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If it weren’t for you I’d be here alone.
I know in my heart this is where we belong.
This world is a wasteland
Don’t let me
Go
Go
Go
_________
Blood-soaked ashes rain from the clear sky. Pink fumes and endless screams fill and empty her lungs. In and out. In and out. Until the well of her chest is dry and her limbs are leaden with every broken step she takes.
Down.
Down.
Down.
Vi thinks she was born with blood on her hands. The stains inked so deeply in her skin. Black tar on her heart. Her veins woven with the trickling echo of the shattered lives she leaves in her wake.
The mouth of the Hexgates is a wide arch. Opening to reveal the remnants. Shards and sharp teeth all rooted out. Splayed across the brick and concrete. Death gripping at the bubbling blisters and bedrock left behind.
Shoulders bruise against her own while she treads on aimless feet. A sea of blue and gold march and scatter around her. The air stings her bare hands and the ringing in her ears is so profound she’s unsure if she’ll hear anything else again. She never wants to see that luminescent stone again. The gauntlets were left on the beam where her spine no doubt left an imprint.
I’m always with you sis.
The path before her is a cloud of chaos. Enforcers, some faces she can recognize in the brief moments of lucidity, others she’ll never remember, blur in her hazy stumbling. She isn’t sure where she’s trying to go. But she knows if she stayed in that metal tower, her fingers would be a bloody heap. Nails broken to the bit from digging looking for blue.
Her body knows it before her mind can begin to catch up. Her heart beats in tandem with the person her muscles seek out in her delirium. The phantom touch of her hand, gripping and caressing. Lips that were made for Vi’s. Skin Vi had spent months touching in her drunken fantasies. Blue eyes that unearthed the bloody organ in her chest. Bile rises in her throat at the thought of–
We’re meant to lose this fight.
Caitlyn.
Her legs pump faster now. Her lungs heaving with labored breathing, dust and ash collecting in light swirls at so much movement. She nearly trips over the broken concrete, her boots catching on the lip of a jagged edge.
She knows without knowing. The threat thrusted upon them lies dead on the ground and scattered in the stars and yet Vi knows.
Something’s wrong.
Whispers fuel her beaten body.
“The commander–”
No.
“Is she really?”
No.
“The general is–”
No!
Broken spears line the fractured pavement and Noxian soldiers stand almost lifeless in front of the Customs building. Splattered purple and an empty shell separates her from her goal.
She’s running on wobbly legs, tripping with almost every step. The sun is so bright now, the rays blinding her. She raises an arm, wincing as her shoulder protests. She keeps running, panting with every painful step. Her heart bleeds out of her chest when she sees a lump of blue. She’s curled into herself, surrounded by armored soldiers and yet nobody moves toward her. As though she were a lifeless thing.
Ice-cold fingers curl around her heart, squeezing it until it’s nothing more than a fractured stone in her chest cavity. Vi stands frozen for a moment, then. The exaltation of grief from her lungs is so frigid, so consuming in its onslaught, she nearly collapses right there.
I choose wrong every time.
And suddenly, all Vi can see is bright, raging red.
It doesn’t seem to matter what color uniform the people around her wear. Her fists and shoulders make impact regardless. Throwing them aside the more they get in her way. Lashing out like the feral animal Stillwater forged her into. Healers, or what’s left of them, push and prod at her, trying to grasp her arms, their eyes wide and pleading. Begging her wordlessly to stop moving. To get her to just slow down.
More placating hands trying to raise up, to stop her from moving. Something about her injuries. Something about needing to sit down. But when soldiers in deep crimson armor get in her way, her body becomes a slave to something else entirely.
“Vi?”
Cheekbones shatter under her palm.
“Vi!”
Purple eyes flash like mirage, sharp and poignant. Killing cycles ending and beginning again.
“Vi!”
Long fingers thread through Vi’s hair and coarse curls tickle her nose. Blue eyes disarming her with this sense of knowing. She thought it was a threat at first. A lie turned into another life she’s meant to break.
Despite it all, I can tell, you have a good heart.
But she’s been drowning in her ever since those eyes pinned her forty floors under.
“Vi!”
