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The warmth of Caitlyn’s hand seeped through her hand wraps, and Vi didn’t know what to think of that.
She knew the feeling of warmth under her hands. Was well acquainted with it, in fact. Sweat. Mud. Blood. Tears.
Flames.
But this was a different kind of warmth. This was the kind of warmth that breached her hand wraps, that trickled down the nerve endings of her arm all the way to her toes - they twitched - and crawled their way up to her chest, ensnaring her heart in a vice grip of something she couldn’t name - not yet - until floating up to her head and calming her.
Just because she couldn’t name it didn’t mean she couldn’t feel it. But just because she could feel it didn’t mean that she was gonna think about it.
Vi gently squeezed Caitlyn’s hand. If she didn’t think too hard about it, she could’ve convinced herself this was a dream. Everything that existed only existed within these four walls, within this comically gargantuan four-poster bed that she laid on with Cait- with a hot woman.
But that would mean it was a dream where Powder never existed, where Vander never taught her anything she knew, where Mylo and Claggor ceased being adorable idiots, and the world was her oyster.
Oh, who was she kidding? Vi was always a realist in a world where Jinx was alive, where Vander died protecting her, where Mylo was impaled in the heart and Claggor was crushed to death under rubble, and the world was her enemy.
“So much thinking.”
Vi blinked and looked at Caitlyn, whose eyes widened slightly at her blurt. Vi breathed in and out, scoffing at her exhale. “Well, we’ve done a lot of doing lately.”
“Not enough, evidently,” Caitlyn whispered. She broke their eye contact and stared at a nondescript portion of the bedsheet, shaking her head slowly. “Our meeting with the council could decide everything. If there is anything I can prepare…”
Though Caitlyn’s hand vanished from Vi’s as Caitlyn stood and started pacing around her room, the warmth remained. Vi gingerly closed her hand into a fist.
After watching the other woman pace around, scouring through drawers, taking out papers only to glance at them for a millisecond before shoving them back in while muttering under her breath, Vi sat up and leaned forward.
“Hey.”
Caitlyn pulled open another drawer and pushed it closed again with a huff.
“Hey.”
Caitlyn dragged her hand across a map pinned against the wall with her bottom lip snagged around her teeth.
“Hey.”
Caitlyn closed her eyes, locked her jaw, and pinched the bridge of her nose.
“Hey, cupcake.”
Caitlyn’s eyes snapped open. She glared at Vi, who stared back amusedly with a small grin.
“So much thinking,” Vi drawled. As Vi stood up from the bed, Caitlyn’s arduous pacing slowly came to a stop. “There isn’t any evidence we can give them.”
Caitlyn shook her head violently and ran a hand through her hair. “It is the law. Without evidence or even an inkling of it, there is no basis for the councillors to -”
Her own gasp cut her off as she looked up to discover Vi’s face just inches from hers. Vi could almost cackle at the shock written all over Caitlyn’s face as if they weren’t laying on the bed together moments earlier.
“There isn’t any evidence we can give them,” Vi continued, “aside from this.” She jabbed a finger onto the skin above Caitlyn’s heart. “You believe so much in your council. Shouldn’t a council believe in their citizens just as much?”
Caitlyn sighed. She took Vi’s hand in hers and pulled it against her chest where Vi could almost imagine the steadfast thumping of her heart.
Oh, who was she kidding? Vi was always a realist.
“Unless…” Vi cocked her head. “...your council is as corrupt and useless as everyone in the undercity says they are.”
“No, they aren’t.” With a determined sheen to her features, Caitlyn’s sheer resolve was almost enough to convince Vi then and there. Impressed, Vi made to move away until she felt Caitlyn’s grip falter slightly. “They can’t be.”
What she saw, scrawled all over Caitlyn’s features, was the same look Vi was met with every single time she looked in the mirror.
Uncertainty. Anger from uncertainty. Uncertainty from anger.
Vi knew.
