seraphine’s smile becomes more strained, so that ought to count for something.

Jinx can feel the both of them expectantly staring at her, and she’s perfectly content to let them until eventually Ekko subtly shakes her and she begrudgingly spits out, “Hi.”

“What’s up, Sera?” he greets with a nod of his head. Jinx wants to gag at the nickname.

“Oh, I was just…” Seraphine’s eyes briefly flicker toward the arm Ekko still has slung over her shoulder, and Jinx is suddenly filled with the strangest urge to lean deeper into the touch. She pushes the feeling down instead. “Sorry. Am I interrupting something?”

“Nah, I was just–” he abruptly stops when Jinx suddenly pulls away from him, removing his arm from her shoulder. “I was, uh, helping Jinx with her term paper…Why?”

“Oh, it’s nothing!” Seraphine, either oblivious or indifferent to the tension between them, just flutters her eyelashes and smiles at him. "I just recorded some new songs and wanted to see what you think, but it’s no biggie if you don’t have time right now."

Ekko turns to Jinx as he answers, "Yeah, we’re a little busy here. Maybe later?"

Jinx is decidedly not looking at him–at either of them, for that matter. She’s busy focusing on her damn term paper, not on something as stupid as the way Ekko has his arms folded over the table now, showing off his biceps a little too well. 

Nope. She doesn’t even notice it. Instead, she completely ignores that she can still see him from the periphery of her vision, and continues to glare at her laptop screen.

And a treacherous voice in her mind whispers that he's blowing off Seraphine because he pities Jinx; because he feels some stupid sense of obligation to stick by her when she's struggling with something. Even when he’s clearly showing off his arms to Seraphine in some weird peacock-like mating ritual because he wants to date her. Seraphine must want to date him too, if her coy looks and saccharine smiles are anything to go off of.

…Yeah, she remembers why she was annoyed with him now.

Jinx can’t stand the sight of it–her own train of thought adding to her irritation–so she scoffs and turns back to him. “Not like you're much help, anyway. Last I checked, you don’t even think I’ll make the deadline."

"Hey, spite is a good motivator.” He shrugs, his demeanor much too easy-going when Jinx feels herself becoming more razor-edged by the second. “Maybe I’m just helping you out in my own way.”

“Why don’t you help me out some more by leaving so I can concentrate?” she snaps.

His brow twitches at her tone. “What’s with you all of a sudden?”

Jinx can see Seraphine’s eyes nervously darting between them. Ha, as if she wasn’t just looking at Ekko like some lovesick, moon-eyed village maiden. “Look, it’s really not a problem if–”

“It’s fine, just go!” she interrupts.

“Hey,” Ekko puts a hand on her arm and frowns when she pulls away from him, “seriously, what’s up?”

Her stomach twists uncomfortably at the look on his face–his expression troubled at her sudden outburst. Jinx forces herself to take a deep breath through her nose, trying to push down the festering bitterness that’s desperately clawing its way up her throat.

She has a habit of putting her foot in her mouth when she gets upset; a habit her therapist (weekly appointments at Vi’s insistence) has made her painfully and embarrassingly aware of. And she’s trying very hard not to say something that will most likely cause a fight. Because fighting with Ekko sucks, even if pissing him off is rather tempting at the moment.

“Nothing,” she says with more restraint than she feels. “This paper is just…stressing me out a lot. Go. Have fun with Seraphine and leave me alone.”

Jinx turns from him–from them both because she might actually bite someone’s head off if she has to look at their faces right now–frowning at her laptop with feigned concentration, despite her current inability to register any of the words on the page.

A beat of silence. 

“Do you really want me to leave?” he quietly asks.

“Yes.” She sighs, still not looking at him. “I just wanna focus, so go.”

For a moment he doesn’t say or do anything. Jinx is still adamantly staring at her laptop, and honestly, she deserves a fucking medal for not giving in to the urge to face him so she can snap at him and Seraphine.

“Alright,” he says after a while, gathering his things and getting up from their table. “Just hit me up when you wanna hang out again.”

“Yeah, yeah,” she dismissively waves her hand at him, “I’ll be fine. Go have fun yapping about sheet music, you nerds.”