It takes the woman she swore she would kill with her bare hands to pull her off the already dead Noxian. Her knuckles are bloodier than before when she’s pulled to her feet. It doesn’t even register fully and her fists stay clenched like leaden stones at her sides. They don’t speak to each other, but Sevika holds her under her arms, yanking her from the bloody pulp ingrained into the concrete.
Vi struggles against her firm hold, thrown back to a sliver of her childhood. One where she was someone to be trusted. Admired, even. Seviak turns her around, gripping her shoulders like a vice. A question sits on her hunched shoulders.
Vi can’t look at her for long, her lungs seizing up and the unspoken sentiment is thick as the gray between them. Vi shakes her head, still struggling in her grasp.
She’s gone.
Seviak lets her go then.
She rushes up the stained marbled steps, still pushing through enforcers and clambering over fallen Noxians. She can’t even look at the faceless creatures that have molded to the dead like a leech. Their white skin smooth and their robotic fingers cling to the backs of enforcers and her people alike. The sight of them sends a shiver down her spine. At least they’ve stopped moving. But a scream pierces the clustered air and she can barely discern it as her own when she reaches the top, her eyes singling in on the reason she’s here.
Vi doesn’t notice a slain Ambessa. She doesn’t notice the way red flags are still raised like a shield, all adorning the Medarda crest. She only just notices that red-headed officer that clung to Caitlyn like a parasite strewn in a lifeless heap. But she can’t focus on that now. On the implications of it. Because Caitlyn still lies there. Unmoving.
Mel Medaarda is crouched over her, golden skin exposed to the dusty rays and her white cloak abandoned. Her hands sit on Caitlyn’s shoulders as if–
“ Caitlyn! ”
It comes out like a broken shriek. Vi lands heavy on her knees, pushing Mel’s hands away. She just needs them all to go away. Mel for her part, goes without protest, falling back on her haunches as Vi pulls Caitlyn in her lap.
You deserve to be with her.
Vi doesn’t know where to look first. Not when there’s just–
Red. So much red. Crimson pouring out of places it shouldn’t, staining indigo hair at the root, dripping down to her chin. But the most obvious abrasion sends a violent numbing sensation over her body, shock weaving through every vertebrae.
It’s gone.
Her eye .
Her—
Vi cradles her face with trembling fingers, her lungs barely able to gulp down air at all.
“Oh,” she whimpers, her mouth tasting of copper. “No, no, no.”
Her fingers reach under her ear, searching for the dull throb, but she can’t stop shaking. It isn’t there. It isn’t ther–
“She’s alive,” Mel croaks, still on her knees.
Vi doesn’t look up, but the words sit on her back like a blanket. Her hands still hold Caitlyn’s face, her jaw slack and her thumbs rub the crescents of Caitlyn’s cheeks. Blood smears across the bones, and Vi can taste bile in her throat again. The skin beneath the pads of her fingers is already so deeply scarred, jutting across her face like a threat of what could have been.
She’s alive.
Her eyes can only take so much in, but not even the minute way Caitlyn’s chest rises with her armor can stop the dam from bursting. Wet hot tears cascade down her freckled cheeks, landing on Caitlyn’s exposed skin. She lets her head fall, resting her forehead on Caitlyn’s, her body fully in Vi’s lap now.
“C’mon Cupcake,” Vi croaks, rocking her back and forth on her haunches. Caitlyn’s head lays heavy between Vi’s hands, her eyes closed and her hair falls over Vi’s arm.
Vi can’t stop moving. Can’t stop feeling and seeing and pleading. Her hands move back and forth between cradling her face and hugging her shoulder, her own eyes squeeze shut and her chin trembles, broken pleas on her tongue.
Stay with me.
Vi’s voice sounds so foreign to her own ears. Desperate. Begging. Incoherent babbling of Caitlyn’s name and noiseless sobs. They wrack her body and her head feels heavier pressed against Caitlyn’s, their noses brushing while her teeth clench harder with every moment Caitlyn doesn’t open her–
She groans first. And Vi doesn’t realize just how grounded the sound makes her feel.
