Chapter Text
It all started with a bomb exploding in her right ear – rather brutal, really, for a first meeting.
Caitlyn was taking a long morning stroll through the estate when it went off, a teacup preserving warmth in her hands, a floor-length robe sweeping the spotless ground with each step. She liked to start her off days this way: taking the quiet in, erasing the woman who had once lived here from every corner of her memory, dwelling on everything that went right and wrong in her forty years of life.
Then, something burst – something loud and sharp, like a fat elastic split apart from too much strain, or a bomb, as her senses first believed.
It turned out not to be a bomb per se, and not exactly an explosion either, but paint, rather – blue paint , splattering a window on the ground floor right as she passed it, covering the entire length in dripping color, staining the ancient frame carved with intricate vines, iris flowers, and recently added key symbols as a central piece. A crime her mother would make someone pay with their life.
Caitlyn was never one for violent reactions to such meaningless details, however, and all it inspired her was a quick trip to the nearest kitchen (there are three in the mansion, and she struggled to remember their position for months, but her ex-wife's love for cooking justified the number), where she seized the sharpest and deadliest knife, and once readily armed – she couldn’t know, after all, that she was only about to meet her soulmate and not a group of burglars – barrelled through the front door with the weapon raised, robe slipping off her shoulders to reveal a peek of her satin nightgown, with her defenses erected and sharp.
Only to be hit with a very underwhelming realization.
Whatever that makeshift paint bomb had been, it was not the sort of threat she felt the need to worry about, and in place of burglars, what Caitlyn found in her garden was a wiggly blue-haired teenager (the same pigment as the paint thrown at her window: flashy and illuminating the early morning fog) getting dragged away by a taller, buffer woman, who had to be at least ten years Caitlyn’s junior, somehow rippling with a strange mix of strength, terror and innocence, a bag filled with – bombs? children’s toys? – bouncing on her shoulder.
Nothing like a team of deadly thieves, at first glance. They would make quiet the amusing picture, actually, had Caitlyn not been looking forward to a rare quiet morning to prepare her for a full day of case-dipping, breaking through carefully crafted plans for which she has no way to fall back on – not until they both leave, at least, and not before the window is cleaned.
The knife didn't waver from her hold, but Caitlyn angled it slightly to the ground. Accidentally hurting a teenager on Kiramman-owned ground would not make for good headlines, and that, her mother would agree with.
“Hey,” Caitlyn shouted across the lawn, the slim cotton slippers on her feet shaking in fear at the idea of being dragged through the wet morning grass to reach the two girls. “What do you think you’re doing here? This is private property, and that,” she points at the window, paint dripping to the wall below and collecting in a blue puddle on a pale, now bright blue bush, “is vandalism .”
The other girl – the buff one, somehow wearing thin clothes sticking to her arms and thighs Caitlyn wouldn’t be caught wearing so deep in winter (not that they seem to share a fashion sense at all) – stopped, frozen, and tightened her hold on the teenager.
“She didn’t mean it.”
“I totally did-”
“Powder, shut it-”
The small girl broke out of her hold, weakened by the bag pulling her backward, and crossed her arms, pouting.
“Who’s gonna tell this lady right there that her house looks bleak in winter if I don’t, uh?” she screamed at the girl, although Caitlyn did take the insult for herself. The mansion was not bleak, but ancient – an important distinction to make, Cassandra Kiramman would say. “If she doesn’t want to decorate it for Christmas like everyone in Piltover and even Zaun does, or get some color on that huge castle she lives in, then I will . And if you'd rather this old lady-” Caitlyn huffs, eyebrows dipping low on her forehead, wrinkling shiny skin, “-wants to die alone in a bigger version of the cemetery where we buried our first dog, then that's on you, not on me!”
In retrospect, Caitlyn isn’t sure they could have met in better circumstances.
(She kept the blue paint for a day, because the cleaners shouldn’t have to work on a Sunday, and she didn’t have the heart to call them over and force them to change their weekend plans.
She kept the blue paint for a week because a new case dropped in her lap first thing on Monday morning, the sort that she hates, with rich clients guilty of all sins who think dropping one percent of their wealth to a lawyer will get them cleaned, the sort she accepts to please her parents and fellow associates, and she didn’t have the time – nor the energy – to care for a window of all things.
She kept the blue paint for a month – and for this one, she had no good excuse.)
(In retrospect, the mansion did lack something. Color was only part of it.)
-
Caitlyn liked to think the path she’d chosen by deriving from her parents’ strict expectations would come to fulfill her.
It made sense. At least it did when she dared give it thought.
A rising career with genuine societal utility. Stable familial bonds – and she knows how hard that is to maintain – save for the slight mishap with her first wife, but the Kirammans have never been particularly hostile to justified divorces (and her mother disliking Ashe's family tree happened to be that just that). Friends – or friend, singular, more like, but Caitlyn has never needed heavy crowds to believe in herself, never needed a gossiping girl group to accept harsh truths. A house, grander than needed, but serene, and a lake she likes to dip her feet in to read her books, and a fulfilled (active, more like) love ( sex ) life.
(A full battleship lego collection, too, this one hidden in her home office, because no one’s ever connected high heels and power suits to assembling bricks alone during quiet weekends, and Caitlyn knows better than to confuse people.)
(It’s hard, really, not to confuse others when Caitlyn seems to fit every textbook criteria for raised eyebrows, pursed lips, and disappointed sighs; to belong in the mass crowd when all seems to point at her being an outlier – too expressive and too honest and too tall and too different. But even grown, even thirty years added to the ten-year-old misfit most children shrank back from, the square gets shoved into a circle. Even now, even as she tries, Caitlyn Kiramman is still the slightly awkward child who struggled to fit in.)
She was fine it. Content. Used, perhaps, to the loneliness, often shoved under a pile of work, galas, and dinners at the Kiramman household.
Until the day Caitlyn met her.
Vi.
( “This says your name is Violet.”
Caitlyn turns the ID toward Vi, showing her the tiny rectangle photo below her name. She looks like it was taken with a weapon raised at her head, or like she tried her hardest to look tough and make the camera lens tremble from intimidation. Something tells Caitlyn that it isn’t anywhere near a real reflection of the woman sitting before her, chained to the center of the prison table.
“Vi’s fine, Princess.”
Caitlyn frowns. “And princess is not fine, Vi. Please call me Caitlyn.”
Vi leans forward, balancing herself on arms that are only muscles, lean and dry. “Sure I will… Princess Caitlyn.” )
Raised in the deep heart of Zaun, freed from prison for teenage delinquency much later than any justice system should have allowed, just in time to take over her sick father in raising her siblings. A fine connoisseur of the best roofs to use for stargazing and neighbor-spying, somehow capable of jumping between buildings (not completely surprising, really, but Caitlyn tried for a very long time not to notice the very obvious thing that went unsaid between them – meaning how ripped Vi really is). A heart of gold, constantly picking others before herself, caught in a circle of injustice Caitlyn could, by some divine manifestation, help her end immediately.
Caitlyn met the sisters again after the slight mansion incident through the assignment of a pro bono case.
Nothing's ever been the same after that point. (Caitlyn sometimes wonders if the night says the same about the stars.)
She fought the steady wall that was Vi’s difficulty to trust in strangers, especially when said stranger happened to wear thin leather belts with silver buckles and branded suits. Getting Vi out of the cell she’d been thrown in again for being wrongly accused of breaking her probation was easy, after that point, and Caitlyn thought that was it – she'd leave back to her life like she always does, shake Vi's scarred hand and squeeze it so tight she'd go with its ghost sticking to her palm, and that would be it .
But taking a piece of Vi with her didn’t feel enough.
After the case was over, after the sisters reunited and Caitlyn came to dinner with an expensive bottle of wine the family downed in shots, after the alcohol got to her head (and after she couldn’t help noticing them – the crooked smile worth pinching with her fingers, the muscles rippling with every innocent movement, the short locks of red hair messed for obvious style purposes, the freedom, the freedom, oh the freedom to love ), she found herself incapable of leaving.
( Physically incapable, she means. The wine was too much, and their quick trip to The Last Drop, a family-inherited bar ran by Mylo, opened a whole new world of flavors to her tongue that led her to Vi’s couch-slash-bed one fateful, innocent night after which Vi never truly left the spot she’d managed to carve into Caitlyn’s heart.)
And the rest – the rest is history.
( The rest is when it gets juicy, but Caitlyn’s not aware of that just yet, somehow .)
-
( “Cait, this is – it’s too much, I can’t accept-”
“You’re framing this like I’m sacrificing something.”
Vi shakes her head, gaze locked on her own feet pacing on the floor. The carpet dips with every step, so thick on Caitlyn’s bedroom floor that it tickles her toes even while sitting down at the edge of her bed.
