Jinx sits on the edge of Ekko's bed, taking in his features. He is still unconscious, still exhaling raspy breaths. This close, she can see the sweat dotting his forehead. He's burning up.
She steps away from him, towards the nightstand where the guards had placed a cup of ice water and a plate of food, both left untouched. She rummages through the nightstand drawers and finds the clean pieces of cloth that she had found earlier. Then she drips her cup of water over the cloth until it is saturated and icy.
Her shoulder aches with every motion, but she doesn't care. Her stomach grumbles, and that matters even less.
Jinx leans over Ekko, perhaps closer than she needs to be. Her hand brushes his hair away from his face, then slides down to caress his cheek. Even unconscious, he leans into the caress. Then she presses the cold fabric over his face and neck, watching him shiver under her touch.
She'll leave the cloth on his forehead to keep him cool, but first she can't help herself. She leans down further, and tenderly kisses his forehead.
Ekko's shivering calms down. His breath relaxes. But he's still unconscious.
If only she could do more.
Jinx sighs, glances at the window and spots a guard peering through the window. That guard had taken the time to ask her about her health and her needs. She took the time to learn his name and who he is.
His name is Roan. He was wanted for robbing a Piltie's house to provide for his three young siblings. The Firelights gave him sanctuary and kept him from Stillwater, but not before the enforcers gave him a gnarly scar along his jaw.
When Jinx sees Roan without his mask, he is nodding towards Ekko. She gives him a sad smile and a small shake of the head.
Roan speaks across the door. "Understood. Let me know if you need anything."
Jinx casually salutes him and smiles with more warmth. "You got it boss."
Roan smiles and salutes back, before walking away to tend to something else around the safe house. He and the other guards have made it clear that she can only leave after Ekko wakes up. It's up to him and Scar to decide what to do with her.
But she'll stay as long as she needs to make sure Ekko will be okay.
She misses him so much it hurts. Even as he lays beside her, he might as well be oceans apart. So she stays beside him, lost in her thoughts, holding his hand and tracing his palm as if memorizing his features could heal him.
"…Jinx?" A soft rasp rattles her.
Her heart leaps in her chest. It's the moment she's been desperately waiting for, but she still feels unprepared when she turns to see Ekko, groggily awakening. Jinx's brain becomes a tangled mess trying to find all the things she should say to him.
"You're alive." Ekko whispers in pure relief, as if he's the one who has been worrying for her safety.
She would laugh if she wasn't so overwhelmed. Instead Jinx grips his hand tighter and basks in the sight Ekko of recovering.
"I'm here. I'm not going anywhere." She finally manages to speak.
Ekko smiles at her and it's as if they're back in their apartment, back when their time together was an uncomplicated series of adventures and they could just live.
Then he looks away, observing the room that they're in and her fond memories feel distant again. Recognition replaces the joy on his face. He must know where they are. He must be piecing together what happened, remembering how she fought his allies, how she almost killed him.
Ekko is about to reject her. Of course he is. How could she be stupid enough to expect anything different? And if he won't despise her immediately, then it's only a matter of time.
Everyone betrays us… Silco's mantra echoes in her head.
Jinx pulls her hand away and moves to give Ekko the space he needs to hate her. Then a lurching groan of pain sounds out. Jinx flinches with worry to find Ekko cringing with discomfort, trying to get up.
In an instant, she's back at his side, holding him by the shoulder and soothing him, "Hey, shh, don't move too much. Do you need me to get you something?"
Ekko smiles as if he were stifling a laugh. "I was just trying to get closer to you."
Jinx looks at him incredulously. He lays his hand on the one she placed on his shoulder and leans his cheek against her skin. His eyes are so kind to her, so inviting. They make her want to crawl under the sheets and cuddle and pretend that the outside world had disappeared and all that existed was his warmth. But she can't. The nights when she could do that are gone.
"How could you want me anywhere near you?"
She pulls her hand back and as it slips away, he tightens his grip just slightly, just enough for their hold to linger a second longer.
"I fought your friends. I nearly killed you. I – I ruined everything…"
Ekko takes a deep, patient breath. His eyes never leave her, they never lose their softness. "They're alive. Aren't they?"
