Chapter Text
The shower smelled of lavender and vanilla, hardly a scent Vi would choose for herself but admittedly pleasant in her current situation. Because it reminded her of Caitlyn. It was Caitlyn, such a strong sensory memory that Vi could close her eyes and see the woman’s face with striking detail.
The long bridge of her nose. The high cut of her cheekbones. The disapproving frown that so often tugged on lips she loved tasting.
And the bluest eyes she’d ever seen. An ocean of bejeweled cerulean that saw her more clearly than any eyes ever had.
Vi pulled in a breath that was heavy with steam, held it for an extended moment in her lungs before letting it slowly filter past her lips. She reached for the ornate golden handle in the middle of the wall, gave it a clockwise nudge. The water that cascaded over her grew just the slightest twinge hotter and Vi grit her teeth against the bite. Swirling clouds of black and sprawling towers shifted along her back as Vi stretched her arms out in front of her, planting both palms on the shower wall to hang her head between her biceps.
She’d not heard the opening of the glass door over the sound of waterfall around her, but the touch of a hand at the small of her back didn’t startle her. It was gentle, but confident. Soft and familiar.
The softest hands that had ever touched her, actually.
Just a breath later and the length of Caitlyn Kiramman was molded to her back, long, lean arms entwined around her middle. Vi watched them move, watched them lock together in a hold so tender it made her heart hurt.
“What are you doing?” Vi asked softly, dropping one hand away from the wall to trail it smoothly over Caitlyn’s at her waist. It wasn’t an accusatory question, nor was it berating. She certainly didn’t mind the company, but Caitlyn had taken her own shower barely an hour ago. Seemed a fair thing to ask.
“You’ve been in here a while,” Caitlyn answered. Vi felt the press of her cheek to the back of her shoulder.
“Have I?”
Caitlyn only hummed an answer in the affirmative and Vi sighed quietly, somewhat surprised to hear it. She hadn’t even noticed being swept away by her own thoughts, her own worries.
“I just wanted to check on you.”
“I’m fine,” Vi assured her simply, giving Caitlyn’s hand a gentle squeeze before she let it go again. Her palm returned to the wall, a mirror image of its opposite against the marble.
“Are you?”
Was she?
Four days ago, Jinx had left her locked in that fucking cell, and it had broken her. Simply shattered Vi to stand there behind a set of bars and watch her sister disappear into darkness. In some ways, it felt worse than the handful of deaths she’d witnessed. A different sort of abandonment. More potent, and with a greater capacity to truly fuck a person up.
Her parents? They’d made the conscious choice to participate in the rebellion that found them dead on the Bridge of Progress. But orphaning their daughters? Not a decision they'd made for themselves.
Mylo. Claggor. Vander .
They’d not made conscious choices to leave Vi and Powder behind.
This was different. This stung deeper, and Vi had spent days going over Jinx’s final words to her. Over and over again.
“You don’t have to worry about me anymore.”
Why? What did it mean? What was Jinx changing – what was she doing – that suddenly Vi shouldn’t need to feel concern for her little sister anymore?
“You don’t need to feel guilty about being happy.”
Vi wasn’t convinced she knew what happy felt like. When she looked through the pages of her life, she didn’t see happy. She didn’t remember happy . Part of Vi wondered if there had been even a single happy moment since the day Vander died.
“You deserve to be with her.”
Vi let out a breath she hadn’t realized she was holding, the sound of it closely resembling a quiet whimper.
She wasn’t sure she’d felt happiness with Caitlyn. There was always so much shit in the way. Every corner of her brain occupied by one thing or another and it simply didn’t leave enough room for a truly happy feeling to slip through.
But there were moments that came close. There were feelings that were so far removed from pain and loss and devastation that if she squinted hard enough… Vi thought maybe she could call them good , and that was good enough for her.
“Vi?”
One of Caitlyn’s arms untangled from the other so a hand could slide up her abdomen, where it settled with an open palm over the left side of her chest.
“Are you scared, Cait?”
It wasn’t an answer to the question Caitlyn had asked, and Vi felt a twist of guilt in her stomach for that.
