Just This Last Time
Tick tock tick tock tick tock.
The clock was moving too fast.
It did nothing to ease his nerves. If anything, it ramped them up, sending his heart pounding in his ears, the foreboding sense of being watched lifting the hairs on the back of his neck. Ekko’s hands itched to fix it or destroy it, anything to get that persisting noise out of his mind.
The hoverboard in his hands sputtered out smoke. It hissed, the sound dulled by the faint sound of music and chatter from the gala upstairs. Ekko turned it around, feeling metal heat under his palms. Too fast. It drained too fast. The metal wasn’t a good enough conductor. If he wasn’t careful, he’d have to sneak through Piltover halls, a quicker way through the window made deadly without his hoverboard.
At least the bluebellies were all up at the gala.
He searched in the semi-darkness, turning on only the lamps on the tables, the rest of the light provided by the moon through the ceiling-high window. Metal knocked against metal as he picked them up to examine them, wondering how many parts he could steal without being caught.
His mask hung from his belt. Ekko felt strangely exposed without it, but there wasn’t time to dwell on that – in and out, quickly, before the rest of the Firelights noticed he was gone. Scar would yell at him if he found out. Ekko sighed and swept a few random pieces into a bag. He’d sort them out later.
Tick tock tick tock tick tock. Thunk.
He whirled around. Hip knocked painfully against the edge of the table. His hand went behind him, to grab at the sorry excuse of a weapon he’d fashioned with the remains of a broken pipe. His eyes darted around the room.
Door was closed, like it always was. Chairs were empty. Tables held the same microscopes and wires and gadgets. The clock in the corner was still ticking away. Nothing underneath the furniture. Ekko backed against the wall, shoulders tense.
And – there.
On the ground. Something lying forlorn and shadowed.
The shape was unmistakable. A gun. Ekko sucked in a breath as he squinted and saw the graffiti on it, pink and blue and gut-wrenchingly familiar. Thunk. It had fallen. Which meant –
Up. Slowly, carefully, Ekko raised his gaze to the rafters.
His eyes narrowed, and her eyes widened.
“Hey there, little man,” said Pow – Jinx, perched on an elegant beam. “Didn’t mean to scare ‘ya.”
So it hadn't been just a feeling. He forced down the panic at realizing she'd been here all along - how much had she seen? Ekko tightened his grip on the bat, feeling a knot he’d fought to bury rise back into his chest. “Jinx.”
She tilted her head, listening to the faint music. “Can you believe them? What kind of party has boring songs like that?”
They stared at each other for a moment. Like the staring contests they’d have as kids, making faces and finding ways to make each other crack, except no one was making faces now.
Tick tock tick tock tick tock.
She had a new belt. Ekko’s eyes followed it to find grenades tucked along her hips. Armed. His eyes flicked down to the gun on the ground. Her eyes followed. Their gazes met.
They both lunged at the same time, Ekko flinging himself forward off the wall, dropping his hoverboard behind him. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Jinx drop from the beam. And then there was the gun, right in front of him. The scratches of crude figures taunting him with their crosses for eyes. Ekko reached out, scrabbling for the weapon. His fingers closed around it.
And then a shoe came crushing down on his arm. Ekko grunted and grabbed Jinx’s ankle, and she yelped as he pulled her down to the ground, her legs kicking at his shoulders and face. He shoved her to the side, rolling back, her gun in one hand and his bat in the other, panting slightly.
She leapt up almost immediately, her braids a flash of blue. Jinx stopped dead in her tracks as Ekko raised the gun at her, her blue eyes wide with fear.
He faltered. That look on her face…
“Stop,” Ekko snapped, more to himself than to her. He forced his arm to steady. “What are you doing here?”
Jinx jerked her chin to Ekko’s bag of precious metals. “Scavenging,” she said, slowly lowering her arms. “Like you.”
Ekko laughed harshly. “What, the kingpin can’t give you all the pretty metals you want?”
Her expression hardened. “We both know the Undercity has its limits.”
And Ekko knew. Everyone knew. Every child in Zaun grew up knowing that even the richest of them were poorer than the poorest in Piltover. But pain was pain, and it didn’t care where it was let out as long as it could sink its claws into someone else.
“I’m not here to kill you,” said Jinx.
“Funny,” he said. “You didn’t seem to mind killing my friends. Or anyone else, for that matter.”
Was that regret, that flashed on her face? It was hard to tell in the disjointed light.
“Shut up,” she snapped. Ekko flinched and tightened his grip on the gun. She frowned at it, and at him, hesitantly, and for a second Ekko was convinced she would come lunging for him, throwing one of her grenades and leaving his body for the Enforcers to find.
Then she sighed, hugging her arms. “Not – not you,” Jinx said. “They – never mind. I’ll leave.”
“No!” Ekko blurted.
She stood still, waiting, her head lowered, eyes darting over him. His mind blanked. Should have let her leave. Why not let her leave?
“I –” he sighed in frustration. “Powder, I –”
I miss you? I love you? I want you to come home?
She must have seen it in his face, because she looked away. “Not. Not Powder. Don’t bother, Ekko. I can’t – we can’t – things can’t go back to how they were before.”
“It can be better,” Ekko said. “Just –” he took a step forward and she flinched back. He lowered the gun slowly, setting it on the table behind him. “Just come back home with me.”
She bit her lip. “Silco. He’ll come looking for me.”
