hungryistrying - Tumblr blog

hungryistrying · 3 months ago

Text

why'd you have to go and make me like you

Chapter two

summary:

“Are you turned on?” she blurts. Then she realizes what she just said, and quickly scrambles before Ekko can even respond. “I mean– It's not a big deal if you are. We’re friends, right? We can talk about these things with each other.” Ekko looks at her as if she's grown two heads. Jinx wishes she had, maybe the extra brain would've helped her out of this mess.

Jinx puts her plan into motion rather...artlessly, frankly speaking. Good thing Ekko needs surprisingly little convincing to just go with it anyway.

rating: explicit

word count: 15960

status: ongoing

crossposted to ao3

chapter one

chapter two: i don't wanna spell it out

Here’s a fun little fact about Ekko: if he tells you what time he’ll arrive, you always have to subtract ten minutes from said time. And of course, he isn’t about to let that up now, because Jinx has only just finished frantically shoving all her clothes back into her closet and her makeup back in her vanity drawers when the doorbell rings. Twenty minutes after he sent his text. How fucking typical.

After Jinx received that panic-inducing text, she’d rushed to put on her makeup so quickly that she stabbed herself in the eye with her mascara wand three times, cursing under her breath each time, because she’d end up teary-eyed and having to redo her makeup. That alone took her fifteen whole minutes, leaving Jinx five more minutes to tug on sweatpants and an oversized t-shirt.

…Yeah, not her hottest outfit, but hey, at least her underwear’s cute (a black and lacy Brazilian cut, with a little bow on the front and everything). It’s the kind of underwear she’d only bother putting on when she expects someone to see it. So here’s hoping this goes well enough for that concern not to be unfounded.

She gives herself one final look-over in front of the hallway mirror, her face scrunching in dissatisfaction because, damn, her outfit sucks. Seriously, baggy sweats and a Piltover University t-shirt that she doesn’t even remember getting (and is three sizes too large for some reason)?

Yeah, it’s giving less “I’m about to seduce someone” and more “I have the munchies and this random Seven-Eleven is the only place I can get some damn food ‘cause my fridge is empty and it’s three a.m.”

The doorbell rings again, startling Jinx now that she’s standing three feet away from the door itself.

“Fuck– Gimme a minute, will ya!” She exhales a frustrated breath that blows the stubborn hair of her bangs out of her face.

Alright, maybe this isn’t a total lost cause. Jinx has made cuter outfits from far more dire pieces of clothing, hasn’t she? You learn to get creative when growing up your whole wardrobe was either provided by The Salvation Army or hand-me-downs from your big sis.

Then again, she also had more than maybe thirty seconds to create those outfits, but she doesn’t have time to worry about the finer points either, so whatever.

She grabs the hem of her shirt, pulls the fabric up until it reaches her midriff, and ties the excess into a knot, turning her unsexy shirt into a slightly sexier crop top. Then she pulls her sweatpants down, only retying the drawstrings when they hang low enough for her hip bones to peek out.

Eh, good enough. She shrugs at her reflection and moves to open the door before Ekko rings that grating doorbell again.

“Thank you for that rare show of patience, your gracious host is here!” she quips, holding the door open with an unnecessary amount of flourish.

He raises an unimpressed eyebrow and deadpans, “Can’t you ever just say hi?” before kicking off his shoes.

If Ekko is even slightly affected by the generous amount of skin Jinx is displaying, he sure isn’t showing it. Though to be fair, this isn’t an unusual amount of skin for her to be showing in the first place, so that doesn’t mean this is a lost cause yet.

“Oh, don’t pretend you don’t enjoy the theatrics, mister.” She shuts the door and follows him into the living room. “That jig was up when we had to watch Annie in middle school and someone got a little too into it.”

“Hey, I got invested in the plot, alright!” He holds his hands up in defense, before unslinging his backpack and setting it down by the coffee table.

She curiously frowns and asks, “What’s with the bag?”

“It’s just my laptop and books.” He’s the one who looks confused now. “We’re studying for Singed’s exam, right?”

Jinx just dumbly blinks. Oh fuck, right, she totally forgot she said that.

“Well, duh.” She snorts, plopping down on the couch beside him. “I just can’t believe you actually paid for the books like some loser.”

“I didn’t buy these, you doofus.” He rolls his eyes. “I just borrowed them from the library on time. So you’re welcome, now you can mooch off me.”

She lets out an amused huff, resting her head in her hands while Ekko unpacks his bag, booting up his laptop and meticulously laying his study materials out on the coffee table.

For a moment she just watches him, studying his side profile. The afternoon sun bathes him in a warm light that makes everything look hazier – softer, somehow. It paints the dark brown of his lashes near golden when he blinks and they fan above his defined cheekbones.

Her eyes greedily drink in the sight of him, as if she’s seeing him for the first time; the slope of his nose, smooth and soft, contrasted by the sharp and strong angle of his jaw, while full, pouty lips center both features.

It’s then, on an uneventful Saturday afternoon, after years of friendship, that Jinx comes to the startling realization that she finds Ekko attractive.

Jinx isn’t stupid (she has a four-point-oh GPA, for crying out loud) and so, from a purely objective standpoint, she’s always understood that Ekko is attractive. It just never occurred to her that he might be attractive to her.

Can you really blame a girl? She’s known Ekko for so long that she can vividly recall the day he tripped over his own shoelaces, bawling his eyes out when the fall knocked out one of his teeth. (“Hey– hey, it’s just a baby tooth,” Vi had tried to soothe, while a six-year-old Ekko struggled to choke back his tears.)

It’s a strange and uncomfortable epiphany to have: that someone you’ve known nearly your whole life is actually…ridiculously, offensively, and unequivocally attractive. It’s as if, up until this point, the hotness radar in her mind just never caught Ekko.

But now that it has? Oh, he’s on her radar, alright. And not just an easy-to-dismiss blip. No, this is a bold-faced, glaringly obvious transmission signal that’s just begging to be noticed. And Jinx? Yeah, Jinx is noticing, thank you very much.

He turns to look at her, with his too-big, too-brown eyes, and suddenly she feels warm all over – her face especially, the skin burning beneath her hands. It takes her a second to realize he’s actually speaking to her.

“Huh?” comes her intelligible response.

He licks his lips before he repeats himself, and Jinx thinks she might be going slightly hysterical because now she can’t stop looking at his lips – at his tongue. “I asked why you’re staring at me.”

It's as if a shockingly cold breeze just blew past her. Too bad that rather than put out the flames, it just fanned them, and Jinx's face feels impossibly hotter now.

“Oh.” Her throat suddenly feels very dry. “I was just, uh, I was gonna ask you something. About a drink– I mean,” she shoots up off the couch so fast, it’s a miracle she doesn’t get motion sick, “I’m grabbing a drink. You want anything?”

He stares up at her nonplussed. “...No, I–”

She walks off before he can finish his sentence, yanking open the fridge door so he can’t see her anymore, practically shoving her face inside. Hopefully the cold refrigerator air will allow the redness of her face to subside.

Okay, get it the fuck together, Jinx thinks as she grabs a bottle of water, downing the thing like it’s a shot glass. She looks back to the living room and sees Ekko has actually started studying. God, how is she supposed to Netflix-and-chill this situation? Especially when he isn’t even aware that’s what she’s trying to do.

When she shuffles her way back into the living room, Ekko shoots her a quick smile before he turns back to the Organic Chemistry book in his hands, a furrow forming between his brows as his eyes scroll over the page.

“So…” Jinx takes a deep breath and sits down beside him, close enough for their thighs to press together and his body heat to seep right into her cold flesh. He’s always so warm, like a damn human furnace. “It’s kinda cold in here, right?”

Ekko turns to her with a frown, setting his textbook aside and asking, “You’re cold?” She startles when his hand comes to rest on her forehead. “You’re not getting sick, are you?”

Before she can so much as retort, he pulls away from her and gets up. Jinx is left dumbfounded on the couch, but before she can question what he’s doing, a throw blanket lands on her lap.

When he sits back down, they’re no longer touching. “That should help, right?” Ekko gives her a sunny smile like he just did her a great favor.

Jinx has to resist the urge to scream. “...Yep, you’re a real lifesaver.”

God, this is so stupid. Maybe she should stop beating around the bush and spell it out for him. Worst case scenario: He says no and she has to move countries and change her identity. No big deal, right?

…Nope, never mind, it is a big deal. The biggest deal, even. Because Ekko isn’t some random person she slinks up to at a party, drunk out of her mind, to ask if they’re down to fuck – not particularly invested in their answer either way.

No, regretfully, she cares what Ekko thinks of her and that makes it so much harder for her to just say it. But maybe she can…allude to it? Nudge him in the right direction, so to speak. After all, he always understands her, even when she’d rather he doesn’t; the language between them is one not limited to the spoken word, unique to the two of them.

Plus, he’s not stupid, surely he’ll get what she’s trying to say.

“Ekko,” she wrings the blanket between her hands, unable to bring herself to look at him, “I was wondering if…if you wanted to try something. Something different. With me.”

A weighty silence follows, so heavy it threatens to crush Jinx’s lungs. Then Ekko finally breaks it by answering, “Uh, well, I brought flashcards too?”

…

She takes it back, Ekko is stupid. He’s the biggest fucking idiot she’s ever met, save for herself maybe, because she must be an even bigger idiot for thinking he would take the damn hint.

Luckily, she’s spared the agony of having to formulate a response to that when her phone buzzes on the coffee table. Jinx grabs it, eager for the distraction, only to realize it’s not her phone she just grabbed but Ekko’s.

But it’s too late because she’s already read the notification.

Taliyah texted him asking if he wants to see a movie with her.

Oh, fuck this.

Jinx feels hot all over again, but it’s different this time. This is the kind that has her seeing red; the kind that makes her jaw clench and her stomach churn uncomfortably; the kind of heat that has her body moving on auto-pilot, as she pushes the blanket and Ekko’s phone aside and gets up.

She grabs that stupid textbook out of his hands and unceremoniously plops down on his lap. She holds the book out for him, meeting his befuddled stare with a sharp glare. “I said I wanted to try something different.”

“Okay…I just didn't think you meant like– like whatever this is.” Despite his words, he takes the textbook from her waiting hand.

One of his arms slings around her back as he reasserts his grip on it and Jinx takes the advantage to press closer – her body as flush against his as she can manage – before wrapping her arms around his neck.

She can feel Ekko tense beneath her, but she breezily says, “This is us reading– Well, whatever you were reading.”

He gives her an unimpressed look, his body slowly relaxing against hers. He's close enough now that she catches the scent of his body wash. It smells nice – something citrusy blended with warm spices. He always smells nice. “The chapter on Alkanes and Cycloalkanes. You know, the one on our exam.”

Jinx inquisitively hums, feigning interest as her eyes scroll over the page – something about carbon chains and halogen elements that she might have given a shit about under any other circumstance.

In reality, she's sneaking glances at Ekko, whose eyes she thinks trail down the bare skin of her stomach. It's hard to tell with his head downturned like this, though. For all she knows he could just be looking down at that stupid book instead.

The ball of anger that formed inside of her fractures, just slightly, and doubt seeps into its cracks. Maybe…maybe it’s not that Ekko can't take a hint. Perhaps he's letting her down as subtly as he can and she's the one who isn't getting it.

She swallows a disappointed sigh and shuffles to try and sit more comfortably on his lap. Ekko takes a sharp breath, but Jinx chooses to ignore it, doubling her efforts instead. Seriously, why are his thighs so damn sturdy? She should’ve grabbed a cushion or something.

He's tense beneath her again, which isn't doing her comfort levels any favors. Huffing a frustrated breath, she complains, “Sheesh, would it kill you to skip leg day once in a while?”

She starts to move again, but freezes when she feels Ekko's hand wrap around her hip – right above the waistband of her sweatpants – calloused fingers pressing into bare skin. Then he squeezes, hard enough to still her movements, and Jinx feels heat bloom low in her stomach.

“Would it kill you to stop moving?” he grumbles.

She’s barely listening, too distracted by the hand still on her hip. Because why is his hand so big that it covers the entirety of her hip bone? How the hell are his fingers on her stomach? Is that allowed? Jinx doesn't think that should be allowed.

Then her brain actually processes what he said and–

Oh.

She flushes, only then realizing what she was just doing.

Ekko looks at her as if she's grown two heads. Jinx wishes she had, maybe the extra brain would've helped her out of this mess.

“...We can talk about being turned on? You and me?” he incredulously asks.

“Yup.” Jinx sagely nods, as if she knows what the hell she's even saying at this point. Fuck it, she's already dug this hole, might as well lie in it. “So? Are you?”

“I–”

“‘Cause I am,” she interrupts. Then she has to physically resist the urge to jump off his lap and out of the window because god this is so embarrassing.

Ekko just stares at her and Jinx swears she can hear crickets chirping. Which should be impossible because it’s three p.m. and they're indoors, but she can fucking hear them because of how awkward this silence is.

“Never mind.” She pushes herself off his lap.

God, this was such a bad idea. What was she thinking? Of course Ekko doesn't want to sleep with her. He's probably never even thought of her like that–

“Wait.” His hand comes to wrap around her wrist, freezing her in place. Jinx apprehensively turns to look back at him while Ekko frowns, visibly hesitating before he continues, “I'm…not sure what's gotten into you, but if you're doing this because you're mad at me–”

“Oh, you gotta be kidding me.” Jinx scoffs and yanks herself free from his grip, crossing her arms over her chest. “Look, I get that you're trying to be tactful and all that, but I'd rather you don't play dumb and just say it to my face.”

His confusion bleeds into exasperation, which pisses her off more because how dare he act exasperated in this situation. “Say what to your face?!”

“That you don’t wanna sleep with me!” She plants her hands against the sofa back, caging Ekko between her arms – who quickly leans back, wide-eyed and startled – before she snaps, “Seriously! Why do you think I'm dressed like this?”

“But you always dre–”

“Not important! I was on a time crunch, alright? Just–” She sharply breathes in through her nose. Don't put your foot in your mouth. Jinx repeats the mantra in her head until she believes she can pull it off somehow. “...Look, if you don't wanna fuck me because– because you think it'd be gross or weird or whatever, that's fine, but at least give it to me straight.”

Jinx ignores the way her heart protests no, that would very much not be fine, actually, because she'd feel ten times shittier if Ekko agreed to sleep with her not because he wanted to, but because she guilt-tripped him into it.

“I–” He clears his throat. Jinx squeezes her eyes shut, waiting for his imminent rejection. “Right now?”

Her eyes snap back open…Is he being serious? He must be, because he looks at Jinx like she just revealed to him that the sky is actually neon green and Pengus can fly.

“No, I was hoping you could pencil me in sometime next week–” She scoffs. “Yes, right now!”

He stares at her – eyes trailing down her body, before snapping back up to her face – Jinx apprehensively stares back.

Then, catching her entirely off-guard, he simply answers, “Okay.”

“...Okay?”

“Yes? I mean–” He licks his lips. Her eyes are drawn to the action like a moth to a flame. “Wait, are you just fucking with me right now?”

She blinks, forcing herself to look up at his eyes – before quickly darting down to the tip of his nose instead, because looking straight into his eyes is somehow worse. “Well, not yet, but it’s not for a lack of trying.”

Her words startle a baffled laugh from Ekko, breaking the tension between them. Jinx soon follows, practically collapsing on top of him as she buries her face in the crook of his shoulder, shaking with laughter.

When their amusement finally dies down, she moves her head back to look at him – at the same time, he turns his head to face her. Her breath hitches at the proximity, their noses brushing against each other. He exhales, the sound sharp yet quiet. And her lips twitch when his breath brushes over them.

She forces herself to pull back a little further, and tentatively asks, “You’re not just saying yes because you feel bad, right? Because if this is a pity thing, you can go right ahead and leave.”

He blinks, startled, before he scowls, looking downright offended at the insinuation. “You think I would fuck somebody because I feel bad?”

“I don’t know! You do real weird crap sometimes, boy savior. I just…wanna be sure.” She worries her bottom lip between her teeth and Ekko’s eyes flicker down to her mouth.

She sees his throat bob, before he says, voice breathy, “Trust me, this is not a pity thing...”

“Oh,” is all she manages to answer.

One of his hands sneaks its way up to cup her jaw, thumb brushing across her cheek. His hand is so big and warm on her skin. All Jinx can think about is the fact that she wants those hands all over her.

Then he leans in, eyes slowly falling shut as he comes closer. Her heart beats so loud that she can hear it in her ears. Its insistent drum sounds like an alarm bell – anticipation and apprehension bleeding into each other until Jinx can’t separate the two.

Panic has her jerking her head back, only slightly, but the movement had been abrupt enough for Ekko’s half-hooded eyes to blink open fully, confusion muddying that beautiful face of his, and a question clear in his eyes.

Why?

But Jinx doesn’t know why either. She can barely think straight, her brain just unhelpfully screaming, danger – too close – too much – a line that shouldn’t be crossed.

She finds herself saying, “Just…not on the lips, okay?”

His jaw tics and Jinx watches his face turn frightfully neutral, his expression unreadable. Dread creeps its way up her throat and squeezes, because Ekko isn’t supposed to be hard to read. Not to her.

Eventually, he nods, just once. Jinx can feel his body relax beneath hers – the tension in his shoulders subsiding and his jaw unclenching – before he agrees, “Okay, no kissing.”

At his assent, disappointment sinks down to her stomach. Which doesn’t make sense because she’s the one who asked this of him in the first place. Ekko leans in again – hesitating before he closes the distance – pressing a soft kiss against her jaw, and the feeling ends up dissolving within the heat pooling low in her stomach.

“Is this okay?” he quietly asks, lips brushing against her skin from the proximity.

She minutely nods, a satisfied sigh escaping her when Ekko continues to lay petal soft kisses against her jaw, slowly working his way down to her neck.

Teeth graze the column of her throat and Jinx has to stifle a gasp at the feeling. Her hand shoots up to clutch his forearm – his own having slipped from cupping her jaw to holding the nape of her neck. His tongue soothes the skin he just bit, then he latches his mouth over it and sucks.

And the thought of him leaving hickeys on her skin – of him marking her – sets something alight inside of Jinx, forcing her to press her thighs together; a vain attempt to find some relief for her growing excitement.

Refusing to be left behind, she lets her hands begin to wander. The one on his forearm roams up and over to appreciate his firm bicep – fingers pressing into the curves and crevices of his skin. His arm feels soft and warm yet so solid beneath her hand.

Fuck, why is he so damn jacked? Seriously, where did the muscles come from? Jinx could tell his arms got buffier over the years, but she could've sworn he was still a twig like in high school.

Her other hand curiously roams over his chest, and yep, she can feel a hard chest and firm stomach beneath the cotton of his shirt too. She needs to get that shirt off him immediately.

She moves back to stand up. Ekko leans forward when she does, lips chasing her skin when the motion dislodges them from her neck.

