Sicktember Day 3—“Why’re so sweaty?”—Firelight!reader x Jinx
Thank you for the request anon! I’m sorry if I didn’t do this idea justice, my inspiration for writing has been drained recently but I did my best! (Also I’m sorry I’ve never really written fight scenes before so I kinda skirted around them, I hope they make at least a little sense😭)
CW: angst, mentions of death, loss, grief, explosions, weapons
Promise
“There you are.” The words slip from your most barely a whisper, your heart beating steady but rapid in triumph.
Jinx.
You’ve finally found her.
After months of searching, chasing, running after every wisp of a trail you could find, you finally know where she’s been hiding out all these years.
See, you used to be close, when you were just kids. You’d even go as far to say you were best friends. But then the unthinkable happened and Powder, she’d disappeared. You ended up surviving on the streets with Ekko until the two of you stumbled upon the tree and had the idea to create the Firelights.
Things were good for a while. As good as they could have been. Over the years as you grew, you started having people that relied on you, you even had a home. But there was always something missing. Someone. You never knew what happened to her, and some days, you convinced yourself she died along with the rest of her family.
Then one day, you and Ekko got wind that the production of Shimmer, the new drug revenging the Lanes, was starting to become mass produced, effectively tearing apart what little was left of the small sliver of peace in the Undercity.
The Firelights started a new mission. To stop the production of Shimmer, or at least destroy as much as you can before it hits the streets. Once you figured out how it was distributed, the first few hits to their supply were easy enough. But your efforts quickly came with retaliation and whoever made Shimmer, started protecting their product to new levels.
Extra guards here, a few trap explosives there. After about a year of working on slowing down Shimmer’s distribution, a new pattern surfaced. One that kept nagging at your mind. A symbol that randomly started appearing at all the sites you worked to destroy. Marked on all the traps and explosives that had been upgraded and trickier to defuse.
Someone new was behind all of it. You knew it. You just didn’t know who it was until it finally clicked. You’d seen that symbol before. Long ago. It was after one of the harder ambushes that it all came together. You’d been dazed, half knocked out by whatever had blown up near your face moments earlier when you blinked up and a pale face was hovering over you.
The blurry stranger had a familiar air to them, blue hair falling in their face as they gazed at you from above. One word escaped their lips. A question, the syllables of your name sounding foreign coming from their soft rasp. They almost sounded surprised and you realized then that your mask had broken and fallen off with the force of the explosion.
You blinked again and they were gone and it wasn’t long before your consciousness followed, your head thudding back against the floor as your eyes fluttered closed. When you woke, you were home. Ekko had brought you back and the second you woke he started questioning you about who you saw, who they were, if they could lead the Firelights to the mastermind behind Shimmer.
But there was only one thing swimming inside your mind. A name. Powder. The blue hair, matching blue eyes, and the monkey symbol all clicked into place.
She was alive. She was the one behind the bombs…she was…protecting Shimmer. You had no idea why she was, or why after all these years she’d finally shown up back in your life. Maybe she hadn’t known you were still alive either. You’d both obviously moved on. But when Ekko repeated your name, brining you back to the present, you shook your head and looked him in the eyes when you said: “I don’t know who it was.”
From that point on, you made a promise to yourself. You’d find Powder and you’d put a stop to her, a stop to Shimmer. It hurt you to think about it, but she’d hurt so many of your fellow Firelights, hurt so many others through her affiliation with Shimmer. You had a feeling she wasn’t the one behind Shimmer, but she had to be working with them. And they had to be stopped.
You clung to the hope that it really way her. All the evidence worked in your favor, but still there was that little doubt in the back of your mind that nagged at you, telling you you were being delusional, that you just wanted her to be alive, that you could have the chance to have her back in your life. Every night you dreamed about her. Memories from years long gone and a faceless blue ghost haunted the other half of those dreams, always lurking in the shadows.
A few weeks after you’d pieced it all together, she’d shown her face again. It was just the two of you when she’d appeared from behind a large barrel of Shimmer and stunned you so much you took a few steps back, lowering your weapon just slightly. She looked so different now. Pale, and tired, but fierce and her shocking blue hair was tied back in braids that hung all the way to her ankles. Yet somehow, you knew, without a doubt, she was Powder.
You’d begged her stop. To end whatever she was doing, to leave whoever she was working with. To come back with you, to put an end to the violence.
For a mere moment, you thought you’d convinced her, then your heart sank and you felt as though your chest had been crushed by one of the barrels when she’d just laughed, a loose, unfamiliar cackle and told you you didn’t understand. That this was who she is now. That she isn’t Powder anymore. She’s Jinx.
