Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Vi leaned her back against the granite topped bar, her fingers coiled so tightly around the whiskey glass she had been holding for past ten minutes that it seemed she might shatter or crumble within her grasp.

Moonlight, bright and unrelenting, knifed through the floor-to-ceiling windows just left of her, catching flecks of amber in the whiskey and scattering them in molten shards across her crisp black suit—a midnight shield that suddenly felt like nothing more than brittle paper, unable to shield her from the ache building behind her breastbone. Her carelessly unbuttoned white shirt yawned open at her collar, casting the sinew of her throat and the rise of her collarbone into stark relief, pale above the dusk of her suit. She felt exposed down to the marrow, as if the world could see every secret she’d ever tried to hide—especially the one she wore tonight, in the form of an ephemeral pink flower, petals trembling right above her heart with every taut, shuddering breath. It was the only softness in her, the only thing not forged or armoured, and it fluttered because it knew exactly whom it longed for.

Jazz spilled through the overly spacious hall in velvet ribbons—trumpet and saxophone weaving together threads of longing and heat, romance and seduction. Each note seemed to pull at Vi’s silence, prying open the places where comfort had yet to reach. Laughter and cheers rose and ebbed in bright, careless waves, flickering just beyond her, dazzling and distant. Crystal glasses collided and reflected a riot of colour, shoes flashed on the slick black-and-white floor—flashes of joy arcing through the air. But Vi remained unmoved, peripheral, marooned on the edge of the revellers, a shadow warped by light. Nobody noticed the keenness of her gaze, the hope packed tight and sharp beneath every breath, her focus locked to a single orbit: Caitlyn.

Caitlyn .

Caitlyn. Her anchor, her refuge, her best friend, her person, and more often than not, her undoing.

Vi was desperate to turn away from the sight before her, but she was hopeless against the gravity of the woman in the centre of the room—bound by a longing so fierce she sometimes believed it would burn her hollow from the inside; if it hadn’t already. They’d been inseparable for as long as Vi could remember: partners in mischief and disaster, laughter and late-night escapades. Caitlyn’s presence was as familiar as breathing, her wit as sharp as the cut of her jaw, her touch both a comfort and ache, the source of every happiness Vi allowed herself. And yet, beneath all the easy camaraderie—beneath every inside joke, every lingering look—Vi hid a love she could never voice, a yearning that left her feeling both blessed and cursed.

Best friends, everyone called them. Sisters-in-arms. Platonic soulmates.

But Vi’s love was something secret and bruised, something she nursed like a stubborn flame, dangerous and impossible.

And tonight, that ache was worse than ever. For, beneath the flaring spill of the crystallised chandelier, Caitlyn was a vision at the centre of the dance floor—incandescent and untouchable. Her dress was virgin white and shimmering, each detail designed to catch the light and make her the star of any room she decided to grace this evening. Her laughter—wild, irreverent, perfectly Caitlyn—echoed across marble and memory, sharp with a private joy. Every sound cut into Vi, pleasure and agony twisted together, jealousy flaring in sharp snaps behind her battered pride. Hanna—tall, ice-eyed, and impossibly graceful—drew Caitlyn closer, guiding her around the floor with a confidence that made Vi ache to take her place—to hold Caitlyn just like that, to press her forehead to hers, to caress her with words of love and wanting, to hold her body to her own and...

No. She shouldn’t go there. Not today.

The movements between Caitlyn and Hanna were not just dance, but an unspoken conversation: glances like promises, touches drawn in secret code, a language of love Vi had never been brave enough to speak aloud. Vi could only stand at the edge, aching and scared, her longing pressed raw to the bone beneath her makeshift steel vest of careless bravado. The world around them bloomed with fairytales—celebrations and futures sealed in gold. Nobody saw the fissures clawing through Vi from within, the way her eyes sought out Caitlyn, the silent ache that cleaved her in two.