The skin of her neck feels sensitive against the room’s air now, but Jinx couldn’t care less about that. Not when all she can focus on is Ekko, who looks up at her – lips parted and eyes dazed – with his hands lingering on the back of her thighs as he subtly beckons her closer.

She feels entirely too giddy seeing him like that. The feeling startles a giggle from her. (Jinx giggling? What the fuck is he doing to her?) She leans forward to cup his face in her hands and teases, “Slow down there, buster. I’m not going anywhere.”

He blinks as if woken from a trance, clearing his throat before he responds, “So…what do you want to do?”

“Right now,” she licks her lips, hands trailing down to his shoulders, “I wanna get that shirt off you.”

Ekko reaches down for the hem of his shirt, but Jinx pulls his hands away and disapprovingly tuts, “Hey, I said I wanna get it off, didn’t I?”

“Fuck–” He quickly pulls his hands back as if burned. “I mean, yeah, shit, go ahead.”

Jinx has never seen him splutter like this before and can’t help but laugh at the sight, even as she moves forward to kneel on the couch, bracketing his thighs. “You nervous?”

“No, more like–” His muscles twitch when her nails tease his stomach below his shirt. “More like I, uh, wasn’t expecting the afternoon to go like this?”

There’s nothing amusing about the way he looks up at her now. Something in his eyes – big, and brown, and much too easy to get lost in – almost makes it seem like…like…Jinx doesn’t really know what it seems like, truth be told. All she knows is that it’s too much.

She swallows, throat suddenly dry, and hurries to pull his shirt over his head. And god, seeing Ekko without a shirt on is doing nothing for the dryness in her throat. At least another part of her body isn’t dry at the sight, far from it, actually.

She tosses his shirt aside like an afterthought, not looking away from him as she does. Not like she could even if, for some inconceivable reason, she’d have wanted to. He looks up at her with that unfairly beautiful face of his, mouth slightly agape.

Jinx can’t stop herself from running her thumb over his plush lips. And then she’s suddenly overwhelmed by want, but can’t place what for exactly. She digs her teeth into her own lower lip, trying to get some sort of satisfaction for the feeling – a woefully lacking fix.

Then Ekko pulls her wayward thumb between his lips – eyes flickering up to look directly into hers – and he sucks, tongue roving the pad of her finger.

Jinx is fairly certain her brain short-circuits.

Her heart skips a beat when he quirks an amused eyebrow at how stupid she must look right now, with her mouth agape.

He releases the digit with a wet pop. It feels so cold now it's no longer in the warm, wet cavern of his mouth.

Said mouth pulls into a smirk as he leans his head back against the couch. The movement pulls the muscles of his neck taut when he teases back, “You nervous?”

Indignation snaps her out of her stupor. She scoffs, “You wish,” and moves to straddle him properly.

She may have made sure to roll her hips a little (intentionally this time) after pressing them flush against his. And she may have also had to fight back a smile upon feeling his hands wrap around her waist in response.

“Gonna take a lot more than that,” she lets her hands rove over his chest, teasing his nipple with her still-wet thumb, “if you’re trying to make me speechless.”

Ekko releases a shaky breath at the sensation, but Jinx can barely relish the sound before he leans in closer – close enough for their noses to brush and their breaths to mingle when he says, “That a challenge?”

How unfair. Jinx can’t even press her thighs together in search of relief for the excitement his question elicits. Instead, she just coolly responds, “Hm, only if you can handle it.”

“...Don't bite off more than you can chew.”

Jinx can see a fire kindling in his eyes, and she knows Ekko, knows his temper and that her words make him want to prove something; make him want to rise to the occasion – and sadly, she’s always enjoyed starting fires a little too much. So she’ll stoke the flames, even if she risks getting caught in them.

After all, that’s part of the thrill, isn’t it?

She snorts. “Oh yeah? Whatcha gonna do then? ‘Cause right now I'm hearing all bark, no bi–”

Her words cut off into a yelp when gravity suddenly shifts around her and she finds herself lying flat on her back, Ekko on top of her, hands squeezing her hips.

At her wide-eyed surprise, he has the nerve to laugh. “Speechless already?”

She scowls, grabbing his hands and moving them straight to squeeze her chest. “Not even close.” His throat bobs, but she can't even tease him about it before he leans down to press a kiss on her midriff, right below her shirt, and brushes his thumbs over her nipples.

“Guess I'll have to bring my A-game, then.” His breath washes over her skin and the warmth of it spreads through her entire body. Especially when he moves his hands to slip them beneath her shirt, thumbs brushing the underside of her breasts. “Can I–”

Before he can finish his sentence, Jinx sits up – so quickly that their heads nearly knock into each other – pulling her shirt over her head and exposing her breasts to the warm afternoon sun. And to Ekko, who just stares but doesn't say anything.

Jinx knows she's doesn't have a lot of real estate in the chest department, but it's never been something she's self-conscious about (despite hoping in middle school that she might be a late bloomer before cutting her losses when she turned seventeen). Yet here she is, struggling not to fidget under Ekko's intense gaze.

Insecurity rears its ugly head again, and it has her digging her nails into the sofa cushioning while she tries to joke, “Not chickening out, are you?”

He blinks, then his eyes snap back up to hers. The scalding way he looks at her is answer enough, with pupils blown so wide they swallow the caramel of his iris.

It's still nice to receive verbal confirmation though, when he answers, “Definitely not, was just appreciating the view.” He presses a kiss against her sternum, his next words almost slurred, with his lips still on her skin. “‘S a view worth ‘preciating, trust me…”

She flushes at the compliment, strangely affected in a way she has never been before. Ekko can probably feel how fast her heart beats beneath his mouth. How embarrassing.

Mercifully, he says nothing, his lips too busy traveling from her sternum to her breast – gently urging her to lie back down – and then she’s too preoccupied with how good that feels to be embarrassed about much of anything.

His tongue brushes over her nipple, hot and wet, while his hand makes sure to lavish her other breast with equal attention – cupping the entirety of it and circling her areola until her nipple stiffens to match its twin in Ekko's mouth.

“So damn pretty,” he sighs, moving to grasp one of her hands and pressing a kiss to its palm, “could just touch you like this all day,” then he moves to the inside of her wrist and sucks at the delicate skin there.

Jinx feels like she can't breathe. Especially not when he moves his attention back to her torso, lips pressing reverent kisses onto her skin – scars, freckles, all of it – hands roaming over her curves as if he's trying to memorize the shape of her through touch alone.

The thought has her moaning and burying her fingers in his locs. Or maybe it’s actually because he’s firmly wrapped his mouth over her breast now, teeth scraping over the sensitive skin as he sucks on it.

Jinx isn't sure anymore, pleasure, soft and heady, melting her every thought until she's left with only desire – the feeling dripping down to the base of her spine like honey.

His hands are like a brand on her body – searing pleasure into her very bones wherever they pass over bare skin – mouth sucking hickeys into nearly every strip of skin it touches. Jinx can see the dark, angry marks bloom on her chest, her stomach, even her wrist (and she can feel the ones on her neck).

Fuck, his hands are so big. And isn't he a little too good with his mouth? She wonders what those hands – what that tongue ⁠— would feel like should they travel further south…

It’s downright embarrassing how turned on she is. Jinx has never gotten this worked up just from having someone kiss and touch her skin a little. But as her need grows and grows, Ekko moves at the same pace; soft, gentle, and so sweet.

But it's not enough. Not when he has her this embarrassingly worked up with so little effort. And certainly not when he claimed he could leave her speechless.

She tugs at his hair hard enough to pull his mouth off her breast – a string of saliva breaking from where he was still valiantly sucking on it. Ekko groans when she does, and god, she needs him to make that sound again. Preferably louder.

At the sight of him, her own desire reflected in his dark eyes and reddened lips, it takes her a moment to find her voice. “...That all you got, lover boy?”

She wraps her legs around his waist to pull him closer, pressing their hips together, and they both quietly moan at the feeling. Her walls squeeze down on nothing, woefully empty, when she feels the hard outline of him against her center.

Strong arms wrap around her middle, pressing her naked chest flush against his, (and a primal part of her mind screams, yes, good, need this while he’s inside me) pulling her upright until she's straddling him.

Unimpressed at her words, he raises an eyebrow and shoots back, “Patience isn't your strong suit, is it?”

“Pot-kettle much?” she scoffs, nails digging into his shoulders as petty revenge.

Ekko hisses in response, then simply brushes his knuckles over her spine, up and down the length of it. She fails to suppress a shiver at the touch. “I'm patient enough when it really counts.”

“Not sure that's a good thing, buster.” Jinx doesn't even think she sounds believable, not when his other hand moves down to squeeze her ass, grip firm enough to make her breath stutter. “Too much patience and I just might fall asleep before I c–”

Two of his fingers press against her mouth, cutting off her words. She blinks, startled.

“Suck.” It's not a question, it's a demand. All Jinx can do is open her mouth and listen, suddenly deliriously turned on as she dutifully takes his fingers into her mouth. She makes sure to firmly lap her tongue against the digits while she sucks down, looking up at him through wide eyes.

“Fuck,” he breathes, brows knitting together, “that's so good.” Jinx hums around his fingers at the praise, eagerly sucking down harder. Then he's pulling his fingers out of her mouth and gently tugging on her thighs.

“Sit back down for me.” He nods to the couch, loosening her legs from where they're wrapped around his waist. “Gotta make you come before you fall asleep, right?”

She lets Ekko sit her down against the back of her couch while the last of her functioning brain cells reboot. Then her face flushes because…what the hell was that? Jinx has never let someone tell her what to do in bed and actually listened.

He presses a kiss against her cheek. Her breath hitches at the gesture, sweet and gentle. Just like him, unfortunately.

She turns her head to face him. They’re close enough for her to count his lashes, and the individual flecks of brown in his eyes, partly hidden by dilated pupils. Her eyes rove over him; over defined cheekbones and a strong jawline; over full lips and a lovely nose.

Then down his body, the shape of him – lean yet sturdy – almost sinfully attractive, form carved out by firm muscles. Her eyes get caught on the V line of his hips, and the slight, dark trail of hair between it, starting below his navel and getting cut off by his jeans.

Life really is cruel. Why did it give Jinx a best friend this unfairly hot?

“You okay?” His voice sounds distant even though he's still so close.

Jinx forces herself to nod, pressing her thighs together as her need grows. The thought of him not touching her where she wants him becomes unbearable.

“You gonna put your money where your mouth is?” She means for it to be a taunt, but her voice is barely a whisper.

“Alright,” he huffs an amused breath while his fingers, still wet with her spit, tease the skin of her stomach, “spread your legs then.”

She does. Embarrassingly fast, if she's being honest. Luckily, he doesn't say anything, just tugs at the band of her sweatpants. Fingers slipping down–

“Just your fingers?” The question comes out more petulantly than she'd hoped.

Ekko pauses, then he just smirks and answers, “Don't need more than that to make you come.”

Jinx glares at him and lies, “Don't get cocky now, it's not attractive,” because unfortunately it's actually very attractive.

“Hm.” He tilts his head to the side, gaze critical. Then his hand slips beneath both her sweats and panties. Large, wet fingers find her clit and Jinx gasps at the feeling. “That attractive enough for you?”

She can't respond, too busy biting her lip to muffle her voice. His touch is firm and steady, drawing unceasing circles over her clit that leave her struggling to keep her breathing even, chest rising and falling, quick and unsteady, the longer he keeps going.

Jinx shifts to twine her arms around his neck, burying her face in the crook of it. Ekko moves with her easily – always strangely in tune with her like that – moving his free hand around her back to grip her inner thigh, keeping her legs open for him.

His fingers move lower, through her folds, and down to tease her entrance. Her inner walls flutter at the feeling, desperate to be filled.

“Damn.” She feels his voice more than she hears it. Everywhere they're pressed together, the sound of it reverberates right through her. “Wouldn't have made you suck on my fingers if I knew you were already this wet.”

She raises her head just slightly, lips brushing against his neck when she starts, “So–” she takes a shaky breath when he coats her clit with her own juices, teasing the nub again, “–do something about it.”

“Want it that bad?”

She does. She really does. She's not about to tell him that though, so she raises her head further, moving to tug his earlobe between her teeth, before she breathes, “Don't be a tease…”

Ekko doesn't respond, but she feels the hand on her thigh tighten; feels his fingers dig firmly into her skin even through the sturdy material of her sweatpants. Then he finally, finally slips a finger inside.

She’s so embarrassingly wet there's no resistance, her body immediately responding to accommodate by stretching around the digit as he slips it deeper inside – until he’s buried to the third knuckle.

He tries to pull his finger back and her body immediately protests, walls clenching around him and her hips bucking forward into his touch.

“Shit,” he hisses, “you're so fucking tight.”

“Jus’ hurry…” Jinx whines against his neck, bucking her hips intentionally this time.

“Well,” he pauses to press a kiss on her shoulder, “since you asked so nicely.”

He moves in earnest now, finger fucking in and out of her steadily.

Ekko is laser-focused on her reactions, alternating speeds with every whine and twitch of her hips to see how he can draw more reactions from her.

Then he curls his finger and Jinx cries out, pleasure jolting through her like a current of electricity, making her toes curl and her vision white out for a second.

She only realizes she bit down on his shoulder when he groans into her ear.

“Still good?” Somehow, he sounds as affected as she feels.

She unlatches her teeth from his neck, pulling back only far enough so her words don't get lost against his skin, and murmurs, “Need more…”

He obliges easily enough, and a satisfied sigh leaves her at the feel of his index joining his middle finger, stretching her out further. God, his fingers are so big compared to hers, going deeper and spreading her wider than her own ever could.

After that, Jinx no longer needs to speak. Ekko doesn't ask anything of her, just occasionally groans, “So damn tight…” or “Did I make you that wet?”

His words are almost as effective as his movements, fingers going in and out, hard and fast, continuously pressing into the spot that makes her hips buck into his touch; that makes her thighs twitch beneath his solid grip; that draws a litany of moans and curses from her gasping mouth.

It feels good. It feels so fucking good, in fact, that Jinx can only wonder where he learned to make her feel so good in the first place.

But the thought is quickly lost to her (and any thoughts for that matter) when his other hand slips off her thigh and down her sweats too, fingers reaching down to tease her clit in tandem with his movements.

Jinx is climbing fast – so fast she can hardly breathe, nails digging into Ekko's shoulders in a desperate bid to stay afloat. Pleasure becomes an overwhelming thing – her body caught between pulling away and leaning into his touch because too much, not enough, good, bad, so good, too good, fuck.

Ekko holds her steady through it while keeping up that unrelenting pace that's quickly becoming too much; both the anchor keeping her secure and the roaring waves that threaten to drown her to begin with.

Then it overtakes her and she's crashing.

Jinx thinks she might be screaming, but she can't tell anymore. Her body moves outside of her control, shuddering, back arching off the sofa, toes curling tight.

She bites down on Ekko's shoulder again in a pitiful attempt to control how loud her voice is. If he minds, she can't tell. He just keeps fingering her through her orgasm, only slowing down when she relaxes her grip on his shoulders. Even then he keeps going, though.

Eventually, Jinx is forced to wrap a shaky hand around his wrist so he'll actually stop, and those violent waves finally wane until she just feels a steady throb in her center in the aftermath of her orgasm.

A whimper flees her throat when he pulls his fingers out of her. He kisses her shoulder in response, before pulling back to look at her – only slightly, Jinx doesn't let him get very far, suddenly cold everywhere he isn't touching.

He makes sure their eyes connect when he puts the fingers he just had inside of her in his mouth, sucking off her juices. “You taste good,” he hums, leaning in closer until their lips are scarcely apart. Her eyes automatically fall shut, heart racing in her chest.

Then he moves to kiss her cheek before pulling back, and Jinx has to bite the inside of it to suppress her disappointment, eyes fluttering open again to look at him.

He quirks an amused eyebrow. “Can't talk?”

Jinx blinks, awareness comes back to her slowly, but when it does she immediately scowls. “Don’t flatter yourself.” If only her voice didn't come out as a croak.

Ekko just laughs, bright, and genuine, and almost…giddy. And despite her indignation, she’s getting that fuzzy feeling in her chest again and can’t stop a smile from creeping on her own face.

“Stop laughing,” she weakly complains, smacking his shoulder.

He does, in fact, not stop. Head thrown back as he laughs even harder and Jinx is just caught staring at the column of his throat. She can already see teeth marks form above his collarbone and angry little crescents on his shoulders, and suddenly she's overcome by the desire to leave more marks on him. Preferably where everyone can see.

Jinx leans forward to press a kiss on the bite mark, shifting her hand down to squeeze his inner thigh, and Ekko's laughter dies down. She kisses her way up his neck, rubbing her hand across his thigh, until she reaches his ear and whispers, “My turn.”

She can hear him swallow, and feels the slight nod of his head before he moves to lean back on the couch–

The couch.

That midnight blue, velvet lounge sofa. She has that stupid fucking description memorized because Caitlyn wouldn't stop droning on about how perfect it would be for their living area when she picked it out.

…And Jinx now realizes she just let Ekko finger her into an orgasm on said sofa.

Well.

What Caitlyn doesn't know won't kill her, right?

“But not here,” she manages to say, after rubbing together her last functioning brain cells that aren't catastrophically horny.

She clears her throat and pulls at Ekko's arm so he'll sit upright again. “C'mere. We should go to my room, just in case,” she casts a meaningful glance at the front door, “you know...”

“Oh.” He sits up very quickly at that, wincing once he’s put two and two together. “Yeah, good idea.”

Without further ceremony (but with a fair amount of awkwardness) they get up off the couch and Jinx pulls Ekko by the hand into her bedroom.

Even if Vi promised to stay out as late as possible, knowing her sister, she might have just completely forgotten. Or she's left something at home and will suddenly have to turn back to get it. All while Jinx has Ekko naked on the couch.

Jinx shudders at the thought, quickly slamming her door shut and turning the lock, just in case.

She hears a quiet thud and looks over her shoulder to see Ekko has tossed both their shirts over her desk chair. Oh. That's smart. Jinx would've thought to grab them herself had she not lost all higher brain function earlier.

She locates her phone on her desk, fiddling with the settings so she can connect it to her mini speaker, putting on some mellow RnB music (that's honestly more Ekko's taste than it is hers) and turning the volume as high as she can. Again, just in case.

Large, warm hands wrap around her waist, and Jinx immediately melts into the touch. “Setting the mood?” Ekko jokes, pressing a kiss against her shoulder blade.

She drops her phone with an eye roll before turning in his arms to set her hands on his shoulders. Jinx steps forward, and Ekko follows, automatically walking backward until the back of his legs bump into the bedframe.

She pushes him back, and he lets her easily enough, a small ‘oof’ escaping him when he lands on his back. Ekko looks much too composed for her liking, amusement dancing in his eyes as he moves to sit upright, leaning back on his hands.

