Chapter 7
“So what do you think?”
“...What?”
Caitlyn raised her head from her arms to glare at her unhelpful and sorry excuse of a friend.
“I just explained it all, what don’t you get?” The drinks they’d had were doing little to quell her growing irritation and her glare was enough to make Jayce shrink in on himself a little.
“N-No, I heard, I just-I don’t-” His arms flailed around and nearly knocked Viktor’s drink out of his hand, who was watching their conversation the same way a scientist would watch a rat solve a maze.
“I’m just-I-I can’t-No, I can’t-ju-just-just-”
“What?” Jayce Talis ended his verbal floundering lamely, looking pleadingly at his husband to save him.
Viktor took a long sip, keeping his eyes locked with Jayce’s, and answered with a pointed silence.
“Jayce!” Caitlyn barked, not caring how loud she was being because she had asked him to meet her so he would help and he wasn’t helping right now!
“Lo-Look, Cait, I’m just, uh, surprised is all.” Caitlyn continued to glower, that was still not helping.
“I just,” He dragged a hand through his hair and let out a puff of air, “you said her name was Jinx, right?”
She rolled her eyes and slapped her hands down on the table.
“Yes! I told you, it’s Violet’s little sister, like I just said!”
“No, I heard but-” He hesitated and Caitlyn was tempted to reach across the table and slap him until he finally strung together a full sentence.
“-no, I know, Vi’s sister…but…wasn’t her name Powder?”
“Why do you care what she calls herself?! That’s not what we’re talking about!” Maybe she should’ve asked Mel for help instead?
“It’s just that-” He cleared his throat. “Blue hair? About twenty-something?”
Caitlyn was going to throttle him. How did these questions help her? Answer: They didn't, which meant Jayce was no longer of any value aside from a convenient outlet to let her frustration out on, who would miss him really?
“What Jayce is trying to say,” Viktor finally butted in, saving his useless partner from finding his end at Caitlyn’s hands, “is that he just realized the young woman with blue hair named Jinx Lane in one of his classes is, in fact, the same young woman with blue hair named Jinx Lane who is Violet Lane’s sister, and he is trying to ask if the girl you are having trouble with is, in fact, one of his students.”
Thank the Aspects that Viktor was fluent in Jayceish. But still-
“Why does that matter?” She cried out, though the part of her mind that hungered for any piece of knowledge about Jinx quickly filed the fact that she was studying at the Academy away in the near-empty drawer reserved for any scrap of info she could get on the woman Jinx had grown up to become.
“It’s that-I mean-”
“He is uncomfortable knowing the woman you wish to have his advice on pursuing is a student of his.” Viktor translated.
Caitlyn’s eye twitched.
“She is an adult, you teach countless people, you do not know her,” With every word Jayce grew more and more wary of the way her hands twitched in his direction, “so get over it and help me or I swear on my grandmother’s grave they will never find your body.”
Jayce gulped and gave Viktor another look. Viktor calmly sipped his drink and offered nothing.
“Alright,” A bead of sweat ran down the side of his face, “you want my opinion?”
“Yes, Jayce. That is why we’re here.” Caitlyn ground out between clenched teeth.
“Okay, uh, so you want to, what? Ask her out?” Calm down, Caitlyn, it would look bad for a lawyer to commit homicide no matter how deserved it was.
She swallowed and for the first time gave voice to her desire. “Yes.”
“Right! But you’re unsure because she’s your ex’s sister and your ex told you not to go near her again-”
“-and you’re also pretty sure Jinx hates you and she thinks you hate her-”
If all he was going to do was explain her dilemma back to her she was going to throw something at him, like a shoe, or a rock.
“-you’re also unsure if asking Jinx –who you think hates you– out would be fair to her because you feel you’d be doing it to get back at Vi for saying you’re not allowed to-”
There had better be some actual advice by the end of this. For his sake.
“-is that it?” He finished still looking ready to jump out of the booth at the smallest sign of imminent violence from Caitlyn.
“Yes.” She hissed. “That is what I just told you. Now help me.”
“Well, hmm, I…think…” He cleared his throat not meeting her eyes. “You said you don’t really know her anymore, right? So…maybe you should try and approach her like you don’t.”
“What?” Hostility bled out of her and confusion took its place.
