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Unpredictable as she may be, Jinx is not a subtle woman. Vi sees her weighing her options behind saccadic eyes, darting back and forth from Vi to Caitlyn to Vi again. Teeth dig into her pale lips. Pink and blue fingernails shine in the flickering artificial light of Zaun, absentminded stimming Vi’s not sure Jinx is even aware of. She’s not reaching for her pistol, and that, at least, is a fucking win.
Lacing her fingers, Jinx held her hands above her head, arching her back in a catlike stretch. It’s been years since Vi was familiar with her sister’s body language – not since she’d been her little brother, since she was Powder – but Vi still knows her tells. Vi squares her shoulders, blatant with her stance, unlike Jinx’s faux casual movement, and scopes out the area. Escape routes: the back alleys and rooftops of the Lanes. Cover behind which she can throw Cait: stalls offering greasy, sizzling meat, stolen fruit from Topside, cigs and blunts and booze. The steps it would take to reach Jinx, how quickly she can move before her little sister draws her gun.
“You didn’t have to bring the sister-stealing bitch,” Jinx offers.
Bringing Cait was a bad idea. Vi had told her as much, bluntly, to her face, multiple times. Much as she loves her fiancée, Caitlyn Kiramman wouldn’t take no for an answer, and when forced to choose between Caitlyn skulking across the rooftops with her rifle trained on Vi’s baby bro–sister the whole time or keeping her by her side, Vi took the honest option. At least this way, the only person Vi had to worry about escalating to violence was Jinx, and that was already a given.
Cait raises a hand to her chest, affronted. “I’m not stealing anyone! I have no interest in doing anything sisterly towards Vi whatsoever. The opposite, in fact! We have a healthy, non-codependent romantic relationship in which I don’t need all of her attention. Just because I’m in Vi’s life doesn’t mean you have to cut her ou–”
Vi elbows her. Cait glances down at her, eyebrows creased, and finally catches up. Jinx isn’t listening to her. Hasn’t heard a single word she’s said. Clearly, her own conversation with herself is more important, given her intent gaze at the empty air in the middle distance and her rapid-fire cursing. Vi catches snippets: “Don’t call her that,” “She didn’t mean it like that,” “Sister-stealing slut, rubbing it in my face,” and “You moron!”
With one last drawn-out groan, just as childish as Vi remembers, Jinx sighs. “Whatever. Silco says to take what I can get. You don’t think he’s wrong, do you, Cupcake?”
“Only Vi gets to call me that.”
“That’s not a no!” Jinx smiles. It’s just a bit too wide to be natural, wider than anything Vi ever saw on her little brother, but what about her isn’t unfamiliar these days? The last thing Vi expected after getting out of prison was to learn the last of her three brothers had become her sister years ago, a madwoman who had let Silco rename her by reclaiming the word with the most possible baggage. Much as Vi wants to respect her sister’s decisions, every time that name passes her lips, it stings like a bloody knuckle. Vi misses Powder, but Powder’s not dead, she’s here, right in front of her, and if Jinx is the name she wants, Vi’s going to use it, because if she doesn’t, Jinx is going to misinterpret her in the worst possible light and throw a particularly explosive tantrum. “Let’s play!”
And, just like that, Jinx spins on her heel, running fast enough that her braids billow in her wake. Cait gives Vi an incredulous look, one that means Seriously? and Did she say ‘Silco says’ and not ‘Silco once said’? and Vi, wait up, you stupid, sexy jerk!
Vi doesn’t. Much as she needs to make sure Caitlyn doesn’t lose her in the bustle of Zaun and get herself lost, Jinx takes priority right now. It’s stupid, hypocritical, and probably unnecessary, but some part of Vi is dead certain that if Jinx thinks her big sister can’t catch up with her, she’s going to feel abandoned all over again. Once was enough.
Somehow, Cait manages to keep up, albeit just barely. Vi catches a hint of her navy hair in the distance behind her as she reaches her destination, where Jinx waits for her. Despite the absurdity of their lives – the cold war between Zaun and Piltover, the many Topside warrants out of Jinx’s arrest, and the tenuous, fragile reforged relationship between the sisters, Jinx seems upbeat. She’s stimming in place as Vi slows to a jog, kicking one leg in place and flapping her wrists. “C’mon!” she cheers. “Let’s strap knives to our feet already!”