She tapped her finger twice resolutely on Caitlyn’s chest.
Caitlyn’s eyes fluttered shut at the feeling. “I know.”
“Then act like it,” Vi implored softly, a far cry from how she would have said those words to any other person. Caitlyn clutched her hand a little tighter. “Besides, whatever happens, I’ll handle it.”
“ We’ll handle it,” Caitlyn corrected. Vi’s mouth fell open slightly.
Vander’s face bubbled and surfaced in her head, rising like smoke that she could inhale - his memory crept down her throat, congested her lungs, it was hard to breathe - she didn’t want to, didn’t want to meet his ghostly gaze, didn’t want to feel his warm, phantom hand settle on her shoulder, didn’t want to watch his mute mouth form the shapes that orchestrated the chorus of words she refused to remember, refused to consider because it was her fault, it was all her fault -
A locked jaw.
“Sure,” Vi settled. She reluctantly drew her hand away from Caitlyn’s and shoved them into her jacket pockets, digging crescents into her palm.
She didn’t know that Caitlyn’s eyes traced the outlines of her fists protruding from the cloth. Instead, Vi twirled around on her heel, closing her eyes and breathing deeply.
“I guess now there’s nothing to do but… wait.” She walked towards Caitlyn’s coat rack and tipped the brim of the top hat that sat atop it. Noticing her blood-stained hand wraps, Vi’s eye twitched.
“I hate waiting,” Caitlyn muttered.
“Well, that makes two of us.” Walking further around the room, Vi ran an idle finger along the top of a dresser. She swiped her finger up and stared at it, now caked in dust. “Huh.”
“What?”
“What do you like to do then, other than not make use of this really big bedroom?”
They looked at each other once again. Caitlyn frowned, glanced at Vi’s finger, stopped frowning, then looked back at Vi.
“What do I like to do?”
Vi smirked. “You deaf, cupcake?”
“I have excellent hearing.” Caitlyn raised a perfect eyebrow.
“Alright, then tell me.”
“What for?”
“Well.” Vi absently spun a globe on its axis. It swivelled precariously, spinning wildly yet certainly. “I think I should get to know you better if we’re gonna be partners.”
“Partners?” The inflection in Caitlyn’s tone was too high to be genuine.
“Like you’re walking in the council room with anyone else.” Vi‘s feet came to a sudden stop at the edge of the map of Piltover laying on the floor with haphazard photos strewn about it. The paper labeled Council was greatly detailed with paragraphs of neat, orderly writing scoring through the sheet. On the other side, a paper labeled Undercity was underlined thrice and question-marked too many times to count. “So? What do you like to do?”
Vi watched as the other woman raised a finger only to falter and frown at the floor around her feet. “Um. Investigate?”
“Investigate.” Vi glanced at the chock full of question marks next to Undercity. She nodded supportively. “Fun.”
Caitlyn scoffed. “I like to shoot in my spare time.”
“And I like to pick fights with enforcers that don’t belong in the undercity. C’mon, try again.”
“What, would you like to know about my childhood hobbies and imaginary friends?”
“You know about my monsters,” Vi said. Not all of them. A sliver of hopefulness fluttered in her chest, but before it could take flight, Vi squashed its wings with an iron fist of false realism. “Tell me yours.”
They stared at each other for a few heartbeats’ worths until Caitlyn sighed and eyed the window. “I like this city. Protecting it. Bettering myself to protect it. I’m in more of a position than anyone to do so, so why shouldn’t I?”
Vi followed her gaze to the balcony, where the hopeful bright blue sky of Piltover was encased in a prison of see-through glass.
Fuck metaphors.
Vi forcefully shoved open the doors to the balcony with a grunt. The hinges screeched in complaint.
Wind blasted into the room for a startling millisecond before calming into an agreeable temperature. Confidently, Vi marched into the balcony before watching Caitlyn’s slow saunter after her.