“Vi– ungh –”
Vi doesn’t let her finish. Her lips crash down on Caitlyn’s at the barest hint of her voice, riding the line of gentle and bruising. Over and over until all she can taste is blood and salt and what Vi now knows is just purely Caitlyn. And she fucking revels in it. Loves it even. She loves her .
A gentle hand raises, fingers stroking the hard edge of Vi’s jaw. Vi only just stops kissing her, barely separating her lips from Caitlyn’s, a trail of blood still linking them together. And Vi is finally met with blue. It’s hazy and unfocused. But it’s there. Her eye keeps cracking open, barely a slit but Vi doesn’t complain. Vi can’t even speak.
The sun catches her iris, her pupil shrinking but Vi nearly sobs again the longer she sees her eye open. She’ll take Caitlyn’s beating heart over an eye that will never open again. Vi kisses her eyelid. Her nose. Her cheeks. Ghosting over the skin on the left side of her face. Caitlyn gasps and Vi pulls back enough to see a myriad of painful affection twisted on her features.
“Hey, Cupcake,” Vi chokes. Not even a whisper. Caitlyn hiccups, trying to lean into Vi further. But her face twists, her eye squeezing shut and her hand spasms against Vi’s face.
Shame bubbles in her chest then. How did she not notice it? The dagger that lies at her side is covered in red string, blood soaking the tip down to the hilt. The gaping hole becomes inescapable then. Vi grabs Caitlyn’s hand, holding it to her cheek, kissing the palm before she’s hoisting Caitlyn in her arms.
“Violet,” she rasps, coughing and groaning, staining already red lips. Her eye widens, raking over Vi’s face “You’re bleeding–”
“Cait–”
She keeps trying to move now but Vi just holds her tighter. Caitlyn’s own fingers clutch weakly at her shoulders, a shuddering breath fans across Vi’s skin where she’s tucked in the crook of Vi’s neck. “I love you,” Caitlyn breathes out, the words barely a croaked whisper. A dying confession that maybe she wasn’t meant to hear. But oh Vi hears them— feels them sink under her skin, nestling between her bones. She chokes on a sob, pulling back to see her face, her own tears dripping off the edge of her chin. She kisses her again, the touch light and necessary.
“I’m going to take care of you,” she husks the promise with frayed vocal cords as she stands, shrugging off anyone who tries to pry Caitlyn from her arms. Her chest fucking aches with each pain filled noise that crawls out of Caitlyn’s bloody lips. But she doesn’t relinquish her hold, taking strength from every labored breath they share, weaving through the wasteland left behind.
_________
It takes three doctors to peel Caitlyn out of her arms. And three more to drag her to a room she swears she has no business being in.
She’s fine.
She’s fine, she’s fine, she’s—
“Just get these fucking needles out of me and let me see her.”
It’s the tenth time in the last hour she’s made this demand. And each time she’s met with:
“Dear, she’s just finished undergoing surgery and your wounds need to be tended to. Miss Kiramman can send for you when she’s ready.”
Vi scoffs, rolling her eyes. An IV snakes up her arm, bandages litter her arms and face. The wound on her side reopened but Vi can’t even feel it. She can’t feel much of anything. She can’t close her eyes either. Too many images barrage her when she does. And they won’t give her the meds to help with that.
This is ridiculous. Vi had tried taking Cait home, knowing whatever staff of doctors these rich Pilties keep would come rushing out. And Vi had been prepared for that. But she wasn’t prepared for the rush of doctors dragging them to the hospital. The only thing that got through to her was–
“If we don’t take her in now, she could lose her eye forever.”
What choice did Vi have, then?
So she sits back against the cot, chewing the inside of her cheek as the nurse keeps prodding at her, flinching when Vi snarls on reflex. She’s left with a tray of fruit and bread, a stern glance, and orders to get some sleep and that she would be notified when she could leave. Fat chance.