Vi opens her mouth to correct her, then shrugs. Close enough, especially if it makes Jinx happy. The reopening of Zaun’s only ice skating rink is a solid excuse for the two of them to get some quality sister-sister bonding time. Back when she was still Powder, Vi’s little brother, Vi had always wanted to take her skating. She used to skate all the time when Powder was too small for it, before Vander took them in. After that, she never had another chance before the rink closed down. Despite it all, Vi had still wanted to teach her little bro–sister to ice skate. It took years, attempted murder, and a change of gender, but finally, here comes Vi, ready to make good on an old promise.
Cait catches up fifteen seconds later, and soon enough, the three of them have rented their own pairs of skates. Even after tens of trips down to the Undercity, Cait still sticks out like a black eye, despite Vi’s best efforts, but the rink worker doesn’t bat an eye at her. At least, no more than she does at Jinx. Her newfound Firelight connections are probably the only reason the whole rink isn’t getting closed down at the sight of her neon blue twintails.
“I’m so ready to just, y’know,” Jinx clenches her fist. “Zoom around! Ekko still won’t give me a hoverboard. I crave speed!”
“You’ve gotta slow down before you can speed up,” Vi says. The words come easily to her lips, the most natural thing in the world, as though she’s still taking care of her baby brother and not a woman who could kill her seven different ways in as many seconds. Vi’s changed too, it happens whether she makes her peace with it or not, but Jinx has changed more than most. She swallows down the melancholy building in her throat like bile, just how much of her newfound little sister’s life she missed; the last remnants of her childhood, her transition. Vi could have had a little sister for years, not this new, awkward thing between them. She wishes it could have been her Jinx came out to instead of fucking Silco, that she could have helped her sister burgle hormones from Topside pharmacies, talked to her late into the night about girls or boys or explosions or whatever the hell makes Jinx blush, told her that even though Vander never called her by her chosen name, he still would have loved her like a daughter. “Like a slingshot. Build up tension and release.”
“Boooring!” Jinx kicks her feet. “Manual projectile weapons are soooo yesteryear. Get with the times and use gunpowder like your slutty sniper squeeze, sister.”
Gunpowder.
“Hey!” Cait snaps. If she weren’t so intent on tying her laces, Vi’s certain she’d jab an accusatory finger at Jinx.
Powder.
“No offense.” Jinx raises her hands, palm-up. “I needed the alliteration. I’m sure you don’t mind.”
Cait looks helplessly at Vi, but she’s lost in her head. She takes a deep breath, exhales, and buries the newborn memory of Jinx’s deadname crossing her lips deep within her mind. She’s Jinx now. Jinx.
“Let me tie your laces for you?” Vi offers her sister. “Like old times?”
Jinx’s eyes unfocus. She looks over her shoulder, considering, and shrugs. “Like old times,” she echoes. “I can do it myself, y’know.”
“I know,” Vi says. “Don’t mind.” It’s true. She doesn’t. She appreciates her sister’s vulnerability like this, letting her so close to her, to baby her like she did back when she was her baby brother, put her in an awkward state with unfamiliar footwear that’s gonna make her walk funny, but at the same time, Vi’s vulnerable, too. Once one skate is on, Jinx could easily kick out with the blade and take out one of Vi’s eyes. Jinx doesn’t, which almost makes up for the smug look she’s giving Caitlyn, one which culminates in her sticking her tongue out, as if to say, Ha ha, Vi didn’t offer to tie YOUR laces, Cupcake!
Damn it. Jinx didn’t even say it this time and Vi still feels jealous. At least she’s putting up with Caitlyn, even if she’s being obnoxious about it.
Vi rises, finding her footing, and then immediately loses it. Fuck, she’s rusty. It’s been years since she last stomped across the rink’s cruddy rubber mats in skates, and she’s half again as tall and twice as heavy as she was last time. If Cait hadn’t been there to catch her, she would’ve fallen on her ass.
Jinx rolls her eyes at the display of affection, but her irritation doesn’t last long. She’s up and about, enjoying the extra couple inches the skates give her as she runs along, arms outstretched like a soaring bird, nearly slapping strangers. She seems to be having fun by herself, which is good, because Vi needs a couple minutes to remember how to fucking skate before she can finally, finally, after all these years, teach her sister how to do the same.