“I told you when you got me the gloves, this is – this is nice and all, I loved them, really, but I’m not your friend just so you can buy me all this fancy stuff and-”
“I know,” Caitlyn interrupts, voice cracking. She sighs, and trades tense, crackling air for a clearer head. “I’m not – I am not doing this because you’re my friend, Vi.”
Vi stops her pacing, looks at Caitlyn’s avoidant eyes, hands bracketing her hips. “You’re not doing this because I’m your friend,” she repeats, searching for a layer her ears have missed, for a reason Caitlyn herself could not admit to. “You got me nice gloves so I could start training again, you got Powder all these smart books she asked for, you got Claggor his doctor’s appointment he’d been waiting for months, and now,” Vi steps back, like she’ll see through Caitlyn better that way, “and now, you're asking me if I want to move in with you, and you’re just doing it ‘cause you feel like it.”
Yes.
(In parts.)
“I'm doing this because you deserve it. Because you make my life better, Vi. Having you around, it’s made me so much happier. And I know you’ve been struggling to find a new place to move after the eviction, which was highly illegal, by the way, and if you’d just let me, I’d drag those landlords to court and take it back for you. But you've turned that down already, and I don’t need all this empty space, so why not fill it with… someone I feel for dearly.”
Vi scoffs, stares for a long, determining moment, until her eyes suddenly brighten with a flashing pop. Caitlyn isn’t sure to recognize whatever idea has just fallen upon her head, but Vi seems confident it’ll go her way.
“Oh.” Her shoulders relax, and a blush spreads all over her face. “I see.”
Caitlyn frowns, rewinds the conversation to spot what she might have accidentally revealed. “What do you see?”
“You know, you could have just asked me for it, ‘cause I really wouldn’t have turned you down, gifts or no gift-”
“Vi, what are you-”
“Okay.” Caitlyn isn’t sure what she’s agreeing to anymore, only that she’s lost track of this conversation at one point. She turns her face into a neutral mask, and hopes that Vi hasn’t caught her confusion. “I’ll move in with you, I’ll take the offer.” Vi chuckles, and her eyes widen in disbelief that she seems to quickly accept as true. “I’m down for it, Cupcake. Really, really down for it, if that's what you want.”
And it is – what Caitlyn wants. In ways Vi cannot fully grasp, perhaps. In ways a woman more than ten years older than her should not want, surely, but she knows for a fact that Vi would not turn down an older woman if she had a knife to the neck.
“Shake on it?”
The hand shoved in her face is not thick but long, not hurt but scarred and healed. Caitlyn takes it softly, and rubs her thumb over its back.
“So, when does this – this thing start? When do you want me?”
It's happening. They're really doing this, and Vi accepted without putting up the ferocious fight Caitlyn expected they'd get through. It felt almost too easy, but she doesn’t dwell on that thought and sighs in relief. They’re moving in together.
Caitlyn relaxes her shoulders. “I'll let you know, but preferably quite rapidly.”
Vi's gaze turns hungry, confident, like she’s glanced down at her poker hand and found a royal flush spread before her eyes.
“Noted.” )
-
Caitlyn doesn’t mean to burst through the door like she’s thrown the entire length of her body against it.
She doesn’t even mean to slam it shut behind herself, shoulder blades firmly pressing it closed, head thrown against the wood as her lungs spit out her last mistake of the day. But she’s tired – physically and mentally – and she’s also particularly late with the food she promised her friend. She’s had to deal with not one, not two, but three of her clients actively trying to ruin their own cases, a fellow associate leaving her all of his pro bono work to defend high-profile clients instead, and the flowers in her office wilting before she remembered to change the water.
That was too much for a day, even for her.
“Everything alright in here?”
It’s a miracle, then, or a blessing (is there a true difference between the two, and is it not both in that case?) that the amused voice of her best friend slash roommate slash handsome butch eye candy gets to lift that weight from her shoulders so easily.
Vi fills the door gap, leaning against the frame with bare forearms crossed lazily across her chest. “You sound like you ran a marathon, and I don’t think I should be the one telling you it’s not a good idea in things this high.”
Caitlyn straightens her shoulders immediately. “With the day I've just had, you can bet on two. I thought it would never end,” she complains and takes her wrist back when Vi tries to reach for her laptop case. “No talking about it, if you don't mind – not tonight. There's – there's food somewhere in there for you-”
“For us , you mean,” Vi corrects, taking the paper bag, crushed by her palm and slightly wet with sweat. “You went all the way to Jericho?” Vi perks up, the smell of greasy cheese hitting her nose before she's even opened the bag.
Caitlyn bends to unzip her high boots, avoiding the wide gray eyes tugging a smile on her lips. “It's nothing.”
“It's better than anything I could make with what's in the fridge. Way better. And I haven't been to Jericho in so long now that I'm a certified Piltie.”
Caitlyn scoffs. “A certified Piltie?”
“Yeah, I've even got an electric toothbrush and everything.”
Caitlyn frowns, slipping out of her shoes on unsteady feet, a warm palm grasping her elbow to prevent her from falling. “I'm not sure that's a determining factor-”
“Uh, pretty sure it is, Cupcake. You need an electric toothbrush, an army of gardeners, someone to do your groceries for ya, and these slippers you got me last Christmas, and – boom, certified Piltover citizen, might as well be born here.”
Vi wiggles a foot, flaunting the fluffy rabbit things Caitlyn had to wrap in shiny paper just last year (do not ask her to repeat that miracle). Terrible things that belong nowhere near her own feet, but it was the only item on Vi's list, and she has to admit there's a certain thing to them. A certain Vi-shaped joy she can't quite ignore.
“Thank you, Cait,” Vi states, almost solemn, once Caitlyn has discarded all outside-world clothing and appropriately pushed her laptop case away. “I love it, but you didn’t have to.”
It took some time, but Caitlyn understood one day, how happy the little things of life get Vi.
Barely warm food from her favorite restaurant – if it can be referred to in such a way. Some stupid bunny slippers to dance in on foggy Sunday mornings to the oftentimes dramatic rhythm of Caitlyn's favorite pop songs. Lavender-scented soap for her to take baths for so long that the water has turned to ice by the time she gets out. A metal water bottle to carry around the gym and store her disgusting red and pink and blue power drinks. Books, whatever kind, whatever genre, to feed her pre-nighttime routine and lull her to sleep.
“I didn't go to Jericho because I had to. I went there because I wanted to, Vi.”
Sparks ignite in softened gray. Her eyes look almost blue when they get like this: shiny and full, so wide you'd think they're trying to swallow all of the stars and moons, all the world has ever created and rejected.
Caitlyn likes those eyes.
(Caitlyn likes those eyes so much she's forced to look away.)
“Anything you'd like me to do tonight to thank you?”
“Sitting down to eat will be enough.”
Vi doesn't budge, dipping her head down to look at her over the messy strand of hair shadowing her eyes. The arm cupping her hip tightens, hard muscles rippling with the motion, and Vi steps forward looking like she does before a fight. “Well, now that you're talking about eating, I've been waiting for you tonight. Thought we could try something out, now that I've got some more free time with the gym running on its own and Claggor being fully booked. I'm all up for it, whenever you are, Cupcake.”
“I'm here now, aren't I?” Caitlyn smiles, pleased that Vi is always so eager to spend time with her. “Dinner, then,” she declares, grabbing the paper bag while walking past Vi's stunned, vibrating presence. “I'll set the table, you can choose what we're watching – but no racing, please, I'd prefer we watch the circuit tomorrow, I'll get home earlier and-”
It shouldn't have been this easy – building a home, making a pair, belonging somewhere.
It shouldn't be this easy – loving, trusting, ripping the world apart if only to get another of these moments, talking to Vi, listening to her rants and her emotions all wrapped in soft warmth, giggling at her jokes and staring blankly at most ones.
It shouldn't be.
(But it is. Fuck , it is.)
“So, tough day, uh,” Vi notes, back to normal now that they’ve settled at the table and food has been shoved in her face, digging through the greasy pizza slice that's more cheese than bread and stuffing her mouth half-full. “Did your client piss himself at the stand again?”
Caitlyn chuckles. “No, not this time, but that's certainly more regular than you think on the other side of the courtroom.”
“Come on, don't tell you're like, so scary they'd rather let it leak than answer your questions. If they knew you're scared of spiders and drool when you sleep-”
“You're more scared of spiders than I ever was,” Caitlyn counters, cutting a piece of pizza with cutlery. “You forced me to capture and free the one in your bedroom no more than a week ago, and you woke me up in the middle of the night screaming just yesterday for a shadow-”
“It looked real fucking close to a spider,” Vi mumbles.
It didn't. The shadow looked much closer to leaves dancing in the wind – what it actually was – than a spider, or anything similar to the Vi-thirsty monster she described to her, jumping in front of her bed with alarmed eyes and a panting chest, at no more than four a.m. no less. Caitlyn's probably too good of a friend for not telling Vi just that, but she so rarely allows herself to bother others with her problems, whether minor or as bad, apparently, as a spider on the wall, that she wouldn't exactly mind if it happened again.
