Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Seeing how Vi’s been living breaks Caitlyn’s heart.

Not necessarily the size of the room, or how solid the bed is when she sits down on it.

Instead, it’s the bottles - the countless bottles, all empty - the broken mirror and the dark, murky blood staining the already stained floorboards.

Some of the blood stains aren’t uniform either, having little spots where something must have fallen in them. A droplet, of some kind.

Tears, most likely.

It breaks Caitlyn’s heart.

Vi doesn’t need her tears to join those that were once on the floor though, nor does she think that would go over particularly well. So instead, she just sits there on the edge of the bed, back ramrod straight.

They lost Jinx shortly after….it all happened. To be frank, Caitlyn still couldn’t care less, but something’s obviously changed between Vi and her not-dead sister. Thankfully, though, - and how morbid is that thought - Vi was in enough pain to not immediately rush after Jinx right away. Not that she could, considering the only reason they made it here was because she put all her weight on Caitlyn.

She weighs less than she did last time they did this. She’s still muscular (obviously) but she’s clearly not been taking care of herself. Which, again, Caitlyn would say something, but she suspects that it wouldn’t be appreciated.

She’s stitched her up though, as best she can with what she had to work with. Which isn’t much, but it should hold, until they get back to Piltover. Or find Jinx, and Caitlyn loses Vi all over again.

Which was my own bloody fault , she muses

“So….you caved pretty fucking fast, Cait.”

“I…. what ?”

“You heard me,” Vi retorts, and okay, they’re going to do this now. “You couldn’t betray Ambessa fast enough. That a thing with you now?”

“You….”

Caitlyn’s about to start into a rant, defend herself. Tell Vi about how, after the waves of grief and anger and hatred wore off, she had realized pretty damn quickly that Ambessa was not who she thought she was. That there were things to learn from her, sure - she took down Vi pretty quickly, she thinks rather smugly - but her methods never sat right with Caitlyn.

But….she knew that months ago. And still, she stayed. 

All it took was seeing Vi again to flip, and….really, that makes too much sense, doesn’t it?

Vi takes her silence as an excuse to keep talking though, and frankly, now that she’s here with her, Caitlyn just wants to hear her voice. “Do I have to watch my back? Planning to hit me in the back of the head this time, instead of the gut?”

“That’s uncalled for.”

“Is it?” Vi continues, wincing a bit as she leans forward with her forearms on her knees. “Trust isn’t given, Cait. And you lost it the second you threw in with that fucking warmonger.”

Caitlyn wants to defend herself, she does. She wants to tell Vi, to plead with Vi, to understand why she did it. What she was feeling, how this was the only way to stop that roiling, persistent wave of pure and utter hatred. That she wouldn’t have survived if she did anything else but work with Ambessa.

But…Vi’s felt this way too. Vi’s lost her parents (and she just lost her father again ) and she never did what Caitlyn did. 

“I know.”

It clearly surprises Vi, the lack of fight. Caitlyn sees that strong, bandaged hand start to reach out, twitch, stop itself, and fall back to Vi’s knee. She sees it .

“I don’t expect you to forgive me. I don’t forgive myself. But…just please, know that I won’t be going back to her. And if you don’t trust me….trust Ambessa.”

Caitlyn made her bed ( again ) the second that she betrayed the elder Medarda. There’s no going back for her, no defence that she can conjure up that will make Ambessa trust her again. Ambessa’s too smart for that. 

And Vi seems to agree, given the breath she lets out. 

“Yeah…yeah okay,” Vi sighs as she leans back, wincing again. Caitlyn assumes that it’s from her stomach, but a quick glance up lets her know that Vi must have rested back against one of the many many many empty bottles that litter her room.

“You’ve been busy,” Caitlyn mutters, and Vi just scoffs, tossing the bottle out of view. 

“Yeah, well some of us have better ways of coping than becoming fascists.”