For Vi, Caitlyn was not just a piece of her past, but the axis on which her world spun—her gravitational pull, the only steady ground after everything else had crumbled. After her parents had passed away, Vi’s universe grew sharp, cold and lonely. Until Caitlyn had come along. She remembered running through the city’s darker quarters with Caitlyn—two shadows stitched together by necessity and the rare kind of laughter you only find when you are lost and young. Caitlyn’s world had always been made of glass and gilt edges: certainty, privilege, and a fierce sense of justice that clashed with Vi’s bruised streets and battered pride. At first, they’d clashed—the friction of two desperate souls thrown together—but friendship bloomed in the aftermath, real and wild and lasting longer than Vi ever imagined she deserved.

For years, Caitlyn had been the single lifeline Vi refused to let go, her last certainty in a sea of loss. They were best friends, yes—but secretly, heartbreakingly, Vi wanted more.

Needed more.

Hoped.

Then Hanna appeared and shifted everything, silent as an earthquake. Only then—watching Caitlyn drift into someone else’s orbit—did Vi recognize what she’d been pretending not to see: the way every glance caught, every touch haunted her, every word bitten back was its own small catastrophe. What good would it do, admitting to a love that could only bring ruin? Fear kept her silent—fear that confessing would wreck everything, or worse, that Caitlyn would turn away and she’d lose her, even as her friend. So Vi buried her longing, kept it hidden behind bravado and lies and an armour forged long before Hanna entered their lives.

But armour was no match for a wedding ring—a cold, irrevocable promise that flashed beneath the lights, sealing Caitlyn's future away as Vi stood in the shadows, gripping the remnants of dreams that would never be spoken aloud. Her battle now was to let go, to watch Caitlyn slip into someone else’s story.

But, how?

A sudden presence broke Vi’s spiral—footsteps as familiar as her own heartbeat, heels echoing sharply across the marble’s cold, polished expanse. She didn’t need to look up to know it was Cassandra Kiramman.

“Vi,” Cassandra greeted, her voice softer than usual, laced with a note Vi rarely heard—sympathy, fragile and almost mournful.

Vi’s own response emerged half-formed, torn between defiance and longing, a raw, split syllable: “Mom.” That word ached in her mouth, heavier now than ever. It hadn’t always been easy between them. In fact, at times it was painfully tense, their lives circling each other like wary animals. Cassandra had often accused Vi of being a bad influence on her daughter, her voice razor-sharp and cold. But time, as it sometimes does, had turned old accusations into grudging respect. Against all odds, Vi had proven herself a good influence in ways no one could have expected.

A charged silence unfolded between them—stretched thin as spun glass, trembling on the verge of breaking. Cassandra leaned in, the silk of her sleeve whispering as she moved, her hand hesitating before settling, warm and steady, atop Vi’s still-clenched fist. It was a touch only a mother could give, familiar and fierce – a wordless kind of touch that signalled: I’m here. The gesture anchored her, sending a shock of warmth up Vi’s arm, steadying the storm inside her—or at least, trying to. In that small touch lay everything Cassandra couldn’t or shouldn’t say: apologies too long unspoken, quiet gratitude, sorrow for every harsh word, and finally, layered love—fierce, complicated, and wholly theirs. All of it pressed itself into Vi, grounding her in the present, reminding her she wasn’t alone.

She risked a glance at the older woman. Her jaw was locked tight, every muscle bracing for impact. Cassandra's gaze met hers, dark and determined – knowing.

Questions warred in Vi’s eyes—How?

Cassandra’s exhale was measured, as though she might blow away Vi's facade with nothing but patience. Swirling her glass, she watched the wine catch fire in the light, red-black on white linen. “I knew, from the first night you came into entered my home,” she murmured, voice both velvet and steel. “The way you looked at her—it was never just friendship, Vi.”

Vi barked a laugh, thin and laced with bitterness.

Of course she knew.

Across the crowded room, Caitlyn was framed in the haze of fairy lights, her raven hair unbound, a vision of reckless grace and unbridled joy. Their eyes collided—Caitlyn’s gaze bluer than broken glass, open in a way that made Vi want to believe in impossible things. The smile she managed seemed to shimmer in the space between them, as fragile as hope on a winter morning.

