Chapter Text
Piltover’s a nice enough town. It’s decent sized, big enough for two high schools and a growing patch of suburban sprawl out to the east end, but it’s old enough that the patch you’d consider downtown is a mix of office buildings, apartments and brick storefronts, nothing higher than three stories and looking like something out of a cute movie. Especially with all the Christmas decorations up right now, dusted with snow all around, looking ready for some harried businesswoman to discover the true meaning of giving up her career for her highschool sweetheart.
Vi has no idea why the fuck Jinx would move here.
The suitcase thumps heavily when Vi drops it onto the floor of her sister’s little apartment, sitting tidily above the pet grooming salon. It’s a decent enough space, though it’s hard to tell just how much space there is with all the clutter and scattered laundry, socks dotting the floor like fallen leaves. Jinx clearly hasn’t grown out of the hoarder habit, or the crafting habit she leans on to justify the hoarding; boxes and surfaces are littered with painted, glued and rejected looking junk that Vi can already guess she shouldn’t refer to as junk aloud.
“Okay, so we just gotta hit the boutique two blocks up to get you, like, bed stuff. I forgot about the bed stuff.”
Jinx saunters out of her bedroom, carrying a plastic laundry basket with a pillow resting on top. She nods to a little alcove to the side of the living room, before walking over there and dropping the basket beside the ratty dark blue sofa pushed up against the wall.
“This is a pullout,” she says, demonstrating by, well, pulling out the seat of the sofa with a creak of joints. It expands into a little twin-sized bed and Jinx dusts it off with dramatic flourish. “We’ll just get you some nicer sheets and pillowcases and you’re good to go.”
“Thanks,” Vi says, sticking her hands in her pockets, looking at the thin mattress that’s definitely seen better, cleaner days.
“It’s not a real boutique,” Jinx adds, tone dry with amused judgment. “It’s just a fancier dollar store. But it’s literally called ‘The Boutique’.“
“Ah,” Vi nods. “Got it.”
She’s tired, she’s been on a bus for 4 hours, her entire life fits into that stupid suitcase she put down a couple feet away and half of it she’s outgrown. It’s barely 1 in the afternoon and all Vi wants is to fall down onto that shitty looking futon and sleep until the weekend.
But blankets first.
Jinx has already dragged the suitcase over and is elbowing Vi with a gleeful grin. It’s a little unsettling, but Vi smiles back and her younger sister pops up onto her tiptoe to throw an arm around Vi’s shoulder and bring her in for a tight hug.
She’s too tall, Vi thinks as she leans into the embrace. They both are.
“Alright!” Jinx says, releasing the hug and slapping her palms together. “Sheets.”
They get bundled in their coats and boots, Vi tugging a toque down over the fresh side shave she gave herself just before release, half to hide the patchiness of it.
“Oh, here,” Jinx says, slinging on a small purse over a shoulder. She tosses a key ring with two keys dangling from it to Vi. “Outside door locks automatically, so make sure you keep them on you.”
Vi chuckles a little, shoving it in her jeans pocket for safe keeping. She frowns then, looking as her sister pull on her boots.
“Is that what you’re wearing?” she asks. It’s winter. There’s a foot of snow on the ground.
Jinx looks down at her crop top and open ski jacket over the loose joggers and then back up to Vi with the tired look of a teenager. “Yeah mom? I’ll be fine.”
Vi decides not to make this a fight, and just shrugs.
They head outside into the fresh, cold air to the little store, The Boutique, around the corner.
Along the way Jinx excitedly goes on about the walkability of this place, how her tattoo parlour is just a few streets over, that there’s a place that sells just candy year round and she has no idea how it survives. Vi’s quiet but she’s listening, she’s enjoying listening, smiling to see her younger sister so comfortable. Jinx’s braids have grown with the rest of her, like someone took the memory of her sister and stretched it all out. They dangle at her waist, comically exaggerating her movement as she walks and twists while telling Vi about her first month if living here, of how buff she’s gotten living at the top of a flight of stairs.
Vi looks at her sister’s willowy frame and bites back the comment.
They enter the store to the jingling of Christmas music on the store speakers, and a truly upsetting amount of tacky red and green everything scattered all around. Vi cringes, almost worried that they’re going to be forced to buy holiday themed bedsheets.