Jinx draws the memory of when she saw the Firelights land in front of her. Every one of them was accounted for. Alive. She nods.
Ekko gives her a smile that blankets her in a comfort far warmer than she deserves. He says, "Then you haven't ruined anything."
"Everyone I love right now is alive. That's what matters." He continues, patting the empty space beside him. "And I'm cold and shivering and all I want to do is hold you and be thankful that you're here with me. Is that so wrong?"
Their relationship is over. Or it was supposed to be. He's not supposed to suggest huddling for warmth. She's not supposed to want to agree. But here they are. Ekko really is shivering despite his fever, and the desire to comfort him is winning over her resistance.
"It won't be the same as it used to be. Are you okay with that?" Jinx asks, hesitantly easing into the idea.
He nods, "I'm okay with that."
The truth is, she has wanted to join him in his bed since she first woke up. Jinx is drawn to Ekko the way that the ocean is drawn to the moon, two forces of gravity creating the tides.
Before she can talk herself out of it, she lifts the blanket and slides underneath. He slowly maneuvers to face her and give her more room. He purses his lips, careful to not show the discomfort the movement causes.
Jinx was right, it's not the same, not exactly. They lay on their sides and their bodies keep their distance from each other, an invisible red tape between them. She had decided that this is how close they will be and he respects the boundary she's placed.
But that longing to be closer, the way that Jinx's body has craved contact and comfort, that has stayed the same even after all this time. As a salve for her craving, he places an arm on her waist and she lets him, then she traces her fingers over the bandages on his abdomen, where the bandages do nothing to hide the taut muscle underneath.
They stay like that for a few long moments, his thumb idly stroking her waist, sending pleasant shivers down her thighs, and her fingers tracing his chest. A peaceful truce announced through an easy silence.
Ekko is the first to speak again. "I keep thinking about when we broke up. I was such an idiot that night."
She smirks at him. "Yeah, not noticing the bombs was pretty stupid of you."
He laughs and, despite the pain it draws from him, it is such a sweet sound. "Well, yes, but that's not what I meant."
His laughter settles down and, instead of continuing, he lifts Jinx's fingers and brings them to his face, kissing them. The languid motion draws her eyes to his lips as her hand lingers there.
"I should have corrected you, told you how wrong you were," He says softly.
"About what?" She inches closer to him, leaning into her curiosity. She had almost forgotten how natural it feels to relax in his presence.
"You told me to stop trying to fix you. I need you to know that I was never doing that." His voice lowers to a whisper, a quiet promise. "I love you exactly as you are."
Jinx can feel his soothing breath on her hand, still warm from his kiss. This time, she doesn't pull away. "...I don't understand how you can still say that. You, of all people, should hate me."
He lays there, studying her, lost in thought for a span of time they can only measure in breaths. One, two…
"Do you remember the first time you fought the Firelights?" Ekko finally says.
It was so long ago, but with some effort, Jinx can conjure the memory. Near the entryway of the silver mines, Silco was negotiating with a sickly woman who would later become a chembaron, and he had wanted Jinx and Sevika beside him. She had only done a handful of missions before then.
The Firelights must have found out about the deal. The masked men flew in and ambushed them, and now that Jinx is thinking about it, one of the Firelights did wear a skull mask. She had almost shot Ekko that day and never even realized it.
"I was so…" Ekko's brows scrunch together as he looks away from her, frustration creeping into his voice. " furious with you…"
Jinx wants to say sorry, to say something, anything. But she can't atone because she doesn't deserve his forgiveness, so instead she prepares to receive the anger that she does deserve.
"Before that day, all of your training with… him seemed so abstract, it didn't feel real. " Ekko continues and every word pierces Jinx like a needle. "I saw the violent side of you beside that horrible man and it felt like you transformed overnight. My friends almost died that night. But then, do you remember what happened the next day?"
She shakes her head, unsure.
"That was the day we stole our record player." Ekko smiles again, his anger melting away.
Now she remembers that day easily. Jinx can already feel herself being transported to that memory, and she can see it happening in Ekko too as he continues, dimples lingering on his cheek.
"We had plans to meet in Piltover, and I was preparing to end things between us."