“And it wasn’t your only way of coping, I take it,” Caitlyn chooses to ignore that statement, her eyes flitting over to the many many many bloody wrappings in the corner of the room.

Vi just shrugs though, even if Caitlyn swears that her cheeks are a little pink. “Only thing I’m good at….and I needed to make money.”

“Money to drink yourself deeper into the gutter.”

“Oh excuse me, Commander Kiramman,” Vi bites back - and it’s vicious enough that it is a bite - waving a hand in the air in a way that Caitlyn assumes must be a mock bow, given her stomach won’t allow the motion proper. “And what were you up to topside, huh? Obviously something far more refined than this.”

And at that, Caitlyn can’t help but blush. 

And feel another wave of shame when she realizes she hasn’t thought about Maddie, not once. Certainly not since Vi came back into her life. 

Vi must catch something in her face, something that she can latch onto, considering she doesn’t let up, not for a second. “Who’s the lucky girl, Cupcake?”

“I…. what?”

“Some of us drink. Others fuck,” she shrugs, like it’s the most natural thing in the world. Which, Caitlyn supposes it is, but she'd rather not talk to Vi about her sex life.

And that’s all it was, really. Sex life, not love life. 

“It was Maddie, yeah?” 

“I….how did you?” Caitlyn stammers, eyes immediately going to Vi’s face. And what she sees there, it’s…..it’s difficult to parse through. 

There’s anger, sure, that’s expected. But there’s also sadness and jealousy and….and longing, Caitlyn almost thinks. But she can’t hope for that, not after everything that’s happened.

Vi clearly has something to work out though, and Caitlyn can’t bring herself to stop her. “Needed someone to fuck the feelings away? Even back then, she was fucking devoted to you. Probably couldn’t wait to get between your legs. Unless…yeah, you were the one fucking her, weren’t you?”

“Says the woman that spit in my face,” Caitlyn mutters. She can’t stay silent forever under Vi’s barrage, and even if it’s not a defence, it’s still something to grasp on to. 

“Didn’t know that was a kink of yours, Cupcake,” Vi goes for that nickname again . It’s a grounding point for them, Caitlyn thinks. Something they can both hold onto. It means something special, something from back when they were….when they were better. Relatively speaking. 

“I…you’re right,” she sighs, before immediately gasping and backtracking. “Not about that! About using Maddie. I….I needed something, and she was there. She doesn’t deserve that. You don’t get to be jealous, however.”

“Oh, I’m not jealous,” Vi counters back, and even Caitlyn can tell that’s a bold-faced lie. She can read it all over Vi’s face, there being almost as much longing there as Caitlyn knows that she’s showing. “You can fuck whoever you want.”

“Whoever?” 

“Umm….sure,” Vi stammers, clearly picking up on what Caitlyn’s insinuating. “Probably shouldn’t when Ambessa wants to rip that pretty head from your shoulders, but after…yeah. Fuck whoever you want.”

“Okay. I will…if they want to, anyway,” Caitlyn mutters, more to herself than anything. It’s a promise, to herself, that when all this is over, she’ll try to make amends. Maybe they’ll never be what they were, and she’d understand that, she would. But…even after all that’s happened, there’s still something there. Vi still looks at her with that same look in her eyes that she always did. It’s just buried under rage. 

And Caitlyn knows that she feels the same way. The second she saw Vi again, she….she knew.

They have so much to talk about though, and it’s not going to happen right now. They’re scratching the surface, throwing barbs at each other when the hurt goes so much deeper. 

“Ambessa thinks that I ‘captured your heart’.”

Oh no

“I….um what did….”

“That she used me not being there to get to you,” Vi continues on, the mood suddenly shifting. It’s not angry, just….sad. Melancholy, almost.

“I know why you couldn’t be.”

Vi’s stubborn, sure, but she’s also true to herself. It’s one of the things Caitlyn admires most about her. She cares and she loves, but she’s who she is, and she always has been. “You wouldn’t have been you if you had stayed. I’m not mad at you for that,” she shrugs, because really, that’s all that can be said. 