“And I'll have you know I can look perfectly intimidating when I want to.”
Vi scoffs, and Caitlyn thinks she must be addicted to the color red for it to be not only on top of her hair but all the way down to her cheeks. “Right. Somehow not gonna doubt you on that one.”
“Why, do I scare you?” Caitlyn asks, fork frozen halfway to her mouth, not a hint of teasing on her tongue.
Her eyebrows dig low in her forehead while Vi only flushes a deeper shade of red. The whole intimidating aura thing she has going on is purposeful, sure, and a little bit Cassandra Kiramman inherited, but it is never her intention to give off closed-off, reserved, and overconfident heiress to her friends. Call it a professional tic, but she never intended for Vi to perceive her that way.
“No, no – I wouldn't call it scaring me,” Vi clears up, stuffing her mouth full with another slice – the whole of it, tamed in some intimidating form of roll that bulges both sides of her cheeks. Caitlyn waits to eat her own, Vi avoiding her gaze – too intense, perhaps, and too cold, surely, as she's been called many times in the past – to prepare her next one. “It's more that you're a bit… that you're hot. I mean – not hot in that way, although you definitely are really fucking gorgeous,” she clarifies, glancing at the ceiling like calling on deities, and Caitlyn smiles, slowly, until it turns to a proud (and unbecoming) grin, “but you're just – you're full of heat, I meant. You're really – really passionate about stuff, and it's admirable, and it's hot, too, I guess.”
( And it's hot, too, I guess .)
(Oh, modern love, how far you've reached into Caitlyn's heart.)
“That is… an acceptable description, I suppose.”
“Only acceptable?” Vi returns her grin.
“And how's the gym going?” Caitlyn switches to another topic when the weight of that one has her smirk faltering. “Even Mother has heard of it in passing. She congratulated me on the investment, which was her own way of saying you're exercising a particularly satisfactory job running it.”
“Glad she thinks your family's getting their money's worth, though I don't remember you asking me for anything in return-”
Caitlyn brushes her off with a flow of her hand. “We can discuss it later.”
“It just doesn't seem like your investment's really one, is all.”
Accusation rings somewhere in there, blended in with teasing Caitlyn purposefully ignores for an eyebrow to quirk on her forehead.
“I don't see what you mean.”
“Come on, Cait. You call everything you get me investments. Like, the motorcycle you got me so I could get to work faster, fucking brand new at that. And then, you said the same thing about the stupid phone you got me – I love it, don't get me wrong, but it's way too fancy, and there's no buttons anywhere, so I'm still really confused about using it. Fuck, you'd call Jericho an investment if you could to avoid saying what you've really been doing all along. And you'd even say that about the room you're renting me in here, for a lot less than what it should cost me to live in a mansion, unless you thought I wouldn't notice that.”
That last thing was definitely not an investment. Offering Vi to move in was closer to self-indulgence she can't very well acknowledge, for it would imply acknowledging all the little things she would like to indulge in that are forbidden from further exploration. (No, Caitlyn, you're not supposed to watch Vi's tattoos shift enticingly as she crushes a soda can with her palm, and no, Caitlyn, you can't very well wonder how that same hand would feel, around your throat, pushing you down on her lap either. It's not fair, but you can't.)
“If you don't wish to live there anymore, I could help you look for a place. Father says I should diversify my portfolio, invest some more in real estate-”
Vi barely holds back the soda in her mouth when she bursts into laughter, wiping droplets off with the back of her hand and shaking her head in near exasperation.
“You'd buy a place so I could live somewhere else, without you?”
Caitlyn squints her eyes. Is that not the whole point of giving Vi a choice? (Of trusting her to stay?) “If you feel the need to-”
“I'm good where I am, Cait. Could be better, yeah, if you let yourself have needs too, but,” Vi leans forward, closer, closer – never close enough, is it? never fast enough, is she? – and hesitates before covering the whole of Caitlyn's hand on the table. “I'm doing quite fine here. And I hope you are, too. And I hope I can help you get there, if not.”
Caitlyn turns her hand to squeeze Vi's fingers and stands. “I'll clean up the table if you want to go to bed.”
“No, I'll do it,” Vi says after a beat, cleaning her mouth with a napkin before standing. “You go rest, Cupcake.”
Caitlyn is not going to rest.
Clearly, resting would imply not only getting personally acquainted with those hands but also pretending she didn't just get called out by Vi over the money she's essentially been emptying out of her accounts all for her sake.
“Unless you want me to join ya.”
Caitlyn freezes. Her eyes can read through a thousand lies, pick on vulnerabilities to exploit, set a narrative she herself knows to be flawed, delivered with confident perfection. But what she reads in Vi now is impossible, and so she must be wrong.
“You've had a long day, I've kept you up long enough,” she finds an excuse to free her night of its most tempting dreams and seizes it immediately. And part of it is fair: Vi is tired, and she has to wake up even earlier than Caitlyn does tomorrow to train her most demanding client. They can't lose themselves to a movie night with the sky already dark. “Good night, Violet.”
Vi shrugs. She doesn't turn away just yet.
“‘Night, Cait.”
-
(Vi couldn't tell how this whole thing started if she tried.
On most days, she cannot even tell why a woman like Caitlyn – gorgeous in ways only the sun understands as it admires the moon from afar, soft-hearted to the point of thinking of herself too little, so unique none dare attempt to copy her aura, so unbelievably real that Vi has developed the habit of squeezing their hugs to the point of pain if only to feel her heart shake – would ever care to look at her.
But Caitlyn didn't simply look – she picked her. ( And she does it, again and again, and again, and- )
All she knows is that she used to hate the unpredictable. A surprise police visit down by the docks got her shoved in a cell for five endless years. Vander's weakening body and strained lungs were revealed deadly after a random medical visit Powder convinced him to obtain. A loose screw where there should have been none gave her a broken ankle on the day her mother planned to move out their little family, and the city kept them in its claws, and the claws were coated in poison.
But Caitlyn was unpredictable.
A force of nature that barreled into her life with her tall legs and her raised chin, speaking of injustice and corrupted systems and wiggling her hands hard as she walked in circles on high boots drafting plan A, B, C, (“ Don't we have enough plans?” “There exists no such thing as enough plans, Vi.” ) D, and E to save her from another stay in prison she was ready to endure.
Vi remembers thinking she'd never met someone so willing to fight for her, that she never had to take the gloves off and trust her life in another's weapon before. For Caitlyn, that weapon was words, aligned in deadly sentences, delivered in sharp monologues. All Vi had to do was stare, mouth gaping open, knee bouncing on the bench – and perhaps, fall a little in love.
And now – now this .
She's tried to put words over it that Caitlyn won't use, over time. Powder made the choice for her, in the end.)
-
(“You’re saying Caitlyn wants to be your sugar mommy? Well, your sugar mummy, I guess.” Powder says in a bad rendition of Caitlyn's accent. She crosses her arms and frowns. Thinks, too, it seems, because Vi has to wait for her verdict to drop, nervously rolling a loose ring on her middle finger. “And you said yes to that? You're ready to do stuff for her at her beck and call, just so you can what? Live in a nice place, far away from me?”
The ring stops turning. “It's not like that. I don't think that's what Caitlyn wants, she's got a ton of people working for her already to care for that stuff.”
“I wasn't talking about you doing her laundry, sis.” Powder rolls her eyes, and turns her body away from her sister. It was always her favored way to let Vi knows she's fucked up. “I know what she wants from you, don't make me say it out loud. But you, why are you doing this to us?”
Why is she doing this? Vi had not taken the question under that angle. All she could think about when Caitlyn made it clear that she wouldn't mind if their relationship went a step further was what good reason is there not to do it?
“I guess it doesn't really feel like I have to do anything I didn't already want…”
“So you fancy her,” Powder accuses, turning back with dizzying speed and shoving a finger to her nose. “I knew it, I knew you were too much of a whiny puppy around her not to have a stupid crush.”
Vi gently grabs her wrist, lowers it to her lap. There's little point in denying it.
“I thought you liked her too.”
“She's alright.”
“And, you know, if Caitlyn’s my – my sugar mommy or whatever, it means you'll probably get spoiled too.”
Wide blue eyes perk up at that, running from left to right in imagination so specific to her sister that Vi has ceased trying to understand the inner workings of her brain long ago.
Powder stands, rigid like a soldier, and offers Vi her hand in similar fashion.
“It's a deal, then. Caitlyn will be your sugar mommy, and you'll get me all the gum I ask for in exchange.”
“Uh, I'm not sure you're like, part of the thing-”
Powder shoves her hand forward, insisting. “Take it or leave it, sis.” )
-
( Cold feet rub together, seeking warmth the sheets cannot offer.
Under the TV glow, the dark blue silk reflects whatever color pops on screen, now a blend of red and white and green so typical of the season. It highlights Caitlyn's struggle under the covers, tenting the sheets when she moves one way, then another, nesting like a bird.