“Why bother?” she muses, trailing an unhurried hand down his chest – nails teasing his skin – only stopping when she reaches that little trail of hair that gets cut off by his waistband. “Pretty sure you’re already in the mood.”

“So what are you gonna do about it?” The words trail off into a hiss when Jinx runs an idle finger over the bugle visibly poking out between his legs.

“Oh?” That idle finger turns into a palm that strokes the hard outline of him through the material of his jeans. “What do you want me to do about it?”

“Honestly?” He pauses to lick his lips. “You can do whatever the hell you want to me.”

Jinx is again caught staring at his mouth, overcome by that strange, foreign desire. She pushes the feeling down and just complains, “You’re no fun to tease,” squeezing firmly at his bulge just to be petty.

He gasps out a laugh. “Just being honest.”

She hums in consideration, pulling his thighs apart so she can kneel between them, musing, “And I suppose you want a reward or something?” while fiddling with his zipper.

“I want whatever you’ll give.” He reaches down to tuck a stray hair behind her ear. The action makes her tilt her head up curiously. Ekko looks almost solemn, expression serious when he continues, “Seriously…we can stop if you don’t want to do this.”

Fuzzy feelings again. Jinx has been getting them more often lately and they’re becoming very annoying. Outwardly, she just scoffs and pops open his jean button. “Getting cold feet?”

“Not at all.” He raises his hips just so, allowing her to pull his pants down. “Just…don't wanna be too much, I guess?”

“Be too much,” she bluntly answers. “I'm not made of glass, Ekko. Can handle whatever you throw my way, trust me.”

“I do trust you.” He strokes her hair. Jinx has to resist the urge to lean into his touch, fiddling with the band of his briefs to distract from the strange flutter it elicits in her chest. “But tell me if you don’t like something, okay?”

Jinx seriously doubts he could do anything she wouldn’t like at this point, but she still nods in assent. “You too. Takes two to tango, right?”

“You're right.” He smiles at that, nodding down to her hands still on his underwear. “Now, wasn't it your turn or something?”

“Why?” she asks, idly tracing the text on his boxers. “You want it that bad?”

He moves his hand from her hair to her chin, tilting her head up so she’s forced to look up at him. Jinx hates how hot she finds that. “You know the lines aren't as effective if you're just stealing mine, right?”

“...Just raise your hips, smartass.” She tugs at his boxers harder than necessary, letting her nails scrape against his hip bones in the process.

Luckily, he doesn't seem to have any more retorts after that, just lets his hand fall back down on the bed to tilt his hips up so Jinx can pull his underwear down. His cock – large and heavy – springs free, bobbing at the pull of fabric before coming to rest against Ekko's stomach.

Jinx has always been one to jump the gun, so she doesn't waste time to set her hands on his thighs and lay her tongue flat against the base of his cock. She licks a stripe up the length of him, feeling it twitch against her tongue, before pressing a kiss against his head.

“The kiss is for good luck,” she cheerily supplies.

“Why am I attracted to you?” His voice comes out slightly shaky. Jinx isn't even sure he meant to say that out loud.

“Oh, are you now?” She hopes she sounds more detached than she feels, but her face is burning and her heart is beating so loud she wonders if even Ekko can hear it.

She wraps her mouth around the head of his cock before he can answer. If she sucks his dick good enough maybe he won't notice how affected she is.

Attraction is a strange concept to her. Sure, people can be attractive, but that never really means anything to Jinx personally. Which is what makes it so infuriatingly puzzling that Ekko's attractiveness – and the thought of him being attracted to her in turn – does.

“Obviously,” he gasps, one of his hands tangling in her hair when she swirls her tongue. “You think we'd be here otherwise?”

Jinx…honestly isn't sure. Sex is just a thing people do – that she does because, ideally, it feels nice. Nothing more, nothing less. For all she knows, Ekko just agreed because he was in the mood and she just so happened to ask at the right time.

But if he's saying he agreed because she’s the one who asked, because he feels attracted to her specifically, then…

Then what? She doesn't know, but that train of thought feels dangerous, somehow, so she shuts it down and redoubles her efforts on making Ekko feel good instead.

With one hand still gripping his thigh for support, she firmly grasps his cock with the other, focusing on licking up the entirety of him over and over again, tongue tracing every vein on the thick, hot length.

She can feel the flex of his hip muscles, straining with effort to stay still. And the hand in her hair is gentle, passive, infuriatingly so. Jinx wants him to come undone; wants that control of his to snap; wants to make him feel so good he loses all inhibitions.

She lavishes the flared head with one last lick, swirling her tongue around it before lapping up a bead of precome leaking from the slit. Ekko groans above her, thigh twitching beneath her hand.

Emboldened, Jinx wraps her lips around the head properly, looking up at him through hooded eyes as she slowly takes him deeper and deeper into her mouth.

She can't take the entirety of him in her mouth – not yet at least – so she settles for wrapping her hand around his length instead. Then she works her mouth and hand in tandem, bobbing her head up and down while pumping the rest of him.

Her jaw aches from how wide she has to open her mouth, but it's worth it to see the way pleasure washes over Ekko's face, brows knitting together and his mouth falling open in a silent gasp at the sight of her – on her knees and looking up at him, while she swallows him down as far as she can.

“Fuck,” he whines, fingers carding soothingly through her hair, “you look so pretty sucking my dick like that…”

Jinx hums in satisfaction at the praise, the vibrations of it going straight to Ekko's cock, making him groan above her. She presses her thighs together as desire blooms anew between her legs. How the hell is she so affected? It hasn't even been ten minutes since she came.

But the sight of him coming undone above her enthralls her. It spurs her to keep going, to try and unravel him more with only her mouth and hands; to try and take him further into her mouth, forcing her throat to relax as she takes him a little deeper with every downward motion of her head.

“God, that fucking mouth…” His voice is as strained as his thighs, but they remain unmoving beneath her hand despite her best efforts. Jinx wishes he'd stop holding back, and is determined to make him.

She hollows her cheeks and sucks harder, reveling in how Ekko throws his head back with a long groan, his breaths coming out shallower – shakier now. But it's still not enough.

Jinx sets both her hands on his thighs for support and takes him further. She keeps going, taking shallow, measured breaths through her nose – even when tears threaten to form at the corners of her eyes – until she reaches that soft trail of hair leading up to his stomach.

“Fuck!” Finally, his hips buck up into her mouth and his hand digs into her hair hard enough for it to sting, the pleasure-pain of it making her toes curl and her nails scratch at his thighs.

Then he abruptly pulls his hand away and Jinx mourns the loss of contact. “Shit– Sorry,” he hisses, “I didn't mean to–”

Frustrated, she releases his cock with a wet pop, lips still pressed against the length when she slurs, voice hoarse, “Don’ apologize…I liked it…so just…” she presses a kiss against the underside of his cock, “do whatever you want with me.”

A tentative hand sneaks its way back up the base of her scalp, firmly gripping her hair now. “Yeah?” he asks, voice soft and rough.

“Mhmm…” God, his voice. Jinx honestly thinks he could talk her straight into an orgasm. “An’ keep talking too…”

He uses his grip on her hair to pull her head back, forcing her to look up at him. “You like it when I talk to you?”

Arousal pools between her legs at the question, her underwear definitely ruined at this point, but she forgoes answering him. Instead, she opens her mouth wide and lays her tongue flat beneath the head of his cock.

She keeps her eyes locked on his, both a dare and an invitation. And Ekko no longer hesitates to take it, slapping his cock against her tongue before guiding her to wrap her lips around him again.

“That's it,” he coaxes, pushing her head down on his cock. “Fuck, you're amazing. You want all of it?”

Jinx hums around his length, eagerly swallowing more until she feels him pressing against the back of her throat. Then Ekko finally, finally takes advantage of his grip on her hair and fucks into her mouth.

His cock feels so big going in and out of her mouth, hitting the back of her throat over and over again. Her walls clench down in excitement at the thought of it filling her pussy like this, stretching it out and pressing deep inside.

Jinx can barely breathe – can barely think – her lungs on fire and her vision blurring as she struggles not to choke on his length. And she loves it; loves watching him use her to get himself off; loves watching his chest heave and his face contort with pleasure; loves seeing the hand not fisting her hair clenched in the sheets.

She wants to sear the image into her brain, wants to remember what he looks like when he comes undone because of her.

“Fuck,” he groans between labored breaths, “that's it…That's a good girl. Swallowing me down with that pretty little mouth…”

She can feel the tears that had formed earlier roll down her cheeks, and she lets them, uncaring. How could Jinx care when she can tell she's almost pushed Ekko over the edge? When he's talking to her so sweetly?

He's thrusting into her mouth more frantically now, cock twitching against her tongue, and thighs tensing beneath her hands. He grips her hair painfully tight, and all she can think is good, and big, and hurts so good, and want it inside.

“Shit– Wait. Hold on. I'm gonna…gonna come–” he grinds out, abruptly pulling her mouth from his cock.

Jinx does no such thing. She just leans forward again to greedily wrap her lips around his head, making sure she maintains eye contact when she moves her hand to stroke the rest of him.

“Fuck, you want me to come in your mouth?” His voice comes out shaky, thumbs brushing the tears from her face. Jinx just sucks harder – strokes faster – so desperate to see and feel his climax, it’s as if his pleasure is her own.

Then he moans loudly, the sound like music to her ears, and she feels him twitching in her hand, in her mouth, as he empties himself on her tongue. She can't take her eyes off him, his head thrown back in bliss, the muscles in his neck cording, and the ones in his abdomen contracting as Jinx works him through his orgasm.

She doesn't stop until a shaky hand finds its way to her shoulder, gently pushing her back while he groans from overstimulation.

He collapses flat on his back when she finally releases his cock. It drops down against his stomach, still hard but clearly spent, and Jinx can't resist leaning forward to press one last peck against it even when Ekko's blunt nails scratch against her shoulder.

Jinx is suddenly peeved that her signature lipstick is non-transferable. She should’ve picked a bolder color for today; one that leaves its mark, so she could see evidence all over Ekko's body of the places her lips traveled.

That disappointment doesn't stop her from kissing her way up his body, though, lips languidly trailing from his pelvis up to his neck, before she moves to rest her head on his shoulder.

Ekko turns to face her, his labored breathing having subsided. His hand comes up to stroke her cheek, brushing stray strands of hair from her face. It’s a simple gesture, but it feels so intimate that her heart aches.

Then he licks his lips and asks, “You got any water?”

Jinx blinks, startled. “Uh, yeah,” she croaks, rolling to lie on her back and away from his touch. “On the nightstand.”

Ekko heaves himself upright with a groan and she tries to ignore how cold she suddenly feels without him in her space. He grabs the water bottle from her nightstand and unscrews the cap before he expectantly holds it out to her.

Oh. That's…considerate. Then again, of course it is. She's talking about Ekko here. She moves to sit up straight and grabs the bottle, taking a generous swig. The liquid washes down her tender throat like a balm.

“Thanks,” she murmurs, handing the bottle back to him.

While Ekko busies himself rehydrating, she lets her eyes shamelessly rove over his naked body, realizing he must’ve properly undressed in the meantime. A sheen of sweat makes his muscles gleam in the late afternoon sun and his cock is still half-hard between his legs.

Jinx is suddenly very aware of the aching matter still present between her own legs.

“So, can you still go or…?” she cautiously questions, shifting to rub her thighs together.

It’s almost comical how he glares at her over the water bottle. A stray drop of liquid drips down his chin when he pulls it off his mouth, and Jinx wants to get up and lick it off.

He nods towards the headboard, “Just lie your ass back down,” and screws the bottle shut, putting it back on her nightstand.

“Okay, okay,” she laughs, shuffling back until she’s comfortably resting on her elbows. Ekko soon follows, knees sinking into the mattress while he tugs at her sweatpants. “Didn't think you'd get so pissy, sheesh.”

“I'm not pissy.” He rolls his eyes while Jinx lifts her hips off the bed so he can pull off her sweatpants and underwear in one fell swoop. “Let me return the favor?” he asks, hands returning to stroke soothing patterns against her thighs.

“Please,” she breathes, spreading her legs for him.

The blatant desire in his eyes as they rove over her body charms her as much as it flusters her. Jinx ignores both feelings, instead focusing on how his hands begin to roam over her skin – one wandering to the junction of her thigh, before his thumb flicks at her folds. The touch is featherlight but pointed enough to make her breath hitch.

“You’re so damn beautiful,” he marvels, moving to lie on his stomach so he can swing her legs over his shoulders, “every part of you.” He presses a kiss on her inner thigh. “Like here.” Then one on the delicate skin below her belly button, making her tummy twitch. “And here.” When he presses a kiss directly on her pussy, Jinx barely catches his next words over her own gasp. “And especially here.”

Then his tongue darts out, licking long, broad stripes from her entrance up to her clit, over and over again, until she’s struggling to keep her breathing even.

“Ekko ...” she whines, hips bucking up into his mouth. Ekko just wraps an arm around her thigh to still her unruly hips and laps up her wetness.

He's relentless in his attention, those brown eyes locked on hers, pinning her in place and watching every shift in her expression as his tongue flicks over her clit until he finds a pattern that leaves her panting for air. Then he wraps his lips around the aching bud and sucks.

Jinx moans, loud and needy, pleasure coursing up her spine like lightning, making her back arch off the bed, while her hand shoots down to dig into his hair. That draws a throaty groan from him, the sound reverberating straight through her center.

It feels so good. Jinx was an idiot for thinking the sex might be bad. The sex is great. Amazing, even. And she briefly thinks that might be a problem, but then he slips two fingers inside of her – her pussy so wet, it offers no resistance – and she’s not thinking much of anything anymore.

He plays her like a fiddle – talented tongue flicking just so, large fingers curling against all the right spots – drawing curses and moans from her mouth like a song. He curls his fingers at the same time he flicks his tongue over her clit and Jinx positively howls, fingers tugging at his hair painfully hard at the torturous pleasure; to pull him closer or to push him away, she isn't sure anymore.

She wants more, but it's too much. It feels so good it's almost overbearing. A hedonistic contradiction that leaves her head spinning from desire.

Ekko just keeps going, moaning along with her; as if the act of getting her off gets him off too. She keens at the sight of his head buried between her thighs. His eyes closed and brows furrowed as he eats her out with a single-minded focus that has her clenching her fists so tight her fingers ache.

The hand digging into her hip bone loosens, instead wandering up to squeeze her breast. Jinx's hips immediately buck up into Ekko's face, outside of her control.

“Ekko…Ahh…I'm– Fuck! Don't stop, don't stop, don't stop,” she chants, too far gone to formulate her needs more coherently than that.

Ekko just hums in response, eats her out more enthusiastically. Two fingers become three and the delicious stretch threatens to send her over the edge. Jinx grinds into his face frantically, fucking herself onto his fingers, desperately chasing that high, wanting – no, needing more, more, more, more–

He curls his fingers into the right spot again and her release hits her like a battering ram. It slams into her so hard it steals all the air from her lungs, her mouth opening in a breathless scream and her thighs instinctively clamping shut over Ekko's ears.

Her second orgasm feels so much more intense than the first, feels like it goes on forever. Jinx doesn't know if she wants it to last longer or if she wants it to end quicker. Her body is at a loss too; back arching off the bed while her heels dig into Ekko's back; her walls squeezing tight around his fingers while her hands push his head away.

Ekko, who is apparently merciless in this aspect, fucks his fingers into her faster and greedily laps up her wetness as she comes on his tongue – doesn't stop until he's reduced her to quiet sobs and trembling thighs, inner walls contracting around his fingers as her body works through the aftermath of her orgasm.

It feels like she's run a fucking marathon when he finally pulls away. Her legs are weak as they unceremoniously drop from his shoulders, and her chest heaves as she struggles to catch her breath. And through the haze and exhaustion, all she can think is: Where the fuck did he learn to do all that?

It's only when Ekko bursts out into laughter between her legs that Jinx realizes she asked that out loud.

“I just like making you feel good,” he kisses her thigh, before moving up to rest his head on her stomach, “so I paid attention to what did.”

Her hands have loosened their iron grip on his locs, instead, they roam over his fade, fascinated by the texture against the pads of her fingers.

At his response, she scoffs, “Yeah, right,” fingers tracing the zigzag pattern by his temple, “bet you liked learning how to make other people feel good too.”

He rolls his eyes, the mannerism at odds with the way he leans into her touch. “Yeah? And you just learned how to suck dick like that through osmosis?”

She scowls. He has a point, but Jinx feels robbed somehow, knowing that other people got to experience this first, got to see and feel him like this before she did. It's not fair. So instead, she pulls her hands away and responds, “Just shut up.”

“Hey, don't dish out if you can't take it.” He pulls himself up with a grunt, and Jinx's stupid, treacherous body somehow gets excited all over again when his cock brushes directly against her pussy, breath hitching at the feeling.

“...I can take it,” she murmurs, her quiet moan blending with Ekko's when she tilts her hips up against his. She swallows, before continuing, unsure, “I mean– Unless, you–”

“You better not ask me if I'm having second thoughts again,” he interrupts, eyes pointedly glancing down, where Jinx can feel his hardness pressing against her, “because at this point, I think the answer is pretty obvious.”

She follows his line of sight, sees his cock, fully hard again, nestled against her folds. Fuck, he’s so big. She needs to know what it feels like when he's inside of her. What it feels like when the full length of him spreads her wide, how deep it'll go.

“But,” at the sound of his voice, her eyes flicker back up to his face, “do you have condoms? ‘Cause I didn't exactly come prepared for…all this.”

“Hm?” Jinx blinks. “Oh. Yeah. Gimme a sec.”

She twists her body so she can open her nightstand from her position on the bed. Ekko dutifully leans back above her, giving her space to rummage through the drawer.

And to keep rummaging.

…This has to be a fucking joke, right?

“...Do you not–” Ekko startles when, in frustration, Jinx slams the drawer shut and yanks open the one below it instead. “Do you not have condoms?”

“I do! Just give me a sec,” she snaps, because she knows she has them. She hasn't had sex in months, how the fuck would she have run out? Where they are is an entirely different matter, though.

“I mean,” Ekko starts, leaning forward to help her pull open the final drawer (it's broken, stupid thing always gets stuck), “we don't have to–”

Jinx whips her head around to glare at him sharply enough to startle him into silence.

“You been tested?” she asks, slamming the drawer back shut without breaking eye contact.

Ekko looks apprehensive, but supplies, “Yeah? I'm good, but, I mean–”

“Well, so am I. And I'm on birth control for a reason. So…” The reason being period cramps, actually, but not getting pregnant is a useful bonus.

Ekko remains quiet above her and Jinx worries for a moment that he might say no, before he responds, “...You're not baby-trapping me, right? ‘Cause if you are, you should at least have the decency to wait until we graduate.”