It was easier to not notice details when her senses were overwhelmed. When she was being asked a million questions– Does this hurt? Can you move your left shoulder?– she didn’t have room to entertain the shadows lurking in the corners. But now, in the emptiness, they’re all she can see. The room is shrouded in darkness, the blanket is scratchy and too tight around her legs. The nurse who wrapped her arm didn’t leave enough circulation and Vi’s skin feels like it’s on fire. And all she can think about– all she wants is–
Rationality has never been her strong suit. Patience is something she’s trying to crack, but it’s impulsivity that’s kept her alive. It’s been the engine of her body, propelling her forward when everything else pulls and drags her down like dead weight. And she’s had enough grief strangling her to wait any longer than she already has.
It isn’t even a thought when she yanks the IV from her arm, the machine beeping in protest not enough to slow her down. Bare feet land on the cold floor and her hospital gown rides up her thighs when she slips off the cot.
She ignores the hands already reaching for her when she throws the curtain back, shrugging them off until she has a clear sight of where she’s going.
Her room is easy to find. Even with nurses trying to restrain her, she finds it without a word, shoving the door open.
“Miss Violet would you please just–”
Her bed is twice the size of Vi’s, food already waiting on a metal tray next to her. Doctors fuss around her, blocking her from Vi’s view.
“What’re you doing to her?” Vi snaps, her vision blurry and her blood pumping so fast she feels like she could crush a building.
She steps further into the room, yanking her arm free from the nurse’s cold hand. Her heart thunders in her chest with every step. Her loud presence alerts the doctor leaning over Caitlyn, his voice muffled to Vi’s ears. She reaches a hand out, ready to shove him aside too when he whirls around, annoyance evident in his bushy brow. Vi doesn’t care.
Not even when another hand lands on her shoulder, gentle but persistent, voices telling her to go back to her room, to let the other woman recover. But Caitlyn is lying on her back, a bandage taped to her left eye and alive. Asleep, but alive. The sight almost brings her to her knees.
“Is she…?”
“She’s still under from surgery. I need to ask you to please go back to your room so Miss Kiramman can recover,” the doctor says sternly, already herding her back toward the door.
The halls feel like they’re shrinking in on her when she’s escorted back to her room. The walls are a harsh white and the lights blinding and flickering overhead.
She grimaces when she sits back on her cot, iron hot pain shooting through the muscles there. The nurses speak to her, trying to be comforting. But she can’t make out what anything means.
It isn’t until hours later that her body finds itself on autopilot, her feet leading her back to Caitlyn’s room. The machine beeps are steady. Quiet and sure while vines of oxygen and fluids drape over her face and arms. The bandage still covers her left eye and Vi releases a shuddering breath at the sight.
She pads on bare feet, not hesitating to pull the sheet back before climbing in, nestling herself into Caitlyn’s left side. And for the first time in weeks, her body sinks.
Caitlyn doesn’t wake up the next morning when the doctors pull her out of Caitlyn’s bed with scolding glares and harsher hands. Worry sits in Vi’s chest when she looks over her shoulder to see Caitlyn’s sleeping form, ignoring the nurse’s reprimand.
It continues like that for the next two nights. Vi is brought to her own room, fed the hospital food she would’ve killed for in Stillwater, medications are administered that send her into a nightmare spiral, and a constant battle to be near Caitlyn.
They eventually allow her to sit with her during the day. Tobias is already there, his beard longer than when she saw him last. The lines on his face are etched so deep, the skin around his eyes dark and sunken. They don’t speak to each other. What is there even to say?
“Is she awake yet?” Vi asks one afternoon, her voice hoarse from disuse. The nurse gives her a tight-lipped smile and shakes her head as she leads her to Cait’s room.
“She sustained serious injuries. This is to be expected,” the nurse replies over her shoulder. “She’s woken for brief minutes and then falls back asleep. You don’t need to worry.”
Tobias is already in the room when Vi enters. He doesn’t acknowledge her when she walks further in the room. And she won’t force him to. So she pulls the chair next to Cait’s bedside, avoiding the way Tobias watches her, and holds Caitlyn’s hand.
“It’s always been you. Hasn’t it?”
His voice startles her after so long in silence. But she doesn’t let go of Caitlyn’s hand, having brought her knuckles to her lips, her thumb rubbing in the center of her palm.
“She saved my life,” is all Vi can think to say to him. How can she describe to this man who seemingly detests her that she would rip her own heart out if Cait asked her to. But the answer seems to be enough.