Luckily, normal household supplies haven’t been completely replaced by the festive ones.
“Ugh, the Christmas explosion,” Jinx gripes to echo Vi’s internal discomfort. “Every year it feels like it creeps a bit closer. Remember, heh,” she picks up a gaudy looking decorative pillow and shifts it around in her hands, watching the light catch the sequins. “Mom bringing out the boxes from the garage ‘as soon as the first snow stays on the ground.’”
She says the last bit in a dramatic type of voice, quoting and badly mimicking the phrase they used to hear every year.
That brings a slight chuckle to Vi, smiling at the memory. “It was always the most random junk. The house looked like someone else’s storage closet.“ And it had its own smell too, from the scented candles and potpourri shoved in with the fabric and decor over the rest of the year. Not bad, but one that oddly sticks in Vi’s memory.
“I can almost smell it,” Jinx again echos Vi’s internal monologue, dropping the pillow back onto the shelf. Then she lets out a heavy breath and turns to the basic sheet sets.
Forty minutes later the sheets are on the futon back at the apartment and Vi’s laid herself out on top of them. She closes her eyes and tries to relax, sink down into the barely-a-mattress that’s only just managing to be softer than her other bed of the past seven years. Just for a minute. She just needs the break.
Waking up from an unintentional nap always leaves you groggy but Vi thinks she’s setting a record, sitting up like every muscle is asleep and trying to get her bearings. It’s still light out, so it’s either the same afternoon or Vi slept out for the whole day.
She honestly thinks she’s more tired than she lay down.
With a grunt, Vi stands up and zombie walks to the kitchen to squint at the time on the microwave. It’s been an hour. How does she feel like so much shit after only an hour?
A note from Jinx is scribbled on the whiteboard on the fridge.
Hey sis, at work until ten. There’s frozen pizzas.
Vi puffs her cheeks as she reads and then huffs out the air, tugging open the freezer to see the pizzas. Not hungry just yet, Vi closes the freezer door and leans her forehead against it. Okay. She’s basically alone for the rest of the evening.
Sitting here alone in her sister’s apartment is weird though. Should she just watch TV? Maybe she’ll just do that, she’s got a lot to catch up on.
After grabbing a glass of water, splashing some on her face to wake up, Vi runs her hand through her hair to try and fix it from the awful rats nest of bedhead that nap turned it into. God, that nap’s feeling more and more like a bad idea.
Still groggy she changes out of her clothes into fresh ones like she can trick her body into thinking it’s a bright new morning. Then she drinks another glass of water, and cracks open one window in the living room to try and breathe in the cold winter air.
The smell of the cold does help wake Vi up, but it wakes up a craving too.
Five minutes later Vi’s outside. Her coat unzipped and hanging loose off her shoulders, she leans against a bike post on the edge of the side walk with a cigarette between her lips and flicking a lighter to life in her hands.
Vi hadn’t bummed a lot of smokes back there, refusing to get addicted to the nicotine so it could be lorded over her for unfair trades and shady deals later. But that didn’t mean she was completely immune to it’s draw, especially on cold days when the air seems to make the smell sharper and the smoke feels like it’s warming her from the inside out.
Mom and Dad didn’t smoke but most of their friends did. Vander did. And as Vi leans her head back and closes her eyes, the smell brings her back to the big gatherings at the bar, sitting in the back booth with… with Jinx and the other kids, near the door outside that the adults and older teens were constantly going in and out of. It meant winds of cold outside air mixed with smokers breezing in again and again and again, as they ate their baskets of fries and played with their new gifts and laughed and felt happy and exhausted and content together.
All the decorations and cheer and it’s the dirty stink of tobacco that finally gets Vi in the festive spirit. She grins a little.
After one last puff she drops the half-smoked cig onto the sidewalk and grinds it out, rubbing her hands together to warm them up. Shivering a bit in her coat, Vi grabs the door handle to the little stairwell and tugs it… to a stiff handle and still closed door.
Right, it auto locks. Jinx told her that.
Vi pats at her coat pocket, and is greeted by only her little billfold wallet, the soft box of her cigarettes and the lighter knocking together. She tries the other, but it’s just her glove. She pats at the pockets of her jeans to find them empty too and stands there almost frozen for a second as her mind rewinds.
