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Piltover's golden and glittering in the night like it always is, Jinx sneaking along the roofs. She used to hate being up here, Mylo whispering insults as Sevika said the same things directly to her face, the weight of Silco's expectations settling on her shoulders, the memories she couldn't just shove down like she was supposed to. Now, though, she looks over the skyline with something almost like fondness.
She'd still set it ablaze, though.
After the spotlight she's hiding from moves onto another place, she hops and climbs her away up balconies and off roofs until she gets to her goal. It's as shiny as the rest of the city, but she doesn't spare it a glance, opening the unlocked door and fiddles with the stupid Piltovian lamp until the room lights up.
Then her heart falls to somewhere near her stomach. "Caitlyn?"
"Jinx," Caitlyn says, but it doesn't sound like it normally does, maybe exasperated, maybe affectionate, maybe breathless. Instead, it's shaky, weak. She's curled in the blankets, so Jinx can't see all of her, but she can see a couple things right away. The bruising on her arm (already a deep purple even though Jinx only saw her this morning, spanning almost her entire forearm), the red on her face, the tears gathering at the corner of her eyes.
Without another word, Jinx grabs her gun out of its holster and starts climbing back out the balcony. She's going to kill--everyone? Everyone. The stupid fucking Councillor that's supposed to be her friend and didn't stop this, the useless enforcers, the--
"Wait," Caitlyn says. Mylo snarls at her that she's a coward when she listens to her, but whatever. Nothing new. "Can you--hold me?"
She sounds like asking for it isn't easy, so while Jinx would normally tease her for saying something like that, she doesn't want to. Weak, whispers someone that sounds like Silco, but she waves it off and climbs in bed with Caitlyn. Caitlyn winces, and Jinx tries to be gentle, slow and steady in how she holds her.
"I won't break, you know."
"Yeah, well." Jinx doesn't say what Claggor's muttering, which is that Jinx could probably find a way even if Caitlyn wasn't so fragile right now. "Will you tell me what happened?"
Caitlyn's quiet, which isn't like her. Not around Jinx, anyway. "I don't want to talk about it."
Jinx's fingers twitch around Caitlyn's waist, but she doesn't pry, just cuddles a little closer, and says, "Wanna hear something funny?"
Caitlyn sighs. Jinx's jokes haven't exactly been her sense of humor. "Fine."
Jinx blows a raspberry against Caitlyn's neck, startling Caitlyn into laughter even as she shoves Jinx off. "Fuck off, you know I'm ticklish."
"Yeah," Jinx says, grinning at her. "That was a fun day."
Caitlyn huffs out her disapproval, but she's almost smiling, happy with Jinx, which makes all of this worth it. Besides, she'll tell Jinx at some point. Maybe not tonight, maybe not tomorrow, but Jinx'll find out who did this.
Then she'll remind them why this city is terrified of her.
Caitlyn doesn't go to work the next morning, saying she's sick, which is how Jinx knows it's bad with a capital B. She also doesn't kick Jinx out like she normally would before the sun's up, which does kind of mean she's stranded here until nightfall. It does give Jinx the rare opportunity to sneak through her things like she hasn't had since before she kidnapped her the first time.
First discovery she makes is that the shower is just as nice as it seemed like it was when Caitlyn was taking forever, making Jinx redraw her monkey over and over and over again as the glass kept fogging up. She also finds that the surface of it does chip away with her knife, and she's able to sign her name and draw part of a drawing of Caitlyn before she's caught and Caitlyn bodily drags her out.
Jinx's hair always takes a million years to dry, and Caitlyn seems fascinated by it, running her fingers through it and keeping Jinx from braiding them. "Do you always braid it while it's wet?"
"I'm a busy woman, Sheriff!" Caitlyn's nose wrinkles, and Jinx powers on before she can bring up the same argument that she isn't, technically, Sheriff. She's in charge of the place, same difference. "I don't have time to wait for it. It turns out fine." Caitlyn smiles at her in the mirror; Jinx's cheeks go pink. "Shut up, it's the steam."