Ekko snorts but doesn’t say anything after that, she briefly feels his hand squeeze her shoulder–the touch warm and steady, just like him–before he asks Seraphine if she wants to go somewhere else.

Seraphine turns back to Jinx to say, “Bye Jinx, good luck on your term paper!” before walking off with Ekko.

Jinx glares daggers at their retreating backs, quickly whipping her head back to her laptop screen when she sees Ekko turn to look back at her. She groans in frustration. This is so damn annoying. Jinx hates acting like this, feels pathetic when she does, but the fact remains that Ekko is popular. Too popular.

And for some reason (that she’s boiled down to forces of the universe hating her guts) he’s always getting hit on when she’s in the vicinity. Ever since he decided to take an elective in musical theory his string of…admirers has grown. Seraphine is only the latest addition to that list. 

Aside from her, Ekko has been getting rather buddy-buddy with the TA too. Sona or something? She always finds an excuse to pull him aside to give him some extra advice because he's "so talented" and "such a promising artist". Whatever that actually means. Jinx is pretty sure that Sona-chick is at least five years older than them too. Ugh. What a cougar.

Then there's Taliyah, an exchange student from…a place Jinx can't be bothered to remember, she was too busy glaring at Ekko to listen to his explanation–

Anyways, Professor Heimerdinger–who must've been dying to give her another reason to hate him–pulled Ekko aside after his lecture and asked if he would be kind enough to show their new student around campus to help her adjust. 

Being the paragon of virtue that he apparently is, Ekko agreed, and so their plans to eat lunch together were canceled. Instead, Jinx ate alone (willingly, at least, Dustin tried to sit with her but he was obviously hungover and stunk of sex and liquor, so she told him to piss off) while watching a moon-eyed Taliyah trail after him. 

And sitting next to him in every class they shared. 

And shyly asking for his number. 

Jinx wasn't sure who she wanted to kill more, herself or Taliyah.

Lastly, the one and only time Jinx let Ekko convince her to go to the gym together, he got hit on rather boldly by some girl, Rell, who had no reservations about letting Ekko know how much she enjoyed the view of him doing pull-ups. Then again, Rell also proceeded to eye up Jinx and asked if she planned to come around more often, so maybe she was just like that with everyone.

The point is, whenever she's hanging out with Ekko someone will inevitably try to make a move on him. And he always just smiles and lets them.

It's disgusting, frankly speaking. 

Jinx doesn't want to witness any of it. She and Ekko are friends for crying out loud, the best of friends, even. Who he's bumping uglies with is none of her business, and she'd love to keep it that way if life would stop screwing with her already.

So the best and only thing she can think of doing is leaving and avoiding him whenever it happens. Because the only alternative is getting mad at him (which ends up happening anyway, so she probably just sucks at that ‘removing yourself from the situation’ thing, sorry doctor Medarda) and okay, maybe that's not fair or rational or whatever but if she's pissed, she's pissed, alright?

Jinx peeks up from her laptop. Once she’s certain they're both gone, she packs all her stuff and gets up and ready to leave.

Knowing Ekko, he'll just come back sooner rather than later, insisting on talking out whatever their problem is–even when Jinx insists there is no problem. God knows it wouldn't be the first time. She's boiled it down to that stupid savior complex of his. Not that he’ll hear of it, stubborn as he is.

When she looks down at the table, she realizes Ekko left behind his bag of Skittles. They're her favorite candy, but not even that can save her horrific mood right now. She glares daggers at the bag, a rather pathetic alternative to glaring at Ekko.

With a frustrated groan, she snatches the candy off the table and stuffs it in her bag too, before she escapes to the one place Ekko wouldn't think to look for her: Zeri's dorm room.

-

Jinx knocks on the door. From the other side, she hears rustling and frantic footsteps. She frowns and knocks again. What the hell is Zeri doing in there?

Calling Zeri and Jinx friends would be the overstatement of the century. It’s more a simple case of: they both grew up in the same neighborhood and have a bunch of mutual friends, so it’s impossible not to know each other. And Jinx occasionally takes advantage of this weird dynamic when she needs to avoid Ekko. Zeri, for all her bitching and moaning, never turns her away. Hey, Zaunites oughta stick together, right?