“Oh my fucking god, will you just shut up and fuck me?” she groans, burying her head in her hands.

She feels him shaking with laughter on top of her and moves one of her hands to weakly smack his shoulder.

“Sorry,” he laughs, even as he leans back on his haunches and pulls her thighs apart, “just never done it without a condom before.”

“Me neither,” her breath hitches when he drags his cock through her folds, the head bumping against her clit, “but…I trust you.”

And she might feel the slightest bit of satisfaction at the admission, the fact that he's never done this before; that she at least got to take this one first from him that no one else has.

“Yeah,” he answers, brown eyes locking her into place, “me too…”

Jinx flushes, suddenly self-conscious under his gaze. She tries to focus on the drag of his cock instead, as he coats himself with her wetness. “Will you put it in already?” she complains over the beat of her own heart.

Ekko raises a critical eyebrow, continuing to rub his length through her folds. “No one ever taught you manners?”

Indignation flares inside of her at his words, worsened by the fact that he's not inside of her instead. She digs her nails into the skin of his knees, and grinds out, “Put. It. In.”

He lets out an affirmative hum and just slaps his cock against her pussy, the sensation maddening against her sensitive clit. “Ask nicely.”

Pride has her biting the inside of her cheek, refusing to beg, but Ekko doesn't cave. He moves his cock back and forth, maddeningly slow, head teasing her entrance before gliding up again.

Up and down. Intermittent pauses to smack his cock against her wet pussy. Then up and down some more. Torturously slow and painfully consistent. Jinx feels everything, but most especially how empty she is.

He just meets her scowl with a sunny smile and Jinx could scream from frustration. She’s stubborn, but so is Ekko, more stubborn than she is, in fact (which he, stubbornly, refuses to admit). And her resolve is crumbling more and more every time he presses the head of his cock against her clit, the pleasure pointed, but not actually what she wants.

And Jinx wants so badly.

“Ekko…” she whines, forcing herself to swallow her pride when he eyes her expectantly. “Please fuck me.”

He pauses, wrapping his free hand around her thigh before he answers, “Hm, that’s a good girl.”

Her walls squeeze at the praise. And it just reminds her how painfully empty she still is. She pouts and grinds her hips up against his. Ekko chuckles and finally, finally moves his cock down to her entrance.

The tip of him slides in, hardly meeting any resistance with how embarrassingly wet she already is. She can hardly remember how to breathe as Ekko inches in deeper and deeper – so slowly she can acutely feel every torturously pleasurable stretch of her inner walls around the length of him.

Her breath promptly gets punched from her lungs when he finally buries himself to the hilt.

“You good?” he asks, voice strained, at odds with the soothing circles he rubs over her thighs.

“Mhmmm,” Jinx whines, because the only words she can think right now are big, good, and so deep.

He slides out of her slowly, and her inner walls squeeze hard enough to try and trap him inside. Ekko groans above her at the feeling, then he slides back home slowly, pleasure dripping down her spine like honey at the feel.

The pace he sets is measured, controlled. She’s hyper-aware of everything; every drag of his cock against her sensitive walls; how his hands tighten around her hips when she tightens around him; the creaking of the bed as he slowly picks up the pace; how he thrusts just a little harder every time he hits that spot that makes her moan louder.

“Ekko…” she moans, watching his eyes track the movement of her lips when she continues, “You feel so good…”

“So do you,” he sighs, eyes flickering back up to hers, locking her in place. “Like–” he pauses, moving his hands down to grip her ass and raise her hips off the bed so he can thrust into her deeper, harder, “like you were made for me.”

She's not entirely sure what it is – his words, his eyes, the way he’s fucking her – but it has her throwing her head back against the pillow and crying out, steals the air straight from her lungs. Jinx can't look away from him, his eyes – dark and deep enough to drown in – pinning her in place and dragging her under the depths.

Dangerous, Jinx thinks, even as she cants her hips up against his and needily digs her nails into his biceps. This feels dangerous.

But she can't deny how good he feels inside of her. How perfect. Like he was made to fit inside of her. The thought draws a wanton moan from her, has her wrapping her arms around his shoulders and her legs around his hips, needing him closer as badly as she needs oxygen.

Ekko follows easily enough – gently moves with her to support himself on his elbows – and lowers his head to put his lips on her chest, mouth wrapping around her breast.

“So fucking perfect,” he sighs, squeezing her breast in his hand and flicking his tongue over her nipple. “These tits…” His hand sneaks around her waist, while he trails kisses up her neck, pressing their chests flush together. “Your body...” Ekko presses a final kiss against her jaw, and Jinx’s breath catches at the feeling. His lips brush against her cheek when he finishes, “Just you.”

He thrusts into her shallowly, movements languid and lazy. Jinx doesn't even care, just wraps her arms around him tighter, presses closer, and turns her head to press their foreheads together too.

Pressed this close together, she can hardly tell whose heart she feels beating so fast – his or hers – maybe it’s both, or maybe it doesn't even matter. Not when they're so intertwined it feels like Ekko is just an extension of her; a puzzle piece that slots perfectly into place; the positive to her negative, naturally attracted and drawn to one another.

She can feel it in every backward motion of his hips, pulling his cock out of her just barely – her walls clinging desperately to try and keep him trapped – before he slides back in, burying himself inside of her completely. She feels it in the scalding way he looks at her too, face so close to hers they're sharing the same air when they quietly pant against each other’s mouths.

They're close. So close. Too close. Danger, danger, danger her mind screams at her again. Jinx has to– has to pull away while she still can, before she loses all sense.

“Ekko,” she pants, feels his answering hum vibrate through her, “we should…Can we switch positions?”

He slows to a stop on top of her and pulls back so he's no longer crushing her. Jinx immediately mourns the loss but fights the urge to pull him closer and lets him go instead.

“Is it not good for you?” he asks, brows furrowing together.

God knows how far from the truth that is. It's concerningly good, if anything. Rather than tell him that, though, she just pushes him back further so she can move to lie on her stomach.

“No, it's just…” she tries to get comfortable, resting her cheek on the pillow while she gets on her knees, arching her back for him, “I wanna try it like this.”

Because she doesn't have to look into his eyes like this. Because it doesn't feel terrifyingly, achingly intimate this way.

She doesn't tell him that either.

“Fuck…” he exhales, one of his hands grabbing her ass, thumb spreading her folds apart. “Okay, I can work with that.”

Jinx shimmies her hips back, desperate to have him inside of her again. She gasps when she suddenly feels his tongue pass over her folds instead.

Ekko's responding groan when her hips instinctively buck back into his face reverberates through her, pleasure zinging through her nerves like electricity when he roves it over her clit before proceeding to fuck his tongue into her.

He’s ravenous in his desire, greedily lapping up her wetness as he works Jinx up until she's reduced to shaky moans and even shakier thighs.

Jinx can hardly think, can hardly speak – thoughts syrupy and her tongue heavy in her mouth as she struggles to find the right words, to formulate a coherent thought.

Because it’s good. So, so fucking good. But it's not what she wants right now. His clever tongue exploring her insides doesn't compare to the feel of his cock, spreading her wide and stretching her out properly.

Jinx wants it so badly, she manages to whine, “Ekko…” hips squirming under the firm grip he has on her ass to keep her still. She hopes the touch leaves bruises. “Wait…I need…mmm…want you inside…”

Ekko moves back at her words, and Jinx whimpers at the feel of his tongue pulling out of her pussy, leaving her empty again.

“...Sorry.” His warm breath washes over her sensitive skin, making her shiver. “You just taste so good–” Jinx gasps when she feels his tongue lap up her wetness again before he pulls away entirely, “–I wanted another taste.”

Heat rushes to her cheeks, and Jinx can only be grateful that Ekko can't see her face like this, can't see the effect he has on her, as she murmurs, “Just…hurry up…” emphasizing the plea by wiggling her hips back in his hands.

She feels something soft and sticky – his lips, she realizes – touch her shoulder blade, before he presses the head of his cock against her entrance.

Jinx isn't entirely sure if he's pushing his cock inside of her or if she's the one who pushes herself onto his length. Maybe it's both, the two of them moving in tandem, mutual desire drawing them together.

She's definitely sure that he's the one controlling the pace after that, though. Hands so tight on her hips that Jinx can hardly move, and breathy moans getting punched from her mouth with every well-timed thrust of his hips.

“Shit, you're taking me so well…” Ekko breathes, suddenly slowing down and leaving Jinx reeling from the abrupt change of pace. A hand sneaks between her legs, fingers drawing quick, firm circles over her clit – at odds with the slow, deep thrusts of his cock. Her walls clench tight around him in response, drawing a throaty groan from him. “Fuck…greedy little pussy sucking me back in.”

“Ahhh...Ekko…” she moans, words slightly muffled by the pillow, “do it harder…” His hand leaves her pussy, trailing back around her hips and squeezing tight. And then he's giving it to her.

The wet slap of his hips against her ass is embarrassingly loud – the sound echoing across the room, over the music – as he mercilessly slams into her. Jinx can’t do anything but lie there and take it, doing her best to keep her hips raised high and her back arched while the pillow muffles her cries.

Hard, hard, hard – and deep, deep, deep, and so fucking good that pleasure crashes into her like a wave, leaving her feeling like it might drown her, like the air has been stolen from her lungs. Jinx knows she won’t be able to fight against the current much longer, toes curling as she desperately tries to hold on, tries not to get swept away too quickly.

“Shit– Lemme hear you,” Ekko grunts, tangling his fingers in her hair, along the base of her scalp.

Then he's pulling her head back and Jinx's eyes nearly roll back in her head at the feeling, the pleasure-pain drawing a hoarse moan from her while Ekko keeps pounding into her.

Turning on music had clearly been useless. Jinx ends up screaming so loud she drowns out the track anyway, but she can’t control her voice, not when he fucks her so well – cock hitting her walls just right every time he thrusts back into her.

When she comes it's a sudden thing, pleasure slamming through her so hard it sends her over the edge. Her walls squeeze tight around Ekko's cock, while he just fucks her through it – pleasure so overwhelming it has her digging her fingers into the pillow so hard they ache.

Jinx can hardly breathe, hips stuttering back against Ekko’s as she desperately chases that fire, wants it more and more, wants it to go on forever. Even as it threatens to burn her out.

It's still going even as he gradually slows down, her walls convulsing around his length as her body works through the aftermath of her third orgasm(? It's hard to keep count, her brain is too muddled.)

It’s no miracle she doesn’t collapse straight on her stomach. The hand Ekko still has squeezed around her hip is the only thing keeping her on her knees. The one in her hair loosens, her head unceremoniously dropping down on the pillow as Jinx takes shuddery breaths.

She feels him slowly begin to pull out, and despite her weariness, her walls clamp down in protest and she desperately reaches for his hip, nails clawing into his ass as she pulls him back inside of her.

“You didn't finish,” Jinx accuses, glaring at him over her shoulder, “so keep going.”

Ekko chuckles above her, rubbing soothing circles across her skin. “I was planning to, don't worry,” he assures, reaching for the pillow by her headboard and sliding it in front of her knees. “Just wanted to make you comfortable.”

He pulls out and this time she lets him. Just as she allows him to move her body so she's lying flat on her stomach with her hips hiked up by the pillow.

Considerate. He's always so damn considerate it pisses Jinx off. It makes her feel strange and warm, ignites feelings she doesn't want to examine too closely.

Luckily she doesn't have to when he slides back inside of her, the pleasurable stretch in her lower back stealing her every thought. Jinx is certain her pussy's never quite been spread so far open before today, yet now Ekko slips back into her with laughable ease.

It’s hard to laugh, though, when all she can do is let out a shaky moan at the feel of his cock filling her up again while she's still sensitive from her orgasm. Jinx just spreads her legs further and mindlessly grinds her hips back against his as she tries to meet every deep, languid thrust.

“Fuck…Jinx–” Ekko groans above her, voice breathless. “Feels so fucking good…better than I could’ve imagined…”

It takes a moment for his words and their implication to land – the delicious drag of his cock far too distracting – but when they do, Jinx gasps out, breath stuttering, “Mmm…Yeah? You thought about it a lot?”

Ekko speeds up, fucks her harder. She barely hears his response over her own cries. “All the time,” he grunts. “Wanted you for so long…Didn't know you’d be this fucking perfect for me.”

And rationally, Jinx understands he doesn't mean any of it, that he’s just saying things because he’s caught in the moment. But so is she, isn’t she? Surely that’s why her body responds by tightening around him, and she gasps out, “Come for me. Inside. I wanna feel it…Please, please, please–”

Ekko just groans above her, his breathing becoming more labored the longer she keeps talking. And Jinx can’t stop, near-delirious as she’s reduced to rambling – to begging him to fill her up. As if vocalizing the desire made her realize just how badly she wants it.

She only stops when she feels his hand wrap around her hair again, but before he can tug at it, she grabs it and redirects his hand to wrap around her throat instead.

His hips stutter, breaking his rhythm and Jinx just guides him to squeeze down while grinding back against him, urging him to keep going.

Ekko groans above her, low and rough, fingers flexing above her jugular – where he can surely feel her heart pounding – pulls out until only the tip of his cock is just barely inside of her, and then he slams back in, fucking her with renewed vigor.

She's not sure what's making her dizzier, the hand wrapped around her throat – cutting off her oxygen flow and making her vision swim – or the way Ekko plunges into her, hard and fast, self-control completely lost as he chases his own release.

The hand wrapped around her neck loosens, trails up to cradle her face and Ekko slides his thumb between Jinx's gasping lips. She doesn't hesitate to suck down on the digit, tongue roving over the pad of his thumb even as she struggles to catch her breath.

"Jinx, I’m– nnhg, I'm so close–”

Yes, yes, yes, yes she thinks, letting go of his thumb with a wet pop while clenching tight around his cock and whining encouragingly, still too breathless to vocalize anything more than the low moans he manages to pull from her throat.

He releases his grip on her face to fist the sheet beside her instead. Jinx's head unceremoniously drops down to the pillow, and she allows it to smother her voice while she listens to Ekko gasp and grunt above her.

She can feel his cock twitching inside of her as he pumps his release into her with every unsteady thrust of his hips. Jinx allows him to work through his orgasm, too pliant and fucked-out to do more than lie there and take it.

“Fuck, you’re so…” he trails off, pulling out and collapsing flat on his back.

She has to bite the inside of her cheek to fight back a whimper at the feeling, her pussy gaping and empty now that he's no longer inside of her. His breathing is labored enough to rise above the music as he struggles to catch his breath beside her.

Jinx shuffles to bury herself into his side – uncaring of how they practically stick together from the sheen of sweat on both their skins – plasters her cheek on his shoulder, slings an arm across his chest and tangles their legs together.

Ekko responds by wrapping both arms around her and pulling her close. Jinx snuggles closer, allowing Ekko to come down from his high while she savors how good it feels to be pressed this close to him, how right. Skin to skin. Like they’re both just meant to stay this way forever.

But curiosity gnaws in the back of her mind, and so – when his heartbeat slows and the rise and fall of his chest steadies again – she can’t help but ask, “So…have you really, you know, thought about this before?”

She almost regrets asking when she feels Ekko tense beneath her, but before she can fear the worst, he winces and answers, “...Would you be mad if I said yes?”

Mad? Jinx blinks, baffled. “Ekko,” she starts, grabbing both his cheeks so he’s forced to look at her, “you just came inside me.”

He scowls but doesn’t fight her grip. “That doesn’t tell me shit. We’re talking about you here.”

So he has thought about it before. Despite everything they’ve done so far, Jinx feels strangely bashful at the revelation. Maybe it should be obvious at this point, yet somehow it still manages to stir up strange, fuzzy feelings in her heart.

Rather than reveal how affected she is, Jinx squishes his cheeks together in feigned annoyance, shaking his head back and forth as she demands, “Now what does that mean, you little shit?”

A startled cry gets pulled from her throat when suddenly the room spins and she’s lying flat on her back. Ekko laughs on top of her, no doubt at how dumbfounded she must look right now.

She should probably smack him. Or say something mean. Or do anything, really. But the words get caught in her throat as Jinx stares at him, laughing on top of her, eyes crinkled in joy and his dimples on full display.

The early evening sun shines down on him through her window, bathing him in its warm, golden light. And she’s left awestruck by just how achingly beautiful he is, even more so when he's happy.

Had Jinx been the cautious type (or, at the very least, someone who hadn't just gotten every rational thought fucked straight out of her brain), she probably wouldn't have let her feelings overrule her better judgment. She probably wouldn't have cupped Ekko's face in her hands and pulled him down to press their lips together.

Unfortunately, Jinx has never been cautious about anything in her life.

Ekko goes rigid above her, and Jinx pulls back as slowly as she can, stalling for time as she scrambles for an excuse.

“There was a bug on your mouth,” her brain supplies, then she immediately realizes how fucking stupid that sounds because why would she remove it with her own mouth?

Before she can pull away entirely, however, his hand comes to wrap around the nape of her neck and he's pulling her in for another kiss.

Jinx gasps at the feel of his mouth moving against hers, every brush of his lips turning her thoughts syrupy. The feeling drips down her spine and pools low and warm in her stomach until all she can think is: more.

More, as she wraps her arms around his neck; More, as she opens her mouth to let Ekko's tongue in; More, as she breaks away for just a moment so she can roll them over, straddle his lap, and kiss him again.

His hands rove over her body and Jinx feels hot everywhere they touch. She separates their lips with a low moan, pressing kisses on the skin of his jaw before working her way down to his neck so she can return the favor by covering him in hickeys as well.

And Ekko's using his fingers to fuck his cum back into Jinx – and fuck, that shouldn't be so hot to her but it is. And she wants to fuck him again so badly, wants to ride him until he's begging her to stop.

“Can I eat you out again?” Ekko gasps when she tugs his earlobe between her teeth. “Want you to sit on my face…”

She barely manages to hum in approval at his request, too distracted by the feel of his fingers dragging in and out of her; by the soft kisses his lips press against the side of her face that make her heart flutter.

Jinx has never felt this way before, has never had someone stir her heart up the way Ekko does. It’s terrifying, all of a sudden, to realize just how much he affects her. Her desire for him is ravenous; a gaping maw that threatens to swallow her whole if she doesn't feed it.

But she is trying to get him out of her system, is she not? Jinx reasons with herself, as she moves to bracket her thighs around his face. What’s the harm in being thorough about it?

It’s only in the aftermath – when her body is pleasantly sore and worn out and covered in hickeys – that Jinx comes to a terrible realization.

It happens when she turns her head and looks at Ekko, peacefully sleeping on his back beside her.

“You could stay the night, you know…” she had told him earlier, long after the sun had set, while they were cuddled up in her bed, watching some shitty movie that neither of them was actually paying attention to.

Ekko just stared at her, and somehow his gaze made her self-conscious. Which was ridiculous because why did she feel self-conscious after they’d spent hours (very thoroughly) exploring each other’s bodies?