Even with the weighty corded muscle in her legs, Vi’s wobbling as she slides out onto the ice, bent forward awkwardly at the hip with her arms in front of her, as though she’s never done this before. She can feel her muscle memory kicking in, her tired legs aching in old, long-forgotten ways, and with an experimental kick, Vi glides across the ice.
Against her will, a low chuckle bubbles out of Vi’s throat. She’d missed this. The easy, frictionless rush, the wind in her hair, the prickle of the rink’s cold air, encased within plexiglass, the stutter and skid of her skates as she passes over the other skaters’ tracks. It’s been a hot second since someone smoothed the ice, but she’s not going to let it stop her.
As she’s starting to get the hang of things, Caitlyn had to one-up her, because of course she did. It wasn’t on purpose, Vi’s fiancée’s not vindictive like that, it’s just that she’s been skating regularly on the defanged Piltie rinks since she could walk. Vi, like every other Zaunite, is out of practice. Caitlyn, on the other hand, has no such weakness, zipping ‘round the rink fast enough to lap Vi before twirling just for shits and giggles.
If she weren’t so pretty, Vi would’ve been jealous. She’s not jealous. Just competitive. That’s fine and normal and healthy.
Before she can do her own showing off, demonstrate to Cait that she hasn’t lost all her skating skills and to Pow- Jinx that she’s worthy of teaching her, her skate catches on a particularly rough patch of ice, and she stumbles forward. The ice rushing up towards her face reminds her of all the times she fell as a kid, a reminder that even when she wasn’t fighting, she never learned how to stop blocking with her face.
But again, Cait is there. The taller woman catches Vi by the waist, sliding up behind her as though flying, and turns her stumble into a dip. Vi, her back to the ice, stares up into Caitlyn’s eyes, sighing in relief when she sees her smile is gentle, not smug.
“It’s a good thing I came along,” Cait says.
“Shut up,” Vi blushes, and kisses her to do so herself.
“Hey!” Jinx whines, and Vi’s eyes snap open. She pulls away from her fiancée, but it’s too late: Jinx is cranky. “Viiiiii, look!” She steps out onto the ice before Vi can do so much as call out a warning, flailing her arms in circles to keep her balance. Vi wants to catch her, needs to be there, but her sister’s on the other side of the rink with eleven or twelve other skaters between them, and Vi’s not confident enough in her skating skills to sift between them–
–and she doesn’t need to. Jinx pushes off the ice, one foot after the other, twintails billowing as she picks up speed. She pays no heed to the flow of traffic, cackling as the other skaters scrape to a stop to avoid colliding in a tangle of limbs. She curves, arcing past Cait and Vi, her chin raised as though she could look down at the taller women, the smuggest smirk Vi has ever seen on her lips. If she weren’t so impressed, that expression would have made Vi roll her eyes into the back of her skull.
That astonishment doesn’t last long. Once she can’t turn her head to sneer at her sister any more, Jinx looks straight ahead with just enough time for Vi to see the Oh, shit in her eyes before she slams face-first into the plexiglass. She didn’t even get a chance to flail her arms.
The most feared woman in the Undercity crumples like an empty beer can, leaving behind a purple smear on the translucent plastic, and Vi fucks up.
“Powder!” Vi shouts, and clamps her hands over her mouth so hard it hurts. She scrambles towards her fallen sister, skates slipping on the ice, and stumbles.
Caitlyn doesn’t. She glides to Jinx before Vi’s even halfway there, and Vi can’t fucking think. She’s scared for Jinx, she’s scared for Cait, she’s going to lash out, she’s going to react poorly, she’s going to escalate things, she’s too fucking slow on her skates, she’s going to leave Powder again–
Jinx is crying. Curled up into a ball with her chin on her knees. Her nose is a bit busted and her lip is split, purple like lipstick highlighting her quivering pout. One of her twintails is twisted around her leg. Caitlyn is kneeling next to her, her skates cutting into the ice, holding out a handkerchief.
“Shut up!” Jinx screams, although Caitlyn isn’t saying anything. “She knows I’m Jinx, I’m Jinx. She’s not Vander. She’s not you. She calls me Jinx, I’m her sister–”
“Jinx,” says Caitlyn, “what the fuck were you thinking?”
“Bwuh?”
“Seriously?” Caitlyn fumes, eyebrows creased and red-cheeked. “Jinx, infamous terrorist, madwoman of the Undercity, defeated by a quarter-inch of plexiglass?” She scoffs. “I never thought you could be so vulnerable.”