“I know,” Vi agrees, and this time, her hand does find Caitlyn’s. “I’m still pissed at you.”

“I know,” Caitlyn agrees, and this time, she lets her hand squeeze Vi’s. “You should get some rest. And then we’ll go find Jinx.”

Vi’s head shoots up, and Caitlyn just shrugs. “I won’t kill her. I want to - fuck, I want to - but we need her against Ambessa.”

That’s progress, Caitlyn thinks. That anger is never going to go away, but she thinks she can….she can handle it better, now. With herself, with Vi….she thinks she can do this.

“Okay,” Vi agrees, giving Caitlyn one final look before she closes her eyes. Before she does though, her eyes fall to Cait’s lips, just for a second.

There’s still hope , Caitlyn tells herself as she gets up, planning to busy herself with cleaning her rifle. 

There’s still so much hate there. So much anger between them, and fury and rage. There’s love too though, and sadness and longing and jealousy. But, Caitlyn thinks, they can do this, if they really put their minds to it. 

There’s still hope

Chapter Text

Vi wakes up with a splitting headache. 

She’s been waiting for them, the signs. She’s seen enough people go through withdrawal - from Shimmer, from booze, from anything - to know that it’s no joke. She couldn’t bring herself to care though, not when she was downing bottle after bottle of cheap, shitty booze. Anything was better than the hurt, the pain, than seeing her.

Because she did. She saw her everywhere.

Every time she saw one of the Enforcer’s banners, Caitlyn was right behind it, staring at her.

Every time she was at the bar, and looked around at all the poor fuckers there, she saw Caitlyn peaking out over someone’s shoulder.

Every time she woke up, she saw Caitlyn, curled up next to her. 

So she drank. It was easier than dealing with all this shit. Keep it all buried down - this anger, this hurt, this rage - and what she couldn’t bury deep down, well….she left plenty of broken jaws in her wake. 

She saw what those feelings did to Caitlyn, and she’ll be damned if she was going to let it take her too.

To Caitlyn, who Vi thought was the best of them. A topsider, sure, but a good person . One of the best people she’s ever known. And it broke her. 

So, drinking it was.

She just wishes that it wasn’t coming back to bite her in the ass right now .

It’s thankfully not bright out when her eyes crack open, but the headache’s still there. She can feel all the grime covering her skin, and caked in her hair. The shit she was using to dye her hair was probably closer to the oil slick Caitlyn called it than actual dye, and for the first time since she started using it, it feels wrong .

She’s covered in it, and it’ll wash out, sure, but right now, it’s just weighing her down.

As soon as her eyes become acclimated though, they immediately fall to the person resting against the wall, sleeping. She sees her, and not for the first time, Vi’s desperate for a drink.

Because she can’t be here. She’s seeing her again and she needs a drink so that she doesn’t see her. 

Because when she sees her, Vi wants to scream and punch and cry and kiss her and ask why , why did you do it. 

The headache is slowing her down, but eventually  she catches up, and it all comes flooding back. Vander, Jinx, Isha, Ambessa, Viktor. She remembers all of it. 

She remembers Caitlyn. She remembers her bringing Vi back here, patching her up. She remembers spitting in her face - not planned, but cathartic - and she remembers what Ambessa said.

The One Who Captured Caitlyn’s Heart

Fuck, she needs a drink.

But….if all that happened, that means that Caitlyn’s here. She’s here, sleeping on Vi’s floor, in a place that is decidedly unlike Caitlyn Kiramman.

It lets Vi get a chance to finally look at her. To really look at her.

She’s still so fucking gorgeous. She always has been, and probably always will be, no matter what she does. She’s always going to be the most beautiful person that Vi’s ever seen.

Even now, with the anguish, the self-hatred, clear on her face. Even when she’s sleeping, the signs are all there.