“I mean just, y’know, treat this as asking out a complete stranger, no past business or baggage, like she’s just a pretty girl you’re interested in.” He looked significantly more at ease now that she didn’t look one wrong word away from lunging at him.
“...and about it not feeling fair to her?” She asked quietly as she sunk down and stared at a stain in front of her.
Jayce shrugged helplessly and took a sip of his beer.
“If proving to Vi that you can was your only reason for doing it then obviously you shouldn’t do it but if you’re actually interested in her what anyone else thinks shouldn't really matter, right?”
Huh. That…wasn’t a horrible way of looking at ít…and she did want to ask Jinx out for more reasons than just showing Vi she couldn’t tell her what to do…
“But if you do please never tell her one of her professors helped you work up the nerve to ask her out.” Jayce pleaded but Caitlyn was too busy imagining herself treating this like any of the dates she’d gone on the past year, just… asking and taking it from there.
Was it fair to ask her out just to fuck with Violet? No. But that was far from the only or even most important reasons she wanted to do it.
She was attracted to Jinx and had, shamefully, been so for a while.
But after meeting her again she also desperately wanted to know her. What was she like now? What did she do during her day? What were her routines and habits? Caitlyn wanted to know all there was to know. Which she would admit was perhaps a bit weird, getting so…almost obsessed, but Jinx had always been a bit weird herself so maybe it was okay that Caitlyn was a bit weird about this?
Oh. Gods.
What if it was okay?
“I need to go.”
Caitlyn stole Jayce’s beer out of his hands, finished it off to the sound of his protests, clambered out of the booth and bolted out of the bar. It was a dick move to leave Viktor and Jayce to pay for the drinks when she’d been the one to invite them out but she had a mission of grave importance to do.
Caitlyn Kiramman had a Jinx to woo.
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Around halfway to Zaun the dark clouds obscuring the night sky unleashed a near-storm-like amount of rain upon the world below, making the fact that Caitlyn was speeding while a teensy bit inebriated even more dangerous.
Not that she cared, her heart was beating like a drum in her chest, her head filled with the what-ifs that might follow tonight if, somehow, against all reason, Jinx didn’t send her packing when she showed up at her apartment.
She might say no and Caitlyn told herself she was prepared for that eventuality. But she might also say yes, however slim that chance was, and Caitlyn’s heart soared at the possibility.
Maybe it was spending so long treating her attraction to Jinx as some dirty secret to suppress or the fact that she was drunk or maybe she was just going mad but she could not recall ever feeling this alive before.
It was stupid and likely to fail and yet Caitlyn barely spared the thought of Jinx saying no more than a few moments of her time before going back to what it would be like if she said yes.
Where could she take Jinx? Maybe a nice restaurant? A movie? What would the woman once called Powder like to do? Maybe they could go to a nightclub? It’s what she had done before Caitlyn had seen her stumbling home that night.
Would she enjoy a restaurant in Zaun or Piltover? What would she order? Fish? A steak? Salad?
What movie would she enjoy? Would she want to go to a movie theater or to stay at one of their places? Jinx had loved horror movies in the past but had her tastes changed? Would she prefer something fast-paced and action-filled? Or something romantic maybe?
The idea of watching some cheesy romance on her couch cuddled up with Jinx made her insides all gooey and warm, unlike anything she’d ever felt.
’I’ve lost it. I finally pulled one too many all-nighters and I’ve gone insane because of it.’ She thought to herself even as she entered Zaun proper and the gloomy atmosphere and rising buildings of Piltover’s Twin, while also making sure she was going the right way.
Insanity be damned Caitlyn was and has never been a quitter. She was doing this.
Oh, Aspects above.
She was doing this.
Jinx’s building came into view as the weight of what she was about to do hit her. It was a tall brick building, graffiti sprawled out over the lower half and Caitlyn thought she could make out some that bore a resemblance to the kind she’d caught Jinx throwing up a couple of times a few years back.
Her parking job was sloppy and if the person to her left needed to use their car before she left they would need to either crawl in from the passenger side or scratch up Caitlyn’s car opening the driver side door.
Not that she cared. There was something far more important on Caitlyn’s mind. Like trying not to throw up as she prepared to face Jinx.
She looked into the rear view mirror and saw a disheveled and flushed woman staring back at her. Her hair was loose and bunched up by the high collar of her coat. She took a deep breath and tried smoothing out any wrinkles on her white shirt. She grimaced when she saw a tiny stain on her slacks, likely from when she had snatched Jayce’s drink.
