Fandom: Arcane (League of Legends)
Rating: G
Characters/relationships: Vi & Jinx, Vi/Caitlyn mentioned (Caitlyn is present)
Warnings: Amnesia, canon-typical violence, unreality, flashbacks, Vi does not remember Jinx
Summary:
Unable to deal with all the guilt and trauma, and worsened with several concussions, Vi's mind decides to block all her childhood memories, slowly leading her to believe that she's the only child, a forever orphan, and that enforcer work is now half of her personality. The development is concerning, but Vi gets offended at any suggestion of needing help. What makes it all worse is the matter of Jinx, who is not about to just give up on her sister...
OR
Vi, filled with LoL-typical aggression, attacks Jinx and accidentally breaks through a mental block. Pain ensues. Caitlyn finds herself worried for BOTH of them.
Inspired by Vi's voicelines in the game.
To be honest, Caitlyn never thought this day would come. The day when they would actually catch Jinx. Not because the girl was virtually un-catchable, but because, well, they never truly intended to, did they? Except now they, apparently, do, because Vi decided that way. And when Vi firmly decides on something and starts forcing her way in that direction, well, most of the time Caitlyn can only follow and hope for the best.
Today, “the best” includes a cornered, disarmed and very much defeated Jinx and a Vi who’s very damn proud of herself. It could count as the greatest moment of Caitlyn’s career to date if she wasn’t scared out of her damn mind by her partner’s mental state and if she didn’t frankly feel sorry for the criminal.
Who is, without a doubt, having one of the most stressful moments of her already very stressful life while they are waiting for a squad of enforcers to arrive and help them secure her transfer. The most stressful thing is not that, though. It’s her sister going back and forth just in front of her, “keeping watch” with the coldest stare of hers with zero trust, or concern or…recognition. Caitlyn shivers and briefly considers distracting Vi and giving Jinx a chance to bail. She’s slightly horrified at herself for having the thought, but mostly she acknowledges that in this moment even she’s helpless. Vi is too high on success and pent-up anger. She’s almost gloating. It’s fucking horrible. What’s worse are Jinx’s continuous attempts to reach out to her. The girl still hadn’t given up. Seems they are both too stubborn to just give up on one another. If only Vi’s mind didn’t ultimately decide to give up on herself instead. In any case, Caitlyn is very grateful that so far there are only them on this job, because no other enforcers need to hear any of this.
“Snap the fuck out of it, Vi! You’re class act and all, but this is getting ridiculous! Vi! Violet, damn it!”
Vi scoffs. Caitlyn quietly chews on her lip - it’s kinda ironic that she first learned Vi’s full name from Jinx, in a similar situation. Vi herself had never told her before, and once her memory started vanishing she seemed to forget her own name completely. If asked, she would frown for a second, like she got a sudden headache, and then dismiss the question with yet another random word that begins with “Vi”. Violet. Jinx didn’t forget, though. Her mind, in a stark contrast to her sister’s, is cursed with never forgetting a thing.
“Don’t tell me you dared to just, what, forget them all? Forget us? Come on, remember where you fucking came from! Remember the Undercity, the house in the pit?”
“I remember Zaun well enough, thank you very much.” Vi snarls. “I go there on punch-patrol at least trice in the goddamn week.”
For a second it seems like Jinx will snap and try to claw her sister’s eyes out for that tone, and maybe Caitlyn should be ready just in case, but honestly? Maybe even she’s getting tired of this too-much-an-enforcer Vi. Keep her going that way and she’ll end up just the same as those assholes Caitlyn purged from the force as soon as she became the sheriff. She dreads the day.
Jinx, surprisingly, powers through the obvious urge and keeps pushing. Her voice is trembling, her hand movements are frantic, and she’s practically yelling, stepping closer and closer to Vi against literally everyone’s better judgement.
“What about our family, huh?! Remember Mylo! Claggor! Vander!” Jinx takes a visible effort on the next one, pushing a name out through her teeth as gently as she can without flinching, “Powder!”