Vi, finally having made her way across the ice, breaks the touch barrier. Jinx jolts away when she feels her sister’s hand on her shoulder, eyes wide like a wild animal, a cornered wolf, nothing like the flighty prey animal Powder was. This Jinx, Vi realizes, is the only one Caitlyn has ever known. For a moment, Vi almost expects Jinx to bite her hand off, but then she’s pressing into her touch, sniffling blood.
She doesn’t even object when Cait presses her handkerchief against her split lip. “Jinx, you dumbass,” Cait grumbles. “Let me patch you up.”
Jinx laughs. She doesn’t make it easy for her, wriggling in place as the cold seeps up from the ice and through her pants. By the time her face is clean and Cait’s handkerchief is permanently purple, she’s all but in Vi’s lap, wiping her bloody nose on her bare wrist. Cait offers her her handkerchief, but rather than grab it and tear it in half or throw it halfway across the rink, Jinx politely shakes her head. Nodding, Cait rises, wiping Jinx’s smeared blood from the plexiglass.
“You okay?” Vi asks gently.
“No,” Jinx admits. “I wanna blow something up real bad.”
“Later, Jinx,” Vi promises.
Her little sister looks up at her, an innocent smile on her lips, and Vi feels herself overcome by emotion. She wants to apologize to her. To tell her that she should have been there to help her onto the rink, to help her find her footing, to help her grow into the person, the woman she wants to be. She wants to tell Jinx she has her full attention. She wants to crush her in a hug. She wants to ask her if she still wants her to teach her how to skate.
She does none of these things.
Instead, Cait squats back down. “Are you going to do something stupid and get yourself hurt again?”
“Probably!”
Cait sighs. “Was she always like this?”
Jinx looks up at Vi, her loose braid whirling behind her and smacking Caitlyn in a way that Vi can’t help but think was intentional. Vi shrugs. “Little sisters, am I right?”
Jinx beams.
Caitlyn pinches the bridge of her nose between her fingers. “Much as it pains me to say this, Jinx, that wasn’t particularly bad for a first try,” she says. “Much better than mine. I fell flat on my face and got my tongue stuck to the ice.”
Jinx giggles. She smiles, a crooked thing that betrays her sense of superiority.
“You’re a natural,” Cait says, “so talented that you might even be able to keep up with me, you little brat.”
“Of course I fuckin’ can!” Jinx pulls herself to her feet, untangling her twintail from her body and flicking it over her shoulder.
“Wanna show Vi just how fast you can skate?”
“Cupcake, are you sur–”
“Watch, Vi!” Jinx wipes the last bit of blood from her nose on her arm, bends her knees, and is off like a rocket, Cait in hot pursuit. Vi can’t help but follow her command, staring in shock as Jinx allows Cait to catch up and guide her by the shoulders in a gentle arc that misses the plexiglass by a hair before shaking her off with a cackle.
Even as Jinx zips across the ice, Caitlyn is there, on her left, on her right, herding Jinx like the feral little thing she is. “I’ve got you,” Vi thinks she hears Cait say, “since you don’t know how to slow down.”
“Good fuckin’ luck, Cup-Cait!”
“Don’t call me that!”
“Try and stop me!”
And then Vi’s girlfriend and baby sister lap her, still leaning against the plexiglass in astonishment. Jinx cackles, spinning on a heel until she’s skating backwards, looking down at Vi with her tongue out and a finger pulling down her eyelid in a childish taunt that somehow works, making the hair on the back of Vi’s neck bristle. She nearly skates over her own twintail, but Cait is there, tugging it out of the way of her skate, and helping Jinx round the corner in the process. Jinx jerks her head back, fucking with Cait purposefully, and Vi’s brain finally catches up with the two most important women in her life.
Both of them were fucking with her.
Even though she can’t see Powder’s smile in Jinx’s manic grin, she can still feel the overwhelming joy radiating from her sister in waves. It’s a joy that doesn’t diminish even when she glances over to Caitlyn, reaching out her hand to pull herself away from the skater she was about to collide with. There’s a look in both their eyes that feels so fucking familiar, even though Caitlyn’s an only child, even though she’s Jinx’s dirty sister-stealer, even though Vi will never see her little brother’s powder blue eyes ever again.
Maybe Vi’s not the only one with a new sister.