“What?” she blurted, struggling not to squirm under his gaze.

“Nothing,” he murmured, brushing a stray lock of hair from her cheek. “I’ll stay...”

At that moment in time, Jinx couldn’t make sense of the way her heart soared at his answer.

Now she watches his relaxed face in fascination, warmth blooming in her chest at the sight of him so serene. There’s no trace of that usual scowl he reserves for her, or that confident grin that can piss her off and excite her. Usually at the same time.

She gingerly reaches out to trace his features; his strong jawline, defined cheekbones, smooth nose, and full lips. God, he’s so attractive it pisses her off. This all happened because he’s so stupidly good-looking in the first place.

She flinches when she feels him move, pulling back her hand as if burned. Ekko just turns in his sleep, moves to lie on his side, and slings his arm across her back in the process. And Jinx feels her heart do cartwheels in her chest when he moves his body closer to hers, snuggling into her side.

It’s then that her brain oh-so eloquently thinks oh no. Shit. Fuck. Goddammit.

Jinx flops face-first into her pillow and bites into it to hold back the scream building in her throat.

Because it’s only now that she’s fucked him and the feeling is doing the very opposite of fading, that Jinx realizes that she may actually be in love with Ekko.

#timebomb #ekkojinx #ekko #jinx #arcane #fanfiction #writing #modern au #smut #friends to lovers #hungry posts

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hungryistrying · 3 months ago

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i don't care if you're contagious

#timebomb #ekko #jinx #arcane #fanart

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hungryistrying · 4 months ago

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why'd you have to go and make me like you

summary:

Jinx just doesn't know how to behave normally around Ekko anymore; how to stop getting so irrationally angry every time someone else tries to vie for his attention; how to get this feeling out of her system. With a gasp, she shoots upright in her bed. Lightning strikes in the distance as, with sudden clarity, Jinx gets hit with an idea on how to fix this…Alright, so lightning didn't actually strike in the distance but Jinx has such a good idea it might as well have. A plan concocts itself in her brain. One that’s perhaps a little insane, but hey, aren’t her best ideas always?

Or: Jinx gets annoyed (not jealous) when girls try to hit on Ekko. Her solution? Fuck the feeling away.

rating: explicit

word count: 7131

status: ongoing

crossposted to ao3

chapter two

chapter one: denial is a river

Jinx is having a pretty terrible day. She has no classes on Friday, and so she should be enjoying this beautiful afternoon off (well, she has that one eight a.m. lecture on Fridays but who the fuck actually attends those) by lazing the day away in bed watching TikToks on her phone and playing Mario Kart.

Instead, she’s outside sitting in the fucking sun, (like, ew) fighting for her life because her paper’s due in twelve hours and she may or may not have forgotten about it until Vi innocently asked how far along she was last night, giving Jinx a rude awakening.

But really, all of this isn’t even the source of her irritation. No, the actual source of her irritation sits beside her, and helpfully comments, "You're never gonna finish that paper in time," before reaching for a handful of Skittles.

“Oh, shut up,” she snaps, pettily slapping the Skittles out of Ekko’s hand.

He just laughs–bright as the sun stinging in her eyes, with his too-white teeth and those dimples of his that piss her off too–and picks them back up, unfazed by her ire.

“I’m not gonna say I told you so but…” He pauses to chew on the candy. “Yeah, no, I’m saying it. I told you so.”

And sadly, maybe, possibly, just perhaps–he's right. But Jinx is on a high fueled solely by stress, sleep deprivation, caffeine, and adrenaline. And she'll ride it out for as long as she can, dammit.

Does she have any clue what the fuck she’s even writing at this point? No. Does she have enough time to actually read through any of the sources she’s citing in her term paper? Well…also no. But whatever! Beggars and choosers, and all that, right?

"I’m finishing this stupid paper if it’s the last thing I do," she insists, not tearing her eyes away from the screen.

"Alright, let’s bet," he replies, reaching for her drink on the table and dangling it in front of her. "If you don't make the deadline, you can't drink Mountain Dew for a whole month."

Jinx abruptly stops typing, snatching it from his hand so she can down the rest of the drink. She slams the empty can back onto the table with more force than necessary, before turning to him and responding, "One week."

He smirks at that. "So you know you won't make it?"

“I’ll make it, and when I do,” she pauses in consideration before turning her head to him with a grin, “you’ll buy me as much Mountain Dew as I want for a month.”

He raises a skeptical eyebrow, but his voice is amused when he answers, “So let me get this straight, you quit drinking that crap for one week or I have to buy it for you for a whole month?”

“Now you’re getting it, little man!”

“What I’m getting is that you’re a swindler.” He flicks her forehead and starts laughing when she scowls at him. “I’ll meet you halfway, though. If I win, you stop drinking it for two weeks and if you win, I’ll buy you as much gross shit as you want for two weeks.”

Jinx graciously smacks his arm in response. “It’s not gross, you’re just tasteless.” Then she lets out a petulant sigh, and concedes, “...But fine, consider it a deal.”

Ekko smiles at her, warm and sunny. That warmth spreads to her chest, leaving her feeling all weird and fuzzy. Damn it, she’s still supposed to be annoyed with him, but now she can’t stop the corners of her own mouth from rising.

“I can see you smiling, you know.” He pokes at her cheek for emphasis.

“Cut it out,” she grumbles, slapping his hand away, but there’s no real heat behind it and they both know it. “I’m trying to get actual work done here.”

“So let me help,” Ekko insists, scooting closer to her until their shoulders press together. They’re both wearing short sleeves, making his skin press directly against hers. His arm feels broad and solid against hers, warm too.

The fuzzy feelings are getting worse.

“Oh yeah,” Jinx reaches for a handful of Skittles herself, hoping the burst of artificial sweetness is strong enough to steal her attention instead, “and how exactly are you gonna do that, buster?”

He laughs again. She can feel the vibrations of it traveling from his body through hers. Then he’s slinging his arm over her shoulder, pressing them even closer together, completely foiling Jinx’s attempt without even realizing it.

Honestly, she doesn’t even know what he’s foiling exactly. Because Ekko and her are always close, practically always touching too. Jinx just doesn’t know when it went from something as natural as breathing, to something she’s annoyingly aware of.

“Well, for starters–”

“Ekko!”

Jinx’s mood plummets at the chipper, teeth-grindingly familiar voice that interrupts him mid-sentence.

Seraphine walks up to their table–looking as bright and sparkly as ever–and it takes everything in Jinx’s power not to chuck the empty Mountain Dew can at her.

“Oh, hey there Jinx!” Seraphine smiles, while Jinx does her very best to glower at her until she hopefully does a one-eighty and leaves. It’s not working but at least Seraphine’s smile becomes more strained, so that ought to count for something.

Jinx can feel the both of them expectantly staring at her, and she’s perfectly content to let them until eventually Ekko subtly shakes her and she begrudgingly spits out, “Hi.”

“What’s up, Sera?” he greets with a nod of his head. Jinx wants to gag at the nickname.

“Oh, I was just…” Seraphine’s eyes briefly flicker toward the arm Ekko still has slung over her shoulder, and Jinx is suddenly filled with the strangest urge to lean deeper into the touch. She pushes the feeling down instead. “Sorry. Am I interrupting something?”

“Nah, I was just–” he abruptly stops when Jinx suddenly pulls away from him, removing his arm from her shoulder. “I was, uh, helping Jinx with her term paper…Why?”

“Oh, it’s nothing!” Seraphine, either oblivious or indifferent to the tension between them, just flutters her eyelashes and smiles at him. "I just recorded some new songs and wanted to see what you think, but it’s no biggie if you don’t have time right now."

Ekko turns to Jinx as he answers, "Yeah, we’re a little busy here. Maybe later?"

Jinx is decidedly not looking at him–at either of them, for that matter. She’s busy focusing on her damn term paper, not on something as stupid as the way Ekko has his arms folded over the table now, showing off his biceps a little too well.

Nope. She doesn’t even notice it. Instead, she completely ignores that she can still see him from the periphery of her vision, and continues to glare at her laptop screen.

And a treacherous voice in her mind whispers that he's blowing off Seraphine because he pities Jinx; because he feels some stupid sense of obligation to stick by her when she's struggling with something. Even when he’s clearly showing off his arms to Seraphine in some weird peacock-like mating ritual because he wants to date her. Seraphine must want to date him too, if her coy looks and saccharine smiles are anything to go off of.

…Yeah, she remembers why she was annoyed with him now.

Jinx can’t stand the sight of it–her own train of thought adding to her irritation–so she scoffs and turns back to him. “Not like you're much help, anyway. Last I checked, you don’t even think I’ll make the deadline."

"Hey, spite is a good motivator.” He shrugs, his demeanor much too easy-going when Jinx feels herself becoming more razor-edged by the second. “Maybe I’m just helping you out in my own way.”

“Why don’t you help me out some more by leaving so I can concentrate?” she snaps.

His brow twitches at her tone. “What’s with you all of a sudden?”

Jinx can see Seraphine’s eyes nervously darting between them. Ha, as if she wasn’t just looking at Ekko like some lovesick, moon-eyed village maiden. “Look, it’s really not a problem if–”

“It’s fine, just go!” she interrupts.

“Hey,” Ekko puts a hand on her arm and frowns when she pulls away from him, “seriously, what’s up?”

Her stomach twists uncomfortably at the look on his face–his expression troubled at her sudden outburst. Jinx forces herself to take a deep breath through her nose, trying to push down the festering bitterness that’s desperately clawing its way up her throat.

She has a habit of putting her foot in her mouth when she gets upset; a habit her therapist (weekly appointments at Vi’s insistence) has made her painfully and embarrassingly aware of. And she’s trying very hard not to say something that will most likely cause a fight. Because fighting with Ekko sucks, even if pissing him off is rather tempting at the moment.

“Nothing,” she says with more restraint than she feels. “This paper is just…stressing me out a lot. Go. Have fun with Seraphine and leave me alone.”

Jinx turns from him–from them both because she might actually bite someone’s head off if she has to look at their faces right now–frowning at her laptop with feigned concentration, despite her current inability to register any of the words on the page.

A beat of silence.

“Do you really want me to leave?” he quietly asks.

“Yes.” She sighs, still not looking at him. “I just wanna focus, so go.”

For a moment he doesn’t say or do anything. Jinx is still adamantly staring at her laptop, and honestly, she deserves a fucking medal for not giving in to the urge to face him so she can snap at him and Seraphine.

“Alright,” he says after a while, gathering his things and getting up from their table. “Just hit me up when you wanna hang out again.”

“Yeah, yeah,” she dismissively waves her hand at him, “I’ll be fine. Go have fun yapping about sheet music, you nerds.”

Ekko snorts but doesn’t say anything after that, she briefly feels his hand squeeze her shoulder–the touch warm and steady, just like him–before he asks Seraphine if she wants to go somewhere else.

Seraphine turns back to Jinx to say, “Bye Jinx, good luck on your term paper!” before walking off with Ekko.

Jinx glares daggers at their retreating backs, quickly whipping her head back to her laptop screen when she sees Ekko turn to look back at her. She groans in frustration. This is so damn annoying. Jinx hates acting like this, feels pathetic when she does, but the fact remains that Ekko is popular. Too popular.

And for some reason (that she’s boiled down to forces of the universe hating her guts) he’s always getting hit on when she’s in the vicinity. Ever since he decided to take an elective in musical theory his string of…admirers has grown. Seraphine is only the latest addition to that list.

Aside from her, Ekko has been getting rather buddy-buddy with the TA too. Sona or something? She always finds an excuse to pull him aside to give him some extra advice because he's "so talented" and "such a promising artist". Whatever that actually means. Jinx is pretty sure that Sona-chick is at least five years older than them too. Ugh. What a cougar.

Then there's Taliyah, an exchange student from…a place Jinx can't be bothered to remember, she was too busy glaring at Ekko to listen to his explanation–

Anyways, Professor Heimerdinger–who must've been dying to give her another reason to hate him–pulled Ekko aside after his lecture and asked if he would be kind enough to show their new student around campus to help her adjust.

Being the paragon of virtue that he apparently is, Ekko agreed, and so their plans to eat lunch together were canceled. Instead, Jinx ate alone (willingly, at least, Dustin tried to sit with her but he was obviously hungover and stunk of sex and liquor, so she told him to piss off) while watching a moon-eyed Taliyah trail after him.

And sitting next to him in every class they shared.

And shyly asking for his number.

Jinx wasn't sure who she wanted to kill more, herself or Taliyah.

Lastly, the one and only time Jinx let Ekko convince her to go to the gym together, he got hit on rather boldly by some girl, Rell, who had no reservations about letting Ekko know how much she enjoyed the view of him doing pull-ups. Then again, Rell also proceeded to eye up Jinx and asked if she planned to come around more often, so maybe she was just like that with everyone.

The point is, whenever she's hanging out with Ekko someone will inevitably try to make a move on him. And he always just smiles and lets them.

It's disgusting, frankly speaking.

Jinx doesn't want to witness any of it. She and Ekko are friends for crying out loud, the best of friends, even. Who he's bumping uglies with is none of her business, and she'd love to keep it that way if life would stop screwing with her already.

So the best and only thing she can think of doing is leaving and avoiding him whenever it happens. Because the only alternative is getting mad at him (which ends up happening anyway, so she probably just sucks at that ‘removing yourself from the situation’ thing, sorry doctor Medarda) and okay, maybe that's not fair or rational or whatever but if she's pissed, she's pissed, alright?

Jinx peeks up from her laptop. Once she’s certain they're both gone, she packs all her stuff and gets up and ready to leave.

Knowing Ekko, he'll just come back sooner rather than later, insisting on talking out whatever their problem is–even when Jinx insists there is no problem. God knows it wouldn't be the first time. She's boiled it down to that stupid savior complex of his. Not that he’ll hear of it, stubborn as he is.

When she looks down at the table, she realizes Ekko left behind his bag of Skittles. They're her favorite candy, but not even that can save her horrific mood right now. She glares daggers at the bag, a rather pathetic alternative to glaring at Ekko.

With a frustrated groan, she snatches the candy off the table and stuffs it in her bag too, before she escapes to the one place Ekko wouldn't think to look for her: Zeri's dorm room.

Jinx knocks on the door. From the other side, she hears rustling and frantic footsteps. She frowns and knocks again. What the hell is Zeri doing in there?

Calling Zeri and Jinx friends would be the overstatement of the century. It’s more a simple case of: they both grew up in the same neighborhood and have a bunch of mutual friends, so it’s impossible not to know each other. And Jinx occasionally takes advantage of this weird dynamic when she needs to avoid Ekko. Zeri, for all her bitching and moaning, never turns her away. Hey, Zaunites oughta stick together, right?

Time passes and still no one opens the door. The long wait is doing nothing for her already horrid mood. She impatiently bangs on the door again and complains, “Stop dicking around, Zeri, I can hear you!”

A beat of silence. Then the sound of footsteps again, followed by the turning of a lock. Turns out it wasn't Zeri, after all.

“Akali?” she questions, taking in the grumpy, disheveled appearance of Zeri's roommate from where she's peeked her head out the door.

“What the fuck, Jinx?” Akali groans, blocking the view of her room with her body. "Zeri’s not even here."

"Well, I told her I was coming and she said it was cool, so…" She shrugs. Akali doesn’t move. Jinx raises an inquisitive eyebrow and asks, “Are you gonna let me in or what?”

Akali sighs but swings the door open entirely and doesn’t bother waiting for Jinx to follow as she spins on her heel and walks further into the room.

Jinx closes the door behind her, noting the contrast between Zeri’s relatively neat side of the room, opposed to the mess on Akali’s side with a curious frown. It's not as if Jinx herself is the tidiest person in the world, but usually, when she comes here, both girls seem to keep their dorm relatively neat.

Currently, Akali's sheets are completely askew, her duvet half hanging off the bed and pillows littering the floor. A shirt and boots, much too large to be her own, look like they’ve been hastily kicked underneath the bed...Jinx has a feeling she knows why Akali needed so long to open the damn door.

“Were you fucking someone before I got here or something?” she only half-jokes, grabbing one of the bean bags and dragging it to the empty spot between Zeri’s bed and the doorway.

"Don't be ridiculous, you just woke me up,” Akali scoffs, standing in front of her mirror as she straightens out her mussed-up hair. “Why are you even here?”

Jinx rolls her eyes at Akali’s unsubtle attempt to change the topic, but answers nonetheless, "I gotta finish my paper and I got nowhere else to go."

Because Ekko might find Jinx if she goes to the library instead. That's none of Akali's business, though.

Akali hums at her answer. Seemingly satisfied with her hair–not that Jinx can see a difference–she sits down on her bed, tapping her fingers against the bed frame and staring Jinx down before she asks, “So…how long are you staying?”

Jinx suspiciously squints at her. Oh, she was definitely fucking someone before she got here. That or she’s hiding a body somewhere in here. Either way, this is set up to be prime entertainment for Jinx. “I hang out here all the time. What's your issue all of a sudden?"

"Nothing," Akali says, but her shifty gaze and the nervous taps of her foot on the hardwood floor say otherwise. "Just curious.”

A muffled bang startles them both, their heads whipping toward the source of the noise: Akali’s closet.

Their eyes meet. Jinx gives her a knowing look while Akali buries her head in her hands and groans.

"Just curious, huh?" Jinx rushes to open the closet door before Akali can stop her.

The guy hiding inside startles, hastily pulling his pants up, before whipping his head in Jinx’s direction, staring at her like a deer caught in the headlights.

"Uh, hi–" he blurts, stumbling out of the closet, "I'm Kayn?"

Jinx raises an unimpressed eyebrow, eyeing the Kayn-fellow up and down from his long black hair to his very exposed and chiseled torso.

She shrugs, and says to Akali, “Least he's hot.”

Kayn opens his mouth to retort, but before he can, Akali cuts through, "Thanks, I know. Now you,” she reaches for the shirt and boots underneath her bed and tosses them to him, “can go.”

He barely catches both before Akali has the door open and is pushing him out. Before she can close it, Kayn turns to her with a hopeful gleam in his eyes and says, “I’ll call you.”

Akali huffs an amused breath, shaking her head. “Why don’t you put on a shirt first?”

He grins at her, the both of them seemingly forgetting about Jinx. “See you around, Akali.”

“Yeah. Bye, Kayn,” Akali replies, her voice softening to a tone entirely foreign to Jinx, before she closes the door and turns back to her.

Jinx raises an amused eyebrow at Akali, who just rolls her eyes and grumbles, "Save it," before flopping back down on her bed. “Damn cockblocker…”

"Cockblocker, huh? So you knew about the guy hiding in your closet while you were sleeping or…?" Jinx teases, because, come on, how can she not?

"Haha, yeah, fine. I wasn't asleep. Happy now?" Akali groans.

