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Sunlight filters stubbornly through the veil, slipping past thick lashes shut in slumber. A bird tweets out the window, crinkles form as quick as they fade and Ekko wakes, opening his eyes to the world again. This place used to be cold, he thinks. It wasn’t insulated, wasn’t very wide or comfortable, but it was his, and that was significantly respiteful down here in Zaun. Still, it could get pretty cold, and most nights, if Ekko wasn’t tossing and turning, then he would shiver himself awake.
It’s not been so bad since he started sharing his bed with Jinx. Body heat and all that, he supposes. Sure, it was more cramped now, and with neither of them being static sleepers, he woke more often than not with a leg thrown over his midriff, or his arm thrown over her face as her silent snores turned to sleepy grumbles.
One time, he even woke to Jinx violently pulling the blanket he’d somehow wrapped all around himself, leaving her exposed to the chill air of the night. The motion had thrown him off the bed and he had half the mind to curse at her for it, but she’d laughed then, genuine and open, and it was the first time he’d heard anything like it since they were kids. And, well, it’s not like he never kicked her out of the bed himself back then. If anything, she was just lucky to be sleeping against a wall now.
As a soft, nostalgic smile forms on his face, Ekko rolls to this side, reaching for her sleeping form. When his hand comes to rest upon the cold mattress instead, a chill runs down his spine, draining all traces of repose in his body.
With a jolt, Ekko sits up and throws the covers off his body as his eyes dart around the room for any traces of blue. None. He leaps out of bed, a tight coil in his stomach as his blood surges up to his temples, hammering with urgency as he pulls the door of his–their bedroom open.
“Jinx?” He calls out, looking around the living area. Nothing.“Jinx!” He calls out again, this time with more insistence, the rush of blood in his temples drowning all out but her name.
His eyes zero in onto the back of the room, where the kitchen island separates a fraction of the space from his gaze. Ekko approaches it with a knot in his throat, bile rising and eyes watering as he braces himself for the inevitable; her lifeless body on the floor, a knife beside her, blood pooling on the floor—his fault. On his watch.
“No,” he mutters, shaking his head as he braces himself to round the corner. Nothing. The locks on the drawers are still intact, everything is in its place; most importantly, she isn’t there. Ekko lets out a breath he hadn’t realised he’d been holding, and that’s when he hears it—the steady hum of water running in the bathroom.
“Right, showering,” he reasons aloud, half-convinced. “She’s just gone showering.”
Still, as he stayed rooted in place, waiting, he couldn’t shake the idea that maybe she wasn’t. He’s so sure he’d removed everything sharp or potentially toxic from the bathroom, but who knew? If she was desperate enough, she could still bash her head in or drown herself, couldn’t she? Just…why else would she not wake him like she always did?
The thought slams into him at full speed, knocking the breath out of his lungs, and he finds himself barreling through the door of the bathroom before he can even think about what he was doing. At best, he half-expected to hear her shriek and throw something at him for the intrusion, or laugh at the obvious lack of boundaries and make a comment about her terrible influence on him.
But his eyes lock on something completely different, so unlike the buoyant energy he’d known her to exhibit for so long, but so familiar to what he was sadly getting to know all over again. Strands of blue caught the light, hair sodden and drooping forward like wilting spider lilies.
There, curled up on herself, Jinx sits with her knees pressed to her chest and her chin resting on them, water pouring down on her relentlessly.
In a heartbeat, Ekko slips in the bathtub and sits behind her still fully clothed, gently wrapping his arms around her and pulling her to his chest. She lets her head fall on his chest, her eyes fluttering close as he breathes into her hair.
Alive. She’s alive.
The water soaks his clothes, making them stick uncomfortably around his legs, arms, torso and back, but he pays it no mind, leaving a kiss on top of her head before settling his chin there, waiting. And waiting he would. It was all ever did with her, all he could still do, all he would gladly continue to because waiting meant there was still something to get back, to hold onto.
She’s light in his arms, a delicate thing he revers, knows not to underestimate for all its strength and resilience, even now. A waning wick can burn just as bad, still reignite, and he would watch over it, nurture it back to its incandescence like a Vestal at the atrium; no matter how long it takes. After all, time had been on his side so far; maybe it could still be.
When he finally feels her relax against him, her breath evening out and her eyes fluttering open again, he moves his hands to cradle her face, his fingers moving to rub circles into her temples. She sighs soft and wistful, and he smiles contently. He wouldn’t mind doing this everyday if she needed him to.