Time passes and still no one opens the door. The long wait is doing nothing for her already horrid mood. She impatiently bangs on the door again and complains, “Stop dicking around, Zeri, I can hear you!”

A beat of silence. Then the sound of footsteps again, followed by the turning of a lock. Turns out it wasn't Zeri, after all.

“Akali?” she questions, taking in the grumpy, disheveled appearance of Zeri's roommate from where she's peeked her head out the door.

“What the fuck, Jinx?” Akali groans, blocking the view of her room with her body. "Zeri’s not even here."

"Well, I told her I was coming and she said it was cool, so…" She shrugs. Akali doesn’t move. Jinx raises an inquisitive eyebrow and asks, “Are you gonna let me in or what?”

Akali sighs but swings the door open entirely and doesn’t bother waiting for Jinx to follow as she spins on her heel and walks further into the room.

Jinx closes the door behind her, noting the contrast between Zeri’s relatively neat side of the room, opposed to the mess on Akali’s side with a curious frown. It's not as if Jinx herself is the tidiest person in the world, but usually, when she comes here, both girls seem to keep their dorm relatively neat.

Currently, Akali's sheets are completely askew, her duvet half hanging off the bed and pillows littering the floor. A shirt and boots, much too large to be her own, look like they’ve been hastily kicked underneath the bed...Jinx has a feeling she knows why Akali needed so long to open the damn door.

“Were you fucking someone before I got here or something?” she only half-jokes, grabbing one of the bean bags and dragging it to the empty spot between Zeri’s bed and the doorway.

"Don't be ridiculous, you just woke me up,” Akali scoffs, standing in front of her mirror as she straightens out her mussed-up hair. “Why are you even here?”

Jinx rolls her eyes at Akali’s unsubtle attempt to change the topic, but answers nonetheless, "I gotta finish my paper and I got nowhere else to go."

Because Ekko might find Jinx if she goes to the library instead. That's none of Akali's business, though.

Akali hums at her answer. Seemingly satisfied with her hair–not that Jinx can see a difference–she sits down on her bed, tapping her fingers against the bed frame and staring Jinx down before she asks, “So…how long are you staying?”

Jinx suspiciously squints at her. Oh, she was definitely fucking someone before she got here. That or she’s hiding a body somewhere in here. Either way, this is set up to be prime entertainment for Jinx. “I hang out here all the time. What's your issue all of a sudden?"

"Nothing," Akali says, but her shifty gaze and the nervous taps of her foot on the hardwood floor say otherwise. "Just curious.”

A muffled bang startles them both, their heads whipping toward the source of the noise: Akali’s closet. 

Their eyes meet. Jinx gives her a knowing look while Akali buries her head in her hands and groans.

"Just curious, huh?" Jinx rushes to open the closet door before Akali can stop her.

The guy hiding inside startles, hastily pulling his pants up, before whipping his head in Jinx’s direction, staring at her like a deer caught in the headlights.

"Uh, hi–" he blurts, stumbling out of the closet, "I'm Kayn?"

Jinx raises an unimpressed eyebrow, eyeing the Kayn-fellow up and down from his long black hair to his very exposed and chiseled torso. 

She shrugs, and says to Akali, “Least he's hot.” 

Kayn opens his mouth to retort, but before he can, Akali cuts through, "Thanks, I know. Now you,” she reaches for the shirt and boots underneath her bed and tosses them to him, “can go.”

He barely catches both before Akali has the door open and is pushing him out. Before she can close it, Kayn turns to her with a hopeful gleam in his eyes and says, “I’ll call you.”

Akali huffs an amused breath, shaking her head. “Why don’t you put on a shirt first?”

He grins at her, the both of them seemingly forgetting about Jinx. “See you around, Akali.”

“Yeah. Bye, Kayn,” Akali replies, her voice softening to a tone entirely foreign to Jinx, before she closes the door and turns back to her.

