ic contact.

[deushexmachina]

"Hi, probably just easier to find me in the lab. I'll get back to you."

Comments

[deushexmachina]

[He puts his hand flat on the offered journal and slides it towards him, realizing the irony of handling her blueprints. His contradictory fingers—calloused yet manicured—flip through the pages, his focus shifting from those inspired grenade designs to various bomb circuitry, the bottom bend of his stomach dropping he sees the wiring of those chemically explosive butterflies. Jayce bites his lower lip, his breathing focused and steadying.]

Wow, [he turns the page,] and you're self-taught? [He couldn't help but consider what she'd be creating instead, had she the benefit of an Academy education.] It's impressive, [sincerely, he looks at her as she offers a drink. He accepts without yet indulging.]

I can do more than teach you forging.

[jinxs]

Totally self-taught, yeah. Trial and error. There just isn't this sort of education in the Undercity, you know. I've been creating since I was little, took a long ass while for the things I made to work.

(good thing that she's never given up on what makes her happy. failure, she's learned, it's part of something great, so she stopped worrying whether her inventions would work to open space in her brain to figure out how to make that a reality.)

What do you mean? What's cooking in your brain?

[deushexmachina]

I'm an engineer, too, [he points to her blueprints, fingertip tracing the dimensions of a grenade.] Your designs are inspired, [he knows he's repeating Viktor,] so imagine what you could do with a little more foundation.

[jinxs]

Are you going to join Vik and be my tutor too? I'm not against it-- but, like I told him, I'm... Difficult to teach. My brain's really loud, Jayce. Really, really loud. You're going to need a lot of patience. Are you up for that?

[deushexmachina]

Viktor has more teaching experience than I do, [he's self-aware enough to know his shortcomings here.] And I'm not [extroverted] used to prolonged performance, academic or otherwise.

We can try it. That's my best offer.

[jinxs]

(her pinky finger extends, one final attempt at closing what they've been discussing.)

[deushexmachina]

[A momentary hesitance, and he extends his own pinky finger to locked with hers, sealing the deal.]

[jinxs]

Not so scary, right?

(she presses her thumb against his, laughing as she remembers their first encounter.)

The person you imagine when you thought Jinx, her name's Sevika. She's like, much less cool than I am.

[deushexmachina]

[The name doesn't ring a bell; Marcus kept any real clues clean of his "investigations" into Silco's affairs, and Jayce isn't surprised he hadn't known. He furrows his brow, wondering if he could persuade his brain to remember this detail if—when—he arrived back to Piltover.]

She sounds it.

[Another shadow to chase.]

[jinxs]

Super incompetent and bitching all the damn time, Jayce. Just never-ending bitching. She's been around since Vander, when I was little, and God, she never stops.

(honestly, she just drags her hands across her face, dramatic in gesture as she rolls her eyes.)

[deushexmachina]

And she... holds sway in Silco's court? [Bearing in mind Jinx's likely biases, he isn't sure this Sevika was the monster he once envisioned either.] What does she so, exactly?

[jinxs]

Oh, absolutely not. She's like me. A bruiser and a solver. I hold sway.

(because what does jinx wants that jinx doesn't get?)

[deushexmachina]

I mean, do the contrasts outweigh the similarities for you? [They do keep circling back to how she and Jinx overlap, and Jayce is beginning to suspect a jealousy he would never verbally accuse Jinx of, for the sake of his own throat.]

[jinxs]

Yep. I don't bitch about everything, for example. She's insufferable. Do you even have insufferable people in the Council? Furball looks like it.

(heimerdinger. or perhaps even the kirammans, but she suspects jayce might not want to shittalk anyone, so her hands are thrown up in innocence.)

Ooooor, maybe not.

[deushexmachina]

[He winces when her sharp tongue cuts into those Councilors past and present, and he gives a little shrug in response — notably not a defense of any given furball.

She's right to suspect he keeps his mouth dry.]

It's fine, [fingers tap nervously,] you're free to express your opinions as a constituent. I'm just trying to measure your relationship with this Sevika, but you're right... who says coworkers have to be amicable?

[jinxs]

Oh, she absolutely hates me. Thinks I'm going to ruin our cause, blablabla, because I did mention she bitches, right? Mostly, about how I'm a liability. Silco doesn't pay her a lot of attention, though.

(from the list of things that drive silco insane is jinx inability to not answer in full honesty, to not simply conceal or dance around subjects.

it's the truth, and she'll speak it as long as it is.)

[deushexmachina]

I guess she's unwilling to have a frank discussion with you, [he's relying on his experience; Jinx is receptive when she's treated like an equal. It's not inconceivable this Sevika considers her a child, and only a child.

That diplomacy was doomed.]

Well, you don't have to deal with that here. [Small blessings.]

[jinxs]

Oh, thank God.

(her eyes roll nearly into her skull, annoyance bleeding through every curve of her expression.)

Aside from her, there are some other people, but I don't interact too much. I don't think I want anyone else here. Do you?

[deushexmachina]

It's a relief to avoid the Council at large, [and the responsibilities that came with it,] but I miss... at least one Councilor.

[Shaking his head, he blows air out a tightly-lipped mouth.]

I miss my lab.

[jinxs]

Man, your lab was cool. Who do you miss?

(a chuckle escapes her, a little memory of the work she's left him on progress day bubbling to the surface.)

I miss-- I used to live in a reactor, actually. That was my workstation? I miss that.

[deushexmachina]

[Eyes narrow just a fraction,] Yeah, okay. [He hadn't forgotten Progress Day.] But the runic recalibration systems we had in place for distilling crystals into gemstones, I miss that. And the the microscopes we had at hand. The centralized collider.

[Amazing what a few major grants can net you.]

I'm guessing you took precautions to defuse any live reactive material? In your reactor.

[jinxs]

How did you do it? I remember when they were, uh, super volatile. I already told Vik about it, but I was the one who snuck into your study and blew up the building when I was a child. I remember they were-- not nearly as functional? That's really impressive.

(so, technically, she's the reason viktor and jayce met, she's trying to say with not so many words.)

Uh, not really. It went boom a lot. I liked throwing explosives from the edge.

[deushexmachina]

[His throat holds his breath. His mind flashes with vicious sequence; the explosion, his arrest, the hours soaked in anxiety, the trial, his mother's betrayal, his banishment, his near-suicide. Jayce shakes his head. Viktor intervening, Viktor's peer review, their new calculations, their breaking and entering, the final experiment, the birth of Hextech.

Bad with the good.

He exhales.]

It took some time, [he says, focusing on her interest.] Refining them into gemstones. Oscillations were just the beginning.

— You actively ignited explosive? In a dormant reactor?

[jinxs]

Something I was wondering is if they could be made smaller. If they could be divided, they could probably fit in more portable things-- without the powering container being too big. Mhm-- thought for later. Can we saw one?

(shitty idea, jinx, shitty idea?

but it seems like her brain is working overtime on it, so much that she barely registered the last question, shoulders raising in a shrug before she takes her notebook to herself, fumbling for a quill.)

Oh, yeah, all the time, actually.

[deushexmachina]

Smaller — that's conceivable, sure. I'm not sure about cutting one in half, though. [Possibly on the level of splitting an atom, times hundreds.] Even refining them from a crystalline form compounded the size a little.