Caitlyn doesn't call her out for talking to Mylo anymore, either, just keeps playing with Jinx's hair. It distracts her enough that Jinx gets her first good look at the extent of her injuries. The bruises aren't exactly finger-shaped, but they're close, like maybe someone was wearing a glove--
Hm. Enforcer gloves, maybe. Hm. Hm.
Jinx's place down in Zaun has a store of enforcer clothes she's looted, but she can't leave in broad daylight unless she wants to get as shot up as someone on the other side of her minigun. Oh, her minigun. She should've brought that. Caitlyn starts braiding her hair so that Jinx doesn't have to reach around, and Jinx hums her contentedness with that.
"So what's it like up here lately, anyway?"
Jinx's tone is light and a little silly, but Caitlyn shoots her a look in the mirror anyway. "I'm still not telling you."
"Jeez, maybe I was asking about the weather. Or the desserts. Ooh, do you--"
"I already ordered something from that bakery you like," Caitlyn says, narrowing her eyes suspiciously. "If that's what you're asking."
"Yesssss."
"It's been...fine, I suppose. I've been busy with work."
"Of course you have been, Sheriff," Jinx says, nodding just to make Caitlyn grip her hair to get her to stop. "Anything cool?"
"I wouldn't describe my job as cool, Jinx."
"Booooooring," Jinx murmurs and occupies herself by seeing how many faces she can pull in the mirror before Caitlyn laughs at one. So far, the example seems to be at least twenty, because she's not that impressed. "They name you as Sheriff yet?"
If Jinx didn't know her, she'd have missed Caitlyn's little wince at that. "No. How's Zaun?"
Jinx chatters on about spray paint and chembarons and Shimmer-Shimmer-Shimmer, the beating heart of the undercity as much as Jinx is its--she doesn't know. Gun, she guesses. The metaphor falls apart, but whatever, she's a science lady, not a book lady, leave that to the blonde chick who's had her nose stuck in a book every time Jinx has seen her.
When Caitlyn shoos her out of the bathroom, braids done if a little wonkier than usual, Jinx waits for the shower to turn on before snooping. Caitlyn always keeps her files somewhere different every time Jinx finds them, but this time's different, because she doesn't intend on Caitlyn finding out she's found these.
There's a couple notes on corruption in here, because of course. Enforcers. People who wanted what Marcus had but are too stupid to make a deal with any of the chembarons that are left. She'd say it's the survival instinct to avoid going in Jinx's territory, but if that was it, they wouldn't touch Caitlyn. No one in the undercity does anymore. The last time someone did, she'd shoved a grenade into their mouth and kicked them into their base.
The streets had been stained red for weeks.
She gets a name and an address and a piss-poor motive (seriously, stealing money when you already live in Piltover?) and shoves everything back its hiding place, making sure it looks as pristine as Caitlyn left it before the shower shuts off. When Caitlyn walks out, just in a towel, Jinx is lying, half-hanging, off her bed, holding a book and pretending to read it. "Your taste in books sucks!"
"That's a journal. And it's empty, I never write in that thing."
"Hm...likely story. Bet it's invisible ink. Do you have a lighter?"
"Do not set that on fire." Caitlyn wrestles the book out of her hands because Jinx isn't really trying, and is a little distracted by the shine of water on her muscles, anyway. "You--why are you looking at me like that?"
"Hey, Caitlyn," Jinx says, keeping her voice low and raspy in the way that always makes Caitlyn shiver. "You still have those fuzzy cuffs?"
Caitlyn snores like Vi used to, probably still does, loud and ungraceful. Jinx presses a kiss to her forehead, her split lip leaving just a little blood there. "Be back in time for breakfast, okay?" She doesn't respond, still passed out, but Jinx feels better for having said it, sneaking out.
The address is further down. Not Zaun-down, but in a neighborhood where the houses aren't quite as luxurious as the Kiramman mansion. It's still more money than Jinx has ever had at once in her entire life, even when she had the bag of crystals with no idea what they were worth. The lock's no better, though, and she only has to sit through like two minutes of Mylo telling her she's a copycat and a loser before she's got it open and locked behind her.
"Zaaaaaaayne."
The enforcer sits up. "Hello?"
God, they're stupid. Can Caitlyn not pick her people better, or are these Marcus's holdovers? "Do you know what your first mistake was, Zayne?"