Vi’s grip only tightened, pain a band drawn tight around her ribs. Every breath was costly, paid for with tiny sacrifices. At last, breaking beneath the weight of it, she turned to Cassandra. “Why now? Why tonight?” Her words came torn and raw. “Why not let me keep pretending?”

Cassandra folded Vi’s hands in her cool, decisive grip, thumb tracing steady, grounding circles over bruised knuckles. Her words were silk and iron. “Because the silence is tearing you apart, Vi.”

Vi’s breath stuttered, hope and pain bleeding together. “I know. I just—”

“Have you told her yet?”

“About…? No, I haven’t. I haven’t found the right-“

Before Vi could continue, the music faltered, drawing to a quiet that glimmered with candlelight and expectation. Warmth slid around Vi from behind, familiar yet forever out of reach—arms circling her, a weight pressing meaning into her back. Caitlyn’s cheek brushed Vi’s shoulder, her scent a braid of lavender and whiskey, memory and regret. Vi stiffened, but Caitlyn’s laughter—slipped and wild, flush with drink—disarmed her, loosening the knots inside her chest.

“Vi,” Caitlyn whispered, mischief tangled in longing, “Dance with me!”

Vi turned, caught by the dare and vulnerability in Caitlyn’s eyes—deep blue, defenceless, almost too bright to look at. “How many drinks have you had, Cupcake?”

Caitlyn grinned, radiant and dangerous in her certainty. “Enough,” she replied. “Enough that I won’t take no for an answer.” She laced their hands together, leading Vi toward the dancefloor, the press of her palm both invitation and order.

Vi threw a last, panicked look at Cassandra—pleading for rescue or reason—but Cassandra simply shook her head, fierce and kind, lips forming a clear command: Tell her.

A blaze of pain crossed Vi’s features and was gone as the music surged again, pulling them under—a storm of hope, fear, and longing igniting Vi’s resolve.

Caitlyn steered them through the restless crowd, her touch a curious blend of command and comfort, her grip on Vi’s hand unyielding as iron. Vi followed, boots scuffing along the floor with every reluctant step, shoulders curled inward as if her body might somehow shield her from what awaited in the kaleidoscopic heart of the room. Around them, laughter and snatches of conversation ricocheted off gilded columns, but Caitlyn pushed forward, undeterred.

As the final thundering chord of an upbeat anthem crashed through the speakers, the music shifted; a slow, aching melody blossomed in its wake, weaving around them like silk. It felt almost intentional, as if fate—or perhaps memory itself—had chosen the song for them alone.

Vi stiffened at the song’s opening bars, the haunting familiarity of the lyrics slashing through her—pain as sharp and bright as lightning. Once, not so long ago, she would’ve pulled Caitlyn close with reckless joy, uncaring who watched or what they had to say about it. But that was before—before she realised what holding the woman in her arms meant to her, before imagined tomorrows soured into a forgotten yesterday – that was before Caitlyn’s wedding dress became the barrier neither of them could cross.

She couldn’t do this. Not with Caitlyn in a gown that wasn’t meant for her, not with herself locked into a suit that Caitlyn had specifically asked for her to wear when standing beside her... Not when…

But Caitlyn, stubborn and luminous, refused to step back. She drew closer, blue eyes searching Vi’s with a rawness that made Vi’s own breath stutter. Caitlyn’s hands found Vi’s shoulders—gentle, certain, trembling enough to reveal the storm behind her calm. Did Caitlyn know? Did she sense the unsaid words building between them, wonder if things would have been different if fate had rewritten their ending? If timing had ever bent in their favour?

With a kind of fierce tenderness, Caitlyn drew them both into the circle of golden lamplight, fingers curling in a silent invitation. She pulled Vi in until Caitlyn’s delicate breath was a ghost, warm and uncertain, tracing Vi’s cheek—every word, when it came, coloured by longing and something dangerously close to regret. “Come on, Vi. Just one more dance. For old times’ sake.” Caitlyn’s voice slid between velvet and steel, steady and yet breaking, need and plea woven together until Vi felt something fragile inside her splinter.