The passersby walking along below revealed nothing about their humanity other than the tops of their heads. It was an amazing thing to think that none of these people, these topsiders, would ever look up and see a girl destroyed by their customs and a girl consumed by them.
“I don’t think you’re doing it because you have to.” Vi leaned her forearms onto the banister. “Fuck, if I had that massive bed, I probably wouldn’t bother being anywhere else, let alone following some girl through the undercity.”
“Please,” Caitlyn scoffed. “You aren’t some girl.”
Whatever surprise that flashed onto Vi’s features was instantly covered by a swift head tilt away from Caitlyn’s direction. She fiddled with a loose piece of paint from the railing, peeling it away until a small portion of it was bare.
“And you aren’t some stuck-up rich kid.”
Silence. A very long silence. Vi wondered if, on top of being deaf, Caitlyn suddenly went mute as well.
The mute abruptly cleared her throat very loudly.
“Yes,” she said, uncharacteristically plainly. Vi shook her head and smiled. “I was prepared to wait much longer for you to realize that.”
Maybe Vi did realize it much earlier. Maybe she did when an enforcer, unaccompanied by a painfully familiar heavy wooden stick, busted a stranger out of prison and saved her life twice within hours. Maybe she did with the first brush of a thumb, or maybe even before that with a hand in hers pulling her upwards.
“Don’t push it, cupcake,” she said.
Vi didn’t have to look to know Caitlyn was smirking. “Alright.”
A girl who was so agreeable, so understanding, and so driven. Piltover was extremely lucky to have someone like Caitlyn protecting them.
And Vi herself...
“I’m in no position to protect anyone,” Vi murmured, quietly enough so no one would hear her but herself and her ghosts. Lock and chain. “If I couldn’t even…”
“Jinx is not your fault.”
It turned out that Caitlyn, in fact, had excellent hearing.
“But it’s my fault that Powder...” Vi clamped her eyes closed and gripped the railing until she felt the steel digging painfully into her palms. “I abandoned her. I tried going back, but I couldn’t...”
“You couldn’t,” Caitlyn asserted in that determined voice of hers, like everything that came out of her mouth were the facts and the law all wrapped in annoyingly beautiful accented diction.
“I didn’t try hard enough,” Vi growled out. “I didn’t do enough.”
“You can’t,” Caitlyn stated resolutely. Vi’s eyes flew open and she glared at Caitlyn, who was already looking back at her.
Vi expected a look of pity, those fake wide eyes and sympathetic lips. Sorry for your loss, sorry he’ll never be back, she’ll never change, but fuck it, Vi, you deserve it. You failed him, you abandoned her, abandoned both, abandoned them.
Caitlyn didn’t look at her like that.
She looked at her with that same expectancy, that same determination as she coerced Vi into admitting the thing they both knew: “The past is done. Gone.”
Vi scoffed. “Great, you gonna go on a speech about how we should build for the future? Gonna start sounding like your stupid councillor friend?”
Caitlyn stood up straighter. Her hand found its place on top of Vi’s knuckles, resting calmly like the weight of the world. “I wasn’t finished. And you aren’t either.”
Vi looked out towards Piltover once again. Slowly, the white-knuckled grip she had on the railings softened. Caitlyn stroked her thumb over the ridges of Vi’s knuckles in quaint celebration.
They admired the city for a few moments more before, with a sigh, Caitlyn ran a hand leisurely through her hair. Vi tracked its path attentively.
“My wants are always the same as my needs,” Caitlyn confessed. She bit her lip, let it go. “Not once have I settled for less. I haven’t had many… friends. Growing up, it was just Jayce.” She chuckled lowly. “I can’t count the number of bouquets I threw away because of him. I never understood the point of flowers in the first place, anyways.”
Vi’s eye twitched at the mention of Jayce and flowers in the same breath. “Flowers are hot.” She caught Caitlyn’s eyes before tearing her eyes away. “I get it.”