Jinx raises an amused eyebrow at Akali, who just rolls her eyes and grumbles, "Save it," before flopping back down on her bed. “Damn cockblocker…”

"Cockblocker, huh? So you knew about the guy hiding in your closet while you were sleeping or…?" Jinx teases, because, come on, how can she not?

"Haha, yeah, fine. I wasn't asleep. Happy now?" Akali groans.

"Extremely," she confirms, sitting down and reaching for her laptop. "So, that your man?"

Akali scoffs. "Who? Kayn? Don't be ridiculous.”

Jinx raises a skeptical eyebrow at her response. After that little Romeo and Juliet show by the door? Yeah, she's not buying it. Then again, she couldn't care less either way, so with a shrug, she turns her laptop on. "Whatever you say, toots."

Akali rolls her eyes but doesn't deign to respond. She simply moves to lie on her stomach and takes her phone from the nightstand.

Silence falls over the room–only broken up by the occasional tapping of Jinx's keyboard–and neither Jinx nor Akali seems inclined to break it. It's not as if they have anything to talk about. Their acquaintance is limited to the fact that they both know Zeri.

…But goddammit, Jinx is curious and there's an elephant in the room begging to be addressed.

"Oh come on, there's no way that's not your boyfriend," she insists, snapping her laptop shut.

"And yet," Akali counters, not even looking away from her phone, "he isn't."

"Really now?" Jinx says. "You're unusually nice to someone who’s just a fuck-buddy."

"And you're unusually nosy," Akali snaps, finally turning her head to glare at her.

They say curiosity killed the cat, and there must be some truth behind that because Akali certainly looks ready to kill. Jinx just gives her a sunny smile and opens her laptop again.

She’s already made peace with the fact that she'll never know what's up with Akali and her….whatever he is. Then Akali suddenly clears her throat and says, “It wouldn't work out anyway.” A beat of silence. "But he is hot so I'm just…getting him out of my system, I guess."

“Oh,” Jinx eloquently responds. Look, she was just being a little shit, alright? She hadn't actually expected Akali to open up about the thing.

"Well, I told you mine so tell me yours," she continues. "What's going on with you and your boyfriend?"

Jinx blinks, puzzled. “My who?”

“Your boyfriend? Zeri's always bitching about you two.” Akali looks nonplussed, like Jinx is the crazy one here for not knowing about her nonexistent boyfriend. “What’s his name again? Something with an E, right?”

Jinx gapes. Wait, is…is she talking about Ekko? Before she can retort, however, the door slams open.

"Oh my god, Kali, why did you let me take an elective in statistics?" Zeri groans in lieu of a greeting, unceremoniously dropping her backpack by the entrance. She only seems to notice Jinx after shutting the door. With a frown, she asks, “Wait– Jinx? What did Ekko do now?”

“Nothing!” Jinx insists, perhaps a little too intently for it to sound casual, before pointing an accusatory finger at Akali. “Why does she think we’re dating?”

Zeri turns to Akali, offended. “You think I would date this lunatic?!”

“Not you, dumbass!” Jinx reaches up to grab one of the Poro plushies at the foot of Zeri’s bed–nearly dropping her laptop in the process–before tossing one at her head. “I mean Ekko and me!”

The plushie bounces off Zeri’s head, who just scowls and argues, “Then you should’ve worded it better!” She picks the plushie off the floor and hurls it back at Jinx, who takes it straight to the face with an indignant squawk. “And don’t throw shit at me!”

Still lounging on her bed, Akali raises a curious eyebrow. “Wait. So they’re not dating? Seriously?”

Zeri scoffs, kicking off her shoes before moving to sit down on her own bed, opposite Akali’s. “If only! Maybe they’d finally stop being so annoying if they were.”

Jinx flushes–whether of anger or embarrassment, she isn’t sure. “You assholes know I can hear you, right?”

“We know,” they respond in unison. Jinx hopes they both trip over a ledge and twist their ankle.

“Okay, so go ahead and explain why you’re here then,” Zeri challenges. “Definitely has nothing to do with you avoiding Ekko for the billionth time this month, right?”

