#ezjinx

And he scoops it into his arms, trying to remember how to hold babies— support the head? He’s pretty sure you put your arm behind the baby’s head, that’s the thing, that’s it. Support the neck because they have disproportionately big little heads.

He doesn’t really know what he’s supposed to do, so he just sits down on the ground. It’s a rough day in Zaun— the gray is particularly heavy today, the air quality is bad, and he should really call someone about...baby sized rebreathers. Except they might be used to it, huh? Is that how it works? Is the baby’s little lungs stronger? ....well. Small problem.

He tries to do the math on how this happened. If he was any deeper in Zaun he might be... well. Actually, he’d be more sure someone was planning on coming back for a baby in the sump. This was a baby wrapped in a pretty nice blanket, ditched on the promenade level, where Pilties came to unwind. So. He didn’t really like the math on that.

He was going to go below, keep heading down to the sump, down to Osha Va’zaun and the old city ruins, but that doesn’t feel like what he should do now. There’s an orphanage down there, too, but he doesn’t really feel like that’s where he should go, either. This kid wasn’t a zaunite, and the gray.... Well. Maybe back to baby sized breathing apparatuses—

“Whatcha doin?”

He almost jumps a foot, has to force himself not to instinctually teleport. Don’t drop the fucking baby, christ.

He looks up, lets out a sigh of relief at the familiar face.

“Oh, hey Jinx.” he says, and then his brain catches up, and he pauses. “—Hey, jinx.” he repeats, more warily. “You already said that.” She tells him, hopping down from the top of a wall above the alley to the stones. “Whatcha got there?”

“A blanket.” Ezreal informs her, and then the baby starts to cry, and he winces, bouncing them a little. “Hey, hey, no,” he coos, “No I didn’t mean it. I didn’t mean it! You’re not a blanket. You are so much better than a blanket.”

“—huh.” Jinx says, wandering up closer. “Is it yours?”

Ezreal shrugs. “It is now.” he says. “Finders keepers.”

Jinx eyes him, expression inscrutable— like maybe she’s listening to someone else inside her head, not here, and Ezreal swallows, because usually that look is an immediate prelude to fairly extreme violence, but she just says—

“It’s pretty. Boy or girl or are you gonna wait till it’s old enough to tell you?”

“—uh. Is that last one an option?”

Jinx shrugs. “Everything’s an option. Can I hold it?”

Now it’s Ezreal’s turn to eye Jinx, but she just rolls her eyes at him. “I’m not gonna steal your baby, Blondie, you’re on diaper duty.”

“Shit.” Ezreal says.

“Yeah, that.”

“No I mean— urrrggh. I don’t know how to change a diaper.”

“You’ll figure it out, it can’t be that hard. Come on, lemme. I’ll be careful.”

“Have you ever been careful?” Ezreal asks, eyeing her.

“I steal shit too, y’know.” JInx points out. “And manage not to break any more stuff than you do. Come on. No breaking the baby. Lemme hold the itty witty baby boo.”

“Well, when you say it like that.” Ezreal says, and moves to hand the baby over.

He doesn’t realize until he’s in Jinx’s space, setting the baby in her arms, that he’s completely forgotten to hit on her. He pokes around his brain idly for a line, and then the baby cries a little, and suddenly it seems....less important, somehow.

“Hey, don’t cry.” He says, holding out a finger, leaning into Jinx’s space as she cradles the baby, and they wrap a tiny little hand around his finger.

“—We should name her.” Ezreal says, not even thinking about the plural. “Any ideas? I’m— a genius, of course, and I could probably... come up with. Something.”

Jinx hums, thoughtful. “Why don’t you call them Jay?” she says. “You can tell Jayce you named your baby after him. But like— without the boy name.” She pauses. “—or you could go like, Zap or Chompers or—”

“Jay.” Ezreal repeats. “Yeah, that’s— that’s cool.”

He looks at Jinx, really looks, registers the way that she’s holding the baby carefully, her attention focused down. She looks distracted, she always does, but there’s something soft and careful there, too. Ezreal remembers, involuntarily, that Jinx was an orphan too.

“—Do you have any toys that don’t explode?” he asks, and Jinx grinned.

“You are sooo boring, blondie. But let's go see!”

Ezreal reflects, as he falls in beside her, that maybe this wouldn’t be so bad. After all, he was some kind of genius, he’d figure it out.