“Of what?”
Caitlyn was nuzzling between her shoulder blades now, lips and nose and a warm breath caressing her wet skin right there at the top of her spine. Vi shivered and squeezed her eyes shut.
“We could die tomorrow.”
Steb was leading a small unit of enforcers beyond the bridge, tracking the movement of Ambessa, Viktor, and their army. They were approaching. She and Caitlyn had spent the entire afternoon underground with Jayce and Mel, pooling together all their collective intelligence and cunning to devise some sort of strategy to prevent the worst from happening.
The end of Piltover. The end of Zaun.
The end of them .
“That’s true of every day, Vi,” Caitlyn whispered softly and Vi could tell she was trying to placate. Trying to make this horrible fate they faced seem a little less serious.
“But it’s not every day a Noxian warlord and a psycho iron prophet team up to knock on our doors, Caitlyn,” Vi retorted. Her hands had curled into fists against the shower wall and it didn’t surprise her that Caitlyn responded to the change in her posture immediately. Those hands were on her shoulders now, smoothing slowly along her biceps and up her forearms, and ultimately wrapped softly over Vi’s fists.
She gave them a gentle tug and Vi conceded almost instantly, arms dropping, body giving to the pressure of Caitlyn’s touch until she’d turned to face her completely. Deep blue hair had been twisted into a high bun at the top of Caitlyn’s head, preventing it from getting wet all over again. But the rest of her… The long, beautiful length of her was speckled with water drops.
Vi wanted to taste each one. She wanted to spend the next hour sipping each and every drop off of flawless skin until the only thing left behind on Caitlyn was the essence of Vi.
But those bright blue eyes that had captured her from the very first look commanded her attention now, and so Vi gave it.
“Yes, I’m scared,” Caitlyn finally gave a real answer where she must have known Vi needed one.
A stronger sense of conviction than Vi had, that was for certain.
“Tomorrow is never promised,” she continued, tugging Vi closer so their bodies pressed, wet and warm and so pliant, it made Vi feel a little dizzy. Caitlyn’s hands slid along her shoulders once more, moving inwards until they framed either side of her neck while Vi’s found their home at flared hips. “So what will you do with today?”
Vi’s gaze immediately dropped to Caitlyn’s mouth and she inhaled deeply, chest expanding, and exhaled slowly through her nose.
“You don’t need to feel guilty about being happy.”
She tipped her chin up, elongated her spine and leaned forward to claim Caitlyn’s lips in a firm but tender kiss.
“You deserve to be with her.”
Her hands squeeze to Caitlyn’s hips, and carefully urged her a step back. Their lips parted with a satisfying smack and as their gazes met once more, Vi gave a single nod.
“Go wait for me in bed,” she instructed softly. A few seconds passed between them. Acknowledgment, Vi thought. Caitlyn nodded back and pressed a hand to the side of Vi’s cheek.
“Don’t be long.”
Vi struggled to swallow a lump in her throat as she watched Caitlyn turn to leave, completely incapable of resisting a glance at the luscious rounds of her ass before the shower door closed behind her.
Vi emerged from the bathroom a short while later, hair damp but already beginning to spring into its signature coif over her right eye. She glistened with water, skin still damp and slick with it. She hadn’t bothered with a towel. She hadn’t bothered with clothes. Caitlyn wanted to know what she’d do with today if tomorrow wasn’t promised and if Vi was to treat tonight like her last, then there was but one thing she wanted.
To chase happiness, and to claim it for herself.
As Vi approached the foot of the bed, Caitlyn rolled onto her back in the middle of it, feet sliding smoothly along the sheets in a way that had her knees meeting, her calves brushing. It was entirely alluring and Vi once again steeled herself with a deep breath.
Somehow, against all odds… this beautiful thing was hers.
She’d spend however many days this world had planned for her cherishing that. Cherishing her.
“Vi,” Caitlyn cried as Vi crawled up the bed, hands and knees on either side of the woman’s long, bare body. The tone was caught somewhere between indignation and amusement. “You’re going to soak the bed,” she chastised.