Vi’s hands slid to Caitlyn’s waist, fingertips pressing into expensive silk, feeling the softness beneath, feeling the quick pulse that matched her own. She clutched Caitlyn with a desperation she could no longer disguise, clinging to this sliver of make-believe. She would let herself have this one stolen moment—one more breath suspended between before and after, when it could be only them, the rest of the world washed away.

They began to sway, slowly at first, the world dissolving into pools of flickering candlelight and the faded laughter of distant guests. Everything beyond their embrace blurred; their universe shrank to a fragile centre, gravity tightening around them, threatening to keep them close even as it warned them apart. The ache in Vi’s chest sharpened quickly, hot and uncontainable—rising beyond longing into something like mourning, for what might have been. Her eyes burned, tears held back by sheer force of will, but she managed a trembling smile—for Caitlyn, for the memory of who they’d been, for the ache of all those years when friendship had almost been enough.

Only she and the trembling ache veiled beneath her ribcage knew how deeply she yearned, how much she would always crave more than Caitlyn could offer. It was a secret she kept pressed close, tangled in the spaces between their laughter, hidden where even Caitlyn’s keen blue eyes never looked.

A helpless whimper escaped anyway, too raw to bury. Caitlyn’s arms tightened, drawing Vi into a fierce, protective hold—clinging as best friends, as if their bond might ward off the world itself, but there was something more desperate in Vi’s grip. She pressed her face to Caitlyn’s shoulder, swallowing grief like razors. Not yet—not while the illusion of “them” felt real, however fleeting. Caitlyn leaned in, her fingers drifting to the nape of Vi’s neck, idly tracing the tattoo she used to mock in gentle jest, teasing with stories and lingering touches.

“Hey,” Caitlyn murmured, lips just brushing Vi’s ear, her breath warm and shivery as a midwinter dusk. “What’s going on in that head of yours?”

Vi tried to laugh, but it snagged painfully in her throat. “Nothing, Cait. I’m just… so happy for you.” The smile she forced barely held together—fragile, like spun glass that Caitlyn had seen break a hundred times in the field. Caitlyn would spot the lie, she knew she would.

And she did.

Caitlyn’s answering laugh quivered, tangled somewhere between a sigh and a sob. “Don’t, Vi. You’ve never been able to lie to me.” Her fingers lingered at Vi’s collarbone, forming lazy circles—a touch that she knew meant nothing more. “Please… don’t shut me out. I know you. I know when something’s eating you, even if you think you’re hiding it.”

Vi shook beneath her, jaw clenched, words shuttered behind fear and longing. But there was no more space to run. “I got an offer.” Her voice was rough, scraped thin from holding back. “Work. In Ionia.” She held Caitlyn tight, as if this would imprint her touch into skin and memory, a keepsake for all the days apart. “I said yes.”

Caitlyn stiffened, her breath caught and breaking, suspended in the hush that followed—like the city pausing between thunder and silence. She jerked away enough to see Vi’s eyes, shock radiating in every line of her face, lips parted as if a word might stop time. Vi seized her hand, desperate, refusing to let the chasm open between them.

“When do you leave?” Caitlyn managed, her voice thinned to almost nothing, brittle—confused.

Hurt.

Betrayed.

Vi steeled herself, feeling the words scorch her tongue. “Tomorrow.”

Colour drained from Caitlyn’s cheeks, her hands falling limp and broken at her sides like wilted petals. “Tomorrow?” The word barely held together, a trembling thread. “You’re leaving tomorrow, and you’re only telling me now?” Her voice cracked open, spilling all the years of secrets shared and trust fiercely guarded. “Of all days—why today?”

Vi turned away, unable to meet Caitlyn’s gaze, guilt gnawing savage and relentless, hollowing her out from the inside. “Cait, I… There was never the right time. Especially with the wedding and—”

Caitlyn let out a laugh edged with devastation—splintered crystal scattering through the night air. “That’s not mercy, Vi. You think telling me now is kinder? Was your plan to vanish? To call me when you got there and tell me then? Or were you hoping that when I came back, I wouldn’t realise that you were gone?”