It’s a beat. A split second in which both women, from different sides of the room, focus their eyes on Vi with breaths held.
Vi takes a broad step forward, coming all up in Jinx’s space and causing her to recoil back a bit.
“Who the FUCK,” she basically spits, “are any of these people and WHY should I remember them?”
Jinx rocks back and forth on her hills, watching her with a weird mixture of pain and spite in her facial expression, having to throw her head back slightly to look her sister in the eye.
“You really should.” she says, bitterly. Vi clenches her fists. Jinx doesn’t look down, but Caitlyn can see that she tenses up. She knows.
“Shut up.” It's an obvious threat. “You’re making my head hurt with your crazy babbling.”
Jinx rocks forward on her tiptoes.
“Or what, you’re going to punch me?”
In hindsight, Caitlyn really should have been ready. Not for Jinx. For Vi.
Because of course immediately as those words are said Vi throws a whole damn punch like she’s in a fighting ring, sending Jinx flying down on the floor and (they’ll find out later) only miraculously not breaking her jaw. Shimmer probably helped.
Before she knows it, Caitlyn is across the room from where she was standing, grabbing her partner’s shoulder and seriously - horrifically seriously - considering placing herself between the two sisters and somewhat shielding the girl on the floor (since when does she care for Jinx so much?! Does she feel guilty because Vi remembers her, but not her sister? She has decidedly no time to think about that).
But there appears to be no need, because as Jinx hurriedly scrumbles into a sitting position, grabbing her face with the most genuine look of hurt in those purple eyes, Vi completely freezes.
***
Why.
Why is everything on fire?
They were just in some safehouse at the outskirts of Zaun, weren’t they?
It’s on fire. It’s all on fire. Smoke fills her lungs, makes it hard to breathe, irritates her eyes. Clouds her already straining brain.
What’s going on? What was she doing? She can’t remember. Hard to think. Hard to breathe.
Right. She just hit someone.
There’s a little girl in front of her on the ground. There’s blood oozing out of her nose. She’s crying. Screaming.
Why did you leave me?!
Vi’s hand is bloody. Did she hit her? This girl? No, this can’t be right. She would never hit this girl.
Because you’re a JINX, you hear me?!
She did.
She did, she did, she did, she did, SHE DID.
The building behind her, burning higher than a fucking funeral pyre, continues to crumble, bit by bit. It feels like every falling piece is falling on her head instead of the ground. Is there even a ground further than they stand? It’s all fire, fire, fire. Every crash is deafening.
You dared to just, what, forget them all?
There are bodies under the rubble. She can’t look at them. She can’t. She does. Her eyes don’t obey her.
Remember Mylo!
“Mylo…”
A bloody hand sticking out from under the ceiling’s remains. He’ll never pick a lock again. Never complain or brag again. Will never grow up.
Claggor!
“Claggor…”
Another body under the stone. She can see his face. It’s lifeless. Pale, unmoving, dead. Bloody. Will never grow up either. His goggles an invisible weight on her head.
She can’t breathe.
Vander!
“Vander…”
His huge body right behind her. Wrecked by shimmer. Dead. His kind eyes, glassed over. His huge hands, the ones that taught her everything she knows about fighting, once that carried her to safety and gave her a new home. Limp. No life in them. Never will be. He’s not breathing anymore.
She isn’t either.
Powder!
Take care of Powder, he said.
“…Powder…”
Chalk drawings on a wall. More defeated monsters than she ever caught criminals. A flimsy house at the edge of nowhere, dusty, barely holding itself together, but theirs, and therefore the best. A little warm bundle with blue hair, pressed tight into her side because she can’t sleep alone. Songs they sang together.
Little funny things with funny names and funny faces drawn on them. Actually nail bombs. Not that funny. They never work. They will.
She hit her. She left her. She failed her.
A little toy monkey is jambling its plates together loudly, but instead of a bright blue crystal they are hitting her ears. Her brain is going to explode. She wants to throw up.