Vi nibbles her bottom lip. Another, sharper yank of the sheets, and her body shifts for her legs to fill the slot in between Caitlyn’s, nudging the short robe worn to cover her arms (and no doubt set a very specific mood Vi immediately fell into) to rub her warm feet against cold ones.
Caitlyn’s chest expands, and Vi feels it against her own.
“Thank you, Violet.”
Her voice is deep. Deeper than it is when she wakes up tired, deeper than it is when she rehearses her defense speeches – the kind of deep Vi has yet to explore. That has to be a signal. (Vi’s been waiting and waiting and waiting for a signal.)
“You're welcome, Cupcake. Here for you, whatever you need me for.”
Vi feels her hand twitch where it rests over the sheets on its own. She squeezes the covers, feels the wet indents her fingers leave behind, slowly slips it under, bypassing newfound warmth to take a bold risk – and cups Caitlyn's still hip with the whole of her palm, caressing the soft fabric of her robe with her thumb. Her arm is as tight as it looks when she flexes at the gym, tense. There would be very little sense in Caitlyn rejecting her tonight, she knows, but for how long as their arrangement has supposedly gone for, they've yet to breach that barrier together.
“Whatever I need…”
Vi's breath hitches, racing heart freezing to a pause in her chest. It kickstarts again when Caitlyn pushes back against her, not only accepting her hand but seeking more contact.
“Yes, yeah. Whatever you – whatever you want from me, Cait.”
Long fingers softened by decades of care tickle the back of her hand and seize it, dragging Vi down across her hip, past the opening of her robe to – fuck, Caitlyn’s pressing Vi's hand low on her stomach, straight against a nightgown so thin she thinks she can feel her flesh already, shifting slightly with her deepened breathing.
Heat burns her eyes, forcing them shut for a short moment Vi uses to collect herself. She's thought about this a million times across a thousand lifetimes, wondered if Caitlyn would one day direct her to her knees and let her feast between her legs in gratitude, wondered if she should call her a specific name, keep her favorite strap around at all times for potential use (gave up after two weeks of wearing it under her clothes and not getting to make use of it), but now – now is the moment Vi finally embraces this whole sugar baby lifestyle she never asked for in the first place.
It was always easy before, sleeping with pretty women, pleasuring them until her own hunger was sated. It shouldn't be any different with Caitlyn. it can't be any different with Caitlyn, and perhaps that explains why her hand shakes as she bunches the fabric of her nightgown – cold, silk and fucking lace everywhere – in her fist, dragging it higher and higher on the thighs closed around her knee.
Caitlyn sighs, and Vi wonders if this is what desire sounds like in her chest, what it'll feel like tickling her cheek and her lips. She gulps, licks her lips, and places a short, murmuring kiss to her shoulder blade – that promptly disappears from under her lips when Caitlyn turns in her hold, throws an arm around Vi's waist, a knee over her legs, nudges her head in the crook of her neck, and furrows her eyebrows the way she does when she's just fallen asleep .)
(It wasn't that night, and it wasn't the next one, nor the one that followed, and it never came up.
Caitlyn asked Vi to be her sugar baby, took her shopping the next day so she could attend an interview in a real (and freaking expensive) suit, helped her move in her mansion and gave her a full wing she barely uses, got Powder a scholarship by making use of her connections, and never once called for her end of the bargain to be seen through.
Vi would find it odd, if that wasn't the most Caitlyn Kiramman thing she's ever done.)
-
The courtroom empties out before the hammer has stopped ringing out.
Caitlyn wraps up her notes, her client's breath of relief lifting the edge of the papers. He was an easy case, a minor drug trafficking member the prosecutor tried to make an example out of, undoubtedly in reaction to their grave incapacity at catching anyone truly responsible for the rise of shimmer use in Piltover. No authority minded the drug, so long as its spread remained confined to Zaun. Now that the drug has spread to the most protected corners of the elite, from annual charity galas to university restrooms, the condemnations have gotten out of hand, and the traffic itself has not faltered.
“I believe I do not need to warn you to stay away from all activities related to drugs, and that includes consuming them, for the next year, do I?” she states, closing her files and standing up to tower over him just like she did sitting down. A kid is all he is, in age and height. “I hope to never see you again, Zack.”
“Swear you won't ever hear about me ever again, Ms. Kiramman,” he ushers out, following her out by sticking to her closer than her shadow ever has. “Not to seem weak or anything, but that lady scares the guts out of me.”
Caitlyn is not particularly fond of the prosecutor they were assigned, but Evelynn has the added side effect of convincing anyone, herself included, to stay away from delinquency. Case in point with how quick he is to run away once they're out of the doors.
She sighs, a fond smile on her lips for another case wrapped and another life preserved from the worst of their justice system, and prepares to do the same when her eyes pick up a flash of red quite unusual to spot in the courthouse.
Next to someone else.
Someone Caitlyn recognizes immediately – curly red hair, low green eyes, suits tailored to utmost perfection and rivaling even Kiramman commissions, blouse always unbuttoned just enough for a lesbian, any lesbian truly, to get lost in the perfume she sprays on her neck, and a dangerous record of victorious cases Caitlyn is constantly battling – and beating , she'll have you know – carried in the handbag placed at her side.
Her legs take her there in five distinct record-breaking strides.
“-think it's just down the street, some real fancy building with keys on the front, and – oh, here she is-”
“Ms. Fortune.”
Caitlyn holds her hands out to crush her fingers – to shake her hand with a grip just tight enough to be polite, returned promptly by manicured nails and grinning red lips.
“The Kiramman daughter, in the flesh.”
“We aren't strangers, Sarah, you can call me Ms. Kiramman.”
Vi chuckles, taking for a joke her very serious offer. Sarah joins along but doesn't make a move to stand, her crossed legs angled toward Vi's spread thighs, knee touching, grazing, daring -
“And what an honor that is for me.” The sunglasses perched on her head, clearly useless for the season, and nothing like the thick frames Caitlyn keeps at the bottom of her bag that Vi likes so much, get lowered to her nose. “I was just telling Violet here-”
“You can call me Vi, really-”
“-that people like her are quite rare to catch around here.”
“People like her,” Caitlyn repeats, loading an imaginary weapon in her mind.
“Doesn't she look like she came straight out of an action movie?” Sarah praises, voice low – too low. “You know, the kind where the main character climbs buildings with their own two feet, comes out of every fight barely scraped by bullets… gets their own slow-mo scene with bulging muscles pressing against a wet shirt. That's exactly what she is, frame for frame, is it not?”
Vi beams at her like that's the one compliment she's waited to receive her whole life. (Given Caitlyn’s recent discovery of her Instagram butch lesbian thirst traps, filmed on the motorcycle Caitlyn gifted her nonetheless, it probably is the best compliment she could receive from a gorgeous woman.)
“That's kinda true, yeah,” Vi agrees with sparkling eyes. “I used to parkour with my sister back in Zaun, actually, it was like-”
Of course it's true. It doesn't mean that any woman – and especially not one Caitlyn herself has considered asking for a drink before she discovered the wonders of butches (see Vi here for evidence) – should be delivering it.
“Vi's quite good with her body, yes,” Caitlyn says – and how would you know that exactly? “You should see her in action.”
Vi perks up, focusing the whole of her attention on Caitlyn's tense smile and hooded eyes, mouth open and stunned. “Uh, yeah, yeah, you should see me in action,” she tells Caitlyn back, straightening her shoulders and wagging her imaginary tail.
“Well,” Sarah taps Vi's thigh, high on her leg, and uses it to propel herself on tall heels that still give Caitlyn a good head over hers. The level that Vi reaches, when she walks around the mansion on socked feet, headphones blasting rock music in her ears, searching for doors to oil and windows to fix. Just the right height, perhaps. “I hope you're well taken care of, Vi. Someone like you surely deserves to be appreciated properly.”
Caitlyn pinches her lips together. It looks like Sarah, too, has discovered the wonders of butches in her absence.
Vi scratches the back of her head, still looking at Caitlyn, freckles highlighted on her cheeks. “Yeah, I mean – I am, definitely.”
“If not,” Sarah continues, completely ignoring Caitlyn, which must be quite the task, with how hard she tries for her death glare to be noticed. “I've had previous arrangements that went rather well in that regard, and I wouldn't mind starting a new one… right, sugar?”
“What are you implying here?” Caitlyn speaks, the lawyer tone souring her words. She can't very well have understood what Sarah meant by that? What does she think Vi would do for her in exchange for… for… favors?
Sarah scoffs. “Don't be daft, Caitlyn. I know you're not that innocent, much as everyone thinks you're prissy and stuck-up. Anyway, I'm sure Vi understood-”
“I would sure hope you're not offering Vi here to service you sexually in exchange for money, lest I have to remind you prostitution is completely illegal-”
“Wait, Cupcake, no one said anything about that ,” Vi interrupts, jumping on her two feet. “D'you think that's what I am?”