Caitlyn hummed in reply. “I would like to learn to.”
“Like to learn to what?”
“Get it.” The strange phrase came out of Caitlyn’s mouth as if it were a sour beer, and the confused look on her face was just the icing on the cupcake.
The edges of Vi’s lips twitched upwards.
She slammed her hands onto the banister, startling Caitlyn. Vi grinned at her unapologetically and winked. “Looks like we found something you like to do.”
--
Piltover was beautiful in the nighttime.
The city nightlights from below shone vibrantly, providing little glimmerings into the life of late-night topsiders below; a woman in casual businesswear throwing up into a can, a man briskly shuffling home with an armful of groceries, enforcers marching through the streets with their chins higher than the stick up their asses.
And above, where no one cared to look, was the glimmer of the Hextech airships, cutting a lazy path through the pitch-black sky. Vi, reclining onto the roof tiles, thought they looked like slower firelights with the way they fluttered to the Hexgates like firelights to a flame.
Ekko.
Vi shut her eyes, but the imprint of the firelight paths remained flickering behind her eyelids.
If she were in any other place, she would’ve run. She would’ve picked a fight with a whole slew of those stiff-legged enforcers. She would’ve done something with the fists she could rely on to block out the consequences of the heart that she couldn’t.
But she felt a strange peace on this rooftop, Caitlyn’s rooftop. She could hear everything; the staccato beating of her own heart, the gentle hum of the nightlights, the bicker and babble of enforcers and drunk men below, the sound of clunking machinery from the airships, and eventually the sound of running water in the room below coming to a slow stop.
The sound of bare, soft, fleetfooted footsteps padding on wooden floors. The clumsy rustling of shirt cloth. The abrupt pause, then the gentle, tentative cadence; “Vi?”
Vi opened her eyes and, with a closed fist, rapped twice against the roof tiles.
She didn’t have to wait very long before seeing a tousle of dark blue hair peeking out from the edge of the rooftop, followed by two sets of fine hands. Vi stood, offered her own, and watched as slim fingers closed around the back of her palm.
She pulled, much harder than she intended, which caused Caitlyn to stumble forward into her chest. On instinct, Vi shot out a steadying arm around Caitlyn’s waist, but when she realized it was unneeded, she kept it there. Caitlyn made no move to remove it.
Her arm wrapped around Caitlyn’s waist snugly while their fingers delicately intertwined. Vividly, she could hear Caitlyn’s heavy breathing by her ear, could feel the leftover warmth from the worryingly-long shower around Caitlyn’s waist, could smell the pronounced scent of a shampoo Vi wouldn’t be able to name.
It was a tableau of a still waltz.
This scene - holding an enforcer amidst the backdrop of a city she hated; holding Caitlyn amidst the backdrop of a city teeming with life - did nothing helpful for discerning the difference between the throbbing of Vi’s knuckles and the throbbing of her heart.
It didn’t help either that Caitlyn wrapped an arm around Vi’s neck, pulling their bodies closer until every inch of them were touching together.
“Sorry,” Vi mumbled into Caitlyn’s shoulder. She burrowed her nose deeper. “You’re a lot lighter than I thought.”
Caitlyn merely hummed in reply and tugged Vi impossibly nearer.
It took forever and an iron will before Vi unravelled herself from Caitlyn with an apologetic smile. When she stepped back, she noticed that Caitlyn was already prepared for the council meeting with her hair straightened to a T and her blue enforcer uniform crisp and flawless.
“Looking good, cupcake.” Vi was a realist.
A pretty shade of red crawled its way from Caitlyn’s neck to the tips of her ears, a path Vi vehemently tried to disregard. Wetting her lips lightly, she quickly reached behind her.
“Got you something.”
Vi proudly thrust out an arm of mismatched flowers, from petals with the most vibrant colours to those with more subtle faculties, all gathered semi-neatly within a cone of Piltover newspapers. Each flower was uniquely different; they had different petal sizes, colors of all variants, shapes and sizes ranging. Some glowed in the darkness of the night, their luminescence shining upon those which didn’t. Some were freshly picked, others were visibly wilting.