After that, you didn’t see her again, but you tripled your efforts to find her. At every site the Firelights hit, her symbols were there. Work written all over the explosions and damage. You worked tirelessly for months, staying up, running yourself ragged. But you were determined. And it all payed off when you finally pinpointed where she was, where you could find her.
You shoot up from your desk only to have to reach for something, anything you can to steady yourself as the room suddenly spins. Right. That. You’ve been sporting a rather big fever for at least a day or two…or well, times been blurry for a bit, but the fogginess in your mind actually gave your thoughts enough of a good jumbling for you to finally figure out where Jinx is.
But she won’t stay long. You remind yourself, reaching for your board and your weapon. This is your only chance. It has to be today. Maybe you’ve pushed yourself too hard recently, if your body has anything to say about it, fever and all, but you have to just push on a little further. You’ll get Jinx, you’ll come back, you’ll sleep for a week. The only thing that matters is her.
———
“Jinx! I know you’re here!” You call out into the night, weapon in your hands, head scanning above and around you for potential hiding places.
You don’t hesitate a second when she appears from the shadows, long blue braids swinging near her ankles as she pops out dramatic, “took ya long enough!”, you lunge forward, weapon raised and go in for a hit that she dodges annoyingly easily.
Without missing a beat you try again, charging at her without really thinking of any strategies, which shows when she barely has to step aside this time to avoid your attack.
“Been dropping hints for you for weeks, thought for sure you’d turn up sooner.” Jinx rambles on, twirling a colorful, decorated grenade in her hands as she stands too casually for someone currently being attacked.
You ignore her, heart racing, chest pounding as you attack again and again and again without so much as fazing her. She’s not even out of breath. But you are. Your mind feels muddled, only clinging to one thought, her, and your body responds lazily when you try to move, sluggish and weaker than it should be.
“Why won’t you fight back?!” You grunt in frustration, glare darkening when she only smirks.
Jinx amps up her game a few attempts later by starting to fight back rather than just dodge your weak attacks. Booms go off and her laughter rings with them as she flings little explosives at you, which you luckily move away from in time. “Hey, you’re the one who came in guns-a-blazing! I just want to talk. You’re hard to find, that’s why I started leaving you clues to find me.”
You pause at that, brows furrowing in confusion, or fever, or both. You’re closer to her now, chest practically heaving to keep up with your activity when normally three minutes of fighting doesn’t even make you break a sweat, and when you open your mouth to speak nothing but a strained raspy sound croaks out so you just lunge at her again.
Jinx stops your sloppy hit with a step and reaches behind her back, a small twinkle of light shines in her eyes, she’s clearly enjoying this, even if at this point, neither of you really remember why you’re in this position. If you’re being honest, you don’t really want to fight anymore, not when your vision suddenly goes blurry and your body wracks with a shiver so harsh your weapon shakes slightly in your hold. Jinx notices immediately, you see the way her expression shifts ever so slightly and you take her pause as another opportunity, which fails spectacularly of course.
“Hey! You know, you’re not on your game today……also, why’re so sweaty? We’ve barely begun!” She cackles but if your head wasn’t spinning so much, you might have noticed it didn’t hold her usual sharp snark, there was something else under her tone. Something you couldn’t quite place, something…
Your thoughts are instantly silenced when a small round trinket is thrown your way. Panic swells in your chest. You know you need to move, you know what’s about to happen. But for some reason you stay frozen, your mind just a fraction too slow for instinct to kick in and save you from the blast.
The ringing in your ears amplifies by a thousand when her grenade goes off, blowing you back into a wall. A sharp pain sears through the back of your head where it meets concrete….and then…..nothing.
Darkness overwhelms your vision as your body sags against the floor. The last thing you hear is your name being called, the sound warped by the ringing and thumping in your head, and finally, a long string of curse words before you feel weightless, like you’re floating in the air, except there’s a comfort to it, something inside you allowing your body to fully give into the darkness…
———
“P-powder?” You croak, surprised by the roughness of your own voice and too hazy to remember that’s not who she is now, though there’s always a part of you that will see her as Powder, your best friend, the girl you used to laugh and giggle with as you ran around the Lanes making up games and finding secret shortcuts in the winding alleys.
“Really thought you’d dodge that one.” You flinch in surprise when she comes into view, her arms hugged to her chest, looking at you with some version of a silent apology. You didn’t expect to wake up to her there, suddenly transformed from that little girl in your dreams from moments before to a new version of herself, one you’re not yet used to.