She was wearing her other pants when Jinx gave her the keys. She must’ve forgotten to switch them out.
“Shit,” she mutters. “Shit, shit. Fuck.”
Another way smoking’s bad for you.
Vi tries the door again, like maybe the cold just made it really stiff and she’d just mistaken it being locked, but no luck. The handle still only barely wiggles, and the door itself loudly bangs against the lock holding it in place.
Her hand curls around the handle, a little demon on her shoulder whispering to her to just slam the door open as hard as she can. She probably could, a good kick and a shove of—
She steps away.
She’s not going to break into her sister’s building. Jinx is around. In town somewhere. Vi doesn’t have her phone to help her with a map but she’s got her wallet, she’s got time, she can wander around until she finds the tattoo shop and ask Jinx to help her back in. Maybe she’ll grab coffee first.
Vi begins to trudge down the sidewalk, shoving her already cold hands in her pockets.
At the corner of the street is an older man, salt and pepper hair and a white beard, hanging up garland on the awnings in front of the space that holds a couple restaurants. Vi walks up just as he steps back, hands on his hips and scrutinizing his work. He tilts his head to make eye contact, looking directly at her.
“What do you think?” he asks, his voice deep and with a faded accent. She looks up at the decorations, then over to him to see him smiling warmly. He reminds her of Vander, or at least of her memories of the old barkeep before he died.
“It’s festive,” Vi says, doing her best to give a smile back. He seems pleased and nods, rubbing a hand over his beard. Vi clears her throat. “Hey, could you help me find something?”
He nods. “And what would that be?”
“Coffee,” Vi replies. “There’s a Tim’s up this way, right?”
“Oh, you don’t want to go there,” the man says, shaking his head. “You’ll want to turn right at the next street and down the block towards the church and you’ll pass a little cafe called Freebird. Best coffee in town, promise you’ll find exactly what you’re looking for.”
Vi raises an eyebrow but hums and nods, trying to commit the directions to memory. She’ll take independent coffee. “Oh, perfect. Thanks.”
“Enjoy,” he says, before going back to adjusting the garland. “And happy Christmas.”
Mumbling the greeting back, Vi starts walking again.
Cold wind has Vi tugging her coat around her wishing she’d grabbed her toque, her ear on the shaved side of her head smarting a little from the air and she rubs at it a bit to try and keep the blood flowing. Halfway down the last block of her directions Vi sees a bit of yellow tape waving in the light breeze, hanging from the window of a storefront.
Getting closer she sees that it is, shit, yeah, the coffee shop. She’s really having incredible luck today.
By the alcove of the front door, crouching, is a woman; her gloved fingers prodding at a bit of the snow packed down outside it like she’s trying to read tracks. She’s dressed in a long, heather grey coat over dark skinny jeans with a red scarf bundled around her neck. Her long, dark hair curtains her face, and Vi has the sudden urge to see what she looks like.
“I don’t think you need to look for the space key,” Vi jokes, eyeing the large hole in the main window. Looks like someone tossed a brick right through the glass to make an entrance.
The woman stands up, running her thumb over her fingers. She looks at Vi — looks down at Vi because she’s tall and in heeled boots — and then smirks and chuckles a little.
“Might have prevented their problem if it was that easy to find,” she says, in a low English accent.
Vi chuckles back. She’s staring, maybe, definitely, trying to drag her eyes away to look at the store but the woman is magnetic. She looks roughly Vi’s age, with features that are somehow delicate and sharp at the same time, a long nose and pouted lips under arrestingly blue, narrow eyes. A few loose strands of hair have fallen in front of her face and it makes Vi brush back her own shaggy bangs.
“So, what happened here?” Vi asks, convincing herself her curiosity is the reason for hovering.
“Not sure. Happened this morning,” the woman says, crossing her arms and sighing slightly. “The inside was vandalized as well.”
“Shit, sorry. Is this your store?” Vi asks, and the woman shakes her head.
“No, no, I—“
“Run the rival cupcake bakery?”
The woman bursts out in a surprised, bright laugh. “Cupcakes?”
“Am I wrong? You look exactly like the kind of woman who’d run a cupcake bakery.” Vi remembers the fad and then, with a warm rush of shame, wonders how much of a fad it still is. When did it die down? Is she exposing just how dated she is?