Her breath catches in her throat. "I had no idea…"
"Yeah," Ekko chuckles and kisses her hand again, reassuring her, "But as soon as I arrived, you hugged me and kissed me and told me how excited you were. And I thought to myself 'Maybe just one more adventure.'"
Jinx is still reeling from his revelation, but finds herself smiling back at him anyway. "That would have been one hell of a last adventure."
"Gods, that heist was a total shitshow."
They laugh together, and as she feels the sweetness of Ekko's laugh, she can practically see the moment when their music store heist fell to pieces, the moment when she was staring down the barrel of a gun.
"Don't move!" The store clerk barks behind his brass pistol, his combed mustache twitching with each syllable. The brass of his gun and the red of his hair match the decor of the shop around him, as if he designed the place to look like his gun and his hair.
"Jinx," Ekko mutters under his breath, hands raised, a bag full of Piltie record music slipping from his shoulder, "I thought you scoped out the place."
"I did!" She hisses back. Jinx would have her hands raised too if she wasn't awkwardly hugging the horn of a record player. Maybe she was taking the 'Don't move' command too seriously. "Just go to Plan B!"
"What the hell is Plan B?"
"That's enough!" The clerk yells, "Worthless trenchers, I won't have your thieving and scheming in my store any longer!"
The clerk inches backward, stealing glances down at his telephone, careful not to lower his gun or give them a chance to escape. But the thieves aren't exactly waiting for the clerk to give them anything. They take their chance.
Creeaakk. A tall, wooden shelf tilts downward, straight towards the clerk. Ekko stops pushing the shelf just as music books and trinkets plop down around the clerk, who flails his hands, afraid of his own merchandise.
Jinx bolts out of the store entrance with Ekko right behind her, awkwardly clutching the record player to her chest. " That was Plan B!"
"That was just made up!"
"Exactly!" She winks back at him as she runs through the clean, cobblestone streets of Piltover. She runs past men and women in beige tophats and purple dresses, each exasperated and gasping as she shoves past them.
The clerk must have given up using his phone and resorted to yelling in the street instead, because she can hear his shouts in the distance, followed by the metallic clatter of enforcers.
Ekko pumps his legs faster and catches up to her. "Race ya!" He challenges with a carefree smile. "Last one back has to buy dinner!"
"Oh ho ho, you're on!"
"Damn," Ekko chuckles beside Jinx. "We worked way too hard for those records, and half of them were broken."
"Only because you broke them during the escape!" She teases.
"And somehow you still beat me back home!"
Home.
There's a bittersweetness to remembering that their apartment was once called home .
"I still don't understand," Jinx asks, "What does this have to do with not trying to fix me?"
By way of answering, Ekko asks, "Remember trying the records at home and hearing how bad they were?"
She nods. "It was all old-people music. I swear, Pilties have terrible taste."
"Yeah, and you were so frustrated that it didn't work out. So, as soon as we found a half-decent one, I took your hand just like this," he says as he weaves his fingers between hers, "and I pulled you close," then he inches closer until their chests press together.
Separated only by thin fabric, she can feel his chest expand and contract against her own. A reminder that he's alive and well. A wonderful presence right in front of her.
"Then we danced."
The neon lights of the city pass gently through the curtains, illuminating the apartment in hues of soft green and twilight blue. The curtains billow with the breeze, carrying the low rumble of the passing citizens below and the faint smoke in the air.
The power is out, so candles line the shelves, the counters, the nightstands. A dozen are spread on the headboard above the bed, those are her favorite ones.
On the dinner table, next to an empty takeout container, a vinyl record spins on the new record player. The music is faint but vivid, with the subtle distortion one can only get from old vinyl. A violin enters the air. Then a cello. Then a full orchestra waves in behind them.
Standing beside the kitchen counter, Ekko's face is illuminated in the candlelight as he says, "This one's not so bad."
"Sure, if you're old and wrinkly." Jinx leans against the counter and pouts. "I wanted something we could dance to."
"This is more like waltzing music."
"Neither of us know how to waltz, that's snobby Piltie stuff."
Ekko steps to her and weaves his fingers through her hand. "Can we try it anyway?"
She's about to say no before his arm slips around her waist and draws her into him. Her cheeks flush with heat, cured only by the gentle incoming breeze.