Of course Caitlyn doesn't think Vi is a sex worker. Not that it would be a problem if she were – the problem is who's offering her to be one. The problem is that Vi truly shouldn't have to work another day in her life, not to do something she's not passionate about. Caitlyn is here to take care of that.
“Clearly not .”
“I think Vi knows what I was offering her-”
“Vi does not require your money, Sarah,” Caitlyn cuts her off, grabbing Vi's shoulder and pulling her closer. “If she needs anything, she'll ask me for it, won't you, Violet?”
Vi's mouth gapes for a brief second. “Uh – yeah, I can just ask you, I guess. It's – our arrangement.”
Sarah nods, glances between the two of them, and smiles. “Huh, I see. You've outplayed me, then. See you around, Kiramman. Vi, glad to have met you.”
Caitlyn watches her walk away and turns to Vi once she's far enough.
“Why would you mention an arrangement, you're my friend, Vi. Is that – that is what you mean, right?”
“Sure, right, we're friends, I know that,” she says, holding her hands up in innocence that does not match the smirk across her face.
“Well, don't ever mention an arrangement again, who knows what Sarah's going to think now.”
“Uh, sure, yeah, I won't call it that.”
She stills before directing them to the exit. Caitlyn doesn’t understand the joke. She doesn’t like when she doesn’t understand the joke.
“And don't think it either.”
“Right, don't think it… either.”
Caitlyn rolls her eyes, and Vi bends her head like it'll clear the smirk dancing on her lips. “You’re quite insufferable sometimes, do you know that?”
Never enough that it isn’t the most endearing Caitlyn has ever found anyone to be. Never enough that she doesn’t stick around, hoping for more to see.
“Got the feeling that’s why you stick around me. Among other stuff, I guess.”
Other stuff .
(Beautiful gray eyes pearling blue before the sea. A crooked smile watching her assemble tiny colorful bricks together. Aviator sunglasses resting on red hair burnt pink by the sun. A heart so big Caitlyn hears it all the time – pumping blood under her ear, when a movie night turns into dreamless sleep; playing a melody that soothes her when nothing goes as it should and the world spins a little too fast, slow how Caitlyn likes it, slow to the point of lulling her anxieties to sleep.)
“Other stuff, yes,” Caitlyn says, a simple smile on her lips – a piece of her heart, red, fresh, and throbbing.
Vi glances at where Sarah left, nods at the entrance. “So, are we getting that lunch I was supposed to surprise you with? That's kinda why I came to see you here, and you know… you know places like here ain’t really my thing.”
Caitlyn softens, shedding her irritation off. She reaches for Vi’s shoulder, rubs it in her hand, resists the urge to kiss the spot where her leather jacket is pulled back and lets the slim fabric of a large unbranded shirt show.
“We'll pass by my office first, I need to drop these files. I’ll lead us there, follow me.”
-
Caitlyn Kiramman did not follow in her mother's footsteps.
Rather, she stepped out of her shadow, pushed through when her parents gave her the silent treatment at dinner, threatened her inheritance, and paid her university fees with great reluctance, until it all paid off, and they came to witness her first defense speech like two excited fans sitting on the first row reserved to the public in the courtroom. (Tobia Kiramman cheered – cheered – when Caitlyn's party was declared innocent, and his wife clapped her hands softly, in that posh air Caitlyn has tried to unlearn from her own behavior, ignoring the glare she shot her parents when the judge commented on their rare excitement to find in a place of law. )
“Here, you can sit while I finish this,” Caitlyn tells Vi, sitting down to organize the last of her notes in a now-wrapped case. Vi does the opposite of following her orders.
Trinkets are picked up from the wall-length bookshelves and tinkered with until a hissing noise gets them thrown back to their spot. Books are caressed, checking for dust, then for interest. The plant her assistant cares for herself is checked for water needs and angled just closer to where the sun pierces through, adopted by another parent. Vi moves through her office like she belongs here, like the perfume Caitlyn sprays on her neck here every morning is as familiar to her nostrils as the lavender laundry product she uses for her pillowcases and sheets.
And Caitlyn watches her, glancing from her report in unwanted distraction.
(And Caitlyn lets her, if only for this place to feel a little bit more like home.)
“Your clients ever come in here?”
“Most of them do,” Caitlyn answers absent-mindedly, turning to the file's last page, checking for the next steps to validate her client's innocence. “Do you not like it?”
“Uh, more your style than mine, but that's fair.”
Vi stares at the diplomas on the wall, framing a familiar Kiramman key, the family crest proudly hung for all to see – and respect. A present from her mother she could not afford to turn down, oftentimes reminding her that the weight of her duties to the Kiramman House will only perish when she does. Everything Vi has slowly been unraveling, ever since they came to know one another. Everything Vi has pushed away, quite clumsily, to make space for herself in Caitlyn's life.
“Guess the fancy cave vibe comes with the lawyer title or something.”
Caitlyn smiles. “Or something.”
Vi continues her explorations. Caitlyn wills herself to accelerate, her wrist straining. Footsteps lull her body back to its natural state – serene, peaceful, loose – and she realizes she’s forgotten how it felt, to not have this, to not hear this, not to feel this whole and complete. (When she shares a room with Vi, Caitlyn feels she's allowed to miss a stair and stumble through the air, sing in a slightly gritty voice, smile until her tooth gap shows, wear socks of different colors and an old university sweatshirt with a tiny hole on one sleeve – make mistakes, ruin perfection, smudge expectations.)
(When she shares a room with Vi, Caitlyn breathes and dances and laughs.)
( Caitlyn loves, and loves, and loves. )
The floor cracks behind her, and Caitlyn tries to turn around and follow her progression, when a sharp, “Oh,” pierces through her lips.
Something coiled around her shoulder.
A hand, Caitlyn rapidly guesses – Vi's very own hand, cupping the tense muscle straining from long hours spent seated down.
And it feels – good, it feels good, it feels exceptional .
“Just me there, Cupcake.”
“You’ll do anything but sit, won’t you?” Caitlyn breathes out, heart pumping blood fast from her small lapse in attention. “I only have to wrap this up, then store this file correctly, and…”
The hand doesn’t leave.
It moves. Slowly, Vi sinks her thumb in Caitlyn’s shoulder, brings her other hand up to mirror the first. Two palms cup the ironed fabric of her blouse, straining it, tugging it from where it rests trapped by the waistband of her skirt. Caressing her, almost… almost…
“What are you doing?” Caitlyn asks, lips parted for air she struggles to breathe in..
“What do you think I’m doing, uh?” Vi chuckles, sinking her fingers in the front of Caitlyn’s shoulders. Her body answers on its own, slipping out of her control: her heart quickens to a worrying rhythm, her back tenses like small fires are being lit all over her flesh, and red lights flash in her mind – a warning, one Caitlyn has set up specifically for Vi. “Fulfilling my end of the bargain.”
Bargain .
“What bargain?”
Vi laughs. “And you’re being serious about it, too.” Whatever joke she’s apparently made is lost on Caitlyn, but Vi appreciates it too much for her not to comment on the missed humor. The generic fountain pen she was just holding onto falls, clicking on her desk, rolling until a tall glass of water – water, water, yes, she needs water – stops its course. Caitlyn doesn’t reach for it. She can’t, not anymore, not now that Vi’s hands have shifted to her neck, cupping muscles tense from carrying the weight of duties that she gently, slowly strips from Caitlyn’s back. “That’s one thing I love about you, Cait. You can be really funny when you try.”
No one’s ever said they thought Caitlyn was funny.
( “Do you know you’re actually quite fun?”
Caitlyn sits on the bed, her robe closed tight around her waist, hands still wet from her bathroom trip. Her wife offered to join her, and her denial wasn’t taken so well, but that is worth a warm, mind-emptying shower.
“Am I meant to take this as a compliment?”
Ashe tugs the sheets in an invitation that Caitlyn does not plan to accept. She starts particularly early the next day, the result of taking on more cases than she could effortlessly handle in an agreement with her peers to overlook her occasional offenses, often directed at wealthy clients that absolutely deserved it. That, and she would be a fool not to make use of the many rooms that came with the mansion, acquired on her mother’s (unrelenting) advice.
“You’re also a good fuck, but I didn’t think you needed any praise in that department. Are you sure you don’t want me to-”
“I’ll sleep in a room next door.” Caitlyn pushes herself off the bed again, tries to close the robe tighter, and finds it already choking her waist. Ashe looks anyway, undresses her again with her eyes, and that would please Caitlyn, did she not ignite this exact same reaction from so many before. “I won't be there for dinner tomorrow, don't wait up for me.” )
( No one’s ever said it and meant it .)
“I’m glad-” Caitlyn’s breathing stutters to a stop. Fingers loop around her neck, taking over, fully holding the weight now, and she feels her head lean back, back and back, until the hard plane of Vi’s stomach, solid even under the thick layer of her favorite shirt, hits the back of her head and keeps her up better than the wood of her chair. “I’m glad you think so,” she says with a dreamy smile – no, not dreamy, a normal smile, the kind she always does around Vi.