Vi smirked. “No, you’re going to soak the bed,” she replied, sliding into place between Caitlyn’s thighs as they opened for her.
She started at Caitlyn’s lips. Kissed them softly, and slowly. With a purpose that she never quite had before. Minutes passed before her head tilted, before her tongue slid beyond Caitlyn’s lips to sample her flavor. To share her own. It was the definition of a languid pace. Sensual and intentional.
Like mapping every inch with her tongue, so she might never forget this. So she could never forget Caitlyn, even if the world was ever fit to tear them apart.
Wouldn't be the first time, really.
By the time Vi was painting kisses down the sharp length of Caitlyn’s jaw, they were already breathing heavily. It seemed the both of them could tell what this meant. Something more. Something huge , weighted with the quiet and careful conversation that had preceded it. When Vi reached her neck, her mouth opened, the flat of her tongue pressed to warm flesh as she traveled a smooth path down the column of Caitlyn’s throat.
Long fingers threaded into her damp hair. Thin knees lifted to frame her hips and she felt Caitlyn press up against her. Searching, impatient.
“Trying to take my time here, Cupcake,” she whispered against the shell of Caitlyn’s ear. There was hardly tonality to her voice, the words almost pure breath. It made Caitlyn exhale a gasp that sent shivers moving along Vi’s arms.
“Sorry,” Caitlyn croaked, the break in her voice so uncharacteristic and so undignified that Vi actually chuckled, burying her grin into the warm curve of Caitlyn’s neck. “Please proceed.”
“You’re cute when you’re impatient,” Vi murmured, which earned her a smack on her shoulder that wouldn’t have killed a fly had one been there.
Which, in turn, earned Caitlyn a sharp and sudden thrust of Vi’s hips forward and down. Vi lifted her head in time to cover Caitlyn’s mouth before she could gasp, swallowing the surprised sound of pleasure that built in her throat.
By the time her hand tucked itself between Caitlyn’s thighs, many long minutes later, the arousal and the deep desire for their entanglement was ample, evidenced by the thick heat that coated Vi’s fingers with a single stroke.
“Cait,” Vi moaned, moved by the sensation of it all and the fact that she could provoke this from within a woman she knew to be impossibly strong-willed and entirely unflappable. They’d done this every day since their first time in the bunker – sometimes more than once. Well, most times more than once. But it was just as thrilling each and every time.
Caitlyn knew just how to hold her when they came together like this. One hand fisted in her hair, the other arm curled around her back with fingers clinging to the jut of her shoulder blade. It was just right, and Vi liked to think she was getting better at reading each of Caitlyn’s tells. When she pushed her knuckles down and angled her fingers up, Caitlyn’s nails bit into her skin. When her palm mashed to a swollen clit, Caitlyn threw her head back with a violent and breathtaking arch of her back and neck.
Vi had never played an instrument, but she likened this experience to something like that. The song she was crafting with painstaking care was the most beautiful sound she’d ever heard.
Her mouth was pressed to Caitlyn’s chest when she came, just over her heart. Vi swore she could feel it beating against her lips, all but thrashing against the rib cage that imprisoned it.
The aftermath was always as powerful as the rest of it, Vi thought, as their bodies moved naturally with and against one another. Her fingers slid from within fluttering muscles and Vi swallowed Caitlyn’s tiny whine of protest with a kiss, sealing it all the same way it started. And then they simply disappeared into each other, Vi tucking herself against Caitlyn, beneath her chin. Strong arms could have looped twice around her lover’s slender waist, and Caitlyn wrapped around her shoulders. A hand that had formerly been twisted tight in her hair now stroked slowly over it instead. Over and over, over again.
Vi closed her eyes and saw Piltover in ruins, it’s glinting towers cracked and crumbling.
She held tighter to Caitlyn, pressed her face into the flush skin of her chest.
“Cait, I–”
“You deserve to be with her.”
The hand at the back of her head paused in its motion. Vi thought maybe they’d be able to hear a pin drop in the silence that had surrounded them so suddenly. It felt oppressive, especially after the free and unfiltered sounds of their sex.