“That’s certainly a new one,” the woman says without commenting on any of Vi’s silent anxieties. “But I don’t bake.”
“Huh,” Vi shrugs, feigning disappointment. “Darn.”
The woman chuckles, before asking. “Do you work here?”
“Me? No. I’m staying at my sister’s,” Vi explains. “Got locked out by accident while she’s at work. Was looking to kill time at the coffee shop until she gets home.”
“For the holidays? Off from… university?” The woman asks again, giving Vi a quick look up and down, maybe trying to figure out details. Vi laughs, a little darkly, shaking her head.
“No. No,” she rolls a shoulder, not elaborating. “Somewhere else. This is like… More like a fresh start.”
Those blue eyes dart as she looks at Vi, like she’s trying to take in every detail of her face. It should bother Vi, no good has ever come from her being looked at like that, getting sized up from someone looking to start something. It does bother her, but not in the usual way. It makes her feel shy, and that bothers her more than anything. Since when did she get fucking shy?
Vi looks away like she needs to stare at the broken window a bit more. “Too bad, I was really hoping for coffee,” she says, ready to walk away and find the Tim’s or a Starbucks or, hell, a gas station. She’s barely shifted the weight on her heels when the woman beside her clears her throat and Vi pauses again, looking back up to those blue eyes.
“If you’re looking for coffee,” she says slowly, tilting her head a little. “I live a couple streets down and I have a coffee maker. I mean, everyone has a coffee maker, I’m sure. But I do. Too.”
Vi wasn’t expecting that offer, and it catches her right off guard. There’s a light flush on the woman’s cheeks that could be excused away by the cold but maybe the invitation’s responsible too. Coffee could mean a lot of things, but it at minimum means coffee and Vi does really want some of that.
“Sure,” Vi says, smiling a little in disbelief. The woman smiles back.
She walks Vi down from the Main Street to where the area starts to look more suburban, asking a couple questions that Vi gives cagey replies to, stuff like what jobs she does, where she was before this. What her holiday plans are.
“Not really a big Christmas person,” Vi admits, honestly. “Haven’t really done anything for it since I was a kid.”
“Oh, too bad,” the woman says with a hum. “I’ve always loved Christmas.”
She leads them to a 70’s style bungalow, with a giant pine tree in the centre of the yard and more visible at the back. The whole yard is blanketed with snow, and there’s red ribbons along the porch bannisters with a large wreath on the door, making it look endearingly festive.
Inside, things are minimalist and clean, also tastefully decorated with a large tree visible in the living room.
There’s a faint smell of lemon and lavender in the air, one that reminds Vi very faintly of the cleaners they used at the bar, of the neighbour’s car when she would drive them from school a few times when mom was working late; van always cramped with the supplies for her maid service.
“Nice place,” Vi says, because she should probably be polite. She shuffles off her coat, letting her host take it, then pats away any extra lint on her sleeves.
“Thank you,” the woman replies, hanging their coats up in the little side closet. She’s wearing a sweater underneath that’s not too tight but doesn’t need to be. Vi’s eyes dart down the silhouette of a curvy chest and hourglass waist before she can stop herself, and she clears her throat and pretends the generic landscape painting on the wall is interesting.
She notices, as she walks into the living room, a complete lack of family pictures or anything personable, any sign that this house is really lived in. It feels like the opposite of Jinx’s apartment.
“Do you live here by yourself?” Vi asks.
“I do, bought it last year.”
Vi whistles, impressed, as she plops herself down on the couch. Within seconds a purring trill sounds from beside her, announcing a grey tabby’s jumped up onto the armrest to blink slowly Vi’s way.
“Oh, that’s Teemo,” the woman says from the kitchen and, as the cat trots over to give Vi’s hand a headbutt, quickly adds, “I can put him away if he’s a bother.”
“No, no, he’s cute.” Vi scratches the cat’s head and it flops on the cushion beside her, loudly purring. “I like cats.”
“Good, then,” says the woman. “But just say the word if you need me to. He can be very annoying.”
Vi laughs, still petting the cat absently. Her host continues in the kitchen, and neither of them speak in the minutes filled with the sound of the running espresso maker. It gives space for Vi’s mind to race.
