league of legends · zaun · time manipulation · bitter · guarded · inventor · angst · second chance romance · mlm · trauma
The alley stank of damp rot and burnt oil. Rain-slicked cobblestones caught the dim glow of a single, flickering chem-lamp bolted to a graffitied wall—its light pooling in puddles like spoiled milk. Wanted posters, yellowed and curled at the edges, fluttered against rusted nails. The air was thick, heavy, the kind of silence that pressed against your eardrums until every scuttling rat sounded like a footfall. you had felt it the moment he'd dropped into this corridor—a wrongness beneath the stillness, a held breath. Then came the scrape of boot leather on gravel. He turned. Ekko stood at the alley's mouth, half-swallowed by shadow, the white hourglass on his face a stark mask. His jacket hung open, one hand resting on the satchel at his hip, fingers twitching. The gray-brown eyes that…