Archive of Our Own ^beta

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The enforcer proceeded to place a soft hand on his arm to study the wound.

“What are you doing?” He asked the Marai. He watched as the enforcer pulled out a clean rag from his uniform pocket, tearing it in strips and wrapping it around Scar’s arm.

“You’re bleeding, this should help stop it. But you should have it washed and cleaned so it doesn’t get infected” the enforcer said, with concentrated repose.

- scene from ch chapter 1

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In the distance, Steb saw light emitting from a gentle cloud of insects that were floating near Vander’s statue. There was a softness in that bright green glow, dancing in the night. For a moment Steb thought they resembled the emerald of Scar’s eyes. The Chirean looked over and watched as Steb's gaze slowly followed the trail of one of them floating nearby, “I’ve never seen those before. We don’t have them in Piltover.”

Scar gazed at Steb, then to the beetle his eyes were following.

“They’re…firelights.”

After a moment of silent observation, Steb said

“They’re beautiful.”

- exerpt from ch 4

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Jinx sat in her workshop; a cold empty space on the wings of a dusty, decommissioned turbine engine. Her emotions rapidly spun in a constant cycle of despair, numbing apathy, and mania. She had lost track of the time, unsure if it had been days or maybe weeks; but it had already been a month since Piltover’s sheriff had killed Silco. And against Jinx’s own desperate wishes, her mind dragged itself back to her last moments with him, like a fingernail picking at a scabbing wound.

~~~

After the deafening silence that shortly followed the loud ringing of the sheriff’s rifle, the noise and space around her started to blur, when she caught sight of him on the ground. Breaths labored, and an undeniable, glaring, wound in his chest. Silco grasped at it weakly, and like the tremored movements of a ghost, Jinx could feel her body move languidly on its own. Her pistol had long ago slipped from her fingertips to the concrete floor of the empty Shimmer factory. She thought she could hear shifts in the distance, the two Vastaya escaping the building from behind her, but she hardly recognized it. As her footsteps finally reached where the Chembaron lay, she dropped to her knees in front of him, unaware of just how much her body was trembling.

Her mouth opened but she couldn’t hear any words come out, palms in the air swaying just above his body, unsure of where to put them. How can she fix it? What does she need to do to fix this? He winced, and with the remaining strength he had left, Silco turned his head to look at her. She cupped his face,

“This isn’t happening.” Jinx heard the words clearly, as if spoken right in her ear, but she didn’t know who had said it. Tears started to well at the waterline of her lids, and her lips trembled violently, yet her voice was barely a whisper. “Silco, no.” The man had a pained expression. Yet, despite the critical wound, it almost seemed as if the woeful gaze in his eyes was for another reason entirely. He looked at her as he willed himself to say something in his shallowing breaths.

“Don’t cry, little one.”

Jinx tried to pull him up in a hollow panic, scrambling uselessly on her feet, “Let’s go, Silco. We have to get out of here right now--...the doctor, he’ll--”

He lifted an unsteady hand, but he was already too weak to keep it held up. Jinx grabbed it before it could fall back to his lap, and she placed his palm on her cheek. Her eyes wavered and she watched him speak,

“You’re greater than these walls that contain you.” Her eyes widened. She was confused, because she didn’t understand why Silco was speaking that way. Why did he sound that way? 

“No, no. I don’t know what you’re–” Silco continued, interrupting Jinx.

“Jinx. You’re more than any of this. Perfect. This prison, it isn’t meant for you.”

There was a tone in Silco’s last words that almost felt like a command. He needed her to believe what he was saying. Then, time stilled, and there was a moment of deafening silence. Before Jinx had even realized, the hand that she held to her face had already become limp. The softness in his voice had broken her. He’d never spoken that way with the girl before. And to come to the realization that she would never hear that voice again, it had plunged her into a chasm of despair. She could no longer hear the labored breaths of the man who raised her. The man who plucked her from the grimy floor amidst the burning embers just outside these very walls, those years ago. Jinx clung to him and sobbed. The blood from his wound stained her shirt, and she could still feel the vestiges of warmth ebb from his slowly cooling body. She whispered in choking cries,

“Silco, no. Don’t do this. Don’t leave me, please.” Her voice cracked, and she could barely breathe. The tears blurred her vision, as the droplets landed and mixed in with the blood that continued to pool at his chest. In the corner of her eye, she could see movement. It had only briefly torn her away from the moment, but it was enough to plunge the immense—excruciating—grief that plagued her down into a deep, dark void. The movement she saw was Caitlyn, in the distance, climbing down from the rafters. The sheriff swallowed a lump in her throat with the thought that a man lay dead because of her. And even if he were the crime lord of the Undercity, nothing could prepare her for how it would feel to take someone’s life for the first time. She pushed the thoughts aside; she needed to get to the stones. She had hoped to make it down in time to gather them from the ground while Jinx was distracted, as they had still lay on the floor from when the young Zaunite had dropped them earlier that evening. But before the sheriff could even make it halfway down, Jinx had already stood up.

