Chapter Text
Prologue
Firelights Compound
Jinx sits, in actual grass, hugging her knees tight to her chest. The organic texture tickles her hips where her pants sit low and the smell of authentic earth sits heavy and foreign in her nostrils. She wonders if her body weight is hurting it. Not used to being around flora or fauna. She’s heard rumors plants are sentient, hopefully enough to forgive her later. The absence of gunsmoke and the ever-present aroma of chemical runoff from Piltover’s worldly indulgences makes her itchy, over alert.
She’s watching the slow rise and fall of Vander’s expansive chest, the steady tempo accompanied by a soft but gutteral, almost carnivorous snore. A murderous sort of purr, Jinx chuckles to herself. The sounds cause a noticeable vibration in the earth she’s perched on a few feet away from him and it lulls her frayed nervous system. She pulls her knees tighter to her body, the heat from the campfire and the rhythm of his thunderous breathing causes her eyelids to droop with sudden exhaustion.
She tries not to think about their initial reunion just a day or so earlier. Positive she was to be ripped apart, reduced to a chunky puddle of blood and body matter, but fuck if she wasn’t going to give the massive mutated beast her customized version of hell before meeting a grisly demise.
His current state of sedation and calm couldn’t be more different. And the only reason she escaped dismemberment is that of course the hulking beast is her long dead father, of course, of course, she thinks. This actualization snaps her nervous system back to its hyper-manic baseline and she reaches in her back pocket for cigarettes. She drags one out with her front teeth and pads herself for a lighter, annoyed when her search comes up empty. Just as she’s about to get up to borrow from the campfire, she hears unmistakeable boot falls from behind.
“Don’t move. You’ll set your braids on fire. Those things are just begging to be used as kindling.”
Vi plops down next to Jinx and procures a lighter with a flick. The flame is excessive for just one cig. Jinx wants to roll her eyes at Vi’s casual showboating. If only she didn’t find this flagship trait so fucking endearing.
“And this military grade flamethrower won’t set the entire compound aflame?”
A smile surfaces in the corner of VI’s perfect mouth and Jinx is too tired to hide her gawk while Vi grabs a cig for herself along with the one hanging off Jinx’s bottom lip and lights both of them at once. Vi reaches, pops it back between Jinx’s lips and resumes a quiet gaze forward.
They both inhale the cloying smoke in tandem, and Jinx extends her stare at Vi’s flared nostrils, tendrils of smoke softly billowing out of them and dissipating into the night sky. She feels her hole and clit twitch involuntarily as a biological response to merely being alone with Vi. She hopes she doesn’t appear as hopelessly smitten as she feels in her screaming heart.
Their diaphragms, side by side, relax together in a moment of eerie but welcomed silence. Witnessing Vi’s massive biceps and lats in a rare state of relaxation is worth almost getting butchered for, she decides.
Vi’s resting her forearms on her spread knees, Jinx is still wrapped around herself, their inhales and exhales seem to sync with Vander’s breaths as they watch him together. Jinx realizes she could have never prepared herself for this modest three person symphony. Not your average family reunion by a long shot, she chides to herself privately.
Jinx knows Vi is also temporarily calmed by watching oxygen enter and leave his lungs. Proof of life. Sure, in the form of an unprecedented apex predator. Proof of life, proof of life, she’ll take it. If it means navigating around claws and incisors and sinew and muscle and experimental monstrosity. She’ll do it for Vander. He’d do it for her.
She’s grateful no one else is around even if the lack of usual noise pollution is uncomfortable. She’s thankful for the abrasive cigarette smoke in the air, clings to any suggestion of fucked up normalcy.
“Vander’s brand?” asks Vi, after some time passes.
Jinx swivels her head on her sore neck to softly answer
“I’ve never smoked anything else.”