“Mylo, Claggor, Vander, Powder…”
Whatever happens, it’s on you.
“Powder, Vander, Claggor, Mylo…”
Protect the family.
“…Mylo, Powder…”
It’s on you, on you, on you, ON YOU.
“…Powder.”
Powder is crying louder than the plates are ringing. Vi wants to reach out but she can’t. All she can see is the blood on her hand. If she reaches out, she will hurt her again. She knows it. She’s scared of it.
Why did you LEAVE ME?!
“I didn’t, I– I didn’t. I didn’t want to, I couldn’t, I DIDN’T LEAVE YOU, I–”
She did. She did, she did, she did.
You never left. I’ve always heard you.
Fire gets higher, and higher, and everything behind it gets darker, and she can’t see Powder anymore, she can’t see anything. The smoke is burning in her lungs, threatening to rip her apart.
Will she die here?
Maybe she should.
Maybe she should have.
Instead of Mylo. Or Claggor. Or Vander.
Violet, please!
Right. That’s her name. Is it? Was it?
Did Violet die together with Powder the moment she raised her hand at her like that? The moment she gave her a new name?
If it’s Jinx now, did Powder die? Did she kill her?
I won’t abandon you again.
Who is Powder?
“Powder, Mylo, Claggor, Vander… Powder… Jinx.”
Are we still sisters?
“Jinx. Jinx, Jinx, it's my fault, all my…”
Nothing is ever going to change that.
There’s no air left in her.
Never.
Yet she screams.
A scream practically rips itself out from her chest, through her throat, and it feels like her brain did finally explode with all the ringing. Her legs disappear from under her and she crashes on her knees and curls up on herself, fingers in her hair, eyes shut close, but there’s no escaping the fire and the smoke.
She doesn’t want to remember. She can’t handle remembering them again. Dead bodies, dead eyes, a crying girl, mistakes she was never able to fix.
“I can’t. I can’t, I won’t, I didn’t, I… Please, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, fuck–”
She still needs you. They all do.
When was she EVER asked what she “can” and what she “wants”?
…
…It’s fire all around her. And dead bodies.
She’s nine years old.
She’s alone.
Her parents are dead.
She’s alone.
She’s crying on her knees, a little kid who doesn’t know what to do, cries as hard as only little kids can, as she could before she taught herself to never cry and never show weakness. It shudders her whole little body with every sob.
She’s alone…not.
She’s not alone.
There are little, little hands hugging her. Powder doesn’t know what to do, is too little to even understand what’s happening, but she knows that her big, strong, undefeatable sister, capable of hanging moon and stars in the sky, is crumbling down in front of her. She doesn’t understand. She holds her anyway.
Vi is not alone.
Fires start to die down.
***
Against all the rules of weapon handling, Caitlyn leans on her rifle almost like on a crutch, watching numbly as her undefeatable partner sobs on her knees on the floor, hugged tightly by allegedly the most dangerous criminal of their city. Jinx is almost curled up around her shuddering, but thankfully calming down sister, and her grip looks tight as iron, as much as her arms can muster, but Caitlyn doesn’t worry about the choking hazard because, on the contrary, Vi is finally breathing properly after a few whole minutes of helpless hyperventilating and wheezing. Yes, Caitlyn wanted the ‘real’ Vi back, no, she was not prepared for the necessary breakdown and all the screaming. Shoot the Sheriff for thinking this, but boy, is she glad that Jinx is here.
She checks the clock. They still have a few minutes till the backup arrives.
She supposes it falls to her to imagine a creative way to blow this building up to fake Jinx’s grand escape. That is so not her field of work, but you can’t pay her enough to try and pry the sisters apart right now.
Before she moves to walk outside, she hears Vi croak out a weak ‘I’m sorry I hit you. Now. Then, too. But now.’
Caitlyn isn’t too sure, but she thinks she hears Jinx snicker quietly and answering something about ‘base violence necessary for change, or whatever’ and Vi giving out some resemblance of a laugh.
They will be okay, she thinks.
Somehow, they will.