“I’m not avoiding Ekko!” Jinx insists, pointing down at her laptop screen. “I’m trying to finish my term paper, actually.”

“And you have to do that in our room because…?” Zeri trails off, seemingly unbothered by Jinx's obvious irritation.

Well, Jinx isn't unbothered. In fact, she's extremely bothered. And she doesn't exactly get why she's bothered, which just bothers her more.

“Because–” She blanks. Fuck. Stupid Zeri with her stupid fucking questions. Then, with utmost seriousness, she continues, “Because this room has a great aura…for studying.”

They're not wrong when they say one look can speak a thousand words because the skeptical yet amused looks she gets from both Zeri and Akali are honestly worse than any rebuttal they could’ve come up with.

“Oh, fuck you guys.” Jinx turns to her laptop again, the screen having gone dark after she's neglected it for so long.

God, she really does need to work on that term paper or she's screwed. If Jinx misses this deadline she'll have to suffer through Heimerdinger's lectures for another semester. And even worse, Ekko would be right. Which is already bad enough in itself, but also means she can't drink Mountain Dew for two whole weeks.

Of course, she can’t even attempt to do that, because from the bed, Zeri frowns at her phone and says, “Yup, now Ekko's texting me if I know where Jinx is. Who would've thunk it, right?”

Panic grips her, and before she can think better of it, she blurts, “Don't tell him!” 

Zeri and Akali both turn to look at her incredulously. Oh fuck. 

Jinx shuts her laptop with a long-suffering sigh. “...Okay, fine, I'm avoiding Ekko. Big deal! You guys never need space from your friends or something?”

In a disgusting turn of events, it's Akali who responds, “Whatever you say, toots,” because she’s evil and Zeri is a snitch who Jinx never should’ve trusted with any sort of personal information. 

She should’ve just done the reasonable thing: steal Caitlyn’s credit card and stay at various cheap motels over the course of the school year until everyone hopefully forgets about her existence (or until Caitlyn blocks the credit card).

“Susmaryosep,” Zeri groans, climbing off the bed to stand in front of Jinx, “I swear it's always the same shit with you two…”

Jinx's brow twitches in irritation. She stuffs her laptop into her bag before rising to her feet, and arguing, “Well, why do you care?!”

“I don't!” Zeri rebukes, frustration twisting her expression. “You guys just keep making your problems my problem! I swear…I should just lock you two in a supply closet somewhere. Maybe you'd stop being so annoying if you just boned it out like normal people.”

Jinx is not entirely sure the sound that leaves her throat is human. “I– Wha–” She spins on her heel to face Akali, face hot with indignation. “Are you hearing this right now?!”

“I have no stakes in this,” Akali shrugs, “I'm just here for the free entertainment.”

“Oh come on.” Zeri puts her hand on Jinx’s shoulder–rolling her eyes when Jinx immediately slaps it away–and sighs. “Look. Jinx. Friend-but-not-really-friend. Whatever’s going on with you and Ekko, you gotta fix it–”

“There’s nothing to fix!”

“–I’m being serious here!” Zeri grabs her shoulders so tightly it startles Jinx into silence. “Ekko’s not gonna say anything because he’s just as stubborn as you, but something’s gotta give! You get upset and avoid him, and then he gets upset that you’re avoiding him, and then I’m the one who’s gotta deal with you both!”

Zeri stops to take a deep breath and gather herself, before she finishes, “Now go fix it yourselves or…or I won’t let you into my room anymore, kuha mo?”

Don’t put your foot in your mouth, she desperately thinks, digging her nails into her fist, hard enough to sting–a last-ditch effort to keep herself from snapping. But it’s not working. The irritation that’s been simmering in her chest, boils over into pure rage. Because, seriously, who the fuck does Zeri think she is?

Jinx can’t deal with this right now. Any of it. She can’t deal with Zeri’s tired interrogations; with both her and Akali’s eyes on her like pinpricks on her skin; with that stupid deadline looming over her head; with all these shiny-eyed, pretty girls drooling after Ekko.

“Let me make it easier for you then,” Jinx eventually grinds out, yanking herself free of Zeri’s grip and grabbing her bag before she storms out of the room.