Caitlyn’s lashes flutter and a small, barely audible noise passes her lips. Her brows pinch together so minutely Vi isn’t sure she saw it. She doesn’t breathe, keeping her knuckles pressed to her dry lips. But Caitlyn doesn’t wake up fully, her head turning into the pillow.
They sit together until the sun descends and the doctor comes in for a check up. He tells her Vi should be discharged soon and she can’t stop the panicked feeling from clogging her lungs.
“You can come back with me if she’s not ready to leave by then,” Tobias says gently. Vi lets out a short exhale, the backs of her eyes burning. She nods, words failing her.
On the third day, she pushes Caitlyn’s door open and freezes.
The doctor blocks her view but it’s unmistakable what’s happening. Caitlyn sits upright, her eye unfocused and her skin pale. But she’s awake fully. Vi catches her eye then and her lungs freeze over. The averted attention must alert the doctor of Vi’s presence, but she doesn’t even acknowledge the doctor when he whirls around, no doubt a protest on his tongue.
She only knows Caitlyn speaks because her eyes don’t leave her mouth. But the ringing in her ears drowns out her voice. She can guess what’s been said when the doctor huffs and steps away from the bed.
Vi doesn’t waste another second before she’s throwing herself on the bed next to her, pressing her forehead to Caitlyn’s with as much gentleness as the adrenaline in her body allows. Her hands slide up Cait’s neck, careful in the way she cradles her jaw, letting the tips of their noses to brush. Vi doesn’t feel the tears fall, but Caitlyn’s thumbs rub the swell of her cheeks, smearing something wet across her freckled face.
“I’m alright, Violet,” she whispers.
“You scared me to death.”
“I could say the same about you.”
Vi chuckles wetly at that, pulling back enough to really look at her. Small cuts decorate her face, and the bandage is hard to ignore. But Vi won’t ask. She won’t make her say it.
And in the end, it doesn’t matter. So she focuses on what she knows lies under her hospital gown, her own matching scar throbbing with a phantom pain. Vi reaches her hand down, fingers ghosting over the spot. Caitlyn brings her hand back, kissing her palm and Vi can’t stop the blush from spreading over her chest.
“Will you let the commander rest now?” The doctor asks, his voice wavering on indignation and shyness. Like he knows he shouldn’t be here.
“I’m not leaving her,” Vi says quickly, looking over her shoulder to see the doctor with his head turned away. Leaving isn’t an option Vi is willing to entertain. “Can’t you– I don’t know– bring a palette in here or something?” Vi asks, waving her hand, gesturing to the obnoxious size of the room. “I’ll sleep on the damn floor.”
The doctor opens his mouth to speak–
“Vi,” Caitlyn draws her face back with her palm, fingers pressing her jaw. Vi releases a shuddering breath at Cait’s expression. She looks so painfully exhausted. Vi huffs through her nose. “I don’t want you to leave either. But the sooner we let them get on with it, the sooner we can go home.” Her open eye expresses what her words hide: come back later.
But Vi can barely read it, her heart lurching at the idea of home . Something she’s been devoid of for as long as she can remember. She thought she had it with her parents. It enveloped her in warm soup and goodnight kisses. Lullabies sung after nightmares. Her name etched onto the pillar in bright pink, proof of her growing body. But it was fleeting.
She thought maybe she found it again with Vander. Comfort found in cigar smoke and warm bear hugs. Lessons in the back alley on how to punch. How she needs to work on her guard. Her brothers and… Jinx all curled up in their bunk beds. But that was robbed from her long ago in a puff of blue smoke and prison bars.
She didn’t realize she would look her home in the face underground then. Didn’t know her home could wear the navy blue uniform of those who yanked her out of childhood. But it was never about that. It was in the way she looked at her. The way she touched her. Believed in her.
Vi kisses her so softly it could hardly count as a kiss. But it’s enough of a promise to satiate her for now.
The bed creaks when Vi stands, leaving a breathless Caitlyn before she goes back to her own cot. She begrudgingly lets the nurse poke and prod, checking her for everything that would simply be chalked up to a waste of time in both the Lanes and Stillwater alike. But she endures it. For Caitlyn. It’s the last night she’s meant to stay here anyway.