Twenty four hours ago she was in a cell. Two hours ago she was on a futon in a cramped apartment. Now she’s sitting in a house that looks like it’s about to go on the market for way too much. She’s never had luck this good. It’s unnerving.
A cup of coffee is presented to Vi and she takes it with a small smile.
The woman moves to the armchair across from the sofa and lounges back in her seat, crossing her long legs at the ankle and giving Vi another look up and down. Either Vi’s getting hungrier by the minute or the woman is, but those looks feel like they’re lingering longer each time. The woman takes a slow sip of coffee before speaking up.
“So how long have you been in town?”
“Six hours,” Vi replies and the woman coughs a little into her drink.
“And you got abandoned on the streets already?” she asks, smiling just a little as she teases. “What did you do?”
Vi laughs. “Nothing like that. She had work, I went out for a smoke and forgot the door locks behind me.”
“Without your phone to contact your sister, I assume.”
“Nope.”
“Have you been by the coffee shop before?”
“No, someone on the street told me to go there, guessing he didn’t know about the window. But if I was going to wait for my sister to come home, I wanted a place warm with fuel,” Vi says, raising her mug. “So thanks for this.”
“Of course,” the woman smiles, raising her own mug in response. “What time does your sister get off work?” she asks, and Vi knows what she means. How long will you stay here?
“Ten,” she replies, and the woman’s eyes widen slightly. “But I was going to walk around until I found her tattoo shop and see if I could bum the keys earlier.”
“Ah.” Taking a sip of her coffee, the woman looks thoughtful for a moment, tapping her thumb against the mug. “You said she works at the tattoo parlour?”
Vi nods, cheeks full of coffee from a fresh sip.
With a hum the woman puts her cup down on the coffee table, stands and leaves the room, followed by her cat. She returns with an open laptop in her hands, finger on the trackpad. She smoothly sits back in her armchair.
“Close by?” she asks, and this time Vi’s free to respond with a “yeah.”
Nodding the woman types and scrolls. “Right, that’s The Underground then. I’ll write down the directions.”
She reaches into the drawer of the little table stand beside her chair and pulls out a pen and notepad, writing down onto a sheet before ripping it off. She folds it and flicks absently at one corner with her thumb while still looking down at her laptop, bottom lip in her teeth. Vi wonders if she worries her lip like that a lot, if it’s made the skin rough, when the woman’s voice breaks her out of her thoughts.
“Are you in much of a hurry?”
“Not really,” Vi says, slowing down her words as she asks the question she’s figuring out the answer to. “Why?”
The woman smiles, still looking down at her laptop before finally glancing up to Vi with hypnotically blue eyes under long lashes.
“If you have that long to wait, would you like to stay for another drink?”
Vi considers it.
How staying for another drink could easily lead into lounging against the woman’s couch with long legs draped over Vi’s lap and a mouth hot and wet against Vi’s own. Maybe further, that long silken hair under Vi’s hands, a plush bed at Vi’s back. It would be a good way to pass the time, pay her back for her hospitality. Vi’s no stranger to that kind of offer.
The look the other woman’s face tells Vi she’s roughly on the same page, even if the details might be different.
Vi grins, just a little.
But doubt grips her. Maybe she’s reading too much into it and this woman’s just being nice, looking for a friend. Maybe Vi’s broken from half a life of transactional relationships. Maybe she’s too desperate for friendliness.
Maybe this still feels too good to be true and even if there is no misunderstanding, no catch, Vi probably shouldn’t be diving face first into a hookup when she’s barely settled, she just got here. And she’s worn out and tired. Probably wouldn’t be very good and she’d rather disappoint this unbelievably hot woman looking at her like that while their clothes are still on.
“Maybe next time,” Vi says with a little smile she hopes makes it feel a ‘not now’ instead of a ‘never.’ “Coffee shop’s probably going to need a couple days to get fixed up, right?”
There’s a look of clear disappointment that quickly passes over the woman’s face but she smiles and nods. “Of course.”
She stands and hands the paper with directions on it to Vi in exchange for Vi’s empty mug. Pocketing the paper, Vi pats the exposed belly of the content cat lounged beside her and stands herself, tugging her pants up a bit and adjusting her sleeves.
“Thanks for the coffee,” Vi says, and means it.