“Seriously?!” she hears Zeri yell from the doorway. 

Without turning back around, Jinx flips her off and keeps walking.

-

So Jinx’s prospects of successfully finishing that term paper in time are looking pretty damn bleak. After Zeri pissed her off, she’d taken the bus home (putting her phone on silent because Zeri wouldn’t stop fucking calling) stomped straight into her bedroom, slammed the door shut, and tried to channel that anger into productivity somehow.

Sadly, Jinx’s strategy had been woefully ineffective because her temperamental mood just gave her brain fog instead. Which left her staring at the page rather unproductively for much longer than she’d like to admit.

In a stroke of genius and exhaustion, she decided to corrupt the file instead and send it as is. There, by the time the old coot realizes he can’t open the document, she’d have plenty of time to actually finish her paper (hopefully).

Her anger eventually begins to set like the late evening sun, leaving her staring at the ceiling–painted in hazy hues of reds and oranges from the light spilling in through the windows–while she contemplates everything Zeri had said to her.

Now that her anger has waned, Jinx can begrudgingly admit (at least in her head) that Zeri might be onto something…She’s still going to ignore her texts and calls, though. Because even if she has a point, she’s still a nosy traitor who had no reason to air out Jinx’s business like that.

Jinx buries her face in her hands, smothering a cry of frustration. Seriously, what the fuck is she even supposed to do about this situation? She’s ignored one too many of Ekko’s texts to pretend everything is still normal. Not to mention, not talking to him just plain sucks.

With a sigh, Jinx pats the side of her bed until she eventually grasps her phone, turning the sound back on, opening the messenger app to see what he has sent her (still dutifully ignoring Zeri's messages at the very top of her notifications).

SAVIOR BOY  Hey i came back after i was done helping Sera but u werent around? U in the library? Ok i dont see you in the library either… Are u busy? Hmu when u wanna hang

Guilt squeezes at her heart until it hurts, but unfortunately feeling bad hasn't done her any favors. Because she knows that whatever she's feeling isn't rational, knows that she's being unfair – but what is she supposed to do with knowing? It hasn't stopped her from feeling the way she does every time she's around Ekko. 

He's still her best friend, though, and...Jinx honestly wouldn't know what to do with herself if he ever stopped being her best friend. Maybe the way she’s acting will prove to be the final straw, that which finally makes him tire of and give up on her.

Jinx just doesn't know how to behave normally around him anymore; how to stop getting so irrationally angry every time someone else tries to vie for his attention; how to get this feeling out of her system.

With a gasp, she shoots upright in her bed. Lightning strikes in the distance as, with sudden clarity, Jinx gets hit with an idea on how to fix this…Alright, so lightning didn't actually strike in the distance but Jinx has such a good idea it might as well have.

A plan concocts itself in her brain. One that’s perhaps a little insane, but hey, aren’t her best ideas always? Jinx bites her lip and turns the idea over in her head. Zeri might be an idiot but…that stupid joke she made about “boning it out” hadn’t been too off-track.

Besides, isn’t Akali doing something similar? Something something about getting it– him (Kayle or whatever his name was, not important anyway) out of her system. 

Maybe that's what she needs. Maybe she should just take a page out of Akali's book and try…to get Ekko out of her system, so to speak, so she can start acting normal around him again instead of ruining their friendship.

….No. That's ridiculous. Sacrilegious even. Ekko's her friend, her best friend at that. They can't, they shouldn't–

Jinx collapses back on the bed, lifting up her pillow and smothering her face in it so she can scream into the void.

As if tuned into her misery, her phone vibrates beside her. Curiosity gets the better of her and Jinx decides to take a momentary pause from self-strangulation to check what it is. It better not be Zeri again.

SAVIOR BOY ? U know your read notifs are on right? Are you mad at me?

…Maybe it would've been better if it was Zeri. She locks her phone again and sighs in frustration.

Alright relax Jinx, what could one hook-up between friends really hurt? 