The Piltover newspapers that bundled them together were an almost unfitting addition like it didn’t belong amongst the myriad of divergent beauties. Despite its lack of elegance, it held the flowers securely.
Caitlyn gasped. Her eyes flitted from the flowers to Vi to the flowers and back to Vi. Vi rolled her eyes and shook the bouquet, making the petals sway.
“It’s yours.”
With a tentative hand, Caitlyn took the bouquet from Vi and stared at it with wide eyes. The luminescent glow of some of the flowers sparkled in her eyes, like firelights-
Ek-
Powd-
Flames -
“They’re beautiful,” Caitlyn breathed. She let out a surprised huff and smiled up at Vi. “They’re beautiful.”
Caitlyn was staring at her like she hung up the moon. Vi couldn’t be sure if the sparkling in her eyes really was from the glowing flowers or if it was just a Caitlyn thing.
“Yeah,” Vi chuckled. “They are.”
“Where in the world did you get these?” With her mouth agape, Caitlyn started rotating the bouquet around, her eyes scouring everything, every single detail from the angles of the petals to the crinkles in the newspaper.
Details. In a bouquet. Vi thought it endearingly ridiculous and snorted.
“Some old lady off the street. Said most of those were gonna die by the end of the night, so she gave them to me in exchange for a walk home.” Vi stared meaningfully at Caitlyn, watching Caitlyn’s jaw tighten slightly. “Told me they’re better off with me -”
“- with your girlfriend, dearie.”
“- than in the trash.”
Caitlyn brushed a thumb along one of the petals, her eyes growing fonder. “What a kind lady.”
Vi put her hands in her pockets and looked away. “Yeah.”
She felt a hand cup her cheek, teasing the hard line of her jaw before gently stroking a thumb across her cheek. Gently, Caitlyn pulled Vi’s head to face her again.
Another stroke of Caitlyn’s thumb against her cheek, and Vi covered Caitlyn’s hand with her own, leaning into it and closing her eyes.
“Thank you,” Caitlyn said softly. Vi nodded once.
They ended up sitting down, shoulder-to-shoulder, staring out at the same city together with the bouquet laying an arms-length away from Caitlyn. For a while, they sat blanketed in comfortable silence and companionship. All Vi could think about was the press of Caitlyn’s shoulder against hers, until she decided to break the silence.
“That isn’t right.” Vi felt Caitlyn’s eyes instantly on hers.
“What isn’t?”
There were multitudes of ways that Vi could take this.
“That what you want is what you need.”
Caitlyn scoffed and picked at a dilapidated piece of the roof by her feet. “Can you confidently tell me that you don’t feel the same?”
The silence blanketed them once again.
Vi sighed. “This is so messed up.”
Caitlyn kept picking at the roof until her hands stilled abruptly. Vi watched as her back straightened and her chest pulse outwards as she took a deep breath.
“Sometimes,” Caitlyn murmured, “sometimes I like to read.”
All that preparation. “What, about Piltover’s history? You break out the big bad textbook of the laws of Piltover?”
“No. I have an affinity for…” Caitlyn crinkled her nose. “Romance novels.”
Vi’s eyebrows raised to her hairline. “You’re lying.”
“I don’t usually find the time to indulge, but with a cup of tea…” Caitlyn laughed, and the pealing sound made Vi guffaw right along with her. “It’s a perfect mixture for relaxation. Maybe a hot bath as well. Mm, that would be nice.”
Vi shook her head in disbelief, her grin as wide as Caitlyn’s. “Well, well, well. Look who’s into Prince Charmings.”
“I wouldn’t necessarily say prince,” Caitlyn said offhandedly. Vi choked on her spit.