Then he starts swaying them to the rhythm. He tries to guide her by the waist in triangular, spinning steps, and it's awkward and off beat. But their closeness, their hands held together, and their lips just a tilt of the head apart, it all makes the awkwardness something to enjoy.
She steps on his foot. He laughs. She giggles and apologizes. He suggests balancing her feet on top of his. They try it and they stumble and they can't stop giggling at the silliness of it all.
Their foreheads rest together as their laughter settles. They trade their steps for a simple, gentle swaying. Jinx lays her arms over his shoulders. Ekko's hands relax around her hips and she soaks in his warmth.
And when the music ends, they're still holding each other, still swaying to the slow rhythm of their breaths.
Jinx steals glances up to his beautiful amber eyes and catches him doing the same. And when she kisses him, everything feels right because nothing else exists aside from the loving man in her arms.
No ghosts or shadows. No Zaun or Piltover. No chembarons or Firelights.
Just him, and only him.
She buries her head into his shoulder and breathes him in. He kisses her cheek, then her ear, then her neck. He holds her tighter, as if loosening his grip means losing her forever.
He holds her and he never lets her go.
"That night," Ekko says, drawing her back to the tenderness of the present moment, "was when I knew I could never give up on you, on us.
"Jinx, you are chaotic and devastating and it can be hard loving you when I know I shouldn't but I do. I love that you are chaotic because it's led to some of the most amazing experiences of my life. You are devastating in the most incredible way and I wouldn't want to change you for anything.
"I know that we can't go back to the way things were, but I don't want that anyway. I don't want to live in the past. I want to be right here, right now, with you."
She can't speak. She can't breathe. She doesn't know the depths of what she feels, only that it is conflicting and overwhelming and intoxicating all at once.
Inside, she can feel herself coming undone.
Ekko detects her unease and slips his hand around her waist, drawing her closer. Being near him comes so effortlessly that she wonders why she ever resisted it. They're pressed so close now that, of all the heat radiating from his body, all Jinx can focus on is the heat radiating from his lips.
Then she kisses him, a short and sweet caress of the lips, if only to relieve some of the tension inside her chest.
But you never realize how much you can miss someone until they're lying half-dead in front of you. Then you miss them even more the moment you get the chance to hold them again, to kiss them again, to feel their heart beat against your skin.
She forgets to breathe as she closes the space between their lips again. Air enters her lungs in hitched, staccato breaths. But she doesn't want to come up for air. She wants him. She needs him.
Her hand moves to the softness of his cheek, then through the coarseness of his hair, searching for more ways she can touch and feel more of his heat against her skin.
Their open lips play a delicate dance, pushing and pulling like the tides. Her tongue swipes and swirls against his, and the nerves at the tip of her tongue send heat and anticipation straight to her core.
"I love you so much it terrifies me," Jinx whispers breathlessly, before bringing their lips together again.
Ekko pulls away to softly ask, "What do you mean?"
I'm afraid of what happens when this is over.
I'm afraid of being a monster to you.
I'm afraid I'll lose you too.
There is a litany of fears she could share before she settles on one. Jinx's voice cracks as she says, "I'm afraid of hurting you again."
He caresses her cheek with a calloused hand she's come to love and wipes away a tear she didn't know was there. His amber eyes peer so deeply into her, as if reading all the thoughts and fears she couldn't give voice to.
"I promise you, whenever you're with me, really with me, there is nothing to be afraid of."
"I just don't know what to do anymore. I can't…" Jinx trails off, wishing she had the strength to say I can't go back to Silco, or I can't be who I used to be. The words are on the tip of her tongue, but the truth is still too difficult to speak aloud.
Ekko kisses her, a short kiss that tingles her lips and makes her crave more as he separates. "We'll figure it out, together." He says, the warmth of his body continuing to comfort her as he holds her close. "What matters is that right now we're here, we're alive, and it's okay to just revel in the moment."
She wants to be gentle, to keep from hurting him again, but right now she doesn't know how. She kisses him again, dissolving into him, forgetting where she ends and he begins.
Their legs tangle together, allowing them to slot and grind into each other, but when they kiss, no matter how much their bodies press together it never feels like enough.