When the hours pass by, her ribs still decidedly fractured and her back almost blackened from a bruise, she tries to rest. Really rest. Now that Caitlyn’s awake, she both feels her body relax while her heart beats so erratically in her chest. A thunderstorm behind her ribs.
The sun sinks behind the splintered buildings, the moon begging for her place in the sky when Vi decides sleep isn’t something she wants to torture herself with. At least not alone. Not anymore.
She’s a little more gentle when she takes the IV out a second time, her steps more sure and quiet when she wanders down the empty wing of the hospital. She ignores the way her stomach knots up at the sterile smell. The lights overhead are still blinding as the sun sets her teeth on edge but she keeps walking with her head down. Trying not to make a scene this time.
Panic blossoms in her chest when she cracks open Caitlyn’s door, the woman thrashing and groaning in her bed. Her brow is pinched together and her mouth twisted into a grimace.
“Cait? Cait baby, wake up,” Vi whispers, her knee sinking into the bed and her hands gently grasp Caitlyn’s shoulders. Vi opens her mouth to speak again when Cait’s eye opens, her breath coming out in gasping pants and tears leak out of the corner of her eye, wetting the shitty pillowcase.
“Vi? Where– I was– it’s– she tried to kill–”
“Shh, it was just a nightmare,” Vi coos, fully climbing in the bed, slipping an arm under her neck as Caitlyn stays on her back. She lies on Caitlyn’s left side, the decision subconsciously done every night she’s done this. Caitlyn sinks into the bed again, sleep claiming her quickly. Vi lies there for a while, just watching her breath. Thumbs rubbing absent circles on the point is her hip bone, her voice humming a tune so ingrained in her bones she doesn’t even realize she’s humming it.
Exhaustion calls her name finally. The threat of her sister’s voice still lingers when she closes her eyes, her chest tightening so painfully she could scream. She can’t indulge that pain now. It will consume her, the grief like a crow ready to feast on the corpse of her heart.
But then she looks down at the woman in her arms, feeling the small puffs of air against her skin, and her chest loosens like an unfurling fist. Her tongue falls away from her mouth, and she lets the darkness pull her under.
_________
Vi never thought so much relief would be found in a place like this. Not for someone like her, at least. But the moment the smell fills her nose, her shoulders loosen. Her fists unclench and her jaw slackens.
The Kiramman house welcomes them with green cushions and flowers rising out of ornate vases in every corner. Bourbon tints the air with Tobias’s pain but there’s still something so distinctly Caitlyn about the way the house smells. A warmth she’s sure only comes from the woman holding her arm.
It takes time for Caitlyn to adjust. Her depth perception is altered, her hips bumping tables and her steps uncertain. It worries Vi to no end, but she doesn’t overstep either. She knows Caitlyn seeks independence more than anything. And Vi won’t be the one to threaten the mere idea of it. But Caitlyn will never recover her vision in her left eye, not with it missing entirely. The scar so permanent and jarring for someone like Caitlyn.
Vi’s carried scars the moment she was thrust into the earth. Scraped knees turning into a split brow. Jagged lines not even x-rays can find. They’re a part of her. They're proof that she’s alive.
So she doesn’t understand at first why Caitlyn won’t look at her when Vi pulls away from a kiss. Why she keeps her head tilted away when they’re having breakfast, only feeling more solid when Vi can’t stop herself from kissing her randomly throughout the day.
But Vi can’t shake the feeling of there being more under the surface between them. That there’s something unspoken Vi can’t discern, festering. She can’t bring herself to ask, the words at the tip of her tongue when she holds her at night, her hands aching to be gentle and not consume her the way her body demands.
It unearths itself in the moonlight. The bandage had been replaced with an eyepatch days ago, slipping over the scarred tissue. Vi had watched from the bathroom doorway, her hip pressed against the wall and her arms crossed over her chest when Caitlyn first unboxed it. She set it down on the marbled counter, her jaw clenching when she met her own reflection. Caitlyn didn’t notice her at first. She leaned closer to the mirror, tilting her face this way and that, her fingers prodding at the scarred skin.