Vi doesn’t know if she forgives Cait, and she definitely won’t forget. But she can tell that Caitlyn regrets it, and right now, that’ll have to be enough.

She’s thrown back in with Vi, with Jinx. She can’t go back to Ambessa, and that, Vi can trust. Cait’s not an idiot - when she isn’t being driven by grief - and like she said earlier, going back to Ambessa is a death wish.

She trusts Caitlyn when she says that she realizes what she does is wrong. But right now, that’s all the trust she can give her.

“You’re staring.”

Fuck . Apparently Vi was so deep in her own head that didn’t realize that the Princess had woken up from her beauty sleep.

“Hmm?”

“You’re staring,” Caitlyn repeats, voice still groggy. It’s unfair, the things that accent does to Vi, even now.

She shouldn't have this effect on her still, not after what she did. Vi shouldn’t want to kiss her until their lips are bruised, not at the same time she wants to cuss her out for being an advocate for Ambessa’s brutality. 

“Yeah, well…..you’re hot, Cupcake,” Vi retorts, having a sudden memory of their time together at Babette’s, in simpler times. Back when the only interest that Vi had in Caitlyn was what was between her legs. 

Cait flushes the same now as she did then, but this time, it only highlights the changes in her face. That her cheeks are less filled out, that the bags under her eyes have gotten worse, that she’s paler. There’s a weariness to her face that wasn’t there before, and a part of Vi wants to do everything she can to make sure Cait never feels grief like that again.

Another part of her is glad that she’s seeing what the real world is like. What it does to people like Vi.

Vi has lost her family countless times - her father and mother, her father, her friends, her sister, her Caitlyn, her father again - and she fucking copes. 

Not well, but she copes.

Welcome to the real world

There’s a part of her that feels bad about that. It’s the part that still loves this woman, and that, regardless of what happens, will always love this woman. The last however many months - because she lost all concept of time however many bottles ago - she absolutely despised that part of herself. The thing that made her see Caitlyn behind every banner, in every face. The part that couldn’t let her go, no matter how hard she tried. 

“I suppose I….” Cait stops and starts, all the while her eyes rake over Vi. It’s unnerving, that much attention after she’s gotten nothing these past few months, but Vi fights the urge to squirm. There was a time when she would have been comfortable letting Cait see her, the real her, but right now ... .she can’t give that over, not yet. Maybe not ever.

“I suppose I don’t dislike your hair,” she muses, tilting her head. “I prefer pink, but…it suits you.”

“Yeah?” 

“Mm hmm.”

Well, okay then

It’s all too much. Being here, alone, with Cait, it’s too much. The more time they spend alone, the more time they try to talk without really talking…..it’s eating Vi up inside. She doesn’t know how she’s supposed to do this. Be around someone that she’s this pissed at, that makes her this sad, all while wanting to slam them against the wall and kiss her until they can’t breathe.

The dam is going to break, at some point. They’re going to yell, and fight and scream at each other. It’s coming. 

Vi’s feeling too much, and she suspects that Caitlyn is too.

Right now though, with her head throbbing and her gut aching….she doesn’t have it in her. 

She’s content to just sit here, in her feelings and hate herself for them. What else is new?

“We should start looking for Jinx,” Cait states as she gets to her feet. “Do you have any idea where she could be?”

“I got some ideas,” Vi winces as she tries to get to her feet. It doesn’t work though, not with the sudden churning in her stomach and the ache in her head. “Fucking….”

“Vi….Vi are you…..”

She doesn’t hear the rest, not with the ringing in her ears and the sudden urge to hurl. 

Thankfully she stumbles over to the toilet before she falls to her knees and unloads what little is in her stomach - wouldn’t want to accidentally throw up on Commander Kiramman, would we - sweat dripping from her brow.

She can’t help but flinch away from the hand she feels on her shoulder, even after she remembers who it is.

“Vi….”

“Shut up,” she mutters, because if there’s one thing she doesn’t want, it's Caitlyn’s pity. She knows that when she looks back, all she’ll see is concern and sadness in those beautiful beautiful blue eyes, and she just can’t.