Ekko opened his mouth, to say that no one would be able to find them where they were going, to argue against what he knew was a dead cause, when the music changed. It stopped abruptly, breaking the strange tension in the room as they both turned to listen. When it picked back up, it was a new melody. Haunting. Familiar.
The corners of Jinx’s mouth quirked up. She frowned. “Isn’t that –”
“One of Vander’s songs,” Ekko finished.
Their eyes met again, and suddenly they weren’t two people beaten down and driven apart by a fate cruel and twisted, but two children, two teenagers, two young souls, craving for someone familiar to hold.
Slowly, hesitantly, Ekko reached out his hand. Palm facing the sky. His fingers marred with healed and healing cuts. Braced himself for rejection. He could feel his heart racing in his chest.
Pow – Jinx stared. Stared and stared and stared. Equally slowly, she raised an arm, thin fingers outstretched, and placed them gingerly against his palm. Her skin was cold. Her nails painted pink and blue.
“Just this,” she said, her eyes not quite meeting his. “Just this last time, and then we’re done.”
Ekko nodded. He didn’t trust his mouth to not ruin this moment, his mind running at the speed of light.
They danced. Swaying back and forth at first, hands in hands, feet shuffling against the polished marble floors of Piltover, searching for changes in their dance, trying to tie them into the version they danced as children. Not much had changed. She still liked to move her shoulders with her arms. And he still followed her lead, twisting to meet her as she moved.
“That’s new,” Ekko said under his breath, taking her hand to spin her, gesturing to the clouds of blue on her arm.
“That’s new,” she echoed, spinning in closer and reaching a hand to gently brush along his face, tracing the painted hourglass. They were so close. Her braids were looped around his arm.
They pushed apart reluctantly, each on a side of a long table, and he remembered doing this before, what seemed like another lifetime, another better lifetime. The two of them, dancing. Running, really, in Vander’s bar, to the music playing on the jukebox, one on each side of the bar, and she looked exactly like this. Grinning. Giggling. Their shoes catching on the uneven wooden planks.
“Stop bumping into me,” he’d hissed at her. And she’d barrelled into him, sending them both sprawling on the dirty ground, laughing despite Vi’s indignant shouting about the dust on their clothes.
Light glinted off the casings on her braids, snapping him back to the present. Their shoulders brushed as they switched spots, eyes meeting for the briefest of moments before turning away to see the whirl of colours the room was becoming.
Everything melted away. The memories of that day. The people they’d become. The whole world. It was just them, carefree without a thought in the world, and how long had it been since he’d felt this way? It wasn’t hope, wasn’t the feeling of hope that came from finding that tree. It wasn’t the triumph at finishing the hoverboard. Wasn’t the pride that came with the stress as he built his community. It was something lighter, something nostalgic, something with no expectations, like sunlight after a cloudy week, like firelights lighting up in alleyways after the moon rose high, like old songs playing in old bars.
Normal. That was it. A feeling of normalcy.
She stepped up onto a table, boots leaving prints on papers. Ekko took her hand as she leapt down the other side, twisting back to meet his gaze. She was grinning from ear to ear. And Ekko thought she’d never looked more beautiful.
Ekko wasn’t sure how long they danced. In the background the music played, and the clocked ticked away, some hint of the passage of time, but he wasn’t sure time was passing at all, and he wasn’t sure if he wanted it to. How great would it feel, stuck forever in this selfish dream, dancing with an old friend? Just two teenagers, in love with a life far behind them.
He pulled her in, grinning with her, and spun her out. Her fingers left his.
A soft buzzing sound, and the lightbulbs snapped close for the darkness to flood in.
Ekko froze. The moon still provided light, but just barely. Where was Jinx? The music had broken off. Speaker system must have died with the power. The spell had ended with it. Ekko was thrown back into reality, the fragile shell that had been around them shattered and thrown to the ground.
Tick tock tick tock tick tock
The gun. Where was the gun?
“Jinx?” Ekko said, his voice wavering.
Silence. A chill crept down his spine. A complete turn from the atmosphere just seconds ago. Why couldn’t good moments last?
“Jinx,” he tried again.
And – there – the faint sound of boots tapping against the ground.
Bang.
Ekko jumped. He didn’t dare move. He checked himself. Not bleeding. No bullets lodged in his body. It took a moment for him to realize that the clock in the corner had stopped ticking. Relief relaxed his body, but only the slightest bit.
“Jinx?”
A slight pause. Across the room, the window creaked open, and Ekko turned to see a soft silhouette against the night sky. The faintest trace of deep blue eyes looking over her shoulder at him.
“Goodbye, little man,” she said.
He didn’t even have time to think before she disappeared past the windowsill, a glimpse of her braids dangling as she hauled herself up the roof.
“Goodbye,” he whispered to the empty room.
He gave himself one minute to sink to his knees, to lean his forehead against the table, to stare at shaking hands and remember, and feel. So close. So close. So close, yet so far away. He closed his eyes, feeling something ugly rise in his chest. There was a lump in his throat. But there wasn’t time for that.
Ekko picked up his bag and his hoverboard. And then the sky exploded into colours.
Pink and green and blue, beautiful and unmistakable. And he wondered if anyone else knew what those fireworks were for. He wondered if he could burn this memory into his mind. He wondered, just how much better they would be, if she was by his side, the fireworks reflected in her eyes.
Despite everything, despite the pain, despite the moment, Ekko couldn’t help but smile at the view.