"Extremely," she confirms, sitting down and reaching for her laptop. "So, that your man?"

Akali scoffs. "Who? Kayn? Don't be ridiculous.”

Jinx raises a skeptical eyebrow at her response. After that little Romeo and Juliet show by the door? Yeah, she's not buying it. Then again, she couldn't care less either way, so with a shrug, she turns her laptop on. "Whatever you say, toots."

Akali rolls her eyes but doesn't deign to respond. She simply moves to lie on her stomach and takes her phone from the nightstand.

Silence falls over the room–only broken up by the occasional tapping of Jinx's keyboard–and neither Jinx nor Akali seems inclined to break it. It's not as if they have anything to talk about. Their acquaintance is limited to the fact that they both know Zeri.

…But goddammit, Jinx is curious and there's an elephant in the room begging to be addressed.

"Oh come on, there's no way that's not your boyfriend," she insists, snapping her laptop shut.

"And yet," Akali counters, not even looking away from her phone, "he isn't."

"Really now?" Jinx says. "You're unusually nice to someone who’s just a fuck-buddy."

"And you're unusually nosy," Akali snaps, finally turning her head to glare at her.

They say curiosity killed the cat, and there must be some truth behind that because Akali certainly looks ready to kill. Jinx just gives her a sunny smile and opens her laptop again.

She’s already made peace with the fact that she'll never know what's up with Akali and her….whatever he is. Then Akali suddenly clears her throat and says, “It wouldn't work out anyway.” A beat of silence. "But he is hot so I'm just…getting him out of my system, I guess."

“Oh,” Jinx eloquently responds. Look, she was just being a little shit, alright? She hadn't actually expected Akali to open up about the thing.

"Well, I told you mine so tell me yours," she continues. "What's going on with you and your boyfriend?"

Jinx blinks, puzzled. “My who?”

“Your boyfriend? Zeri's always bitching about you two.” Akali looks nonplussed, like Jinx is the crazy one here for not knowing about her nonexistent boyfriend. “What’s his name again? Something with an E, right?”

Jinx gapes. Wait, is…is she talking about Ekko? Before she can retort, however, the door slams open.

"Oh my god, Kali, why did you let me take an elective in statistics?" Zeri groans in lieu of a greeting, unceremoniously dropping her backpack by the entrance. She only seems to notice Jinx after shutting the door. With a frown, she asks, “Wait– Jinx? What did Ekko do now?”

“Nothing!” Jinx insists, perhaps a little too intently for it to sound casual, before pointing an accusatory finger at Akali. “Why does she think we’re dating?”

Zeri turns to Akali, offended. “You think I would date this lunatic?!”

“Not you, dumbass!” Jinx reaches up to grab one of the Poro plushies at the foot of Zeri’s bed–nearly dropping her laptop in the process–before tossing one at her head. “I mean Ekko and me!”

The plushie bounces off Zeri’s head, who just scowls and argues, “Then you should’ve worded it better!” She picks the plushie off the floor and hurls it back at Jinx, who takes it straight to the face with an indignant squawk. “And don’t throw shit at me!”

Still lounging on her bed, Akali raises a curious eyebrow. “Wait. So they’re not dating? Seriously?”

Zeri scoffs, kicking off her shoes before moving to sit down on her own bed, opposite Akali’s. “If only! Maybe they’d finally stop being so annoying if they were.”

Jinx flushes–whether of anger or embarrassment, she isn’t sure. “You assholes know I can hear you, right?”

“We know,” they respond in unison. Jinx hopes they both trip over a ledge and twist their ankle.

“Okay, so go ahead and explain why you’re here then,” Zeri challenges. “Definitely has nothing to do with you avoiding Ekko for the billionth time this month, right?”

“I’m not avoiding Ekko!” Jinx insists, pointing down at her laptop screen. “I’m trying to finish my term paper, actually.”

“And you have to do that in our room because…?” Zeri trails off, seemingly unbothered by Jinx's obvious irritation.

Well, Jinx isn't unbothered. In fact, she's extremely bothered. And she doesn't exactly get why she's bothered, which just bothers her more.

“Because–” She blanks. Fuck. Stupid Zeri with her stupid fucking questions. Then, with utmost seriousness, she continues, “Because this room has a great aura…for studying.”

They're not wrong when they say one look can speak a thousand words because the skeptical yet amused looks she gets from both Zeri and Akali are honestly worse than any rebuttal they could’ve come up with.

“Oh, fuck you guys.” Jinx turns to her laptop again, the screen having gone dark after she's neglected it for so long.

God, she really does need to work on that term paper or she's screwed. If Jinx misses this deadline she'll have to suffer through Heimerdinger's lectures for another semester. And even worse, Ekko would be right. Which is already bad enough in itself, but also means she can't drink Mountain Dew for two whole weeks.

Of course, she can’t even attempt to do that, because from the bed, Zeri frowns at her phone and says, “Yup, now Ekko's texting me if I know where Jinx is. Who would've thunk it, right?”

Panic grips her, and before she can think better of it, she blurts, “Don't tell him!”

Zeri and Akali both turn to look at her incredulously. Oh fuck.

Jinx shuts her laptop with a long-suffering sigh. “...Okay, fine, I'm avoiding Ekko. Big deal! You guys never need space from your friends or something?”

In a disgusting turn of events, it's Akali who responds, “Whatever you say, toots,” because she’s evil and Zeri is a snitch who Jinx never should’ve trusted with any sort of personal information.

She should’ve just done the reasonable thing: steal Caitlyn’s credit card and stay at various cheap motels over the course of the school year until everyone hopefully forgets about her existence (or until Caitlyn blocks the credit card).

“Susmaryosep,” Zeri groans, climbing off the bed to stand in front of Jinx, “I swear it's always the same shit with you two…”

Jinx's brow twitches in irritation. She stuffs her laptop into her bag before rising to her feet, and arguing, “Well, why do you care?!”

“I don't!” Zeri rebukes, frustration twisting her expression. “You guys just keep making your problems my problem! I swear…I should just lock you two in a supply closet somewhere. Maybe you'd stop being so annoying if you just boned it out like normal people.”

Jinx is not entirely sure the sound that leaves her throat is human. “I– Wha–” She spins on her heel to face Akali, face hot with indignation. “Are you hearing this right now?!”

“I have no stakes in this,” Akali shrugs, “I'm just here for the free entertainment.”

“Oh come on.” Zeri puts her hand on Jinx’s shoulder–rolling her eyes when Jinx immediately slaps it away–and sighs. “Look. Jinx. Friend-but-not-really-friend. Whatever’s going on with you and Ekko, you gotta fix it–”

“There’s nothing to fix!”

“–I’m being serious here!” Zeri grabs her shoulders so tightly it startles Jinx into silence. “Ekko’s not gonna say anything because he’s just as stubborn as you, but something’s gotta give! You get upset and avoid him, and then he gets upset that you’re avoiding him, and then I’m the one who’s gotta deal with you both!”

Zeri stops to take a deep breath and gather herself, before she finishes, “Now go fix it yourselves or…or I won’t let you into my room anymore, kuha mo?”

Don’t put your foot in your mouth, she desperately thinks, digging her nails into her fist, hard enough to sting–a last-ditch effort to keep herself from snapping. But it’s not working. The irritation that’s been simmering in her chest, boils over into pure rage. Because, seriously, who the fuck does Zeri think she is?

Jinx can’t deal with this right now. Any of it. She can’t deal with Zeri’s tired interrogations; with both her and Akali’s eyes on her like pinpricks on her skin; with that stupid deadline looming over her head; with all these shiny-eyed, pretty girls drooling after Ekko.

“Let me make it easier for you then,” Jinx eventually grinds out, yanking herself free of Zeri’s grip and grabbing her bag before she storms out of the room.

“Seriously?!” she hears Zeri yell from the doorway.

Without turning back around, Jinx flips her off and keeps walking.

So Jinx’s prospects of successfully finishing that term paper in time are looking pretty damn bleak. After Zeri pissed her off, she’d taken the bus home (putting her phone on silent because Zeri wouldn’t stop fucking calling) stomped straight into her bedroom, slammed the door shut, and tried to channel that anger into productivity somehow.

Sadly, Jinx’s strategy had been woefully ineffective because her temperamental mood just gave her brain fog instead. Which left her staring at the page rather unproductively for much longer than she’d like to admit.

In a stroke of genius and exhaustion, she decided to corrupt the file instead and send it as is. There, by the time the old coot realizes he can’t open the document, she’d have plenty of time to actually finish her paper (hopefully).

Her anger eventually begins to set like the late evening sun, leaving her staring at the ceiling–painted in hazy hues of reds and oranges from the light spilling in through the windows–while she contemplates everything Zeri had said to her.

Now that her anger has waned, Jinx can begrudgingly admit (at least in her head) that Zeri might be onto something…She’s still going to ignore her texts and calls, though. Because even if she has a point, she’s still a nosy traitor who had no reason to air out Jinx’s business like that.

Jinx buries her face in her hands, smothering a cry of frustration. Seriously, what the fuck is she even supposed to do about this situation? She’s ignored one too many of Ekko’s texts to pretend everything is still normal. Not to mention, not talking to him just plain sucks.

With a sigh, Jinx pats the side of her bed until she eventually grasps her phone, turning the sound back on, opening the messenger app to see what he has sent her (still dutifully ignoring Zeri's messages at the very top of her notifications).

SAVIOR BOY Hey i came back after i was done helping Sera but u werent around? U in the library? Ok i dont see you in the library either… Are u busy? Hmu when u wanna hang

Guilt squeezes at her heart until it hurts, but unfortunately feeling bad hasn't done her any favors. Because she knows that whatever she's feeling isn't rational, knows that she's being unfair – but what is she supposed to do with knowing? It hasn't stopped her from feeling the way she does every time she's around Ekko.

He's still her best friend, though, and...Jinx honestly wouldn't know what to do with herself if he ever stopped being her best friend. Maybe the way she’s acting will prove to be the final straw, that which finally makes him tire of and give up on her.

Jinx just doesn't know how to behave normally around him anymore; how to stop getting so irrationally angry every time someone else tries to vie for his attention; how to get this feeling out of her system.

With a gasp, she shoots upright in her bed. Lightning strikes in the distance as, with sudden clarity, Jinx gets hit with an idea on how to fix this…Alright, so lightning didn't actually strike in the distance but Jinx has such a good idea it might as well have.

A plan concocts itself in her brain. One that’s perhaps a little insane, but hey, aren’t her best ideas always? Jinx bites her lip and turns the idea over in her head. Zeri might be an idiot but…that stupid joke she made about “boning it out” hadn’t been too off-track.

Besides, isn’t Akali doing something similar? Something something about getting it– him (Kayle or whatever his name was, not important anyway) out of her system.

Maybe that's what she needs. Maybe she should just take a page out of Akali's book and try…to get Ekko out of her system, so to speak, so she can start acting normal around him again instead of ruining their friendship.

….No. That's ridiculous. Sacrilegious even. Ekko's her friend, her best friend at that. They can't, they shouldn't–

Jinx collapses back on the bed, lifting up her pillow and smothering her face in it so she can scream into the void.

As if tuned into her misery, her phone vibrates beside her. Curiosity gets the better of her and Jinx decides to take a momentary pause from self-strangulation to check what it is. It better not be Zeri again.

SAVIOR BOY ? U know your read notifs are on right? Are you mad at me?

…Maybe it would've been better if it was Zeri. She locks her phone again and sighs in frustration.

Alright relax Jinx, what could one hook-up between friends really hurt?

The thought makes her think back on her first hook-up, nose wrinkling at the memory. Born mostly out of curiosity–and a desperation to just lose her damn virginity already after high school graduation–Jinx thought it was awful. She washed her hands off the experience and concluded the whole sex and dating thing just wasn't for her, ‘cause she sure didn't get the hype behind it all.

…Okay, well, she reached that conclusion after trying a few more times, just in case. Her ideas just seem much better when she’s drunk, alright? And though the encounters weren’t as disastrous as her first time, she still didn’t get it.

But, hey, say she and Ekko hook up (which still feels blasphemous to even consider) and the sex is bad, wouldn't that be better? Surely a bad hook-up would get this weird and uncomfortable feeling out of her system, right? Somehow, that thought makes her feel vaguely disconcerted–

But that’s not important right now, she's getting ahead of herself. Jinx can go back and forth on this all she wants, but unfortunately, it takes two to tango. So the most important step in getting Ekko to sleep with her is probably getting him to want to sleep with her.

Then again, that couldn't be so hard, could it? He’s still just a man at the end of the day. Sure, she doesn't have a figure like Sona's, a face like Rell's, or Taliyah's height, for that matter. And she may have freckles and dark circles compared to Seraphine's clear, unblemished skin but–

Okay, that actually made her feel way worse but the point is, it can't be that hard to seduce a guy, right? Even if it's Ekko.

…Fuck it.

Frustrated, Jinx reaches for her phone and shoots Ekko rapid-fire replies before she can think better of it.

You ok 1 im NOT mad i was working on my paper dur 2 stop stalking my read notifs 🔫🔫 and 3 lets hang tmrw afternoon @ my place wanna study chem together?

Alright, that’s one thing out of the way. She breathes a sigh of relief, a weight lifting off her shoulders, and tosses her phone back down beside her.

There’s no point in checking her texts again. She knows Ekko and knows there's no way he’ll decline her proposition. It's the other proposition she intends to give him on the day itself that has her worried.

Jinx rolls around to lie on her side, sighing as she hugs her pillow to her chest for a semblance of comfort that she’s too embarrassed to seek out from Vi or, god forbid, Caitlyn.

…Oh shit, she needs to get Vi and Caitlyn out of the house tomorrow.

"Sooo," Jinx starts as nonchalantly as she can, while heating hot chocolate in a pan, "finally Saturday, am I right? You lovebirds got any exciting plans for today?”

Vi frowns in consideration as she chews on her pancakes, not bothering to swallow the food down before she replies, "Not really, why?"

"Oh, no reason, really," Jinx says super casually. Just as she very casually pours the hot chocolate into two cups, one for her sister and the other for her dumb girlfriend. She’s even made sure not to put whipped cream on Caitlyn's drink because she doesn't like the taste.

When she sets them down on the counter, they both eye the cups incredulously. Caitlyn even sniffs the drink, as if–somewhere between the journey from the stove to the kitchen island–Jinx had somehow laced it with poison.

She rolls her eyes at the dramatics. Okay, at some point she may have totally considered poisoning Caitlyn. But as it currently stands, if Jinx wanted the woman to drop dead, she wouldn't have moved in with her and Vi, for crying out loud.

Vi moves her suspicious gaze from the hot chocolate to Jinx. "What are you up to, Pow?"

"Nothing," Jinx innocently assures, avoiding eye contact as she plays with one of her braids, "it's just that I was gonna invite Ekko over for a study session, and I was worried it might be…distracting if you guys are around."

"Oh, okay.” Vi shrugs, going for another bite of her pancakes.

Then her head whips back up to look at Jinx, so fast it’s a miracle it didn’t go flying off her neck.

“Oh– Oh my god, Jinx," Jinx flinches as Vi's utensils hit the counter with a clang and squirms under her sister’s heavy, concerned gaze, "please tell me you have condoms."

"Ew, what the hell, Violet?!" Jinx flushes at her sister's assumption. Even if she has, embarrassingly enough, reached the right conclusion.

"Don’t ‘Violet’ me!” she argues, her hands flying as she talks, the way they always do when she gets upset. “This is important! If you’re old enough to have sex, you gotta be old enough to use a condom too because I am not about to become an aunt at the ripe age of twenty-four. Does Ekko–"

"Vi!" she interrupts, burying her head in her hands. God, this is so fucking mortifying. "We're just studying."

Vi gives her a pointed look that makes Jinx nervously bite down on her lower lip. Vi just insistently keeps staring her down, raising a single, disbelieving eyebrow. The silence feels heavy, and eventually, Jinx breaks under the pressure.

With a groan, she reluctantly supplies, "...Yes, I have condoms. And I’m on birth control! Which you know."

Vi sighs in relief, picking up her knife and fork again, and casually slicing into her pancakes as she says, "Good, we'll be out of your hair, then."

Seated beside her, Caitlyn simply groans as she sets down her now-empty cup of hot chocolate, and says, "I really did not want to witness this conversation first thing in the morning."

It’s already well past noon when Vi and Caitlyn finally make their way out of the house (with Vi making assured proclamations that they won’t return until very late, making Jinx want to scream). Once she recovers from the mortification of having an older sister who knows she’s about to (attempt to) have sex, Jinx rushes to her bedroom and considers what her next step should be.

Because it occurred to her, perhaps belatedly, that she has no fucking clue how to actually seduce someone. In her defense, this isn’t something she actively has to worry about whenever she’s drunk. She considers, momentarily, whether or not a little liquid courage would do her any favors.

Then she remembers that just last week Ekko had found her shit-faced and passed out at some dingy frat party with her cheek glued to a toilet seat (which she knows happened because the fucker texted her a picture of it the next day when she refused to believe him) before he had to haul her ass home, and thinks better of it.

She decides to start simple by taking a shower, during which she spends an embarrassingly long time scrubbing her skin raw and shaves more thoroughly than she ever has in her entire life.

Once she’s out of the shower, insecurity creeps its way into her mind as she does her skincare routine. She doesn’t want to do it, but still can’t stop herself from critically assessing her body during the process. Something sinks in her chest when she finds it lacking.

Jinx knows she’s not a supermodel by any means. She’s short and skinny, with pallid skin littered with so many scars that they disrupt the ink of her tattoos–but she generally doesn’t give a shit about any of that. In fact, most days she thinks she’s pretty damn hot.

So why is it that now of all times her body is making her doubt her own attractiveness?

…Why is it now that she’s worried whether or not Ekko even finds her attractive?

Fuck, this is so annoying. Can’t her brain just work with her when she needs it to? Jinx futilely tries to push these feelings down, instead, she rakes both her closet and brain over what to wear.

Should she try to dress cute? What if she does and Ekko thinks she’s weird? But what if she’s dressed too casually and he won’t even consider sleeping with her? …Then again, has he ever considered it?

Okay, shit, she has to focus.

She closes her now nearly empty closet and turns back to her room with a frustrated sigh. Her bedroom looks like it survived an explosion, a wreckage of clothing everywhere, from her desk to her bed to…the bookshelf…somehow?

Jinx petulantly kicks at one of her jeans on the floor and redirects her efforts to drying her hair instead. God knows that’s already a chore and a half. She hasn’t cut her hair since middle school and it shows. The full length of it reaches her thighs and gets in the way of practically everything if she doesn’t dutifully braid it.

When it’s finally all dry, Jinx is in the midst of putting her hair in a simple, thick braid when her phone vibrates beside her. She taps the screen to read the message and nearly has a heart attack when she does.