Heading over to put her boots on, Vi listens to the sound of water for the cups being rinsed cut off, and footsteps behind her, the cat chirping again. Just as Vi’s pulling on her coat, the woman appears beside her again, tucking some of her hair behind her ear.
“And here, if you get locked out again.”
She hands over another sheet torn from her notebook, and Vi sees that it’s a phone number.
“Number to your cupcake bakery, right?”
The joke’s a gamble, the woman’s eyes narrow like she’s annoyed, but the smile is worth it. “I could try to have cupcakes next time,” the woman says, crossing her arms and leaning against the wall, “store-bought ones.”
With a laugh Vi waves and steps out, shutting the door behind her. She breathes in the cold evening air in deep so she can feel it settling through her lungs.
She starts to walk down the snowy sidewalk, turning back to look at the house. White lights dot the eaves, visible now that it’s dark enough,
Vi shoves her hand in her pocket, fumbling for the paper with the phone number on it and pulling it out. Feeling weirdly… excited, Vi grins to herself and then shoves the paper back in the pocket for safekeeping. She almost feels like skipping.
A restaurant she passes once she’s back in town is playing Christmas music so loudly on the inside that you can hear it walking by and that’s how good of a mood Vi’s in. She hums. Along with the music and even after she’s passed by, feeling for the first time actually optimistic about this move. Even if she never sees this woman again, that felt like it had to be a good omen. She’s out in the real world, she’s here, she’s alive and desirable and maybe she’s finally going to feel like a person again.
When Vi gets to the tattoo shop she’s a combination of cold and warm and feeling so, so weird about her good mood.
The loud death metal playing over the sound of the needles buzzing inside the tattoo shop kick Vi back to her senses a little, and she blinks away the fog of daydreaming. She has to squint and blink a little to adjust her eyes, contrasting the white and brightly lit world outside to the fluorescent and dark paint of the parlour.
Jinx is sitting by one of the empty chairs in the space stretching out past the front desk, fiddling with the equipment. She glances up and does a double take.
“Hey Vi!” Jinx perks up, like she’s 11 and Vi’s picking her up from school again. She bounces to her feet, and waves to her coworkers. “Guys! It’s my sister Vi!”
The two men look up and raise their hands in greeting, as does the woman lying on her back getting her calf tattooed.
“I forgot my keys, got locked outside,” Vi says to her sister when Jinx comes up to lean against the glass counter display of piercings.
“Aw, you didn’t just come to visit me?” Jinx pouts, then laughs. “Okay, one sec, but don’t lose these,” she says and swings over to where what looks like repossessed school lockers are nailed to one wall. Opening one, she shuffles a hand around in the haphazard mess inside before pulling out a brightly coloured lanyard with a mess of keys and keychains hanging off of it on a ball.
She brings the jingling mass over and shakes it in front of Vi with a grin. Dumping it onto the glass top, Jinx shuffles until she finds the key she wants.
“This one,” she holds up a key covered in chipped pink nail polish, “is the outside door. This one’s for the apartment.” She holds up a similarly painted key, blue this time. “Don’t lose these ones too, or we’re fucked.”
“I didn’t lose them, I just forgot them,” says Vi, taking the keys and twisting the lanyard around her fingers as she shoves the hand in her pocket.
“Uh huh,” Jinx replies. She leans on the glass top again and then points to herself with a long finger. “I’m the Jinx, remember,” she says with a tone that seems amused but Vi doesn’t find the humour at all.
“You’re not,” Vi says, instantly saddened by the weight of calling her sister that when they were too young for everything that happened. “You’re not a jinx, shit happens and I—“
“Hey, hey,” Jinx holds up her hand to stop Vi and smiles a bit sadly at her. “It was a joke, chill. Just don’t want you stealing my thunder.”
She pats at the glass, jerking her head to point to the chair she was at. “I gotta get back to work, so I’ll see you at home?”
Vi nods.
Back at the cramped apartment, on that ratty futon, Vi lies back and stares at the ceiling and the shadowy dots formed by the stucco. She digs into her pants pocket and pulls out the second folded paper. Again feels a stupid grin on her face.
It’s only after she adds the phone number to her contacts and has to input the name that she realizes, embarrassingly, that after all that time they spent together she never got it.
She uses a cupcake emoji as a placeholder.