The girl languidly walked to the stones that littered the asphalt, without urgency. Cobalt bangs covered her eyes and swayed lightly with her movements, shimmer-infused irises gleaming through them every now and again. She bent down and slowly picked each of them up, as Caitlyn’s breath stilled in a quelling anxiety. The only thing the woman could do was watch from the distance.

“Do you know what it’s like to lose someone?” Jinx’s words reverberated in the empty cannery, as the young girl held them up to study in the dim light. Were these really worth it? These stones? The sheriff watched in horror from the rafters, as her eyes widened. The sweat that formed on her palms forced her to grip onto the steel beams even tighter. “Even if I destroyed your whole city, you would never understand what I’ve lost.” Jinx’s usual playful, reckless, tone had abandoned her throat and made way for a cold, hollow, timbre. The words that had come from her mouth suddenly held more weight. “You took everything from me.” Jinx spoke her last words painstakingly in short syllables, as if the word everything was Silco’s name itself, and Caitlyn could feel the girl’s words squeeze her heart. 

I’m sorry.

The sheriff tried to steady her breaths, as she watched the grieving girl walk without haste to the rocket launcher that patiently waited at the table.

“S-stop!” Caitlyn yelled desperately. The sheriff continued to climb down, but her speed was nothing compared to the girl’s short distance to the table. Caitlyn cursed, wishing for anything for her legs to be quicker, and the maddening absurdity of the situation was almost laughable. She fumbled down the beam so quick that she nearly missed a step and fell to the floor from the rafters.

Without another word, the young Zaunite placed the Hextech gemstones in the chamber, one by one. She picked up the weapon and walked to the edge of the cannery, to an open balcony that led its view to Piltover’s skyline. From this location, at the edge of Zaun, only the river stood between the two cities at her feet. But in the space between them, above the waters, the air that filled the expanse of The Undercity and the City of Progress…there was nothing that separated them from each other. She could hear panicked protests from the sheriff fading into the background, as she hoisted the rocket launcher above her shoulder. The heavy metal bit into her skin, but it only served as a brief, fleeting, reprieve. Jinx lifted it and aimed it at the council chambers in the distance, her purple, iridescent tears stained on her cheeks as she pulled the trigger.

The immense force that erupted from the launcher had pushed Jinx back, but she braced herself and kept herself from falling backwards. When the rocket released from the barrel, it tore through the air. Caitlyn watched as it sped towards the tower, but at that moment, it almost felt as if time had slowed. The painful seconds felt like minutes, and the sheriff’s heart wrenched from her utter helplessness as she could only watch. She couldn’t stop it. The rocket hit the chambers, and Caitlyn let out a strangled cry.

Not soon after, Jinx turned and aimed the massive weapon at a chemical reactor in the building. She didn’t care what came of her at that moment, all she needed was to see everything else around her fall apart. The rocket hit the machine and the explosion rattled the whole building. Smoke erupted in every direction, and the glass from the high windows shattered, spewing out. Shards fell down like rain, and a few nicked her skin, but all the pain did was remind her that she was alive, and that he wasn’t. Jinx walked towards Silco’s cold body and knelt with him again, as the fire began to lick at her surroundings. She placed her fingertips softly over his dark eye, and gently shut the lid. She had no intention of leaving. The young girl wrapped her arm around the man’s shoulder, her frame jumping slightly at each hiccup that hit her rib cage. The enveloping smoke forced small coughs from Jinx, but she deliberately welcomed the smoke into her lungs, betraying her body’s natural instinct to expel the foreign substance that reached her cavity.

Suddenly, a strong, augmented arm tore her up from the ground.

“What the hell have you done! Are you insane?” Sevika glared at her, livid, her gray eyes hard and piercing. But when she looked down at the Chembaron, she faltered. Any remnants of anger, or irritation with the girl who had caused yet another disaster, had all but faded. Silco’s subordinate swallowed, as her eyes widened and her brows furrowed, taking in the Eye of Zaun’s limp body. She looked back at Jinx. The girl’s stare was hollow, her face grey. If the woman didn’t feel the slight tug of Jinx’s arm against her metal grip, she would’ve thought the girl was dead, too. Sevika cursed out loud, before hoisting Silco’s body over her shoulder and carrying him and Jinx out of the burning factory.