It was the first time Vi truly saw the wound up close like this. She thought she would feel something different maybe. Horror or anguish at how it even came to be. The anger of what had almost happened still boils under her skin. But all Vi can find is pride and something so much deeper, the word left unsaid between them. Caitlyn eventually found her staring, their eyes meeting in the reflection. She ripped the patch from the counter, strapping it around her head.
Vi doesn’t notice at first. But eventually she can’t help but see it. She never takes it off. Not even when they climb under the silken covers, their arms seeking the other like a magnet, lips colliding like the first time. She notices it in the way the patch stays on during the early morning, Vi lying between Caitlyn’s thighs, her head cushioned on her chest. The sun catches through billowing curtains
She wants to ask. She wants to peel the fabric from her skin, kiss every inch of her face. But she doesn’t. Not yet. Not until Caitlyn’s ready for more. So she pulls back when their kisses get too heated. When her touch feels like an iron brand against Vi’s skin. Her entire body melts and drowns in the memories. But she doesn’t miss the small flinches, the groans that still come from what Vi can only assume is pain. So she stops against every fiber in her being, her core throbbing so painfully she thinks she’ll die.
“Do you– do you not want to touch me, Vi?” Caitlyn asks one night, their lips barely parting to speak. The question stills her heart. Not want to touch her? All Vi wants to do is touch her. Vi pulls back a little, her hands still holding Caitlyn’s face between her bare palms. She hasn’t wanted to wrap her hands in a while. Not when she knows what Caitlyn’s skin feels like with no barriers at all.
“What?”
“It’s just–” Caitlyn exhales, teeth sinking into her lower lip. “You always stop.”
They stare at one another for a while, the words settling in.
“And I know I’m not… the same. And if you don’t want me like that anymore–”
Oh.
Vi doesn’t let her finish, crashing her mouth to Caitlyn’s, her body alighting at the small whine that escapes. Her teeth scrape Caitlyn’s bottom lip, her tongue soothing soon after, wanting to memorize the taste over and over again. When they part for air, Vi keeps their brows connected.
“Cait,” she pants, planting soft pecks on her lips. Her nose. Her cheek. “Is that why you never take this off?” Vi’s fingers gently graze the fabric behind Caitlyn’s ear, brushing the skin of her temple.
Caitlyn doesn’t answer beyond squeezing her eye shut, trying to duck her head into the crook of Vi’s neck. Vi pulls her face back up, meeting her hesitant gaze.
“Cait, there isn’t a world where I don't want you.”
Her fingers are hesitant when they move back to the bands around her ear, lifting up through silky hair. She pauses for a moment, waiting for Caitlyn to stop her. But she doesn’t. Her jaw slackens and her breathing stutters as Vi continues.
“You don’t have to wear this for me,” she says earnestly before lifting herself up on her elbow, hovering over Caitlyn’s face when the patch is fully off her face. The indents are clear on her skin from how long Caitlyn’s kept the bloody thing on. All under the assumption that Vi wouldn’t want her. Like she doesn’t fucking ache for her the moment she opens her eyes in the morning.
The skin is scarred over. Lashes that will never flutter again haunt in the still presence of the moonstone gaze watching her expression with careful precision. But Vi doesn’t stop there. She peels Caitlyn’s purple camisole from her body, her lips following the trail of her hands. Until she’s bare, moonlight bathing her skin.
“Look at you,” Vi murmurs, her hands fanning out over her ribs. Caitlyn’s breath hitches and her own hands clutch the bedsheets. Vi leans over, lips delicate and tender on the left side of Caitlyn’s face. Her lips catch salty tears as she kisses every inch of Caitlyn’s face. “How could I not want you, pretty girl?” Vi takes an earlobe between her teeth, pulling until she gets a gasp and crescent indents in her shoulders.
“Funny. I find myself thinking the same of you.”
Vi’s never been the praying type. She’s never found herself kneeling before an altar. But she worships Caitlyn like she’s made for nothing else. She licks her lips between kisses, trailing up and down, tasting every facet she can reach. Making up for lost time and reveling in the time they still have.