Cait’s not turning away though, and even if Vi usually likes that about her, right now it’s only adding to the discomfort roiling around inside her. “I’m sorry, I just want to….”

“Just fucking…give me a second Cait. Back off.”

That seems to do it, given there’s no longer a hand on Vi’s shoulder, and a second later, the door slams shut. 

Probably shouldn’t be out there in your enforcer gear, Cupcake

“Fuck you for making me care,” she mutters to herself before another bout of sickness hits her, and the process begins anew.

She’s not sure how long Cait’s gone, but it’s long enough that Vi has things under control. 

Relatively. 

She still has a splitting headache, but there’s nothing left to throw up. She’s drenched in sweat, which is only making the remnants of her black makeup and her ‘hair dye’ run in a watery mess down her face. 

She’s not sure what she hates more. The shame at desperately wanting a drink, or the shame at not wanting Caitlyn to see her like this.

They need to find Jinx though.

Vi’s barely keeping it together herself. She didn’t even fucking know Isha, and even still, she’s heartbroken by it. She can’t imagine what Jinx is….they need to find her.

And that’s not even thinking about Vander, which she’s trying desperately not to. There’s so much on her plate right now, and she’s already feeling so much, that she can’t imagine lumping that in with the rest of it.

He was gone and he’s still gone. That’s going to be how she thinks about it, for now.

There’s knocking at her door though, and that can only be two possible people. “It’s open.”

She’s not sure if she’s happy or sad about who it is.

“You’re lucky you weren’t mugged,” she croaks out, closing her eyes for just a second. She needs a breath before she looks at Cait, because she knows the feelings she’ll conjure up. “Your face is everywhere down here. Commander Kiramman .”

“Stop that,” Cait mutters, and Vi grunts as she feels something land in her lap. “Drink.”

“Poisoning me, Cupcake?”

Vi can practically hear Caitlyn’s eye roll.

She hates that it’s endearing.

“It should settle your stomach. Drink.”

“Didn’t spit in it, did you?” Vi retorts, and finally opens her eyes, just to witness the blush that graces Caitlyn’s cheeks. “Since you’re into that shit. Apparently.”

“Drink.”

Vi just lets a “bossy” slip through her lips as she takes a sip. She’s familiar with what this is - lived on it, really - and if they were in a better place, she’d tease Cait about how she got it. The haggling and bartering with a merchant that she'd definitely be uncomfortable with.

She doesn’t do any of that.

“Vi, I’m sor….”

No

“We need to leave,” Vi counters with as she tries to get to her feet, and this time, she doesn’t refuse Caitlyn’s help. It feels nice.

She just can’t hear it right now. There’s the chance they could get better, but that won’t happen until they really talk. And right now, Vi isn’t ready to really talk.

It’s a holding pattern, really.

They’re so close right now though, Caitlyn against Vi’s side as she steadies her, and Vi can’t help her gaze falling down to Cait’s lips. Those lips that she’s kissed, those lips that said that she’s not different, that said that she has Jinx’s blood in her veins, those lips that she still wants to kiss.

It’s too much. 

“Can you stand?” Cait questions, and Vi just shrugs.

“I’ll manage. Let's get going.”

“Vi….”

“Later, Cait, okay? We can do this later.”

She can tell that Cait doesn’t want to. That she wants to talk, to hash this out before they walk into what could very possibly be their last days alive.

And honestly, they probably should. But…she’s spent months (probably months) running away and hiding from the memory of this woman. She’s not ready to trust her with her feelings, and to lay all the cards out on the table.

She became an Enforcer for her, because she trusted her. Because she loved her. And all that she got in return was a rifle but to the gut, another dead father and alcoholism. 

She loves her, but she can’t handle being near her. 

“Okay,” Cait sighs as she pulls away. Away from Vi.

"Later. We'll talk."