“Yeah, you sure had a fun time back at the brothel,” Vi teased after clearing her throat. She flopped onto her back, propping her head onto her bicep and staring up at the airships floating up above. In her periphery, she saw Caitlyn recline as well, albeit in slow, elegant movements. “What was that girl on about, anyway? The gardens? Something like that.”
“To be honest with you, Vi…” Caitlyn turned her head to look at her. Vi turned to look at Caitlyn. Caitlyn’s hair was strewn messily over the rooftop, jabbing in all directions. She didn’t seem to care. “I had not a single clue.”
They locked eyes, then burst out giggling together, their laughter echoing throughout the night sky.
“Gotta hand it to you, Matilda,” Vi chuckled. “You sure do bag the ladies.”
“Like you expected anything less?” Caitlyn’s accent deepened when she was affronted. Vi shook the thought out of her head - literally.
Vi hummed. “Well…”
“Spit it out,” Caitlyn demanded.
“I don’t know if I find -” Vi cleared her throat and broke out a terrible accent: “My parents named me Matilda afta ma grandmatha -”
Suddenly, a hand cupped her jaw and pushed it upwards, effectively shutting Vi up. She squirmed underneath Caitlyn’s grip, laughter threatening to billow to the surface.
“Shut up,” Caitlyn smiled. “You could have given me a more attractive name to work with.”
Vi gave a few muffled suggestions against Caitlyn’s hand - Tabitha, Agnes, Albatrossian Gandersnatch the Ninth - but judging from Caitlyn’s widening smile, she wasn’t having any of it. Vi relented and put her hands in the air, muffling a few more words before Caitlyn retracted.
“I thought you’d like the challenge,” Vi said.
“Hm. I suppose we could add challenges to the list of things I like.” Caitlyn propped her elbow onto the roof, leaning her head against her hand. “Your list still remains empty.”
“Touchy subject.”
There were a lot of things Vi wanted. She wanted Vander’s guidance. She wanted her Powder back. She wanted to rewind time and never have laid a hand on her sister, never have run away. She wanted her parents alive, the enforcers gone, the corruption eradicated, to hold Caitlyn close, to dismantle the council, and to unite Piltover under the sole nation it was meant to be.
She felt Caitlyn staring at her. Not in that nosy, intrusive way Vi was so used to receiving, but in a calm, patient way. Waiting for her, never prying. Ready to receive whatever Vi gave her, ready to accept it. Just simple, silent understanding.
Vi breathed in. What did she like? “Strong liquor.”
She glanced beside her to see if the simple answer elicited anything from Caitlyn, but she was met again with those patient blue eyes.
It was dangerous.
It was so dangerous and Vi knew it. It was so dangerous that Caitlyn could dismantle her, unlock her, so easily, so kindly. It should’ve been a huge warning, should’ve activated Vi’s fight or fight response but she didn’t know why it wasn’t surprising that she wanted to stay. Caitlyn’s silence told Vi everything she needed to know.
“Boiled slugs slathered in special sauce. Arcades. The colour red.”
Flames.
Vi slammed her eyes shut and jerked her head away. She felt Caitlyn’s hand gently rest on hers.
“And cupcakes,” Vi finished quietly. She opened her eyes, glanced at their intertwined fingers, then looked at Caitlyn. “Can’t forget about that.”
The corners of Caitlyn’s eyes softened, obviously pleased.
Vi decided that she liked that look on Caitlyn.
“Another thing to add to my list,” Caitlyn whispered like it was a secret. She brought their hands to the small sliver of space between them. Vi could feel Caitlyn’s breathing skirt atop her fingertips. “Recently, I... found out that I’ve developed a liking for pretty flowers.”
Caitlyn tilted her head and gazed imploringly at Vi. Vi stared blankly back.
“More bouquets. Got it.”
Caitlyn chuckled softly and squeezed Vi’s hand. “Not the flower I meant, Vi,”
Vi frowned, and it took several heartbeat throbs before her eyes widened, her breathing ceased, and her jaw loosened.