“You don’t need to feel guilty about being happy.”
“Caitlyn…”
Her fingers curled against Caitlyn’s back, the tips pressing firm enough into fair flesh that shadows caught in the indents.
“I love you, too.”
Vi’s breath stuck in her throat. Was that her heart climbing up inside it? Her stomach did a somersault against her ribs and for a moment, Vi felt like she was falling.
“What?”
Slowly, so slowly, Vi lifted her head. Caitlyn’s fingers had resumed their easy passes through damp magenta strands and their eyes met in the dim light of the chandelier in the middle of the room.
“I said I love you, Vi.”
“That’s not–”
“Yes it is.”
Yes, it most definitely was precisely what Vi wanted to say, but couldn’t find the words. Three simple, stupid words that her pathetic tongue felt incapable of shaping. Vi’s chest was moving rapidly now, her breaths coming shorter and shorter as her eyes flicked back and forth between Caitlyn’s.
How did this girl – a topsider, an enforcer, the head of one of the most affluent families of Piltover – see Vi, an orphan from the streets of Zaun, so fucking clearly?
She watched Caitlyn’s brows tip slowly over her eyes, and it wasn’t until the hand at the back of her head circled around to the front, until a thumb brushed over her damp cheek, that Vi even realized she was crying.
“It’s alright,” Caitlyn whispered, a finger tucking itself beneath Vi’s chin to lift it just a little higher. Their lips touched between words and Vi could have sworn she felt her insides imploding, such was the power this woman had over her. Such was the strength and the emotion she curated inside Vi. “You don’t have to say it,” she continued, and Vi choked on a quiet sob. The only way the air seemed capable of leaving her lungs right now. “I can see it.” A small smile found its way to Caitlyn’s lips as she leaned in to kiss Vi again. It tasted sweet with the salt of her tears. “I can feel it.”
Vi didn’t know how to process this new level of emotions swelling in her chest. She’d loved people before. She knew she did, and she believed she loved strongly, too. Love was the reason for all of it , wasn’t it?
She loved Powder so fucking much that she’d have done anything to give her more than what they had growing up in the Lanes. She loved her sister more than she’d loved anything else in the world, and time and time again, that love saw fit to punch her in the face for feeling it. Love had never gotten her anywhere and yet, Vi couldn’t turn it off. Didn’t know how to.
She chose wrong every time, but here was Caitlyn. In her arms, and in her heart. Telling Vi she loved her.
With a breathy, desperate gasp, Vi molded her mouth to Caitlyn’s again. A firm kiss, reaching and filled to bursting with the passion she held inside her for this girl. It said all the things her words couldn’t, and she trusted Caitlyn to decipher its meaning.
“Promise me you won’t be stupid tomorrow,” Vi whispered against her lips. She’d rolled them again, Caitlyn’s back sinking into the bed below with their combined weight.
“Vi, you know I can’t–”
“No,” Vi insisted, hands pressed into the mattress on either side of Caitlyn’s head. Pink hair fell in messy tendrils around their faces, gazes locked with intensity. “I know you, Caitlyn Kiramman. I know that noble heart of yours is willing to do anything to protect order and justice. And the things that you love.”
One of the many reasons Vi had fallen in love with her, wasn’t it?
“Promise me you make it out the other side,” she implored quietly, and finally lowered herself enough to rest her forehead against Caitlyn’s. “I need you, Cait.”
There was something like desperation written across Vi’s face, glinting in her gray eyes as she watched a struggle move through Caitlyn’s expression. But she waited. For once in her life, Vi demonstrated a patience that was quite uncharacteristic for her, because Caitlyn was worth it.
Happiness was in her future, Vi thought. She could see it, somewhere down the road, around a bend. But of what she had left, Caitlyn was part of that happiness. Was paramount to it.
She’d already lost her sister. Losing Caitlyn would be the end of the road.
So she waited. Kept right on waiting as their eyes stared, and as Caitlyn’s hands lifted to frame her face with a tender touch that burned.
“I promise.”