“Been watching you fight. You’re good….well, normally” She adds when you don’t respond as your mind tries to catch up to the moment. You look around and find yourself in an unfamiliar place. The lighting is low, providing for plenty of shadows, and it doesn’t exactly scream cozy, but for some reason, you don’t feel unsafe, even after being almost blown up by your ex-best friend.
You shift a little to sit up and feel a thin blanket fall from your shoulders, bunching up around your lap. Your head pounds the moment you move and you groan as you swing your legs around the side of the small battered couch you’ve been lying on.
A weight on your shoulder grounds you as the room spins a little and when you finally blink away the haziness, you look over to see Pow…no, Jinx, standing tentatively beside you, her hand on your shoulder, steadying you.
“Woahhh, take it easy, toots.” Jinx presses you back into the couch cushions with a gentle but firm touch and for some reason, maybe because you’re suddenly too tired to move, you let her.
She doesn’t move away, only shifting so you have a little more breathing room as she still hovers near you like she doesn’t quite know where to be or what to do with you.
“I knew you were lookin’ for me, I wanted you to come. Didn’t think you’d show up all feverish ‘n such...” Jinx mumbles, running a hand along one of her long braids. “…scared the shit outta me, y/n. When my explosive actually got you…” She looks away before meeting your gaze again.
This time, instead of the familiar blue haired stranger you’ve come to know her as, you just see her as her. The girl who was always by your side until she wasn’t. The girl you grew up with. The girl you hoped was still out there somewhere. The girl you still…..love.
You take a slow breath, but when you glance around the room for the first time with clear eyes, a spark of panic swells in you when you notice all the explosives just laying around, the half-built ones, the fully ready ones, the dark scuff marks on the floors from someone setting them off with little care.
Jinx quickly senses your shift and holds her hands out in front of her. “Hey, no. I’m not going to hurt you, well, not again. And not on purpose…I-I don’t think I could ever hurt you on purpose, y/n. And don’t worry, you’re safe here, I don’t know where you Firelights hide out…and I’m not what you think I am.”
Your lips tighten and your brows furrow as you try to take all this in, wanting so desperately to believe her, but knowing a little too well what she’s capable of, and not forgetting the fact that your heart may still belong to her, but you haven’t known that person for a long long time. Jinx may have once been Powder, but you don’t know Jinx now.
“Listen…you’re sick…or something. And my grenade gave you a decent whack to the head so let’s maybe just not talk about any of that right now? Maybe we can focus on just keeping your brain from melting inside you?” She offers and you just stare feverishly at her for a moment before giving a short, slow nod.
You can’t help but let out a sigh and you let yourself sink a little further into the lumpy cushions on the couch, not having much energy to do anything other than that. You watch Jinx with tired eyes as she slowly, tentatively comes closer, eventually sitting next to you with a sigh of her own.
She doesn’t say anything and neither do you, but when a fever chill washes through you, making your head sway and your body shiver miserably, she inches even closer, her hand moving to run along your sweaty shirt with a surprisingly gentle touch for someone so often only making chaos.
Your breath hitches when her hand meets your back, but not from sickness, from having her so close after so long. It’s almost…nice. Your eyelids flutter and before you can even register what you’re doing, you find your head naturally dropping to rest on her small shoulder.
This time, Jinx doesn’t hesitate in her actions, she simply puts an arm around you, tucking you slightly more into her, letting you lean your full weight against her chest. Your eyes fall closed as you let yourself be held.
It’s quiet a while except for your soft sniffles or occasional coughs and at some point, one of her hands finds your hair and starts running through the sweaty strands like she’d been doing it all her life, not for the first time ever.
Jinx’s mind is racing even though her body is still. She refuses to move, scared to break this little spell that seems to have fallen over the two of you, softening the edges of distance and time, making her feel as though she was a kid again, holding you when you got scared of a storm that one night.
She almost doesn’t hear it when you murmur, half asleep and barely above a whisper, so quiet she could almost convince herself she was imagining your words, but the way you shifted to drape an arm around her waist told her it was real. That you were real, not just another hallucination, not just another dream:
“Hmm…..I missed you……” Your voice was so soft, so tired, so different from the person she once knew, yet exactly the same somehow.
You didn’t even know you said it aloud, but in your dreams, or maybe it was reality, you swear you heard her echo the words as she leaned down, pressing the lightest kiss to your hair and tucking the thin blanket tighter around your shivering body.
The next time Jinx spoke, she made sure you were fully asleep before whispering, “You might hate me when you wake up, but….we’ll figure this out. I’m not losing you again, not ever. Promise.”