“Oh.”
Caitlyn broke out into a grin. “Get it now?”
“Yeah.” Vi pulled Caitlyn’s hand to her lips and kissed it softly. “Got it.”
But when Vi tried returning their hands to the space between them, Caitlyn pulled hers away and traced her thumb along Vi’s lips.
“What I want…” Caitlyn mumbled idly.
Then Vi was leaning forward until their foreheads were touching, until their lips were mere inches away from each other and she could feel more than hear the hitch in Caitlyn’s breathing against her lips. Vi closed her eyes.
Caitlyn’s thumb traveled from Vi’s bottom lip to her jaw to the back of her neck, curling her fingers around the baby hairs that resided there. To Vi’s surprise, Caitlyn didn’t pull. She didn’t push. She just stroked the back of her neck softly, quietly, waiting.
“Fuck,” Vi cursed under her breath. Caitlyn’s reply was a shaky inhale.
At the pace of a slug, Vi pulled back. She refused to let the venom sloshing through her brain infect anyone else.
“Fuck. Fuck!” Vi scowled and turned onto her back, scrunching her eyes closed and blocking her face with her fists. “Fuck. I- I’m sorry, I can’t-”
She heard Caitlyn shushing her beside her, felt an arm wrap around her waist and a head tuck into her chest.
“Easy, easy, easy,” Caitlyn soothed softly. At her side, Vi felt Caitlyn’s breathing smooth out to a slow inhale and exhale. She tried her best to mimic it.
In, in. In, out. Out, out. In, out - in, in.
Caitlyn’s head was rising with every erratic lift of Vi’s chest. When she noticed, Vi gritted her teeth and started sucking air through the barriers of her teeth, breathing slower.
In, out. Easy. In, out. Easy. In, out. Easy.
Ever so slowly, her limbs, once a tight live-wire, loosened into malleability, melting into the solid rooftop below her and curling around the solid Caitlyn on top of her.
“There you are.” Vi felt the curve of Caitlyn’s smile against her chest. Vi wrapped an arm around Caitlyn’s shoulders lightly until Caitlyn nodded and Vi tightened her grip.
They lay in silence for a while. Vi watched the airships above while kneading Caitlyn’s shoulder - her shooting side - carefully.
And once again, Caitlyn’s silence spoke volumes.
“I don’t…” Vi sighed and stilled her ministrations.
Caitlyn tapped twice on Vi’s abdomen, but Vi wanted to say it anyway.
“I’m afraid to make another promise I might not be able to keep,” Vi confessed.
Vander. Ekko. Mylo. Claggor.
Powder.
Vi took a deep breath.
“It isn’t a promise,” Caitlyn murmured. She lifted herself up onto her elbows and gazed at Vi.
The sparkle really just was a Caitlyn thing.
“Then what else?” Vi tucked a stray strand of dark blue hair behind Caitlyn’s ear, letting her thumb brush against her cheek.
“Then…” Caitlyn hummed in thought. “Then it’s just us.”
Vi smiled. “It’s just us, huh?”
Caitlyn raised an eyebrow, and in a very poor, poor, poor imitation of V’s husky drawl, teased: “You deaf, cupcake?”
V laughed wholeheartedly. “It’s only cute when I do it.”
“You’re lying.”
They stared at each other, unblinking, like it was a faceoff. Vi watched as the sides of Caitlyn’s lips lifted ever so slightly as they, together, unwavered.
“I’m lying,” Vi admitted.
The fondness in Caitlyn’s eyes was shining so bright, so much brighter than the flowers beside them, than the lights of the airships above, shining so brightly that everything beside her fizzled out into darkness until it was like everything that existed only existed within their gazes, within this roof that she laid on with Caitlyn.
“Us,” Vi breathed.
Caitlyn hummed her affirmation, leaning down until their foreheads were touching once again. Vi smiled.
“I like the sound of that.”