Chapter Text
Chapter 1
“We tried, okay? It wasn't enough. Topside and bottom, oil and water, that's all there is,” Vi said with a declarative but remorseful cadence to her words.
“What about us?” Caitlyn responded, her voice breaking under the weight of Vi’s implication. Vi’s eyes flickered down, her lips compressed. She was looking anywhere but the piercing eyes staring expectantly back at her.
“Oil and water - wasn’t meant to be.” Vi pushed her words out as though they were leaden stones rolling along her tongue. They fell past her lips with the smoothness of rough gravel.
“You’re just saying that,” Cait sputtered, her confidence faltering. She needed to believe that everything they’d been through was worth something. Anything.
“Do yourself a favor, Cupcake. Go back to that big, shiny house of yours and just…forget me. Okay?” Her voice cracked on the last word.
Vi turned and began to walk away. She couldn’t look back at Caitlyn, couldn’t handle seeing the hurt and disappointment on her face, on one more goddamn person’s face. But especially not hers. Worse, the possibility of seeing relief. She wasn’t strong enough to find out which one she would see looking back at her.
She’s better off without me, Vi thought, eyes stinging and eyebrows furrowed as she hunched into her jacket, now soaked through from the rain. Whether the cold settling into her bones was from her waterlogged clothes or the crushing feeling in her chest, she didn’t care to know. She walked away from the Council chambers.
Away from her.
Bitterness coiled in Vi’s tendons, slick and vicious. She could taste copper on her tongue, the delicate flesh of her cheeks shredding as she ground her teeth. She really needed to hit something. She could think of a few faces from The Council that would make great target practice.
Making it just out of the light from the street lamp she had left Caitlyn standing under, she heard the smacking of heeled boots on the pavement from behind her. Running to her. Vi paused. Before she could turn around, she felt a firm grasp on her upper left arm and a pull of surprising magnitude.
The force of it knocked Vi off-kilter - not an easy feat for someone manhandling a well-muscled brawler, especially one in her current state. She struggled to regain her footing, her balled fists flying from her pockets to steady her stance.
“What the fu-”
Two hands gripped the lapels of Vi’s jacket, hauling their chests close. Cait’s face was illuminated by the faint amber emanating from another streetlight above them. There was no hurt in her eyes as they came into Vi’s line of sight. No disappointment or relief. Instead, bright anger burned in the blue depths glaring back at her.
“Don’t walk away from me,” Caitlyn quietly but firmly commanded.
From this close Vi could see the rain droplets catching in Caitlyn’s eyelashes. She blinked them away, sending them sliding down her cheeks to rest on the bow of her lips before dripping down her neck. Her hair was almost black from the rain. Stray pieces from her short sprint stuck to her cheeks and neck. Caitlyn kept her grip on Vi’s jacket, their faces close enough that she could feel the warmth of Cait’s breath on her own lips.
Vi couldn’t help but think about what it would feel like to follow the water droplets with her fingers or maybe her mouth. Blinking rapidly she jerked her eyes up, realizing she had done nothing but stare at Caitlyn in stunned silence.
She cleared her throat and tried to regain composure.
“What?” Vi croaked, her voice coming out deeper than expected, betraying her body’s reaction to the tall woman currently holding her in a vise grip.
“I said, don’t walk away from me. It’s incredibly rude.” Caitlyn maintained her rigid tone in that lilting accent. “I’m not done speaking with you.”
Vi swallowed hard, her throat suddenly dry - laughable considering they were both drenched with rain. She witnessed a frenzy of emotions decussate Caitlyn’s expression as she began berating Vi.
“You dragged me halfway across the undercity, deserted me in a brothel to go beat the living shit out of some shimmer-jacked monster of a woman, got me kidnapped and blindfolded, and nearly blown up by your sister of all people. Just to name a few things. Not to mention you almost died because you couldn’t just accept my help while you were bleeding out, for fuck’s sake! You can’t just leave after all of that. I won’t let you,” Caitlyn spit out, fury lacing the frantic syllables spilling from her mouth.
Vi chuckled in an attempt to deflect the intensity of the moment as Caitlyn flashed her a look that could kill.
“Is... Is something funny?” Cait seethed, the tension of her jaw saturating her voice.
“Sorry to interrupt your monologue but I gotta say, your accent is hot when you’re pissed at me,” Vi said with a cocky shrug, winking at the apoplectic sharpshooter.
“Are you finally do-” Vi barely managed before she was cut off. Caitlyn’s lips crashed into hers as she pulled their chests together, her hands still gripping Vi’s jacket. The kiss was decisive and impatient. Potent. Lonely.
Reacting from a place of equal desolation, Vi enveloped Cait with her arms. She embedded her fingers in the dark tresses of her hair and pulled her even closer; something she’d been itching to do since their moment in the brothel.
She didn’t want to think about what this meant or what she was going to do about it.For once she just wanted to feel - feel the heat of Cait’s body pressed against hers, the calm of a touch that promised no violence. She craved it with a fierceness she’d suppressed to survive.
Vi could feel the cracking of walls she’d spent years carefully constructing.
She kissed Caitlyn like a woman starved.
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Caitlyn’s lips were devastatingly soft but there was no hesitation in the way they swept over Vi’s.
At first the kiss was rushed, clinging and magnetic, but it soon deepened into something softer, something sweeter.
Cait had abandoned her jacket lapels and gripped her biceps like her life depended on it. Her hands radiated a warmth that spread through Vi’s limbs.