Vi shook her head, leaden and exhausted. “I couldn’t tell you Cait. I didn’t know how or when or… why. I just… I only signed on for a totally of six months. I didn’t think it would be that big a deal.” She squeezed Caitlyn’s hand, as if she could transmit all she couldn’t speak.

Caitlyn wiped her eyes roughly, fighting back tears, her gaze flickering over Vi’s face—searching, angry, aching in a way Vi knew too well: the look reserved for someone who mattered too much to lose. “Gods, you’re stubborn.” Her voice trembled with grief and the ghost of a smile.

Vi offered a crooked, mournful grin, every unsaid word trembling in her fingers. “Guess I am. Truth is—I’m scared, Cait. I don’t know how to say goodbye. Not to you.” Beneath the joke, her voice broke under the truth she’d buried for years.

Caitlyn’s chin lifted, pain shimmering in her gaze, but beneath it something fierce and fragile glowed—a hope that refused to die, the kind only best friends could share. She folded into Vi’s arms once more, burying her face in the soft fabric of Vi’s blazer. “Then let’s not. Let’s not say it. Six months isn’t that long… we can do that. Right?” Her breath was a wish fluttering along Vi’s skin, her hands clutching Vi’s lapel as if to anchor herself. “Could it just be… see you later?”

Vi pressed a trembling kiss to Caitlyn’s hair, eyes squeezed shut against a tide of grief and love too fierce for words. “Yeah.” The phrase caught between promise and prayer, offered silently to the parts of herself that would never stop needing Caitlyn, not just as her best friend, but as the secret heart beating behind every lost wish. “That’s what we will do.”

They swayed in a silence as charged as a storm yet to break, orbiting each other in aching gravity—best friends balanced on the edge of confession. Vi could sense every frantic thud of her own heart, its rhythm quickening with unspoken longing. The world around them faded, a watercolour blur, as if their embrace had wrapped them in an inviolable cocoon—a haven for fragile hopes Vi was terrified to name. Song after song unfurled and died away, and they held each other tighter, desperate, Vi clinging as though the smallest distance might rip open the truth she’d spent years hiding, shattering her world to dust. The hush was complete except for the ragged sound of Vi’s pulse and the subtle shift of Caitlyn’s breath—an unspoken language between two souls who had grown together. Words crowded Vi’s throat, desperate for air but heavy with fear—the reason Caitlyn was leaving; the ache Vi kept pressed behind jokes and bravado; the love she couldn’t ever speak, not now, maybe not ever.

The job was meaningless—a hollow scrap of duty said to mean something, but promising only exile to a soot-scarred province far from Piltover’s cold grandeur. Some backwater, bruised and blue with forgotten sky, untouched by Chemtech’s hungry rot. She didn’t want to leave; every inch of her belonged to this city, the only home she’d ever fought for, moulded from violence and stubborn defiance. But she couldn’t watch the future grow brighter for Caitlyn—a new life blossoming with Hanna—while she drowned in dreams, she could never voice. Was it selfish, to cut herself out instead of twisting into a role she couldn’t bear? Caitlyn needed her; even Powder still needed her big sister. But lately, the air in this place was too thin, stifling, every breath a reminder of what she couldn’t have. Better to go—maybe then the ache would dull to something survivable, and distance would teach her how to be whole again. Not just Caitlyn’s shadow, the one laughing too easily, guarding the ache behind her eyes. Maybe, with miles between them, she’d remember who she was outside of this love.

Maybe.

All too soon, the music unravelled into silence, and the main hall lights roared to life—cold and blinding, splintering the fragile sanctuary Caitlyn and Hanna had so carefully crafted for the evening. Every part of Vi rebelled as she gently untangled herself from Caitlyn’s arms, a rush of frigid emptiness flooding her chest, hollowing her out in an instant. In the cruel incandescence, every detail sharpened: Hanna standing nearby, precise and unmoving, her posture quietly defensive. Her eyes shimmered with wordless empathy, a mute witness to a heartbreak she seemed to understand deeply—perhaps Cassandra had confided in her, or perhaps Hanna possessed that uncanny, patient insight that made her both a guardian and a confidante.