Caitlyn couldn't very well connect two brain cells to explain how she ended up receiving a shoulder massage from her best friend at lunch time if she tried. She can't even find the mental will not to sigh in bliss when Vi, with rough fingers used to carrying weight and punching people and bags, shift to caresse to her scalp and scratch her brain just right.
“Got it.”
Caitlyn blinks, fails to keep her eyes opened. “Got what?”
“Your spot,” Vi clarifies, like she's not some magician conducting fire through her veins, like she isn't pulling from Caitlyn's throat noises she suppresses even between the sheets. Cologne drifts to her nose, strong, although much less than when Vi first discovered its wonders and bathed herself in the scent every morning. To Caitlyn, it feels closer to water, and she wouldn't mind licking it directly from her neck to collect it on her tongue. “And – another, right there,” she brags, curling her fingers right in the middle of Caitlyn's shoulder blade until-
“Oh, didn't know you had that in you.”
A moan.
Certainly not a moan, no, she can't have allowed that to happen. But her throat feels rough and wet and hot, like it's been used in ways it hasn't in a long time, and Vi is pressing that pressure point like it'll get her to sing again, and Caitlyn knows – she knows she gets caught trapping the next one in her mouth.
This cannot go on.
(But it could, if she let it, if she had this for herself, just this one time.)
(And it can't, because Vi has been used by so many she'd let the world siphon out her soul for others, and Caitlyn cannot be another burden, another weight – another. )
“Vi.” Caitlyn clears her throat and leans forward, reaching for the hand on her shoulder, covering it gently, pressing it down still so it follows her body. “You're certainly hungry, it's getting… late
We should get lunch.”
Vi chuckles. “Definitely hungry, yeah. I don't think we need to leave for me to eat though.”
Caitlyn turns around, glaring at her.
“Not funny.”
It's all she's going to think about whenever she's in here now. Vi, using the same hands still caressing her blouse for much more sinful purposes – a desk, her stomach pressed, no, shoved against it, her legs pushed apart by an expert foot nudging her thighs opened, and knuckles flexing in the heat of her cunt, getting her acquainted with their size, their scars, their warmth.
“You never think I'm funny, I don't even know how this friendship thing's gotten that far,” Vi jokes, patting her shoulder one last time before stepping away. “I don't get why you keep me around most of the time ‘till I see myself in a mirror.”
Caitlyn doesn't keep Vi around for her good looks, chiseled back, rippling muscles and soft face. (She keeps her around so that no else gets to do the same.)
“I only put up with you because you know what to do with your hands when needed,” she corrects, closing her file and walking around Vi – away, please take her away – to place it in its designated corner, a fingertip running through the letters of her organization system. “I thought you knew that, by now.”
There, J and one empty spot waiting for Zack's file. Caitlyn nudges it between two thicker folders, and turns to find Vi quiet and grinning.
Oh.
“Not like that, you imbecile,” she groans, tapping her crossed arms with the back of her hand. “Grab your coat, we're going out. Now. I don't want to hear another word from you in my office.”
Vi laughs, and follows after her.
(Vi laughs, and Caitlyn doesn't. It was never a joke, to her.)
-
“So, that thing, with Vi.”
“What thing with Vi?”
“I can’t really tell, to be honest.” Jayce takes a sip of his drink and cringes. He has yet to understand the point of a whiskey sour, she’s sure, but perhaps it is her duty as his friend to tell him he should get another signature order. The bar is packed to the brim, the natural result of Jayce equating popularity with quality. A grave mistake, clearly, as his choice went on a place with music just loud enough to be grating her ears and just low enough for her to miss the lyrics, frequented by businessmen who would drink slop if it was delivered to them in a shot glass. “I just know there’s a thing and you won’t tell me what it is, when it’s pretty clear that you’re either dating, or… well, I’m not sure what else you could be doing.”
Caitlyn squints her eyes. “We’re friends. Has that concept become so foreign to you?”
“I feel like you just called me friendless, did you call me friendless?” Jayce asks, leaning back in his stool in apparent offense that quickly turns into a laugh. “I have lots of friends, and don’t live with any of them.”
“You’ve lived with me before,” Caitlyn accuses.
“Yeah, but I also didn’t look like a lesbian wet dream, and I didn’t walk around in a small towel to flex you my dick-”
“Vi doesn’t do any of that.”
(The image isn’t particularly unpleasant, however. Maybe Caitlyn should get her a new set of towels, and land her one of the straps-)
“You’re not denying the lesbian wet dream part, though, which I am noting down as evidence.” The bartender checks their drinks, finds them full and walks to another corner of the bar. “I wouldn’t mind if you were, you know. Vi’s cool. Way cooler than all the girls you ever told me about, or than your ex-wife.”
“I have never introduced you to any of the women I saw, you just assumed every girl I talked to had to be sleeping with me.”
Jayce shrugs, and Caitlyn knows to brace herself for the worst, promtly delivered as an, “Sorry to say, but I don’t think girls ever talk to you unless they’re trying to sleep with you. Vi’s not like that, though – I swear she looks like she likes you for you. She wouldn’t have stayed around that long if she didn’t.”
There’s more truth in Jayce’s words than Caitlyn would like to discuss in a terribly distasteful bar, still wearing her skirt from work and in desperate need of another (preferably Vi-delivered) back massage.
She gives it some thought for a moment, searches for even one positive dating memory, a single one night stand that led to a real, emotionally-fulfilling relationship – comes up as empty as she expected to feel. Caitlyn has seen her fair share of women, and she would not let anyone imply that she’s ever felt uncomfortable with herself and her sexuality, incapable of flirting and picking up women from pompous galas and fancier bars. Her ex-wife is gorgeous, and carries the weight of a successful career like a medal. She wasn't very different from her other conquests, not emotionally, at least, but Caitlyn put up with it for a long time, because she made her feel like with Ashe on her arm, belonging would be easy.
Vi is different from all of her previous relationships.
She clearly isn't staying for her last name, or her good looks. If either of these two things justified their proximity, she would have tried something a long time ago. It cannot be her money either, because Caitlyn is too perceptive to have missed the clues, and all evidence points to the opposite. Vi never asks for anything, always finds a way to thank her for gestures that should come free, and refuses the superficial attentions that most women would have asked for in her place.
“I never said our friendship wasn't genuine, only that it's not anything more. Not for the moment anyway,” she adds, rushing to hide her admission in a sip of wine.
“You're admitting it, though. You've thought about it. So why not make the first move, stop this whole friendship nonsense and get straight to it?”
Caitlyn has never doubted her own seduction abilities.
But with Vi, it isn't about attraction, it isn't about seduction – it's about trust. Everyone uses her for something. Caitlyn cannot be another burden, another weight to throw over her shoulders.
“If Vi likes things how they are, then they'll stay that way. And that's final.”
Jayce throws his head into his palms, and Caitlyn finishes her glass of wine.
-
“And here's for you to sign.” Maddie slides a document over her desk, and Caitlyn rapidly reads through it. Her signature, an elegant redesign of her last name, fills the bottom case, and her assistant takes it back with a soft, “Thank you, Caitlyn. I'll send this to their office and get back to you when we receive it back. Shouldn't take long, really.”
Caitlyn has already dived back into her case.
A mother of two on trial for killing one and injuring two in a car accident, who sat on the other side of her desk no more than two days ago, pleading her innocence and claiming that her pedals ceased to function. She nods, noting a missing line in the insurance report, and Maddie must take it for herself. The door closes with a soft click, and the bubble pops around Caitlyn's head, shielding her mind from the outside world and setting her-
Someone barrels through the door, startling Caitlyn out of her bubble, focused eyes widening in horror that quickly dies in her chest.
“Vi, what are you-”
“You can't just barge in here.” Maddie emerges behind her, too small for Caitlyn to see her head, too thin not to be fully covered by Vi's sturdy frame. “Ms. Kiramman is working on very serious matters. You're supposed to pass by me before going in, and – and I have to check her schedule-”
“Maddie,” Caitlyn calls out, gaze steady where it rests on Vi. Her expression has not shifted since she shoved the door open. Wide eyes like gray lasers, parted lips to make space for her panting chest, trembling hands cupping her hips, just the position she shifts into before a sparring, before she readies herself to seize someone else. “It's alright, Vi's allowed here whenever she wants to visit.”
A change, now – a grin, proud and steady, showing just the barest hint of teeth resistant to even the worst of blows, peeking from her lips.
Maddie clears her throat. “Alright. I'll – tell me if you need anything.”
The door closes, and the soft click rings out again.
Caitlyn places her pen down, and allows a smile to pop on her face, so big even her tooth gap shows.
“I didn't know you were planning on a little visit today.”