“Sit up a little,” he murmurs into her hair, his hands sliding down to her bare shoulders. “Your hair’s a mess,” he adds with a light chuckle as she groans and executes herself without a word.
Quietly, he begins combing his finger through the knots in her hair, careful to not pull too hard. It’s strange, really; how quickly things changed. It wasn’t so long ago he swung at her and she shot back in kind. Now, the sheer perspective of doing so much as making her wince from pulling her hair too hard filled him with dread. He’d gone soft, hadn’t he?
Uh, who was he kidding? He couldn’t even finish it on the bridge.
This wasn’t really new, just more assuaged now, maybe. And by Janna, is he glad for it. Because when she’d hum and lean into his touch like she is now, he could almost forget why he’d even let her slip away in the first place. Why he’d let hate seep where his love had been, still was. He supposes both were much of the same.
Maybe that was why he spent all these years resenting her, placing her at the top of his list, cursing her for everything that went wrong—that way, he never let his mind wander too far from her. Really, what was hate if not devotion?
Well, she’s here now, so close, bare skin against his drenched clothes, blue hair tangled in dark skin. She hasn’t said a word, has barely moved or looked at him, but he’s grateful as he reaches with his other hand for the shampoo, gently squeezing some of it out on her head and lathering it up in her hair with expert, attentive fingers massaging her scalp. Her head tilts back a little, and he can almost see hints of pink trying to peek through dark lashes, searching for him.
“Hey,” he chuckles, shaking his head. “Careful now, or you’ll get that stuff in your eyes,” he warns with an amused grin.
She just about rolls her eyes at him and he wants to prod her side just for that, but relents when he remembers her state of undress. Yeah, no. Not even going there now.
When he’s finally done washing her hair, he presses a kiss to her temple and she hums appreciatively. The sound makes him want to laugh, though he’s not sure why, and he has to contain himself because he isn’t sure she would take kindly to it now.
“Gonna fetch you a towel,” he announces, and she shrugs before he slips out of the bathtub, moving towards the rack of towels.
He isn’t sure which one she’d prefer, and that gives him pause. When they were little, her chosen one was colorful, worn-out to the thread because she refused to part with it. It wasn’t nice, not that a lot of things in Zaun were, but no one could tell her anything about it lest she kick you in the shin. Ekko knew. His shin fucking remembered.
Still, he doesn’t really own anything colorful. It’s not exactly a priority for the firelights, and he generally lets the kids pick out the prettiest stuff they could find anyway. So he settles for the softest towel he owns. She deserves at least that.
She raises her arms expectantly when he returns with it, and she almost looks like she did back then, when she’d reach for Vi or Vander as they would return. He doesn’t think they realised how hard it was on her when they’d leave her behind, even if just for a few hours.
Back then, Ekko would spend all day trying to distract her, looking for scraps and knicks and knacks to keep her occupied so she wouldn’t cry or hurl something at the wall. He loved when she got into the zone and created make-shift toys, bombs that didn’t work—until they did, and, well, he doesn’t really want to go there.
His hands slide under her armpits like second nature, carefully lifting her off the bottom of the tub. He averts his eyes from looking as he kneels before her and gently rubs her calves dry with the towel. His hands slowly slide the towel up her thigh and he almost misses how her breath hitches for a moment. He tries not to think about it, focusing on the task at hand, eyes zeroing in on the towel and nothing else as he continues his ascent up her body.
When he finally comes face to face with her again, her cheeks are flushed, lips parted and eyes glazed over. He wonders, just for a second, what it would be like to lean in and close the distance between them, to kiss her properly, in a way she deserves, in a way he should have ages ago.
But the dark circles under her eyes, the faint traces of red on her chapped lips where she’d bitten them and the memory of finding her so catatonic makes him step back and wrap the towel around her body without a word.
The corners of her lips twitch into an almost-smile, and he scoops her in his arms with ease. She lets her head fall on his chest again, pink eyes staring up at him in a way he struggles to read; maybe doesn’t want to. He was gonna have to change, he knew; lest he catches his death soon.
Still, he takes no hurried strides towards their bedroom, careful not to startle her as he crosses the living area. Her hand comes up to play with a stray lock of his hair that he can’t brush away from his face like this, and he tenses, not daring to look down at her.
He pushes the door to their bedroom open with the side of his hip and moves towards the bed, careful as he sits her down on the edge. She tilts her head, staring up at him expectantly and his mouth goes dry.
“I’m…uh—I’m gonna get you…clothes—clothes, yeah,” he sputters, rubbing a hand at the back of his neck, eyes darting everywhere but at her face.