Whether their love had ever been romantic or always platonic, the bond Vi shared with Caitlyn radiated an enviable, indestructible devotion. For years it had been the anchor in Vi's world—private, intense, irreplaceable.

And now, seeing how fiercely Caitlyn looked at Hanna, Vi could not help but be happy her friend had found someone so singular. Someone worthy.

Truly.

Yet, however much Vi ached for the lingering magic to go on, the night had slipped through her fingers. Outside, the waiting car idled, its headlights slicing through the dark like silent harbingers, promising a swift journey to the airport and toward a new chapter that would begin without her.

Vi looked at Caitlyn—the quiver in her lips, the shimmer of tears Caitlyn would never allow to fall in public—and felt something vital inside her buckle.

Caitlyn tried to laugh, but the sound splintered under the weight of loss—thin, brittle, a sound Vi knew too well. “See you soon?” she asked, the words barely holding together, their hope fraying at the edges.

Vi summoned a crooked ghost of a smile—her usual swagger depleted. “‘Course, Cupcake. See you soon.” The lie scratched her throat raw, a hurt she gathered and held, silent as always.

As soon as the words left Vi’s lips Caitlyn pulled her tight, fierce and desperate. Vi buried her face in Caitlyn’s shoulder, breathing in the lavender scent—soft and familiar—trying to brand it into memory, a talisman for the exile ahead. She would carry that scent through sleepless nights and far-off dawns, a living echo of everything she couldn’t say.

Breathless, Vi forced the words past her lips, the syllables trembling: “I really am happy for you, Cait. For both of you. Go… enjoy your honeymoon. You deserve it.”

They drew apart by slow inches, fingers entwined like a lifeline, refusing to let go until distance frayed the aching thread connecting them, and parting hurt worse than any blow.

Caitlyn faltered toward Hanna, her gaze clinging to Vi with a question she never asked, her lips shaping the words they had never shied from saying to each other: I love you.

Vi held her gaze, steady despite the shaking of her hands. She let everything she felt blaze silent and unashamed in her eyes: I love you, too—always.

Only when Hanna’s gentle arm settled around Caitlyn and drew her away did Vi finally let the mask slip, let her head bow, and allowed the emptiness she’d fought so long to swallow her whole.

-

Vi stepped into her apartment, the door sighing shut behind her. She peeled off her blazer with a practiced yank, flinging it onto the overcrowded hook and then choosing to ignore it as it fell to the floor, her exhaustion making her clumsy. Her boots, scuffed and stubborn, were nudged into precise alignment, her knuckles pausing on cracked leather as if the grain might anchor her in the safety of routine. But the apartment pulsed with emptiness: the air stifling, her strained breathing echoing off the barren walls, a sagging suitcase silently accusing her from the threshold, the stripped mattress glaring, no longer a nest of warmth but a bare platform shorn of comfort and memory. She hovered in the diluted lamplight, eyes aching to conjure the ghost of violet sunlight that Caitlyn used to tease her about—how afternoon gold would wander mischievously over Caitlyn’s “Pilto-chic” cushions, igniting spontaneous fits of laughter until every corner rang with their joy.

It was supposed to be a sanctuary—the first place Vi had ever dared call her own, a patch of hope purchased in weary, hard-won increments. She remembered the day she signed the lease: Caitlyn bursting in behind her, arms sprawling, paint swatches fluttering like confetti in her hands, all bright dreams and bold opinions. “This colour yells ‘Vi!’ Not that you’ll ever stop long enough to notice.” Caitlyn’s eyes dancing, the tease edged with affection. Each memory layered with moments—late-night pizza on the floor, Caitlyn’s sleepy head resting on Vi’s shoulder, long conversations that dissolved into drowsy, tangled silence. The teasing, the comfort, the way Caitlyn could soak up Vi’s shadows and reflect them back as light. The home they built together, detail by impulsive, heartfelt detail.

The only thing that Caitlyn’s name wasn’t on was the lease.

