LANGUID
slow, listless
Jinx used to take things. Jinx used to take lots of things. Pills, mostly. Powders. Drinks, sometimes. But never needles. No, no. Never again needles. So, pills. She liked to get high. It made the thinky-think thoughts stop think-think-thinking. It was nice. Everything got all quiet, and floaty, and slow.
She almost overdosed once. She woke up sometime later in someone else's bed. That's how she met Zac. He had found her passed out in a gutter. Twitch made a complaint, apparently. He figured she was dead and her corpse would back up the sewage for miles. It wasn't good for business or whatever it was plague rats got up to. But she wasn't, in fact, dead and Twitch can go dunk his nose in antiseptic. When Zac swung by, a quick check up told him she was only passed out. He decided to take her home with him. Not in a creepy rapist sort of way, but because addicts had a tendency to disappear from hospitals and Zac is actually as soft as he looks - no matter what he says.
By the time she was coherent again, she was laid up all nice and pretty in the guest room. Zac's parents were the picture of kindness and hospitality, always asking if she was okay, if she needed anything - really, anything at all. It freaked her out. They invited her to a sit down sort of supper, with smiles and - and pleasant conversation! But she was having none of that. She booked after the table was set.
Ever since, Jinx put a stop to her pills and her powders and her drinks. She dropped it all cold turkey. It was the worst fucking idea she ever had. But it wasn't because of Zac, or the close call, or anything like that. She wasn't scared of overdosing. She's always been on that knife's edge short of suicidal.
It was just, after everything before, after the white rooms and the clipboards and the tests, Jinx swore never to lose control. She hated blacking out and waking up to learn things were done to her when she had no idea. She hated wanting the stuff, hated feeling like she needed a fix every single day, hated needing. She wasn't gonna be a user and she wasn't gonna be used. No, no, no, no, no, no. So, she quit. Just like that. Well, of course, not just like that. She wants sometimes.
She wants when the thinky-think thoughts come back. She wants when Graves walks by and the scent of tobacco gets her dizzy. She wants when the walls start closing in, when her stomach threatens to climb up her throat, when she can't breathe - holy fucking shit, she cannot breathe.
She stops wanting around Lux. When she's with Lux, she gets the same sort of quiet, floaty, slow feeling, like she got high. Except, there's no pills or powders or needles. Just Lux.
And now, she wants Lux.
Jinx swallows, watching the famed Lady of Luminosity dance about the Rift. She can feel sweat in the creases of her palms, a chill ghosting over the back of her neck. Jinx grits her teeth, curling her fingers into fists.
She wants.