SAVIOR BOY Hey Be there in 30 min

#timebomb #ekkojinx #ekko #jinx #arcane #fanfiction #writing #modern au #smut #college au #friends to lovers #whatever else ppl tag fics on here girl idk #hungry posts

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hungryistrying · 5 months ago

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Never noticed before how she's checking Ekko out from head to toe here....

#IM DEAD #not the video game quest: defeat jinx in battle (rewards: her hand in marriage)#arcane #jinx #timebomb #gifs

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hungryistrying · 5 months ago

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I got so scared when I entered twt and saw that you deactivated, your account was the first one that I found when I entered timebomb twt and your account and your fics made me fall even more in love with this ship, beside your timebomb fics rec thread helps so much since I´m new here.

Hope you are okay and love your fics

i'm alright, thank you so much for the sweet message <3 i'm just a taking a mental health break but i won't be gone for long!! i'll return soon enough anyways when i post another timebomb fic LMAO

#hungry answers #anonymous

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hungryistrying · 5 months ago

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noooo huhu went back on twt to revisit the timebomb fic recs thread you made then found out that you deactivated there 😭😭😭

hope u doing good tho i l

NO IM SORRY 😭😭 im just taking a mental health break, i'll be back before u know it!!

#needs to be studied how being on social media makes my mentall illness worse LMAO #so peace out until i stop caring so much abt things happening in my phone #hungry answers #anonymous

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hungryistrying · 5 months ago

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messy stuff

#timebomb #ekko #jinx #isha #arcane #fanart

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hungryistrying · 5 months ago

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You are my saviour. Thank you for your service

not sure what this is referring to, but ur welcome i think 😭

#hungry answers #anonymous

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hungryistrying · 5 months ago

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TIMEBOMB x DREAM

#timebomb #ekkojinx #ekko #jinx #powder #arcane #arcane league of legends #hungry posts #my edit

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hungryistrying · 5 months ago

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santa, santa why do you hate me

summary:

So there he stood, severely out of breath with oil stains clinging to his shirt, sweat uncomfortably cooling his skin, and his socks soaked with melted snow. All that for a train that wasn’t riding anyway, for a Christmas party he didn’t really want to attend, and for one girl he’d been dying to see for months who would (allegedly) be there. If god gives his silliest battles to his funniest of clowns, then Ekko now considered himself the fucking court jester.

In which Ekko is down bad and Jinx doesn't really like Christmas parties.

rating: teen

word count: 7460

status: completed

crossposted to ao3

Tagalog Christmas music spills out from beneath the front door and onto the frosty pavement, where Ekko stands, waiting for someone to open up already. The music is so loud he can clearly make out the words even while outside (not that he understands any of it, all he knows is a few cusses Zeri uses so often even he's managed to pick them up).

The cheer of the holiday season affects even the deepest, grungiest levels of the undercity. Decorations linger outside nearly every row house on Zeri’s street, and fairy lights are strung up all over the lanes, the colors setting the snow-white streets aglow.

Even the weather must be in on the festivities, it started snowing three weeks ago and simply never stopped. This would be Ekko's first white Christmas in years. He might’ve appreciated the aesthetic, had he not been out in the snow for well over an hour by now.

Man, he hates the cold.

Heaving a tired sigh – his breath fogging in front of his face from the chill – he impatiently knocks on the door again, hoping somebody will open up already.

Feeling more and more restless, he taps his foot to the music while he waits, trying (and probably failing) to stop scowling. All things considered though, Ekko thinks he’s pretty justified in the fact that he’s pissed and exhausted now that he's finally made it to Zeri's party.

Luck was not on his side trying to get here. Then again, it never is so what's new? It hadn't started off too bad. After all, Benzo is a good guy and had been fine with letting Ekko leave the store early for the evening.

"It's colder than a polar bear's toenail outside," Benzo explained, inspecting a newly pawned antique for its value. "If you don't leave early, you might miss your bus."

But well, the holiday season was busy, even for a hole-in-the-wall shop such as Benzo's, and Ekko was pretty much his only employee (unofficially at that, but as long as he got paid he wasn't complaining). He couldn't just leave the old man to run the shop by himself on one of the busiest days of the year.

Plus, the money was good on Christmas Eve. Dumb Pilties always paid too much, but they were especially easy to overcharge when in a rush to buy a last-minute Christmas gift.

He checked his pocket watch for the time. Alright, he might not make it to Zeri's house on time by bus anymore, but he should’ve been faster if he took the train and then cut through the backstreets (and also much more likely to get stabbed with a shiv but fuck it, not the worst risk he’s taken).

But apparently, Santa just hated his guts. That's the only explanation for the series of unfortunate events that unfolded next.

The first incident was a rookie mistake. Ekko had been struggling to fix a broken pipe while simultaneously juggling a sudden rush of customers, so he'd tried to get the job done as quickly as possible to focus on all the incoming buyers.

But he'd done the job too quickly, sloppily even. He'd only just finished twisting the final cog into place when the pipe sprang, sending oil flying all over him in the process.

"Shit!" he'd cursed, frantically covering the burst pipe to keep the leak contained. It was about as effective as putting a bandaid on a gunshot wound.

"Ekko, what in the bloody hell happened?" Benzo demanded, stepping away from the cash register to assess the damage he'd done.

"My bad, Benzo." Ekko grimaced, reaching for all the paper towels he had on hand to cover the leak. "I'll have this fixed in no time, don't worry."

The old man sighed but nodded, "Alright, you just head out now after fixing this mess," before heading back to the counter to help the line of waiting customers.

Ekko eventually fixed the pipe and cleaned up the remaining mess. Too bad it had taken thirty more minutes than he had intended it to.

When he'd finally made it to the second floor of the shop, he looked down at himself with a grimace. His work overalls had saved his jeans from the damage, but his shirt had not been so lucky. Of course this had to fucking happen when he didn't have any more spare clothes left in the shop.

He looked down at his pocket watch again to calculate how much time he had left. The next train was coming in ten minutes, if he got there quickly he should be able to catch it.

"Alright, I'm out, Benzo," Ekko said, his attention caught between wrestling to properly zip up his jacket and not tripping down the stairs. "Merry Christmas!" he called over his shoulder as he exited the shop.

He wasn’t even sure if Benzo had replied with how fast he was out of the door. Ekko raced his way down the street, grimacing when snow slipped into the gaps of his beat-up sneakers, but he refused to slow down in the slightest.

All this for a Christmas party he actually intended to skip…

Christmas parties weren’t really Ekko’s thing– not when this was the one night of the year his parents were guaranteed to have time off. But Zeri had been harassing him to go for weeks now. He had dodged every invitation until she sent him one damning text message that changed his mind.

⚡️ Z BTW I invited your girlfriend You Who? Oh 😐 Jinx is not my girlfriend stop playing ⚡️ Z LOLOL but you still knew who I meant~ Ayy will you show up or not We’re gonna do karaoke you have to be there! You Alright sheesh Now get off my case already ⚡️ Z HAHAHAHA I KNEW YOUD SAY YES See you then 😁

Ekko couldn’t even find it in him to deny what Zeri was implying, embarrassing as it was. Because, yeah, that was all it took for him to skip out on spending Christmas Eve with his parents for the first time in his life. But he hadn’t seen Jinx in months so sue him, alright?

By the time Ekko made it to the station his lungs felt like they were on fire, sweat uncomfortably clinging to his skin beneath his padded parka. It was then that this evening went from mildly unlucky to absolute shit.

All the trains had been canceled due to bad weather conditions.

If god gives his silliest battles to his funniest of clowns, then Ekko now considered himself the fucking court jester.

So that was that then, no more trains were riding for the evening and the next bus wouldn’t arrive for another forty-five minutes.

Ekko heaved a tired sigh and looked at the snow-coated streets ahead of him. It would take an hour to walk to Zeri's house from here, but it'd still be faster than getting there by bus (assuming the bus wouldn't face delays too).

He was about to make the long trek when he realized the road below the station had been cleared for safety. Ekko reached for his skateboard, pressed between his back and backpack. If he stuck to the side of the road, he probably wouldn’t get hit by a car. After all, there’s no way his luck was that bad.

Good news: His luck was indeed not that bad, seeing as he didn’t get hit by any cars.

Bad news: It was still pretty damn bad because one of the wheels broke off his skateboard and he fell face-first onto the sidewalk. At least the snow broke his fall.

With a groan, he stood up, plucking his injured pride and broken skateboard off the ground. Fine, he could take a cosmic hint. He’d just fucking walk there.

And so, Ekko had no choice but to trek all the way to Zeri’s house on foot. At least going through the city’s back alleys had cut his time down from an hour and three minutes to just forty-nine minutes.

Plus, he didn’t get stabbed with a shiv this time, so that had to count for something.

The door swings open and Zeri stands before him, dressed appropriately for the season in what might possibly be the ugliest Christmas sweater he’s ever seen. The pine green monstrosity reads “I’m sexy and I snow it”, depicting a reindeer holding a blunt of all things. She’s even wearing a pair of fluffy antlers on her head to complete the look.

“Didn’t know this was an ugly sweater party,” he deadpans. He would laugh to show that he's just messing around, but unfortunately, he doesn’t quite have enough holiday cheer left for all that.

Her grin transforms into a scowl. “Yeah, Merry Christmas to you too, dude.” She greets him by smacking him across the back, much harder than necessary but he supposes that’s his own fault. “Honestly, I called you like five times! Thought you weren’t gonna show. ”

“Almost didn’t." He sighs, removing his gloves and shrugging off his backpack and coat before finding an empty hanger to leave them on, his broken skateboard leaned sadly against the wall. “Had to miss out on my ma’s Christmas roast this year to be here.”

“Aww man,” Zeri whines. “You should’ve gone anyway and shown up later with some leftovers for me.”

He rolls his eyes, sarcastically quipping, "My bad, you can always try leeching me for food next year."

"I'll hold you to that," she laughs, before pausing when she sees the state Ekko is in. She makes a face at his disheveled appearance. "Oi, what the hell happened to you? Did someone jump you?"

"Ironically enough, that's the one thing that hasn't happened to me today." He takes off his shoes with a grimace, his socks still soaked. "It's a long story. You happen to have anything I can borrow?”

Zeri sighs, patting his shoulder and gesturing for him to follow her up the staircase. “Come on then, I’m sure tatay has some clothes lying around that’ll fit you.”

After handing Ekko a sweater and a pair of clean socks, she leaves him to get changed in the bathroom. “Just come downstairs when you’re ready.”

Ekko doesn't hesitate to change his socks first, breathing a sigh of relief now that his feet are finally free from their gross, soggy prison. He then takes advantage of the hairdryer hanging on the wall to dry the insides of his poor sneakers.

When he finally gets a good look at the sweater Zeri's picked from, he can't help but cringe. The damn thing is bright red: a Rudolph sweater complete with a fluffy red nose sewn onto it. Tacky as hell, but at least now he knows it runs in the family.

Oh well, beggars can’t be choosers. He pulls his shirt over his head, tugging on the ugly (and itchy, great) sweater instead.

When he finally makes his way back downstairs, embarrassing Christmas sweater and all, he barely has time to set aside his shoes and stuff his things into his backpack, before he’s startled by an excited scream.

“Ekko!” He whips his head back to see Kay jogging over to him, excitedly waving her hands as if he would somehow miss her. It's harder not to notice Kay wherever she goes, she’s a walking ball of energy. “Finally made it, did ya? Shomi and I have been waiting for an hour already!”

“Good to see you, Kay.” He chuckles, allowing his friend to drag him further into the living room. Ekko blindly follows her, letting his eyes wander over the room.

The house is decked out with a dizzying array of ornaments. Reds, greens, and golds practically envelop the open kitchen and living room. And man, Zeri invited a lot of people. The living room and kitchen are packed with folks from all over their neighborhood, merrily chatting over the Christmas music playing in the background.

The one person Ekko is actually hoping to spot, however, doesn't seem to be among them.

He tries to mask his disappointment, but he must not be very successful since Shomi just raises a curious brow upon his approach and says, “What? Not happy to see us?”

“Of course I am,” he assures, extending his hand to dap them up. “Merry Christmas, Shomi.”

“I'd say it back, but something tells me it hasn't been very merry for you.” They squint at Ekko, before continuing, “Let me guess, you broke your board again?”

“...Maybe.”

“I knew it.” Shomi sighs. “Dude, you have got to start treating your board with more love.”

“What? I treat my board with plenty of love!” Ekko insists, affronted. “It's not my fault shit just happens to me.”

“Alright, we get it,” Kay interjects. “Your life is like a Looney Tunes episode and there’s nothing you can do about it. Onto more important matters, let me tell you guys about this awesome project I started working on!”

Ekko fondly rolls his eyes as Kay goes on her tangent. The trip to this party might've been awful, but maybe it's not all bad if he gets to see all his friends in one place again.

Between college classes and part-time work, it's becoming harder and harder for them all to spend time together like they used to. Their high school days are officially behind them, and with them, so are the days when they see each other constantly, just to hang out some more after school.

His heart twinges as he thinks about one particular person who that rings true for.

Then, like Santa has decided to bless him with one Christmas miracle in exchange for his suffering, he sees something from the corner of his eye. Something blue.

Ekko doesn't think he's ever turned his head so fast, his breath catching in his throat when he realizes that it’s not just a trick of the light. He’s really seeing Jinx.

She's buried herself as far back in the kitchen as she can, sitting slumped behind one of the counters with her eyes cast downward to the cup in her hands, playing with her straw.

Whenever someone gets in her vicinity, her head sharply snaps up, staring the person down until they back away, before she returns her attention to that cup. Ekko can't help but chuckle under his breath at the sight.

He doesn't know how long he's been staring, but it must’ve been too long since he nearly jumps out of his skin when he feels an arm – Zeri's, who he hadn't even noticed approaching – slinging over his shoulder.

“Ekko, pare,” Zeri sighs, nodding her head towards Jinx, “you ever gonna make a move, or will you just keep being a chicken about it?”

“Oh, give him a break,” Kay speaks up before he can even retort. “You know those two having to be apart for months is basically ignoring a ‘Do Not Separate’ warning. Like you and Seraphine!”

Zeri laughs along to Kay's words before she bristles at the last sentence. “What?! I don't even like Seraphine!”

“Oh,” Shomi starts, raising a skeptical eyebrow, “is that why you kept whining in the group chat when she said she couldn't come to this party?”

“I…I invited her to be polite, okay! If anything, I'm glad she picked her stupid recital over my party.”

Ekko has to clench his jaw to stifle the laughter that threatens to burst from him at the incredulous looks Kay and Shomi exchange at Zeri's paper-thin defense.

It's not enough to spare him from Zeri's wrath, however, since she spins her head in Ekko's direction anyway and demands, “What? You got something to say too?”

He holds his hands up in defense. “Hey, I'm staying out of this.” Unfortunately, his voice shakes in amusement, which isn't helping him sell his case.

Realizing it's three-against-one, Zeri switches tactics and starts pushing Ekko toward the kitchen– Shit, towards Jinx, he realizes.

“Doesn’t matter, I'm sick of having to deal with you being all sad and mopey so just go talk to her!” He nearly trips over his feet as he gets pushed deeper into the kitchen.

He freezes. Fuck, what should he even say? They haven't seen each other since graduation– When Jinx told him she was moving away to be with Vi again. Months have passed since and Ekko still hasn't been able to stop thinking about the look on her face when she told him.

That carefully neutral expression, like she has to hide and pretend to be something else in front of him of all people; the far-away look in her eyes as she told him in an eerily calm voice, her face momentarily shuttering when he questioned “To Piltover ?” before she slid that mask back on.

He couldn't understand. Ekko and Jinx made fun of topside together; they didn't make plans to start living there.

But he did understand how much Vi meant to Jinx (hell, Vi meant a lot to him too) and he could see how she started picking at the skin of her nails; how she refused to even look him in the eye from where they sat beside each other– tucked close together behind the bleachers, hidden away from the rest of the world.

So he hid his own apprehension for her sake and forced a smile on his face as he covered her hand with his and said, “I'm happy for you.”

She gripped his hand back. Tight. Then relaxed her grip when she finally looked at him, her eyes wide and nervous. “We'll…still meet up, alright?” Her voice strained as she joked, “You're not getting rid of me that easy, mister.”

How Ekko wishes that had been true. He tried not to hold it against her, tried not to overthink and wonder whether or not she did it on purpose. But resentment still ended up growing somewhere low in the pit of his stomach.

They texted, they called, they made plans that they ended up canceling– sometimes Jinx, sometimes Ekko, but mostly Jinx.

And now he’s here, attending the same Christmas party as her– Because of her. And though he really shouldn't be, because they're still best friends at the end of it all, he's nervous as hell.

He forces his legs to move, getting closer and closer to her. She doesn’t seem to notice, her gaze having trailed off into the distance. He follows it and realizes she's looking at…a mistletoe?

Ekko frowns. He hadn't even noticed there was one until now. It inconspicuously hangs near a window far back in the living room, yet Jinx is glaring daggers at it, as if the plant had spit in her face and set her house on fire.

Well, that seems as good of a conversation starter as any. He takes a deep breath, trying his best to keep his voice light and amused as he asks, “Are you gonna beat the shit out of that mistletoe?”

She flinches, wide-eyed as she whips her head around to look up at him. “Ekko?”

She shoots to her feet, and before Ekko realizes what's happening, she's closed the space between them, her arms wrapped around his middle and her head resting on his shoulder.

Hugging her back isn't so much a decision as it is instinct, his arms wrapping around her before he can think twice about it. Her cheek feels startlingly cold pressed against the exposed skin of his neck. The shock of it must be why his heart skips a beat and he ends up shivering.

He buries his head in the crook of her neck, breathing her in. She smells like lavender shampoo and grease oil, the combination strange, but so uniquely Jinx that it makes Ekko's heart squeeze in his chest.

Then, just as suddenly as she hugged him, she pulls away. Ekko blinks, struggling to reorient himself now that she’s no longer in his space. It’s stupid really, he's gone five months without her in his space, but just like that, he’d gone and forgotten already.

“Sheesh, you scared me,” she awkwardly laughs, picking her cup off the floor and putting it on the counter. She’s staring at that cup again, shutting him out the way she would anyone else. Ekko tries to ignore the twinge of hurt he feels at that.

“So,” she suddenly starts, hand jutting forward to flick at the Rudolph nose on his sweater, “what brings you here anyway?”

You did, he thinks. And she's finally looking at him again, smiling even, but something about it feels off– restrained compared to her usual unapologetic grins, or those softer smiles that slip out when she lets her guard down.

“Zeri invited me. Thought it'd be nice to see all my friends in one place again.” He shrugs, leaning against the counter with feigned indifference. “...What about you?”

She props her head up with her hands, eyes wandering over the living room before she responds, “This beats the stupid party Vi and her Piltie girl are throwing.”

