Okay, I know I just said that I won't have a constant updating schedule, but I have only just realized that if I get so stressed over uni, I'll have more drive to actually make fanfics, what kind of sick joke is this? My thesis is waving at me from my desk but I'll have to turn a blind eye to it for now. Actually, the idea for this one-shot just popped up into my head, it was an idea I really would have loved to read, but I'll have to sacrifice and actually do it myself, sigh. Well, here you guys go! Feeding the Grayson stans, yay! (Me and 8 other people cheered!!)
Grayson had always believed in the law. It was the foundation of her very existence, the force that shaped her into the stalwart Enforcer of Piltover. Her badge was more than just a symbol of authority—it was a promise to uphold justice, to protect the city, and to ensure order prevailed over chaos.
And yet, here she was, tangled in the sheets with the very embodiment of everything she stood against.
You were a shadow from Zaun, an assassin who had long since abandoned the luxury of morality. In the Lanes, survival was an art, and you had honed yours with a blade. Where Grayson upheld the law, you defied it. Where she saved lives, you took them. You were the dark to her light, the sin to her virtue. And yet, something about her made you linger when you should have vanished into the night.
It had started with a hunt.
The first time Grayson saw you, you were little more than a silhouette against the neon-drenched skyline of Zaun. A flicker of motion, a whisper in the wind, gone before she could even draw her weapon. You were fast, impossibly so, and the only thing left in your wake was a corpse still warm, a signature carved into the victim’s throat with a steady, practiced hand. Grayson had crouched beside the body, tracing the initials with gloved fingers, her jaw tightening.
She expected you to be a ghost, a fleeting myth among the criminals of Zaun.
And then, you taunted her.
Their next encounter had been deliberate. You had left a trail—just enough to pique her curiosity, to draw her into the undercity's depths where the golden luster of Piltover dimmed to flickering lights and suffocating smog. She had known it was a trap, and yet she had followed, her pulse steady, her grip firm around her baton. What she hadn’t expected was you leaning against a rusted railing, twirling a dagger between your fingers like you had all the time in the world.
"Took you long enough," you had said, a smirk playing on your lips.
Grayson had narrowed her eyes, stepping closer, her stance solid. "You must be either foolish or desperate to want my attention."
"Neither," you had replied, tilting your head. "I just like seeing the look on your face when you think you've caught me."
She had lunged then, her patience thinning, her training kicking in—but you were faster. Like smoke slipping through her fingers, you had evaded every strike, danced just beyond her reach, teasing her with a blade that never quite touched skin. And then, just as swiftly, you had disappeared, leaving behind only the echo of your laughter in the alleyway.
That night, Grayson had laid awake, frustration simmering beneath her ribs. She should have been furious. She should have been plotting her next move, strategizing how best to track you down.
Instead, she found herself wondering about the glint in your eyes.
It had started with chance encounters—at crime scenes, in back alleys, on rooftops overlooking Piltover. You should have been just another fugitive in her crosshairs, but something deeper had stirred between you. Perhaps it was the way her tired eyes softened when she spoke to you, or the way your presence made her question the rigid lines she had drawn between right and wrong.
The rain pounded against the rooftops as she pressed you against the cold brick wall of a crumbling Zaunite building, her grip firm around your wrists. You had been careless, a miscalculation in your escape route allowing her to corner you at last. You expected the usual arrest, the click of cuffs, the righteous lecture about justice and consequences.
You stared at each other, breathless, chests rising and falling in sync. The tension between you was electric, crackling in the narrow space between your bodies. Her eyes flickered from your defiant glare to your parted lips, the weight of your history thick in the air. She had spent so long chasing you, and now that she had you, she found she didn't want to let go.
"You finally got me," you murmured, your voice laced with something almost amused.
Grayson’s jaw clenched, her grip tightening, but there was no malice in it. "Yeah," she said quietly, as if the reality of it had only just settled in.
And then, before either of you could think twice, she kissed you.
It was fierce, desperate, an unspoken war between want and restraint.
You responded just as hungrily, arms breaking free from her grasp to tangle in her damp hair. The badge on her chest pressed against you, a constant reminder of the lines you were crossing, but neither of you cared.
When you finally pulled apart, your breaths mingling in the cold air, Grayson stared at you with something almost like regret.
"This is a terrible idea."
You grinned, brushing a thumb over her cheek.
And that was the beginning, the beginning of the end.
Grayson saw the weariness in you, the weight of your actions. And you saw in her something you never thought you'd crave—stability, security, the promise of a life where your hands were clean of blood.
But the world would never let you have it so easily.
The Piltovans saw you as a criminal. The Zaunites saw her as a tyrant. And the people you worked for—the ones who paid you to eliminate threats, to silence voices—would not accept a weakness in their blade.
Loving each other was never easy. Your relationship was built on stolen time—on moments spent in dimly lit apartments, where the weight of your respective duties was momentarily forgotten in favor of hushed conversations and lingering touches.
Some nights, Grayson would trace the scars on your back, her fingers featherlight, while you murmured half-truths about the people you had to kill. Other nights, you would help her remove her heavy Enforcer gear, listening as she vented about the endless bureaucracy that bound her hands more than any chain ever could.
Yet there was always an unspoken question between you: When would this end?
Every night Grayson left your side, she carried the knowledge that one day she might have to hunt you down. And every morning you woke up alone, you knew there would come a time when your name would cross her desk as just another target to be eliminated. The lines between love and obligation blurred until they became unbearable.
One night, as you lay together in the dim candlelight of a hidden apartment in the undercity, you traced the edge of Grayson’s jaw with calloused fingers. She caught your hand in hers, pressing it against her lips.
“We can’t keep doing this,” she murmured, but her grip on you never loosened.
“I know,” you said, and yet neither of you moved away.