Caitlyn’s chest heaves with every love bite left behind. Her breasts are covered in bruises in the shape of Vi’s mouth, her hands roaming and squeezing, Pinching a nipple between the rough pads of her fingers, both of them moaning when her mouth follows.
This dance is still new and yet so achingly familiar. Like they’ve done it for lifetimes Vi has no memory of. But when she reaches the apex of her thighs, Vi inhales deep and long, so much warmth spreading down to her lower belly, burning the tips of her ears. She looks up through her lashes, her skin flushing at Caitlyn’s expression. Unfiltered affection warring with something she isn’t used to seeing. Shyness. She kisses the top of her pelvic bone, the coarse hair tickling her nose.
Caitlyn’s back arches with the first swipe of her tongue and Vi can’t help but groan at the taste. She’s a pool of warmth and Vi doesn’t waste another moment to plunge into the depths of it.
She thought she knew starvation. She thought she knew it when her stomach was so empty it gnawed at every edge of her, clawing its way through her skin. She even vaguely thought she knew it in the bunker, when the first drop of Caitlyn met her tongue. But it was so fast. So rushed and all consuming between the dirt covered bricks.
Now, she realizes she’s never truly known starvation. The feeling of heat and fullness sets her skin aflame as she buries herself in the taste, the smell, the soaking wet heaven she’s already killed for, nearly makes her come undone right then and there. She knows she’ll be insatiable for the rest of her life.
The angle is different than before, but she won’t lie at how much more open this position feels. How much closer they feel strewn out in the soft luxuries of Caitlyn’s life. She swirls her tongue methodically, reverence evident in every press of her lips to soaking wet skin.
But then, insistent hands are fisting in her hair, pulling and tangling. Vi stops to look up, Caitlyn’s thighs shaking around her ears when she sees the look in her eye.
“Vi I– I need–”
“What do you need, Cait?” Vi asks, kissing her clit.
“ Hah–shit ! I want you– I want– here. Just come here,” she pleads, her voice strained and raw.
Vi huffs affectionately, crawling up the way she came, her own want slicked between her thighs. Her arms cage around Caitlyn’s head, her nose brushing the tip of Caitlyn’s.
“Close. Just stay close,” Caitlyn rasps, clutching Vi’s wrist, dragging it back down. Vi huffs a small laugh, kissing her soundly and does what’s asked of her.
“I’m not going anywhere.”
Caitlyn reaches her chin up, catching Vi’s mouth again while Vi’s fingers coat themselves, the feeling sending shockwaves down her still bruised spine. She lies on her hip now, melding to Caitlyn’s side, kissing her over and over.
She broaches Caitlyn’s entrance, sliding back up to her clit, a soft rhythm led by the melody of Caitlyn’s moans, the jerk of her hips dragging out the crescendo. She doesn’t go in. Not yet. Not when she’s this sensitive and Vi isn’t in the place to be gentle with that yet. So she carries her over with slickened circles and hard kisses, sucking more bruises into supple skin, holding her as close as the angle allows.
She comes the same as before. Head thrown back and a silent moan Vi is determined to drag out over time, knowing the sound alone would cause her own inevitable fall. Vi kisses her through the aftershocks, her fingers still coaxing what’s left in small jerks and sloppy kisses.
When she comes down, her breath evening out and their kisses slow, the words come out in a reckless rush.
“You’re not different, Cait. Not to me. This,” Vi says, kissing the brow above her scar. “This is the reason you’re alive.” Vi places her hand over Cait’s beating heart. “And I would be an idiot not to want you.”
“When I was kneeled there, when I thought she was going to– I was so scared I would never get to see you again,” she admits, her own hands painting an aimless pattern over Vi’s skin. The idea of it all sends a painful jolt to her chest. It tries to pour out of her, flooding her lungs with the weight of the implication. So she kisses Caitlyn again, content to open that box later.
For now, she lies in green silk sheets, wrapped in Caitlyn’s long limbs, sinking into the embrace that feels as though it were made for her. And when they finally sleep, their lips still seeking the other’s after Vi draws them a bath, Vi doesn’t hear the crow cawing overhead, instead consumed by the steady sound of their hearts beating.