The thought makes her think back on her first hook-up, nose wrinkling at the memory. Born mostly out of curiosity–and a desperation to just lose her damn virginity already after high school graduation–Jinx thought it was awful. She washed her hands off the experience and concluded the whole sex and dating thing just wasn't for her, ‘cause she sure didn't get the hype behind it all.

…Okay, well, she reached that conclusion after trying a few more times, just in case. Her ideas just seem much better when she’s drunk, alright? And though the encounters weren’t as disastrous as her first time, she still didn’t get it.

But, hey, say she and Ekko hook up (which still feels blasphemous to even consider) and the sex is bad, wouldn't that be better? Surely a bad hook-up would get this weird and uncomfortable feeling out of her system, right? Somehow, that thought makes her feel vaguely disconcerted– 

But that’s not important right now, she's getting ahead of herself. Jinx can go back and forth on this all she wants, but unfortunately, it takes two to tango. So the most important step in getting Ekko to sleep with her is probably getting him to want to sleep with her. 

Then again, that couldn't be so hard, could it? He’s still just a man at the end of the day. Sure, she doesn't have a figure like Sona's, a face like Rell's, or Taliyah's height, for that matter. And she may have freckles and dark circles compared to Seraphine's clear, unblemished skin but–

Okay, that actually made her feel way worse but the point is, it can't be that hard to seduce a guy, right? Even if it's Ekko.

…Fuck it.

Frustrated, Jinx reaches for her phone and shoots Ekko rapid-fire replies before she can think better of it.

You ok 1 im NOT mad i was working on my paper dur 2 stop stalking my read notifs 🔫🔫 and 3 lets hang tmrw  afternoon @ my place wanna study chem together?

Alright, that’s one thing out of the way. She breathes a sigh of relief, a weight lifting off her shoulders, and tosses her phone back down beside her.

There’s no point in checking her texts again. She knows Ekko and knows there's no way he’ll decline her proposition. It's the other proposition she intends to give him on the day itself that has her worried.

Jinx rolls around to lie on her side, sighing as she hugs her pillow to her chest for a semblance of comfort that she’s too embarrassed to seek out from Vi or, god forbid, Caitlyn.

…Oh shit, she needs to get Vi and Caitlyn out of the house tomorrow.

-

"Sooo," Jinx starts as nonchalantly as she can, while heating hot chocolate in a pan, "finally Saturday, am I right? You lovebirds got any exciting plans for today?”

Vi frowns in consideration as she chews on her pancakes, not bothering to swallow the food down before she replies, "Not really, why?"

"Oh, no reason, really," Jinx says super casually. Just as she very casually pours the hot chocolate into two cups, one for her sister and the other for her dumb girlfriend. She’s even made sure not to put whipped cream on Caitlyn's drink because she doesn't like the taste.

When she sets them down on the counter, they both eye the cups incredulously. Caitlyn even sniffs the drink, as if–somewhere between the journey from the stove to the kitchen island–Jinx had somehow laced it with poison. 

She rolls her eyes at the dramatics. Okay, at some point she may have totally considered poisoning Caitlyn. But as it currently stands, if Jinx wanted the woman to drop dead, she wouldn't have moved in with her and Vi, for crying out loud.

Vi moves her suspicious gaze from the hot chocolate to Jinx. "What are you up to, Pow?"

"Nothing," Jinx innocently assures, avoiding eye contact as she plays with one of her braids, "it's just that I was gonna invite Ekko over for a study session, and I was worried it might be…distracting if you guys are around."

"Oh, okay.” Vi shrugs, going for another bite of her pancakes. 

Then her head whips back up to look at Jinx, so fast it’s a miracle it didn’t go flying off her neck. 

“Oh– Oh my god, Jinx," Jinx flinches as Vi's utensils hit the counter with a clang and squirms under her sister’s heavy, concerned gaze, "please tell me you have condoms."

"Ew, what the hell, Violet?!" Jinx flushes at her sister's assumption. Even if she has, embarrassingly enough, reached the right conclusion.

"Don’t ‘Violet’ me!” she argues, her hands flying as she talks, the way they always do when she gets upset. “This is important! If you’re old enough to have sex, you gotta be old enough to use a condom too because I am not about to become an aunt at the ripe age of twenty-four. Does Ekko–"

"Vi!" she interrupts, burying her head in her hands. God, this is so fucking mortifying. "We're just studying."