Jinx let herself be taken away by Sevika’s strength, briefly looking back at the cannery. The purple plumes erupted and reflected off the fading magenta in her own eyes. The sound of chaos that would normally excite her fell on deaf ears. At that moment she didn’t know exactly how she felt, as she watched the building burn. A tugging grief began to resurface through the numbness: at least that place would be gone, for good this time. And there’d be nothing on the map that could show anyone where she had lost everything. Jinx turned to look at Silco’s body. With his eyes closed, being carried by the woman, it almost looked as if he was just sleeping. Jinx didn’t know what was stronger, her embroiled fury towards Caitlyn’s action, or the enormous grief that had struck her down like a led pipe, knowing that she would never see those eyes open again.

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Babette was at her desk reviewing client receipts. There was a dramatic decrease in visitors since the bridge attack, and at the moment, her doors were temporarily closed. She had hoped to wait out the string of violence while the Chembarons fought over the new vacant seat as leader of the Underground. The older Yordle heard the door from the suite behind her open abruptly, and shut with a bit of force. Scar walked out, nearly huffing. He brought his hand up to rub down his face, before pinching his temples. “Lover’s spat?” She asked, bemused but endearing. He lifted his brow and looked at her from under his palm.

“What? No.”

She smiled. “The suite’s a private room, but unfortunately, it’s not entirely sound-proof.” Scar walked to Babette’s desk and leaned against it, arms crossed, without meeting her gaze.

“He doesn’t know when to stop asking so many questions.” Babette studied the Chirean’s back, and sighed.

“The boy is just curious, Scar. He’s sweet, you need to treat him better.” She heard the Firelight scoff quietly, yet he didn’t protest. After a moment, Babette set her papers down, “Have you thought of just telling him?” Scar’s demeanor changed. Though he didn’t say anything, he stood a bit straighter, and she could tell that he was deep in thought. “You wouldn’t have kept bringing him back here if you didn’t care about him. And it’s very obvious that he cares about you. He’s going to find out eventually, whether or not he hears it from you.” Scar sighed and turned to look at Babette.

“If I say something, there’s no turning back. It would be dangerous for me, and for him.” She gave him a smile, before reaching into the bottom drawer of her desk. Scar’s eyes widened and he laughed, “Didn’t realize you had your own liquor cabinet at your work desk.”

“Oh hush,” she said, as she gave him two bottles of Piltovian spirits. “I don’t know if he cares for Zaun’s choice of drink, but I’m sure he’s tried this one before. Now go and make up. If Piltover and Zaun’s contentions continue to escalate, you need to take advantage of this time right now. Spare him your frustrations just this night, hm? He certainly needs the reprieve.” Scar took the bottles and thanked her, before kissing Babette’s cheek and returning to the room where Steb waited.

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Scar was in disbelief in the days following the rebels’ arrests. It wasn’t that long ago that he and Steb were still together, and on good terms. The drastic change between the night he had told Scar about Caitlyn’s invasion, and now, had rattled the Firelight; he could barely wrap his head around it. The Firelight and his rebels held back on their ground floor missions for the time being. The commune took a hit and rations had to be stretched out, but Scar couldn’t risk any more of his people being caught. He couldn’t deny Steb’s deliberate choice to prevent another enforcer from running after him and the rest of his team, but his blood still boiled when he saw the Vastaya take the ape-masked Firelight to the detainment carriage. He remembered Steb’s words during their argument at Vi’s apartment.

Tell me you wouldn’t have done something if she was going to use that weapon on Zaun. Would you have just sat there?

Steb was doing the best he could with the circumstances he had. And even though his choice had led to the events leading to Caitlyn’s decision, he knew the Marai couldn't have predicted that something like this would happen. And at the end of the day, they both knew Scar would have done the exact same thing if Caitlyn had a weapon of destruction pointed towards his city. Scar just wasn’t quite ready to see the consequences play out so soon. Scar could still remember seeing the enforcer’s complete shock when he had realized his team was arresting Scar’s friends. Scar didn’t know what to do.

When a few days had passed, the de facto leader and his team decided to venture back out of the commune to collect more supplies for their people. For the most part, they refrained from offensive attacks on Piltover’s military. While the Firelight was in the air hovering between buildings, his breath caught when he saw Steb on the ground. He noticed that the Marai was now supervising groups of soldiers, and wondered when that had begun. As Scar watched, he eventually saw the enforcer branch off on his own. The Chirean’s stomach tightened as he allowed himself to follow the enforcer from a distance.