Now silence pressed into Vi’s skin, clinical and unyielding, like the chill of a waiting room after the last hope has been pronounced dead. The walls stood whitewashed and pristine, every layer of paint a failed crusade to banish the wild, messy history Powder created. Vi dragged her fingers over the chipped countertop, mapping its scars—a constellation only she and Caitlyn could read—willing it to yield proof that she, that they, had ever mattered here.

She sank onto bruised knees beside a battered box labelled STORAGE, her hands shaking as if conducting their own bitter symphony. She peeled back the battered cardboard, gut twisting with dread. Was this all she had left? Her whole life distilled and suffocating in this one small space. Was she really expected to leave behind whatever she couldn’t haul with her?

Photographs slid out in a spill of memory—raw, bright, and unrepentant. Vi and Caitlyn at fifteen, grinning like criminals caught at a crime scene, hair wild, eyes fuelled by mischief. Another, fairly recent: arms twined so naturally at thirty, Caitlyn’s gaze locked on Vi’s, their laughter private and conspiratorial, champagne diamonds in the air. Vi’s thumb lingered on Caitlyn’s laughing face, the kind of smile that snagged Vi’s breath so fiercely she’d forced herself to look away in life—afraid someone might see what shone in her eyes. The same frightened yearning tripped Vi now, a longing so raw it ached; she let her fingers linger, imagining Caitlyn tumbling from the paper into the hollow room, illuminating everything.

Sleep was a foreign country—unreachable, unmapped terrain—so Vi wandered the living room, her bare feet tracing silent paths in the shadowy light. She circled each corner with purpose, eyes flicking over the shelves, the coffee table, the windows, her gaze searching for something—anything—that might have slipped from her notice.

Her phone shattered the hush, the shrill buzz detonating in the darkness like a flare.

Mrs. K.

Cold apprehension flashed icily down her spine, rooting her to the spot. Cassandra never called at this hour—never. What could possibly have gone wrong in the brief span since she’d left the venue and come home? Her hands shook as she answered, voice rough with fatigue and dread. “Mom?”

Instead of grounding warmth she had come to associate with the woman, panic crackled from the speaker, breath halting, voice strung thin and fragile. “Vi...”

She stiffened, every muscle turning to stone. “Tobias?”

The silence that followed devoured her, swallowing seconds alive before Tobias’s voice shuddered, “It’s...”

Her stomach plunged, floor dropping from beneath her. “Spit it out!”

Tobias’s words tangled and snapped in the ache. “We’re at the hospital… Something happened, Vi. Caitlyn—she—”

She refused to hear the ending. The phone slipped from her hands and skittered across the warped planks. She shoved on her boots, shrugged her arms back into the blazer—nothing fit, not even her own skin—and lunged for the hallway. Down the stairs. Past the car, which felt too slow, too heavy; she needed to run, to fly. The city recoiled around her—neon and shadows streaking by, faces blurring into nonsense. Only Caitlyn’s laughter cut through the panic, echoing in Vi’s mind: “Run, V! I need you!”

She ran until she was whittled down to panting breaths and the flamenco of her pulse in her ears; the night blazed with streetlamps and the cold, merciless fluorescence of hospital lights. Through sliding doors, through crowds and frantic hands, past nurses shouting for calm—Vi’s vision shrank to the singular need: find Caitlyn.

At the corridor’s end, she staggered, drawn tight at the sight that greeted her—Cassandra and Tobias buckled into each other, their grief so brittle it looked likely to shatter.

“No—” The sound crawled out, broken glass in her throat.

Cassandra’s mascara ran in black rivers, her tears sparkling on trembling lashes. Tobias met Vi’s eyes with desperate regret, his hands helplessly suspended between reaching and retreat. “Vi—”

“No...” It was a hoarse gasp, Vi wrenching free, hugging herself as if she might hold her anguish in check. “Where is she?”

Tobias faltered, his hope bleeding away, voice caving in as he stepped right in front of her . “Vi. Please…”

Vi struck his chest—almost weightless, a soundless ache. The pain in her words turned blade-sharp: “Where is she!?”