Vi gives her a pointed look that makes Jinx nervously bite down on her lower lip. Vi just insistently keeps staring her down, raising a single, disbelieving eyebrow. The silence feels heavy, and eventually, Jinx breaks under the pressure.

With a groan, she reluctantly supplies, "...Yes, I have condoms. And I’m on birth control! Which you know."

Vi sighs in relief, picking up her knife and fork again, and casually slicing into her pancakes as she says, "Good, we'll be out of your hair, then."

Seated beside her, Caitlyn simply groans as she sets down her now-empty cup of hot chocolate, and says, "I really did not want to witness this conversation first thing in the morning."

-

It’s already well past noon when Vi and Caitlyn finally make their way out of the house (with Vi making assured proclamations that they won’t return until very late, making Jinx want to scream). Once she recovers from the mortification of having an older sister who knows she’s about to (attempt to) have sex, Jinx rushes to her bedroom and considers what her next step should be. 

Because it occurred to her, perhaps belatedly, that she has no fucking clue how to actually seduce someone. In her defense, this isn’t something she actively has to worry about whenever she’s drunk. She considers, momentarily, whether or not a little liquid courage would do her any favors.

Then she remembers that just last week Ekko had found her shit-faced and passed out at some dingy frat party with her cheek glued to a toilet seat (which she knows happened because the fucker texted her a picture of it the next day when she refused to believe him) before he had to haul her ass home, and thinks better of it.

She decides to start simple by taking a shower, during which she spends an embarrassingly long time scrubbing her skin raw and shaves more thoroughly than she ever has in her entire life.

Once she’s out of the shower, insecurity creeps its way into her mind as she does her skincare routine. She doesn’t want to do it, but still can’t stop herself from critically assessing her body during the process. Something sinks in her chest when she finds it lacking.

Jinx knows she’s not a supermodel by any means. She’s short and skinny, with pallid skin littered with so many scars that they disrupt the ink of her tattoos–but she generally doesn’t give a shit about any of that. In fact, most days she thinks she’s pretty damn hot.

So why is it that now of all times her body is making her doubt her own attractiveness?

…Why is it now that she’s worried whether or not Ekko even finds her attractive?

Fuck, this is so annoying. Can’t her brain just work with her when she needs it to? Jinx futilely tries to push these feelings down, instead, she rakes both her closet and brain over what to wear.

Should she try to dress cute? What if she does and Ekko thinks she’s weird? But what if she’s dressed too casually and he won’t even consider sleeping with her? …Then again, has he ever considered it?

Okay, shit, she has to focus.

She closes her now nearly empty closet and turns back to her room with a frustrated sigh. Her bedroom looks like it survived an explosion, a wreckage of clothing everywhere, from her desk to her bed to…the bookshelf…somehow?

Jinx petulantly kicks at one of her jeans on the floor and redirects her efforts to drying her hair instead. God knows that’s already a chore and a half. She hasn’t cut her hair since middle school and it shows. The full length of it reaches her thighs and gets in the way of practically everything if she doesn’t dutifully braid it.

When it’s finally all dry, Jinx is in the midst of putting her hair in a simple, thick braid when her phone vibrates beside her. She taps the screen to read the message and nearly has a heart attack when she does.

SAVIOR BOY Hey  Be there in 30 min

[lilymoonlily]

Arcane modern AU with eventual Timebomb focus - updated! (Rated E)

[typewriteringalaxy]

it's for the Match Made In Heaven AU and if yay, feel free to drop ideas bc I'm struggling lol

[kaechu1]

modern au arcane!!

jinx: of course I'll go with you ekko!

ekko: you will?

jinx: yea! as friends!

ekko: of course as friends!

jinx: but no tongue!

ekko: ye- wha...?

jinx: oh fine~ with tongue~

ekko: WHAAAAAAAAAAA-

they kiss after this trust

[seasimss]

ᯓ★ not an oops, after all pt. 1

jinx and ekko were just talking and things happened