Vi doesn't react, doesn't drop her smirk, doesn't take her hands off her hips. She walks, forward, and Caitlyn leans in her chair, backward, and something feels off about her – or too right, rather, confidence oozing from her shoulders, their rippling shape peeking from the pushed back leather of her jacket, and something, something like need, something like hunger sparkling in her eyes-
“Did something happen at the gym?” Caitlyn asks, crossing her arms under her chest. “Have you signed that new client you were telling me about…” Her boots are hard against the floor, and it creaks under her steps, around the desk, in front of her chair – “Vi?” – closer, until their knees touch, the rough fabric of her jeans grazing the shine of black tights spread up her legs, until she's kneeling down in the small space under her desk and-
“Don't bother keeping it down for me, okay. I wanna hear you.”
Caitlyn has ample time to react.
She knows where this is going. Vi, on her knees, grabbing her ankles to place them on each shoulder, one heel slipping off her foot, one leg locking around her neck. Vi, focused, out of breath, on a mission that drives her lips on the inside of her ankle, the back of her knee, the thick flesh of her thigh – up, up, up, and so fucking close to her cunt that Caitlyn knows what her end destination has to be, knows Vi indeed came feeling quite hungry. Vi, teeth bared and pulling on her tights, chest swelling with the long breath she takes, memorizing her flesh and – oh, memorizing her scent, somehow already drifting to her own nose, tangy and wet and needy.
Caitlyn has ample time to stop all of it, grab the longer hair at the back of Vi's head and drag her face away, will her lips to form the word no and put an end to this.
But she doesn't.
“What-”
Vi bites down, soft, just a nibble, nowhere near the force Caitlyn has imagined her jaw to contain.
“Shh.”
The hands cupping her thighs seize her flesh, pull her closer, half-laying Caitlyn in the chair, and Vi's shushed her, and their eyes connect when Vi’s neck elongates to trap her head under the skirt bunched as high as her hips allow, and Vi has just shushed her – why was this the hottest experience in her entire life? Her legs move when Vi’s shoulders do. Caitlyn leaves her thighs spread even when the hands keeping them in position move to grab the front of her tights, tracing the seams, pressing just right against the timid nerves of her clit, and find the angle they were looking for with ease.
Vi is staring into her eyes again, when she tears the front of her tights up, strong fingers gripping the now flimsy fabric and opening a hole in the crotch – right over the slim strip of burgundy lace covering well-trimmed navy hair.
“Oops.”
Vi wears that stupid grin so well that Caitlyn cannot care about wiping it off her lips.
“What's – what's the reason for all of this?”
The grin doesn't disappear, it only intensifies. Vi hooks a finger in her underwear, shoves it aside, and the air feels cold against her folds, the stain in her panties promptly tasted and licked off.
“You know what you did.”
The mouth that covers her cunt is starving.
Caitlyn feels the whole of her body tense at the first lick, like it's trying very hard not to release into her mouth already, like the chains she kept locked around her needs are still there and ready to break. In all of the moments she's imagined this – and she's imagined it a lot , because living with Vi was no moe than pure torture, and her bath and vibrator have witnessed the lengths of her resulting indulgences with great horror – Caitlyn knew she would be good at it. Yet, none of her greatest fantasies looked anything like this feels .
Her tongue travels all the way up to her clit from where slick gathers out of her cunt. Vi does it slow, at first, with her eyes closed the way they do when she licks the cream off a cupcake. Savoring, spreading wet pleasure all over her cunt, making them glisten in a mix of saliva and slick and warmth.
It's too much already, and it isn't enough at all, and Vi knows that, somehow she knows that, because she spreads her jaw like a shark does before a meal, and envelopes the heat throbbing between her legs with all of it – mouth and tongue and teeth and even her nose , pressing against her clit when she dives back down, lapping straight from the source. Above, Caitlyn can only look, fingers fisted in short red strands, hips bucking against her face – riding her mouth with all her might, locking her knees around the back of her neck to the point of choking Vi with cunt. They make a sinful picture, a delicious picture, just the sort Caitlyn likes. Dripping, needy – consuming each other, flesh and soul.
Whatever got into Vi, whatever convinced her to barge into her office in the middle of the day with hungry lips and cuntstruck eyes, Caitlyn will now pray to for the next year – on her knees, even, if that is what it takes to thank these divine forces for their intervention.
“Fuck, darling, don't move, right there…”
“Can I-” Vi speaks against her folds, pushing her face back into her cunt before she's even done speaking, like the separation from Caitlyn has emptied her lungs of all air, like she's starving for it, and can't let one drop of pleasure escape. “Can I-”
“Can you what ?”
Caitlyn grips her hair, caresses the top of her head – grips it again when Vi's tongue forms a flowing wave between her legs, firm and steady and precise. She feels her eyes roll back inside her head, feels her legs falter even seated on tight shoulders, feels her soul get sucked out of her body, and fights it. No one said anything about another orgasm, and if it is the only one she gets, it will be damn near perfect.
Vi parts from her cunt, rubs her fingers against it, caresses wet folds with the same digits she slowly, very slowly sinks into her, admiring the silent cry it steals from Caitlyn’s mouth. The back of the chair hits Caitlyn’s neck, holding it, keeping her from falling when it is all her body yearns for.
“Can I see them?” she asks, panting, out of breath – and for a good reason.
There is no request in the world Caitlyn would not fulfill for her. No stupid racing car she wouldn't buy, no terribly distasteful food she wouldn't try, no corner of her heart she wouldn't bare, if it meant Vi kept driving her hand forward and sinking her fingers in until she's flush with her cunt. Not that she can say it out loud that way.
“See what?” Caitlyn asks, struggling with her own breathing and far from being given the opportunity to fix that specific problem.
“Your tits.” Vi gulps, trails heated eyes from barely opened eyes to the way her breasts fill her blouse, ruffled halfway down her shoulder, a burgundy strap peeking from the fabric. “Can I – would you show me? I've been fucking dying to see them, see you, and – you're so hot.”
Hot .
That's somehow the worst praise she's ever received, and the compliment that's made her swoon the most.
Vi doesn't dive back in again, keeps on looking like it'll burn the fabric down, and Caitlyn takes a hand out of her hair to trail it up her chest and waits, power thrumming at her fingertips. For a moment, the world rolls in her palm, for her to play with and shake, for her to control and raise. Taking off the first button would set volcanoes off in Vi's head, and revealing any more of her collarbone would surely explode earth itself. So she waits, and waits, and – bliss erupts low in her stomach, triggered by the fingers curling inside of her – and waits again, tickling a cold ivory button, trying not to moan as shamefully as her body calls for.
“And what do you say to get what you want, Vi?”
Vi gulps, her tongue dry and slightly heaving out of her mouth. Her gaze is lost – lost on Caitlyn’s chest, searching for the shape of a nipple; lost on her lips, bitten down and warm; so lost that her answer fits in a simple, hypnotized, “Uh?”
“You say please , don't you?”
Caitlyn locks her jaw down, pretends the fingers slowly jerking in her cunt aren't playing her heart like the violin, and fueling an even bigger inferno than the one heating Vi's cheeks, embraced as they are by her thighs.
A smile flickers on Vi's lips. “Please, Princess . Can you show me your tits?”
The first button slides off almost on its own. Caitlyn trails two fingers to the next one, slips it off just as easily – continues until the sheer lace is revealed, roses of lace cupping full breasts filling the cups with sinful ease, two buds poking the material, so sensitive that every deep breath she takes feels like tempting relief.
“Good boy, Vi.”
She's barely taken off her hands before Vi has replaced it with her own, a moan vibrating so close to her cunt that Caitlyn feels it inside of her, forcing her to grab the back of her hand and lock it in a punishing hold.
“Did I say you could touch?”
Vi smirks, and curled fingers jerk, but this time with purpose, like she's looking for something, like she's trying to drive her mad with needs, and-
“Oh, fuck – yes, yes, yes-”
“Feels better that way, uh?” Vi says, twisting pleasure in her guts, wrecking Caitlyn in ways she’s yet to explore – ruining her , ruining her for any other. “Gonna drive you fucking mad with it.”
Freed again, Vi shoves the cups of her bra down to cup one of her breasts, placing the nipple poking out to the center of her palm – soft, still so frustratingly soft, caressing rather than claiming, loving rather than taking – and covers her cunt in wet warmth again without ever looking away from her heaving chest.
Caitlyn cannot stop it when it comes, this time.
“Darling, fuck - yes, yes, thank you .”
Her thighs lock tighter around Vi's neck, pushing her eternally closer, shoving the whole of her face between her legs and dragging wet folds hard over her tongue, her mouth, her nose. She doesn't moan – until she does , a broken little melody rolling off her numb tongue, possibly bitten down from the pleasure, assuredly incapable of any cohesiveness. Bliss hits her in waves, drowning her once, dragging her back underwater next, and Caitlyn clenches hard on the finger shoved fully inside of her, crushing them with her release, milking them like it might convince Vi to stay.