If it wasn’t for her messy hair, reddened cheeks and general untidiness she could have been called more than just presentable but it would more than suffice for this, one upside of cancelling her meeting last minute to drag Jayce and Viktor out to squeeze some advice from her oldest friend was that she had dressed for a far more formal environment.
With a last look into her own eyes, Caitlyn threw the car door open and stepped out onto wet pavement. Again she grimaced as she realized she had failed to account for the rain, she pulled her coat closed to try and ward off the rain trying its best to soak through her clothes, sadly she could do nothing for her hair except break out into a run towards the building.
She was lucky the entry door wasn’t the kind that needed a key or code, though she made a note to bring it up to Jinx since it was terribly unsafe for just anyone to be able to waltz in. She breathed a sigh of relief and let go of her coat as she stepped inside.
Her relief was short-lived as she realized she had no idea which apartment was Jinx’s.
“Fuck.”
The expletive passed her teeth as she leaned a hand on the wall.
How could she not have thought about that? How drunk was she?
A pathetic urge to cry started welling up inside of her thinking about all the stairs her poor legs would have to climb to check every door for Jinx’s place.
But, like a divine sign of the righteousness of her quest, the light over a grimy-looking cork board flickered and drew her attention.
Hope sprang up in her chest and she hurried over, eyes madly searching for that familiar name.
’Arryn…Cerwyn…Durrandon…Gardener…Lane…Lanni-’
Wait!
Her eyes shot back up to the previous name and a breath of air left her.
’Lane, Jinx’
Her relief lasted until she saw the number next to the name.
Of course Jinx lived at the top level.
She really hoped there was a working elevator in the building. Her footsteps echoed as she scurried towards where she hoped there would be an elevator.
A whimper almost left her when she saw the metal doors and the paper taped on one of the doors.
’Please don’t be out of order. Please, please, please.
”Elevator fixed. Camera installed. Next tenant that thinks it's a good idea to transport something triple the weight limit will be evicted if they are not killed by the elevator.”
Caitlyn could have cried but she was already doing this at an ungodly hour so she just quickly pressed the button and waited impatiently for it to arrive. Her foot tapped rapidly and her eyes darted towards the stairs as time dragged on.
Maybe she shou-
*Ding*
Caitlyn entered the elevator and pressed the highest button.
She was doing her best not to think about the brownish splatter on the floor that looked suspiciously like dried-blood as she waited, worrying a lip between her teeth as she watched the number above the doors count up.
Oh no…Jinx is probably asleep! She’ll be disturbing her! She’ll be even more annoyed at her for showing up unannounced, drunk and with a confession years in the making on her lips.
“Shitshitshit.” Caitlyn’s eyes were wide. She started pacing the elevator and dug her blunt nails into the sleeves of her coat.
Oh could she have planned this any worse? Her odds of Jinx saying yes were already low, was doing this now a doomed endeavor? Should she just give up and go home?
No.
Her jaw set stubbornly as she stopped pacing and forced her arms back to her side.
’You are a Kiramman. We do not give up. We do not lose hope. And we make our own luck.’ The words her mother had told her over and over in her childhood, the stilted attempts at encouraging a shy child by an aristocrat who had stubbornly refused to consider handing the parenting reins over to a nanny or anything of the sort in a breach of the outdated traditions that the blue bloods of Piltover loved so much.
Thankfully her mother had become much better at the whole ‘mothering’ thing by the time she hit her teens.
Her mother probably hadn’t thought of a situation like this when she had said that to her but for the first time in her life the mantra actually helped her.
So Caitlyn straightened her back, put her shoulders back and raised her chin.
Even if Jinx said no this time Caitlyn would do her very best to convince the woman she never actually hated her, the opposite in fact, and maybe it wasn’t the greatest thing to already be preparing to continue in spite of a refusal but Caitlyn was too excited and too drunk to care right now.
*Ding!*
Caitlyn barely waited for the doors to fully open before striding out into the hallway and searching for the numbered door with hawkish intensity.
Her shoes clicked against the floor as she approached the right one, pushing down the nerves threatening to ruin this.
She raised a trembling hand and knocked three times.
Now she could only hope Jinx was either awake or she would have to risk banging on the door, because she did not come here just to give up.