"Wh-who's there?"
Jinx lights and throws a match to light a candle on the other side of the room. He turns towards it immediately, giving Jinx the opportunity to rush behind him and get her arm around his neck, squeezing as he claws at her arm to try and get free. He runs out of air soon enough, though, arm going slack and drooling against her arm. She gags and drops him, wiping the drool off on his fancy sheets.
When Zayne wakes up, it's tied up and hanging from the ceiling, staring at a monkey bomb. "N-no...please, no..."
"You don't know what your first mistake was?" Jinx says from behind him just to watch him try to turn around. He does a really bad job, and she twirls her knife in her hand, presses it against where she's pretty sure the small of his back is. "Come on. What was your first mistake?"
"What do you want? Do you want money?"
Jinx snorts. "No. I'm not you, Zayne. You used to be trencher trash, right? Came up to Piltover for money and found you just didn't get enough, right? Poor guy." She makes mocking little sounds as she digs her knife in, just a little. "And that's spineless--ha, get it, because I could shove this knife between your vertebrae in, like, two seconds. Want to see?"
"Nononono, please--"
"Fiiiiiiiiine," Jinx says. "Soooooooo. That wasn't your first mistake. It was cowardly! Very cowardly. But people do that! People leave and join the Enforcers like they don't know what those people do. But you know what?" After a long pause, she shoves her knife in another inch. She has to talk louder to make sure he hears her over his screams. "That's where you say 'what, Jinx?'"
"Wh-wha--" He's snivelling a little too much to get it out, so she does the nice thing and waits for him to spit it out. "What, Jinx?"
All at once, she grabs the rope and pulls him onto her knife until it's sunk to the hilt and she hears an audible crunch. He screams, but doesn't thrash. Can't, with that connection severed. "You went after Caitlyn. I'm the only one who can do that. You enforcers. You think you can trample on everything of mine, don't you?" She pulls her knife out, stabs him again, and again, and again, and again--
Caitlyn wakes up under her blanket to see Jinx's face. This would've been cause for concern, once, but now she's almost got butterflies at the fact that she stayed. "Good morning."
"Morning!" Jinx says. "I snuck into the kitchen to get those pastries I like, want one?"
"Mm. Sure." Caitlyn sits up and stretches, the tug in her muscle about half as painful as yesterday, which is to say, it still hurts like a bitch. "Thank...you..." It's then that she notices Jinx is covered in blood, her sheets staining red in a way that's never going to wash out. She yelps and throws herself forward. "What happened? Did someone catch you, we need to get you to a--"
"Relaaaaax," Jinx says, folding her hands over Caitlyn's. "I brought you breakfast in bed, eat! Besides, I'm not hurt."
"You're..." That's the nightmare scenario. "Wh-who?"
"Oh, no one in the house," Jinx says, waving that off and pushing Caitlyn off her. "And I cleaned up the footprints, too. Not, like, super well, so try not to have a crime scene in here anytime soon." She snorts. "Well, another one."
"Jinx, who?"
Jinx smiles at her, expression sweet and innocent as though she hasn't left bloody handprints on Caitlyn's wrists. "No one gets to hurt you, Caitlyn." Her eyes sparkle, pink and pretty, like she's done something romantic. From her perspective, maybe she has. "You know, I'll take your breakfast if you don't eat it soon."
Caitlyn stares blankly at her holding out the pastry, bloody hand directly on the thing. She could vomit. "You can't--"
"Of course I can," Jinx interrupts. "Just ask Vi, we always used to steal each other's food."
"Jinx--"
"Caitlyn," Jinx says, in that voice that always gets her, the edges of it harsher than she remembers it being. "I took care of a problem. That's all."
A laugh bubbles up in Caitlyn's chest. "You--"
"He hurt you," Jinx says, suddenly vicious. "No one gets to do that. No one."
Caitlyn stares at her, horrified. "Jinx."
"Hat lady."
"Please. Don't do this to anyone else."
Jinx leans in, presses a quick, coppery kiss to the corner of her mouth. Caitlyn feels like gagging. "Sure. People should get the message after this one, anyway."