Heat engulfs her from all over, wet and high, wave after wave. Caitlyn holds onto her hair so hard that Vi cannot pull back from the slick sticking to her skin. She could try, though, surely, but the idea never seems to graze her mind.
Vi licks her release off her own lips, cleans the drenched warmth between her thighs like it’s her first taste of water in a lifetime, like it’ll stick to her gums for hours and remind her of Caitlyn forever, and all Caitlyn does is watch – eyes dropping in post-orgasmic haze, body slowly relaxing its hold around Vi’s shoulder, head screaming for more with violent greed.
“Guess you’re welcome, Cupcake.” Vi says, voice hoarse and wet. She’s so close still, so close that Caitlyn can feel her lips moving against her folds, brushing her cunt. “Or should I call you ma’am? I’m not sure what you prefer, seeing as you weren’t telling me.”
Ma’am. Ma’am feels wrong – like her mother, like she’s older than older, like she’s the one calling the shots, like she wouldn’t sacrifice Piltover for Vi’s honor and love. But then Vi looks at her with those sweet puppy eyes and that haunting smirk as she says it, and it feels – and it rings – and it sends her off again, clamping around the fingers still pressed up in her cunt, like Vi knows she couldn’t very well stand being separated from her again.
A soft kiss tickles wet navy curls, gray eyes bore into her own, and only then does she retreat the digits flexing inside of her. Caitlyn bites back a whine that slips out when Vi’s lips move again – closer, this time, lower, even, and-
“Why – why have you suddenly decided to – to do this?”
Vi pauses and draws back, chuckles, eyebrows lowering on her forehead. “What do you mean why, Cait?” Caitlyn has no strength left in any muscles to frown, but confusion engulfs her nonetheless. “That thing is fucking amazing, it's – it's everything I wanted, everything I needed when I was still back there. Dinner wasn't gonna cut it, neither was a free training session – fuck, you deserved a real thank you for it. I don't get why you've never asked me-”
“I'm not sure I follow what – what the thing is meant to be, I haven't… Have I done something in particular-”
“I learned about the program,” Vi gushes, the grin gone, her smile honest. “It's dope, Cupcake. They talked about it on the radio, said it's for kids from Piltover, something about Kirammans funding a dozen scholarships and forcing that bigoted university to change their acceptance criteria. You deserve your pussy ate about – well, about a dozen times in return, I guess.” Soft lips place a kiss at the top of her mound like she's signing her piece, claiming Caitlyn. “Or more, if you've got time for it-”
“You're eating me out,” Caitlyn states, “for having the basic human decency of using my family wealth for important matters. Is that what you're saying?”
“Nah, I'm eating you out cause you're real fucking gorgeous, somehow funny when you don't try, and gorgeous-”
“You said that already.” Caitlyn scrunches her nose and bites back a foolish smile from taking over her lips.
“And I'll say it again,” Vi declares, kissing her, and kissing her again, and again, until her lips are just low enough lick at the fingers still shoved inside of her. “What I meant, Cait, is that you're all those things, and you being my… well, you know, you doing all these nice things for me that I don't – that I don't always deserve-”
Red hair gets locked in her fingers and Caitlyn tugs Vi's head back in scolding. “Don't say that, you deserve much more than anything I've given you, Vi. You don't realize how – how lucky I am to have you in my life, how anyone is to have you around.”
Vi shrugs and laughs when Caitlyn tugs her hair again. She kisses one of her ruined tights, no doubt trying to distract her. (Caitlyn sighs, flexing her knees where they rest on her shoulders, arching her back to inch closer to her mouth – no, no, you're letting her take your mind off a very serious matter, Caitlyn, stop fucking squirming. )
“I wanted to thank you. Properly. Had a feeling you weren't gonna ask for it yourself.”
Caitlyn would have asked for it herself, she simply thought Vi – the Vi who flirts with every long pair of legs and lets women kiss her biceps after a good workout and made friends out of dating apps – would let her know, if she found anything worth pursuing in their relationship. She's the most obvious lesbian ever crafted by Sappho, the pinnacle of she calls me daddy too, somehow a more confident lover than the men who approach Caitlyn at galas regularly to ask her for a dance, a drink, and sex.
(Caitlyn needed to be wanted, needed to be her first choice, needed to be trusted back for all that she'd given-)
“D'you mind giving me another?”
Caitlyn blinks. She drags her thumb under Vi's eye, collects freckles under her finger like tiny, teary stars.
“Another what – oh -”
The same stars shine in her eyes, and she throws them at the ceiling, looking up at the sky.
-
“We’ll be doing this again, then.”
Vi doesn't look up from the buttons of Caitlyn's blouse, still opened and baring her chest to the quiet serenity of her office. Frown lines dance across her forehead as she tries to fit the tiny things into their respective – frustrating – holes.
“Seems like that's kinda the point of this whole bargain, isn't it?”
Caitlyn furrows her eyebrows. “You keep talking about an arrangement, a bargain, but I’m not sure I follow you.” The smile that remains on her lips has not left since Vi departed from the hot space between her thighs, and she can’t shake it off even now. “What – how exactly is this supposed to work?”
Vi laughs, and Caitlyn supposes she must be quite funny in her ignorance. “How it works is you get me all these nice things I never even asked for, and in return, I fuck your smart brains out. Simple as that.”
Simple as that.
Vi takes a step back, looks at her – at her chest, now covered all the way up, and at her eyes, blinking to hide how utterly lost Caitlyn currently feels, and back at her chest – and tilts her head off. The fingers that jerked inside of her and cupped her breasts mere moments ago reach for her blouse again and undo the first two buttons.
“Better this way.”
Vi grins and finally turns to grab her leather jacket and throw it on her back. “I'll see you at home tonight, then. Probably a bit late, I need to take over Claggor's client – his back's stuck, he overdid it on the bench again.”
“I'll make sure there's food left for you to warm in the fridge.”
“Are you cooking?” Vi asks, and it rings out like an accusation, almost worried.
“And would it be so bad if I was?” Caitlyn crosses her arms, tilting her head to the side.
“No, no .” That tone, Caitlyn knows. Vi cannot lie, not to her – only confuse her, which is a quite common occurrence, now that she thinks about it. “I'm just not sure I'll survive it this time.”
Uh, that was one time.
Caitlyn was tired, and her mother had spent an hour on the phone complaining about getting too old to ever know her grandchildren, if she ever even came to have any, and the fridge was packed but somehow missing a few ingredients for the one recipe she felt like preparing, and – she took the salt shaker instead of the sugar bag to caramelize these stupid fucking onions. Is that a crime? Is she meant to suffer mockers for it a year later?
“Why aren't you on your way there already?”
Vi laughs, and swings the door open – it was unlocked all along, it was unlocked all along - without turning away, delaying the inevitable, drinking the moment further in. “See you tonight, Cupcake.”
“Uh, Ms. Kiramman.”
Their heads yank around to find a small, frozen woman, holding documents tight against her chest, the papers crumpled in parts, bent in others.
“The – the contract came back signed, if you'll have a look.”
Maddie's voice rings out empty, getting lower and lower as she drags her eyes from Vi's ruffled hair – sculpted by her very own hands – to her boss’ guilty, searching eyes and down, down, down to the front of her blouse, left nearly gaping open mere moments ago by-
Caitlyn smoothes her blouse down and crosses her arms high on her chest, an accusatory eyebrow perking up on her forehead.
“I'll look into it later.” Her assistant does not budge, and neither does her gaze – lost, or too close perhaps to what it had been hoping to find. “Maddie. I said later.”
“Right, right – of course, Ms. Kiramman, I – I apologize.”
Vi's laughter kickstarts again, and Caitlyn's glare switches focus.
“Well, I'll be on my way out. Maddie.” She bows her head her way, a smirk tickling the corner of her lips. “I guess you're welcome.”
Caitlyn locks herself up in her office for the rest of the day.
-
(Caitlyn got her the red and silver motorcycle without Vi ever asking for it. It flashes orange where she found a spot to park it an hour ago when the keys glide under her thumb.
Vi sees the light but doesn't move to throw her leg over it, frozen to the spot in the middle of the sidewalk, surrounded by long black cars and hurried suits and an aura – a new aura, sticking to her skin like a sheen of hard-earned sweat, tickled by the windy air.
Fuck.
All her nose senses is Caitlyn – wet under her tongue, a flower blooming to caress her cheeks, real, real, fucking real .
“Hey, everything alright there?”
Vi blinks, notices her cheeks ache from the beaming smile taking half of her face. A man has stopped on her path, and she immediately notices that his shoulders lack the district-typical suit.
“Yeah.” Never been fucking better. “I got myself a sugar mommy, and she's like, the real fucking deal.”
The man frowns, then seems to decide the situation will be better de-escalated if his confusion doesn't show. “Uh, cool, I guess. Have fun with… that.”
“Oh, I'm planning on it, dude.”)