Vi’s fingers, still in Caitlyn’s hair, gripped the strands in her fists and pulled lightly. Caitlyn broke the kiss with a gasp, followed by a soft moan, her face reddening at her own unexpected noises. Vi couldn’t help but smirk, mischief in her gunmetal eyes. The look on her face gave the taller woman goosebumps, her nipples tightening. Vi could feel them against her chest through Cait’s uniform; a thin, vastly impractical dress that she was unexpectedly grateful for at this particular moment.
Holding Caitlyn’s head in place, Vi broke the kiss to place light kisses up Cait’s jawline from chin to ear. Gently taking Caitlyn’s earlobe into her mouth, Vi nibbled on the soft pad, eliciting a content sigh from Caitlyn’s parted lips. Vi closed her eyes, basking in the sound.
“Mmm. I could listen to you do that. Every. Fucking. Day,” Vi whispered in her ear.
Caitlyn shivered, but not from the cold.
Loosening her grip, Vi let her hands slide down to Caitlyn’s neck, one resting lightly on either side. With her thumb stroking Cait’s throat slowly, thoughtfully, she lifted her lips to Caitlyn’s once more, this time with only the lightest pressure. This kiss was heartbreakingly tender. Caitlyn’s chest swelled at the sensation of having such a strong woman so soft in her arms.
They parted gently, both dizzy with a pleasant hum.
Vi chuckled and shook her head in disbelief, the sudden shift causing Caitlyn to pull back to better see Vi’s face.
She cracked a lopsided grin at the awaiting Caitlyn.
“So just to confirm, you do like girls, then? Or am I just a special case? I mean, aside from your new friend at Babette’s,” Vi prodded, her eyes shining with laughter, silently daring Caitlyn to react.
The flustered enforcer bristled in front of her, not entirely upset but clearly too embarrassed to come up with a clever response. Vi cataloged that conversation for another time.
“Oh for god’s sake, Vi. I…” Caitlyn trailed off as she tried to form the right words. Her mind spun. What more could she ask of this woman?
She took a steadying breath as she stepped out of Vi’s embrace. She couldn’t think clearly with Vi touching her and right now she needed all the mental fortitude she could muster. There was no going back now.
“I know you’re angry. And you have every right to be. I won’t stop you again if you still want to leave. But you don’t have to do everything alone, Vi. Let me help you. Just. Come inside and we can figure something out. At least let me get you some dry clothes,” Cait finished, her fists clenching into tight knots at her sides. She straightened her spine and steeled herself, waiting for Vi’s response.
This was her last attempt. If Vi walked away from her now, Caitlyn knew there was no way she was coming back.
Cait began looking around, seemingly realizing for the first time that they were in the middle of the courtyard a few blocks from her house and that anyone could have seen them with little effort. God knows what her mother would say about her impropriety. Caitlyn was sure she should probably feel some sort of shame about it but couldn’t bring herself to care.
Her eyes landed once more on Vi’s now strained face. She looked exhausted. Cait wanted to reach out and smooth the stress lines etched into Vi’s skin but stopped herself. She recalled the moment she had met Vi. The memory was burned onto the backs of her eyelids. Caitlyn had made herself vulnerable, stepping across the painted line. But this time Vi had to make the choice to meet her there. She had offered what she could. No physical barrier separated them now. And yet, the distance felt greater. Heavier. An anvil rested on each of their shoulders as the silence stretched, gravid.
“Don’t make me beg. It’s…uncomely,” Caitlyn muttered as she looked away, jaw adamantly squared. If this were any other time, Vi might have poked fun at the proud woman standing in front of her but she held back. She respected and envied Caitlyn’s offer of vulnerability in asking her to stay. She deserved the same vulnerability in an answer.
She searched Caitlyn’s face, looking for any sane reason to walk back into that house. She knew there was no way they could have any kind of future together. She was way too fucked up to give Caitlyn what she deserved. And then there was her sister. And Silco. And the trivial fact that they lived completely different lives, not just incompatible but often actively opposing lives. Caitlyn was a topsider, an enforcer at that, and found Vi in prison for fuck’s sake. But none of those things were what scared her most.
It wasn’t safe for Cait to be around her. Everyone she had ever cared for had their lives irrevocably ruined just by being close to her. By trying to protect her. Her parents. Benzo. Mylo. Claggor. Vander… Powder.
She was bad luck. A scourge. A paroxysm of poison that rotted anything it touched. She had always been the jinx. She had been fooling herself to think otherwise.
Vi knew all of this. And still..
She wanted whatever it was Caitlyn was offering. Badly, if she was being honest with herself. Even if just for a night.
One night and then she would leave Piltover, and Caitlyn, for good. It was better that way. No one else had to get hurt because of her. She could live with that decision.
“Fine.” She conceded, “But.”
Caitlyn’s eyes flashed to hers, curious what the catch would be. She said nothing, her lips slightly parted in waiting. The rain was coming down harder, fracturing itself against the pavement around their feet.
“I can’t promise I’ll stay.” Vi’s eyes crackled, icy with fear.
“Okay,” Caitlyn quietly agreed. “Good enough. Now let’s get inside, I’m soaked to the bone.”
Cait extended her hand to Vi. A simple offer of connection. It terrified Vi.
She hesitated, then laced their fingers together. An agreement made. Another promise to keep.
What had this woman done to her?