Suddenly, she rolls her eyes and groans. Confused, Ekko looks over his shoulder to see the cause– And nearly groans himself when he catches Zeri whip her head around, pretending to be fascinated by the baubles in the Christmas tree.

“Well, it barely beats a stinkin’ Piltie party,” she continues.

He laughs. “That bad?”

“Please, Caitlyn is just…peak Piltie! The most condescending, stuck-up bitch I've ever met!” She spins to him, irritation pinching her face. “But then, every time I call her out on it, Vi goes all ‘You know she doesn't mean it like that, Pow’ or ‘Just try and get along for me, please’ and then I end up being the bad guy. Un-fucking-believable.”

She lets out a deep sigh, her anger seeming to drain from her with it, leaving only weariness in its wake. “I am trying...” She's picking at her cuticles. Ekko's not even sure she realizes. “It's the only reason I’m living topside and going to a stupid Piltie college.”

He covers her hand with his, giving it a reassuring squeeze. “I know you are.”

The touch is meant to be comforting, but somehow the contact is electric. Their eyes meet again, and Ekko pulls away as if burned. At the same time, Jinx opens her mouth as if to speak, and he immediately regrets pulling away when she never does.

The silence that follows feels damning, impossible to break. Ekko hates it. Silences between him and Jinx are supposed to feel comfortable, not…awkward. When did things get awkward between them?

Jinx's attention is starting to wander, eyes darting around the room as she starts fiddling with that damn straw again. But Ekko didn't get this far after not seeing her for nearly half a year, just to fumble here.

His mind scrambles, searching for anything to latch onto to revive the conversation when he remembers “So what's with you and that mistletoe?”

For a moment, Jinx looks confused, as if she doesn’t know what he means. Then recognition lights her face before she scoffs and says, “Nothing. Zeri was just being annoying.”

“About a mistletoe?” Ekko frowns, puzzled but curious to learn how Zeri managed to get on her nerves this time.

Jinx doesn’t answer for a moment. And she looks like she’s…blushing? Unless it’s just a trick of the light. The red-green lights strung up around the house are making it hard to tell. Either way, now he’s very curious to know what Zeri did.

“...It doesn't matter, okay?” she eventually grumbles. “This party sucks anyway.”

It’s clear she’s done talking about this, so rather than push his luck, Ekko shrugs and attempts to lighten the mood. “At least there's karaoke.”

It doesn’t seem to be very effective. Jinx still looks like a grumpy, wet cat. “Hm, you don't say.” Then her eyes light up, the way they tend to when she has a mad idea. She turns to him with a mischievous grin. “And you're singing too?”

Ekko has a bad feeling about this, but nonetheless, he cautiously confirms “Yes?”

“Wanna do me a favor, boy savior?” He curiously hums so she'll continue. “Buy me some time by picking the longest song you can find.”

He gives her an unimpressed look, even though she’s clearly piqued his interest and they both know it. “Do I want to know what you’re planning?”

“Don’t worry your pretty little head over it, ‘kay?” She flicks the red nose on his sweater again, like she can’t help herself. “Just open the door for me when I drop you a text, I gotta run an errand real quick. Be back in fifteen minutes, give or take.”

Before he can so much as answer, she rushes off to the front door. She already has her coat on when she pauses, sprints back to him, and asks, “By the way – completely unrelated to this errand – the breaker box thingy is in the same spot as in your house, right?”

He squints, considering for a moment. “...For the sake of staying out of this, I’m not answering that question.”

She grins and snaps her fingers anyway. “I’ll take that as a yes, thank you very much! See you in a bit.” With that, she goes back to pulling on her boots and then she’s out the door.

Around thirty minutes later (not that Ekko’s surprised, Jinx has always had terrible time management skills) he gets a text from Jinx, asking him to open the door for her. He slips away as subtly as he can – which isn't much of a challenge since Kay and Shomi are too engrossed talking about potential board mods to notice his absence – to open the door for her.

She quickly scurries inside, her face is flushed from the cold but it doesn't seem to affect her mood at all. Jinx is grinning from ear to ear…and hiding her hands behind her back rather suspiciously.

As if on queue, Zeri’s voice rings from the living room, making them both whip their head in her direction. “Alright, who’s singing next?!” she shouts, while everyone encouragingly cheers on the person who just finished performing.

Jinx turns back to him with a conspiratorial grin. “So, wanna do me that favor?”

Ekko pretends to contemplate it for a moment, just to watch her squirm a little, before he sighs and answers, “I’m still staying out of this narrative, though.”

“Whatever you say, buster!” She ungracefully kicks off her boots, before shooting him a smile that makes his stomach do a funny flip. “But thanks, I owe ya one.”

Ekko shuffles over to the living room while Jinx runs off to do….whatever she’s planning to do. He taps Zeri on the shoulder, gesturing for the karaoke mic in her hand. “Mind if I give it a go?”

“Finally!” Zeri cheers, blissfully unaware that she’s talking to Jinx’s partner in (probable) crime. She leans away from the mic, and asks under her breath, “So you finally make a move or what?”

He just scowls at her. Ekko has a stinging suspicion he might know how Zeri annoyed Jinx after all. “Just give me the damn mic.”

She holds her hands up in defense but concedes and backs away after handing him the karaoke microphone.

Ekko scrolls down Zeri’s catalog of karaoke songs, keeping Jinx's words in mind as he does. All the songs range from two to four minutes until he spots the one: Some ten-minute rendition of a Taylor Swift song.

…He can already feel the headache forming. Jinx better make this worth his time ‘cause he's about to belt it out to White Girl McGee music just for her. Ekko doesn't even understand why Zeri of all people would put that song in here, but if he had to guess, he'd assume this was Seraphine's doing somehow.

He’s about halfway through the song – struggling to match the rhythm of the lyrics since he’s only ever heard this song involuntarily through pop radio stations – when he sees Jinx appear in the living room out of the corner of his eye, her coat still on.

She’s biting her lip, clearly trying not to laugh at him. Zeri and Shomi have long given up, the latter having pulled out their cell phone to film Ekko, no doubt to make fun of him until he’s in his grave. Ekko ignores them all and just focuses on performing the song as best he can.

…Just because he doesn’t like the song doesn’t mean he’s about to fumble his performance, okay?

The music comes to an abrupt halt when the power goes out and darkness falls over the room. No one reacts for a moment, and then quiet, confused murmurs fill the room.

Until a strange rippling sound suddenly cuts through it.

Someone turns on their phone flashlight, pointing it around the room to try and locate the strange sound. Ekko frowns – needing a moment to put down the microphone in the dark – before he turns his head to the source of the noise, now revealed by the flashlight.

There’s a living toad strung to the ceiling with a toy missile tied to its back.

Everyone just stares, flabbergasted.

Then the damn thing ribbits again and panic ensues, screams erupting all around the room.

Before Ekko can even react, he feels something– no, someone tug on his arm in the darkness. He turns his head to see Jinx shushing him and pulling away from all the noise – while Zeri frantically tries to prevent one of her aunties from trying to bat the poor toad with a broomstick.

“Where did you–” he starts as quietly as he can, before Jinx interrupts him by tossing his shoes at him.

“Not now, space boy,” she hisses, opening the front door once he’s finished lacing up his sneakers. “Come on, let’s get out of here.”

Ekko races to zip up his parka and pull on his gloves against the stinging cold. He barely has time to grab his backpack before Jinx pulls him along by his hand and drags him out of the house.

He nearly trips over his own feet, before he catches himself and runs with her. Ekko’s not even sure why they’re running, but when she looks at him over her shoulder – face flushed and eyes shining brighter than any Christmas light in the world, with that stupid, shit-eating grin that makes him a little too weak-kneed for his own good – he finds he doesn’t really care anyway.

They finally slow to a stop when they’re six blocks away from Zeri’s street. Ekko’s lungs feel like they’re on fire and the laughter that bursts from him isn’t helping matters at all. It’s just that, when he stops to think about it, everything about this situation is so stupid and so…Jinx.

“A–” he gasps for air, finally coming down from his amusement long enough to string a sentence together. “A fucking frog?”

“A toad, actually. A missile toad, I’ll have you know,” she says matter-of-factly, still grinning much too proudly for such a cheesy prank.

Ekko has so many questions, but knowing Jinx, she won’t answer any of them. Still, he has to ask “How did you even have time to turn off the power while hanging that thing up?”

“A magician never reveals her secrets!” she predictably answers, before pausing and adding, “Also I slipped a kid ten dollars so they’d do it for me on queue.”

He shakes his head in disbelief. “You’re so ridiculous.”

“Yeah, ridiculously funny,” she corrects, playfully glaring at him.

“Yeah right.” He scoffs but there’s no heat behind it, instead, he’s smiling so wide that his cheeks are beginning to hurt. It’s been so long since he’s seen her, that he almost forgot that being around her makes him feel like this.

He squeezes her hand in his. The action is instinctual, a habit more than anything– he’s always reaching for her in some way, and so is she.

Except for this time, apparently, because she pulls her hand away as if burned and doesn’t look in his direction as she mutters, “We, uh, should keep walking…There’s some stupid Christmas market by the bridge we can check out.”

“Oh. Yeah. Sure.” Ekko tries to swallow his disappointment, but it’s not working, so he just keeps his eyes trained on the ground, watching their footsteps in the snow as he walks alongside Jinx.

The silence that falls over them feels as daunting as the physical space between them, but he doesn’t feel inclined to break it this time. How can they feel so far apart even when they’re walking right beside each other?

With his head downturned, it takes Ekko a moment to notice that Jinx has stopped walking, but eventually, he realizes her footsteps stop appearing beside his.

He blinks and turns around to see her standing frozen on the spot, hands tugging at the hem of her leather bomber as she frowns at him. He raises a curious eyebrow at the sight and is about to question what she’s doing when she finally speaks up.

“Alright,” she starts, marching to stand before him and crossing her arms, “what’s with your hot and cold attitude the whole evening?”

I could ask you the same thing, he thinks, instead he just frowns. “My what?”

“You heard me!” She scowls. “One moment you're happy to see me and then you're all mister Grumpy Pants. What gives?”

“Jinx.” He lets out a frustrated sigh and turns to look at her. She squirms under his gaze, and that just makes Ekko feel worse, but he’s tired of bottling this up. “Are we seriously just gonna pretend we both don't know exactly why that is?”

“I..” she trails off, worrying her lower lip between her teeth, “I'm not really sure?”

“Really?” Ekko asks, exasperated. “Were you not sure every time you blew me off either?”

“Wha– You blew me off too!” she argues.

“That's different! I actually couldn't go when I canceled.”

She scoffs. “And you think I didn't?!”

She looks so affronted that it shuts Ekko up, leaving him scratching the back of his head in frustration. He’s such an idiot, always letting his temper get the best of him. Now he’s gone and ruined things and doesn’t know what to say to fix this. Nothing makes him more uneasy than a problem he can’t solve.

It seems Jinx doesn't know what to say either, she just stares down at the ground, toeing shapes in the snow with the tip of her boot.

“I just…” she trails off with a sigh. “I don’t know.”

“Yeah,” he rasps, “me neither, I guess.”

“...Hey, do you–” She tentatively looks up at him. “Do you want to have a snowball fight?”

He blinks. Then he barks out a laugh, utterly taken aback by her suggestion. “A snowball fight?”

“Yeah…Yeah, why not?” Jinx looks a little more self-assured now, grabbing his arm and dragging him to a corner of the street where the snow is piled high, having remained untouched by passersby. “Come on, it’ll be fun!”

Something eases in his chest at her childlike giddiness, and he can’t help but huff an amused breath as he teases, “What? You gonna start crying again if I toss one at your head?”

She scowls at him again, but there’s no heat behind it this time. “Nope, definitely gonna laugh when you slip and fall on your ass again though.”

“Yeah, that’s not happening.”

He rushes to kneel down and scoop up a wad of snow after he sees Jinx do the same. She’s disgustingly fast, Ekko’s barely formed a ball by the time she’s already tossing one at his head, forcing him to dodge.

“We’ll see about that, mister!”

“Oh, it’s on!”

For a moment, it’s like they’re little kids again, sneaking out when Vander isn’t paying attention to play in the snow together. All their hurt and complications melt away just like the flecks of fallen snow on his face. Ekko wishes he could stop time so he could just enjoy this moment forever. Or that he could bottle up this happiness and keep it in his pocket for the rest of his life.

However, as it has all evening, the weather cares little for his plight. Cold and unforgiving, the snow keeps falling on them, until eventually, the chill is too biting for them to goof around any longer.

They’re giggling like children when they fall into step beside each other again, their arms brushing against each other with every step. Ekko feels so warm and giddy, he finds he doesn’t care all that much about the cold anymore.

From the corner of his eye, he catches Jinx cupping her hands close to her face, blowing air on them.

Ekko curiously frowns. “You don’t have gloves?”

“No,” she rubs the palms of her hands together in an attempt to warm them up, “I just did my nails. Wasn't about to ruin them with some stinky gloves.”

Ekko rolls his eyes, setting a hand on her shoulder to stop her in her tracks. “Here,” he removes one of his gloves, reaching for her hand so he can carefully slide it on, “you have tiny ass hands anyway, so these won’t ruin your precious manicure.”

She scoffs, “My hands are not tiny! Yours are just stupidly big.” He shakes his head with a chuckle at her ridiculous argument. “...But thanks," she finishes, bumping her shoulder against his own.

As they begin to walk again, he can’t help but glance down at their ungloved hands. And then he’s nervous all over again. Because Ekko honestly isn’t sure if his heart can take another hit, should she pull away from his touch again.

He hesitates for another moment, before deciding to bite the bullet anyway. Tentatively, Ekko reaches for her hand with his own now-ungloved hand, pulling both into his pocket.

When Jinx whips her head in his direction, his eyes flicker in her direction, but at her wide-eyed, confused expression, he quickly finds himself glancing away again.

He clears his throat and fights to remain straight-faced despite the building awkwardness, as he explains, “Just so our hands don’t get cold, you know?”

“Oh.” From the corner of his eye, he sees her sharply nod. “Right…That makes sense.”

Despite Ekko’s concerns – and both their refusal to look each other in the eye – neither of them let go. Her hand feels ice-cold in his but that only spurs him to hold her hand tighter, trying to give her as much of his warmth as he can.

It’s all he focuses on, even when they finally approach the bridge separating Zaun from Piltover. Just as Jinx said, a Christmas market is in full swing on the bridge. Stalls selling trinkets and treats are set up across the entire length of it.

But none of the ornaments and decorations are as pretty as Jinx’s smile as she curiously peers at them all; and no hot beverage could ever warm him the way her hand in his does, her fingers intertwined with his.

When Jinx finally tires of window-shopping (he honestly wasn’t paying attention, watching her was much more fascinating) he offers to buy them hot chocolate, while she goes to find them a seat ⁠— an empty bench beneath an overhang.

“Thanks,” she says, as he hands her the carton cup.

She tries to play it off, but Ekko can see the way she lights up with delight upon spotting the large dollop of whipped cream he requested the vendor put in her drink.

With an amused huff, he shrugs off his backpack and sets it down on the edge of the bench, before sitting down beside her. The bench is frigid beneath them, it urges him to slide closer to Jinx, just ever-so-slightly.

But it’s enough to press their thighs together, and Ekko needs a moment so he can focus on the heat radiating from the cup in his hands rather than that point of contact.

The hustle and bustle of the marketplace has started to die down as time drags on. Ekko feels restless as he watches everyone go their separate ways⁠ — families heading home with giggling children in tow, teenagers conspiring where they should go next, vendors working together to close up and disassemble their stands ⁠— while the snow continues to fall from the sky like powdered sugar, further blanketing the white streets.

“Jinx, I, uh,” Ekko starts, setting his untouched hot chocolate aside, “I just wanna say I’m sorry. You know, for what I said earlier.”

“Oh.” At the sound of her voice, he glances at her. She’s smiling at him, but it doesn’t quite reach her eyes. “Were you still worrying about that?”

He attempts to laugh, but a humorless sigh is all he manages. “I’m trying to be serious here, you know.”

“I know.” The pad of her thumb idly traces the rim of her empty cup. “It’s just…You were kinda right–” She winces and stammers, “I mean– Shit– No, you weren’t right. I wasn’t ditching you on purpose, it was more like…”

“Like you just…gave up?” he fills in when she never continues.

She frowns, eyes flickering up to look at him. Ekko doesn’t think he could look away even if he tried. “Yeah. I guess I did.”

“Me too,” he confesses. “I think I let my frustration get to me, when really…I just missed you.”

She takes a sharp breath and Ekko’s eyes are drawn to the parting of her lips like a moth to a flame. He moves in closer, just ever-so-slightly, then Jinx suddenly looks away, startling him.

“Oh– Hold on, I just gotta…” She starts rummaging through her pockets, the sudden, frantic movement breaking whatever spell he’d been under. “There!” She triumphantly pulls out–

“A mistletoe?” he questions dumb-founded, eyeing the plant that Jinx apparently just had on her person the entire time.

“Well, yeah. Would be a waste to just throw it away.” She twirls the stem between her fingers, raising her arm so it hangs between them. Ekko thinks his heart might actually beat out of his chest. “I…don’t have to explain what this is, right?”

He can barely hear what she’s saying anymore, focusing on her mouth again; on the curve of her cupid’s bow, which he’s a little too familiar with; on her teeth, with that cute little gap, which traps the slight pout of her lower lip.

He swallows, his voice barely audible as he asks, “Are you sure?”

“Ekko?” His eyes flicker back up to hers, now crinkled in amusement, but there’s something softer there too ⁠— something that puts him at ease. “Just kiss me already.”

And that’s really all he needed to hear. He slowly leans in, waiting to see if she’ll change her mind, instead, she closes her eyes and meets him halfway.

The first press of her mouth is chaste, soft. Then she pulls away, but only for a moment, before she angles her head to lean in for another kiss.

She tastes sweet ⁠— like chocolate and cream and that plum lip balm she always wears ⁠— and Ekko finds himself desperate for more, feelings he’s held back for so long spilling out from him and into the kiss. He raises his hand to cup her cheek, her skin soft and cold beneath his palm, and gently tilts her head so he can deepen the kiss.

Then she suddenly pulls back from him, their lips parting with a wet smack. “Oh! Don’t tell Zeri about this. She’d never let me hear the end of it.”

Ekko blinks for a moment, processing her words, then he just groans, “Jinx, I could not give two fucks about Zeri right now.”

His words startle a bewildered laugh from her, and Ekko smothers the sound with his mouth when he leans back in to kiss her again, and again, and again.

She’s still smiling into the kiss as she wraps her arms around his neck, and Ekko’s pretty sure she just dropped the mistletoe on his head. He finds himself smiling back, and then they’re simply reduced to giggling like school kids while stealing kisses from one another.

#timebomb #ekkojinx #ekko #jinx #arcane #league of legends #writing #fanfiction #modern au #christmas fic #hungry posts

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