Seriously, Ekko? Thought we’d grown out of that.
She doesn’t even try to repress the smug chuckle that bubbles out of her throat, and he’s all the more grateful for his dark skin considering she can’t see him blush as easily. He spins around, silently cursing himself as he moves to rummage in his drawers for the few clothes he’d gathered for her only a few days ago.
His hands aren’t as steady as he would’ve liked them to be when he returns. When he makes to kneel before her so he could slip her underwear up her legs, her eyes shoot up at him, dark, annoyed, and she frowns. Uh?
“I can dress myself, Ekko,” she snaps, her voice a little hoarse, and her lips forming a mild pout she’s clearly trying her hardest to repress. “I’m not that useless.”
He quickly looks away. “Yeah, I know,” he half-coughs, handing her the clothes before turning around. “Sorry.”
She hums in acknowledgement and when he hears the tell-tale sign of the floorboard creaking under her feet and the towel hitting the floor, the birds tweeting outside become the most interesting thing in the world.
A few seconds later, he hears her sit back down. “All done,” she lilts, prompting him to turn around just as she slides back into the covers, flat on her back as her eyes shoot up to the ceiling.
Ekko takes this as his opportunity to change into new, drier clothes. If he feels the burning prick of her stare in the back of his neck, well, that is between him and Janna only. He bites back a smug grin when he turns around and her eyes dart back up to the ceiling urgently.
Maybe with time he could find it in him to tease her about these things. It’s still so strange now; her in his bed, not attacking him, but also not talking his ear off or taunting him about something.
He doesn’t want to push her. There’s clearly so much she isn’t telling him, so much on her mind all the time. But he can be beside her, wait it out, let her talk when she’ll want to. Let her tease him first. He’d turned into a human waiting room just for her, not just back then on the ledge, but since the very day he’d lost her, he thinks.
The morning sun has replaced the sun now, bright and obnoxious as it filters through the curtains. He’s always loved the sun, usually would be rushing out the door in the earliest hours just to bask in it a little longer, but as he watched Jinx frown and wrinkle her nose as it poured over her face, he doesn’t think he’s resented the sun more in his goddamn life.
So he quietly slips back into bed, hoping his body might shield her from it a little longer. Surely, the firelights can wait a little longer. And when Jinx shifts onto her side, her previously dark eyes softening as they catch onto the side of his jaw, he knows he’s made the right choice.
Then, quiet, almost imperceptible as it escapes her lips; “Thank you,” she whispers.
That startles Ekko, and he shifts onto his side, eyes locking with hers. “You don’t have to thank me for that,” he says, giving her a small smile.
She doesn’t say anything, only gives a slight nod in return, and continues to stare at him, her gaze unreadable. He can tell the gears are turning in her head, almost loud enough to be heard. It isn’t anything new to him, not really. He’s pretty sure she’s always been this way.
Still, it feels a little different this time. More than ever, he mourns the years they’ve lost, the gulf that stands between them now. He wants nothing more than to reach across it, pull her by his side for good and never let her out of his sight again. Most of the time, he has no idea what to say to her, what the right thing to do would be, if there ever was such a thing.
She looks beautiful in the light, tired and broken and maybe a little gaunt, as though her body couldn’t keep up with the weight of everything anymore, but she’s still the most beautiful girl he’s ever seen. Maybe he should tell her. He isn’t sure she knows. Isn’t sure she’d care to.
Still, his heart aches as he looks at her. He’s reckoned with the fact he’s still, if not more in love with her despite everything a while ago now. It’s the fact he can’t find the words, the right time, the right way to tell her that he loves her that hurts. Especially in moments like this when he knows he should be. He hopes she knows somehow, even if he can’t say it.
He’s not even sure how much time has passed with them laying beside each other, staring silently. It should be awkward, he’s pretty sure, but somehow it’s not.
When she reaches for his hand and brings it to her lips, pressing a light kiss there and breathing in, stilling, a wave of warmth washes over him and his entire body melts into her touch. She leans back just an inch, pushing their hands in the middle, hovering between them just a little as her fingers trail down the lines in his palms, the callouses and the scars there.
His breath hitches when she trails the tip of her fingers below, metal cooling against his wrist. Before he can even think about what he’s doing, he’s caught her wrist, bringing her hand to his face, leaning into it as it cradles his cheek; soft, tentative.
Her lips part, but she doesn’t move. Neither does he. Right then, Ekko knows he never had to say a thing.
It’s okay. She knows.
ִֶָ𓂃 ࣪˖ ִֶָ🐇་༘࿐