Scar didn’t know what he was doing, following after him. It was dangerous to walk alone in The Underground at this time—especially being Piltovian—but the enforcer didn’t seem to mind the fact. Steb walked to Vander’s statue, and the Chirean suspected the enforcer may have returned to see if there was any evidence remaining since the memorial attack and arrests. After a few moments, Scar watched as the Marai made his way to The Last Drop. The bar still stood, and Scar’s instinct to stop Steb from doing something dangerous had risen in him without his intentions. The enforcer just stood there, only a few paces away from the tavern. He soon turned back around, and Scar’s brow hitched in confusion. The Marai then made his way to the pier, and Scar’s breath caught. He didn’t understand what Steb was doing, walking to these places to only stand there shortly, before leaving to the next location--until he saw the Marai walk to the small alleway of the Black Market. The market had long ago stopped running, especially with the increasing raids, and the alley was all but empty, save for rats that scurried along the floor.

These were all locations that he and Steb had been to, together, before everything between them had fallen into disarray. He wasn’t trying to look for Scar, was he? It was a useless endeavor. Did Steb actually think the Chirean would be at these places? Scar felt a pinch in his chest when Steb eventually began to climb the stairs that led to the rooftop, where they had met for the second time. Scar reached the tip of the building across the way, before the enforcer could reach his own rooftop. He settled behind a parapet while he waited. After a minute had passed, the Firelight eventually heard the door open in the distance, where the tapping of the Marai's footsteps soon followed.

The Firelight leaned back against the wall, out of Steb’s view, thinking back on the events that had unfolded. Since their falling out at Vi’s apartment, Scar couldn’t deny that he had wanted to find Steb and apologize for the words he had said to him that night. And since that night, Steb had stopped going to visit Scar altogether. It wasn’t until the enforcer ambush that they actually saw each other again. He knew Steb certainly didn’t expect to see Scar on the ground floor, when he and his team had ambushed the Marai’s enforcers. As they sabotaged the soldiers’ weapons, it was Steb’s first recognition that Scar was part of the rebel group. The Chirean thought he could still feel the dull ache in his shin when Steb had knocked him down, before realizing it was the Firelight who flanked him from behind.

Now, after the arrests, Scar didn’t know how to feel anymore. But watching Steb walk from one location to the next, he could almost sense the young enforcer’s need to see the Firelight. Scar felt ridiculous following him. He didn’t know what he was doing, watching the enforcer from a distance. And he didn’t know why he couldn’t just come out of hiding and face the man directly. After a few moments, Scar noticed that the Marai stayed at this location longer than the other places he had visited. And when he eventually heard the door on the rooftop open again, the Firelight stood up. He briefly wondered where Steb would go to next, but when he hopped on his hoverboard to accompany the enforcer in the shadows, he saw that the man was still there. Scar’s eyes widened when he saw the Vastaya seated, leaning against the wall of the enclosure just next to the door. After a short moment of deliberation, the Chirean bit the bullet, and decided to go to him. He made his way to the building next over, and his feet softly hit the floor of the rooftop.

“...Steb.” The enforcer’s back was against the wall, his eyes closed. Scar assumed he was awake, but the Marai didn’t stir when the Firelight had called out to him. As he walked closer to Steb, he realized that the enforcer had dozed off. Scar wanted to brace his arms and shake him forcefully; ask him why he took the Firelights in. But when he stood at Steb’s form, he couldn’t bring himself to approach the Marai with such anger. He bent down in front of Steb, assuming the enforcer would wake from the sound, but the man didn’t do so much as stir. He must have been exhausted.

Scar cupped his sleeping face and spoke just above a whisper. “What are we going to do, Steb?” He tousled Steb’s hair out of habit, before pulling the Marai into his shoulder and kissing the crown of his head. He didn’t care if Steb woke up at that moment. In fact, a part of him wanted him to wake. Scar pulled away, and his chest tightened when a bead of tears clung to Steb’s lashes at the corners of his eyelids. The Firelight laid him on the ground and tucked the enforcer’s bag underneath his head as a cushion. He brushed the strands of hair that had fallen over the enforcer’s face, as a tight line briefly formed on his mouth. He took a breath and wiped the tears away, saying softly,

“Don’t cry.”

Scar stood up and stepped on his hoverboard, leaving the rooftop before Steb could wake.

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The Firelight emerged with the small girl engulfed in his arms. When Steb saw her limp body in his periphery, he lost all his senses. His eyesight blurred, like a white vignette that soon engulfed his vision. Steb felt completely untethered.

As Scar walked up to him, he could hear the Chirean’s voice. It was soft and gentle. “She’s alive, Steb.” 

The words reverberated in Steb’s ears, as if it struck the Marai like an electrical current. He wrenched his head to look at the girl. Her eyes were closed; she was just asleep.

“She has a fever. She must have passed out from the exhaustion, or the shock. Let’s take her back.”