She is drunk off of him. She is addicted to him. Ekko's arms pull her in, inviting her to partake, and his lips press back with such passion that any chance at keeping their distance disappears. Eager to close the last gap between them, she climbs on top him and –
His wounds! "Shit, I'm sorry!"
Ekko grunts in pain, but as soon as Jinx is off of him he's already laughing. "Damn. I didn't want that to stop."
Jinx enjoys his contagious laughter, ears hot with embarrassment. She bites her lower lip and says, "Me neither."
Ekko slows down to soak in the sight of her. They bask in the settling laughter together.
"Jinx…" He whispers, pleading with her, "I don't know what the future holds but I meant everything I said. Be with me, and you'll have nothing to be afraid of. We'll be okay."
She purses her lips, happy and afraid, as she nods and echoes back to him, "We'll be okay."
On the day after the music store heist, Ekko was lying in bed beside her, glowing in the morning light. Then she whispered to him "I love you" for the very first time. Ekko smiles now just as he did back then, with the same heartwarming, irreplaceable glimmer.
Some things never change. With Ekko's arm around her waist and his warmth against her lips, the outside world and all her demons evaporate into nothing. And yet this all feels new and exciting and terrifying. Jinx wouldn't have it any other way.
They continue to reminisce and cuddle and forget the time as it passes them by. At one point, in the middle of a laugh, Jinx notices Roan glance inside the room. Roan simply smiles at the sight of Jinx and Ekko cuddling, and he walks away.
No one else comes looking. No one interrupts this precious moment they have together.
Ekko's voice is a relaxed drawl as the trance of sleep calls him back to his recovery. "I love you," he whispers, and the words brush against her lips, then down, down, down into the core of her being.
"I love you too." She whispers back with a quick kiss on the tip of his nose.
He smiles as his dreary eyes flutter closed. Jinx will join him in dreams soon, but first she wants to follow his request from earlier, and simply revel in the moment.
She watches his features soften and as Ekko goes peacefully still, she places a long, languid kiss on his forehead. As Jinx finally falls asleep in his arms again, she knows that as long as she is with him, she is home.
Ahh, so many good feels. This chapter is a sigh of relief in written form, at least for me 😌
Now that we're this far into the story, I've been holding on to some internal thoughts about how this story was designed that I'd like to share. If you're not interested in author's notes that's totally fine, just know I'm grateful to you for reading (and especially grateful for those who comment 💗) and I hope you enjoyed it! Now some thoughts…
One of the cores of Jinx's trauma is the notion that she is unlovable. She posed the finale's dinner scene as a way of saying: "Here I am, in all my chaos. Vi, can you still love who I've become?" And one of the great tragedies was that the answer was "No". Vi was stuck in the past, couldn't understand Jinx's layers, and couldn't accept who her little sister had become.
Enter Ekko in this fic. He grappled with his own regrets, he mourned Powder by painting her, and he learned a lot when their apartment burned down; a big part of it all was that it taught him to stop holding onto the past and be who Jinx (and his people) need him to be in the present.
In his time with her, he's grown to understand and accept her trauma. And through their romantic scenes over the years, he has learned how her chaos can be something to love and cherish. This version of Ekko loves Jinx for who she is, not who she was.
Ekko's character arc is what I wish Vi could have gone through.
So this isn't a story of Jinx and Ekko falling in love, because here they never stopped loving each other. This is a story of Jinx learning that, despite her past, she is worthy of love and forgiveness. And when she tries to do the right thing she can find even more love from others, even if it takes a lot to get there and even if she makes mistakes.
Scar is a huge part of that journey. Even the scenes with Jericho in Ch 8, that was Jinx realizing that the past doesn't have to be a traumatic thing to avoid, but something you can face and still find love from.
And of course, there are many more layers here than what I've written in this note. Then there's the matter of her evolving relationships with Silco, with the rest of the Firelights, and eventually, with Vi.
I really hope that my writing speaks for itself, but I wanted to highlight all this anyway. If all this doesn't come through in my writing, then woops, I've got a lot of growing to do as a writer. But if it does, let me know how you feel about it. I'd love to know how I can improve my character development. I'm sure that this chapter has room for improvement too, but fuck it I'm happy with it.
As always, I look forward to sharing what happens next (whenever I can) and love you all for reading 💗