The city would never understand. Piltover’s golden towers and Zaun’s poison-filled streets were not meant to intertwine.
One day, the badge she wore would force her to hunt you down.
One day, the sins on your hands would make her see you as nothing more than another mark.
And yet, in the stolen moments between duty and survival, in the fleeting touches and whispered promises, you found something neither of you ever thought possible.
Even if it was doomed from the start.
Grayson leaned against the doorframe of your safe house, arms crossed, watching you with that ever-present look of resignation mixed with exasperation.
"Tell me you at least had a quiet night," she said, eyeing the blood on your sleeves.
You smirked, flicking a knife between your fingers. "Define quiet."
Grayson sighed and ran a hand down her face. "One of these days, I’m going to have to arrest you, you know that?"
"One of these days, you’re going to stop pretending you’d actually do it," you shot back, stepping into her space. "You like me too much."
She huffed, shaking her head, but the corners of her mouth twitched upward despite herself. "Liking you is a terrible decision on my part."
"And yet, here you are. Again."
She let out a defeated chuckle. "Here I am."
Before she could say anything else, a sharp knock echoed through the room. Your casual demeanor vanished in an instant. You grabbed your knife, stepping toward the door cautiously.
When you opened it, the sight before you made your blood run cold.
The message came in the form of a severed finger—wrapped in silk, delivered to your doorstep.
The sight of it made your stomach twist into a knot.
You recognized the ring on the dismembered digit. It belonged to a fellow assassin, a woman who had served the same employers as you. She had been skilled, ruthless, efficient.
With shaking hands, you unfolded the note that accompanied the grotesque warning.
"You are compromised. Fix it. Kill the Enforcer. Or she dies slow."
Your stomach clenched. You had always known this day might come, had always known that love and loyalty could not coexist in your world. But now that the ultimatum had arrived, it felt like the walls were closing in.
You had spent your life carving through the darkness, surviving on the edge of death. But for the first time, you faced a choice that had no escape. If you ran, they would hunt her. If you fought, she would be caught in the crossfire. And if you did as they asked, you would destroy the one good thing you had ever known.
But instead of submitting, you did what you did best.
For days, blood ran through the back alleys of Zaun. Your employers were powerful, but they had never faced an enemy like you—an assassin without chains, without a leash, fueled by desperation and love. You struck them in the dark, cut them down before they could react.
One by one, the names that had signed your death sentence fell, their corpses left as warnings to the rest.
But no matter how many you killed, more always came. The hydra had too many heads, too many contingencies. With every body that hit the ground, another took its place. You realized, too late, that you could not kill the system that had built you.
And worse, you had made Grayson an even bigger target.
“I was a loose end, Grayson.” Your voice was hollow, your eyes distant. “They don’t tolerate loose ends.”
Grayson’s fingers tightened around your wrist, unwilling to let you go. “We can find another way—”
“There is no other way.” You inhaled sharply, as if trying to steady yourself, then forced a smile that did not reach your eyes.
“This will be my final sacrifice. For you. So that you don’t have to spend the rest of your life looking over your shoulder.”
Grayson shook her head. “No. No, we fight them together. We make them regret ever thinking they could control you.”
“I already did.” Your voice wavered. “I went on a rampage. I hunted them down. And it wasn’t enough. There will always be more. This is the only way to make it stop.”
Tears welled in her eyes as she cupped your face.
You leaned into her touch for just a moment, memorizing the warmth, the way her fingers trembled. Then you pulled away.
“This is the only way I can protect you.”
When Grayson arrived at your safe house one particular night, she saw it in your eyes before you spoke.
The exhaustion. The futility. The quiet goodbye.
“Don’t,” she whispered, stepping forward, reaching for you. “We can fight this. We can—”
“No, we can’t.” Your voice was steady, even as your heart fractured.
“They won’t stop, Grayson. Not until you’re dead.”
You smiled—small, sad. You cupped her face in your hands, memorizing the warmth of her skin, the steel in her gaze, the love that she tried so hard to hide behind duty and reason.
“You’re too good for this world,” you murmured. “Too good for me.”
Before she could react, before she could stop you, you drove the blade into your own heart.
Her scream tore through the night, but you were already slipping, already falling. The pain was distant, drowned beneath the weight of relief. Because now, they had no reason to go after her. Because now, she would be safe.
And as the world faded to darkness, the last thing you heard was your name on her lips, the last thing you felt was her arms around you, holding on as if she could will you back to life.
But some stories were never meant to have happy endings.
Years later, now Sheriff of Piltover, Grayson found herself standing in the doorway of the run-down hidden apartment where you had once lived.
The city had changed, and so had she, but the ghosts of the past remained.
She stepped inside, her boots echoing against the worn wooden floor. Her gaze drifted downward, to the faded brown spots that still marred the ground—the only remnants of where you had fallen.
She crouched, running her fingers over the stains, tracing the place where you had taken your last breath. Slowly, she reached up, unfastening the mask she always wore in Zaun, the filter shielding her from the suffocating chemicals that tainted the air.
With deliberate reverence, she pulled it off, inhaling deeply. The toxic smog stung her lungs, burned her throat, but she did not cough.
Instead, she breathed it in, as if forcing herself to taste the world you had lived and died in.
“You were right,” she murmured into the silence.
“The world wasn’t good enough for you, either.”
And for the first time in years, Grayson let herself grieve.
A/N: Hey, thanks for reading 'til the very end! I know I'm just a starting writer here, and your interactions always mean a lot as it gives me strength to carry on this writing hobby of mine. Personally, I do not care for followers, but I do care about likes though, it shows that you all appreciate it, and I'm just a girl with need for validation. Kidding! Thank you for reading and stay tuned for other works, I suppose? Still don't know my schedule for uploading though...fuck it, we ball!