Cassandra reached out, voice quaking but somehow steady, the last thread tying Vi to the moment. “We... we waited for you, Vi. The doctors… they tried. But—” Something inside Cassandra splintered, her words breaking apart. “She’s—she’s gone, sweetheart. But we waited for you to get her before... I couldn’t let them… I knew you’d want—she’d want—” The rest dissolved into sobs.

Vi’s breath came in jagged fragments. “Where is she, Mom?” Her voice was hoarse, scraping up through a throat lined with panic. She stared, unblinking, eyes shimmering with tears she wouldn’t let fall, holding herself taut as wire, as if grief could be kept at bay by stubbornness alone. Because to blink—to surrender—would be to admit that she could lose her – her best friend. Her partner in crime, her anchor; the person she loved so fiercely, secretly, that the very thought of it stripped her raw.

Cassandra pointed—a trembling hand toward the final door at the end of the corridor, a rectangular maw whose window was fogged with the breath of too much pain. The world funnelled down to that one threshold. Vi drifted toward it, every footstep a battle against the urge to run—either away, or straight through time, back to before all of this. Nothing anchored her except the memory of Caitlyn’s steady hands, Caitlyn’s voice—a lifeline she couldn’t let go of, even now.

She wouldn’t.

She couldn’t.

Because, Caitlyn wasn’t gone.

She couldn’t be.

Right?

Vi pressed her face to the glass and all the air was punched from her chest. The sight inside made her stagger back, wild-eyed, desperately seeking denial on Caitlyn’s mother’s face, a reprieve, a word that might turn the universe back the right way.

Cassandra’s reply was a sob torn raw from her chest, barely shaped by language. “We told them to wait before they took her off the ventilator. She would have wanted you… she would have...the last thing she heard before... she’d want it to be your voice.”

No .

Vi slipped through the heavy hospital door, the reek of antiseptic and stale fear clinging to her like the grime of the streets they’d once claimed together. Shadows swallowed her footsteps as she drifted to the bedside, every movement numb and trembling, drawn helplessly to the fragile silhouette shrouded in bleached sheets. Caitlyn appeared impossibly small—her body a dim echo of the fierce, unyielding champion Vi remembered, a dethroned queen carved from sorrow and silence. Wires snaked around her arms and chest, twisting like predatory vines, as if the world refused to relinquish its cruel grip. A tube cleaved Caitlyn’s bruised lips, each ragged breath scraping through the room, while the relentless hiss and pulse of machines hammered out the slow, merciless countdown of a life poised precariously on the edge of oblivion.

No.

The cruel outline of medical equipment crowded close, casting pale shadows against Caitlyn’s stillness. She looked almost serene; Vi might have fooled herself in believing the woman was merely asleep, if not for the hair—Caitlyn’s proud, ink-dark hair, now matted around a blood-stained bandage, desecrating something untouchable.

Only the fan of lashes over sharp cheekbones still hinted at the old Cait, the one who could eviscerate Vi with a single look, a single dry quip. Vi’s hand trembled above her arm, helpless, uncertain, then finally settled—fingertips pressing down so gently it was almost prayer. She was hopelessly searching for warmth, for a pulse—desperate for any sign that there was still a way back, that Caitlyn might miraculously spark to life, say something scathing or sweet, rescue her one last time from the words wedged in her throat.

"Cait? Hey, come on…" Vi’s voice was shrapnel—each syllable hurt, torn and bleeding. "You always said you hated hospitals, remember? The pillows were too firm, the lights were too harsh, the... It’s too bright in here, Cait. Come on, wake up and tell me to turn of the light or shut the blinds... Anything." She squeezed a laugh into the air, but it twisted, miserable and small until it faded into a rasp. "If Hanna comes in, she’ll probably rip the doors out of their hinges. She’s tearing the whole place down, isn’t she? Demanding, begging, threatening—anything to get you back. I can hear her, Cait, she’s shouting your name like it might pull you through. Like the universe could obey if it only listened hard enough." The air went painfully thin, jokes and memories splintering in the hush between their heartbeats.

She brushed her thumb along Caitlyn’s wrist, careful to dodge the cruel white tape. Even her touch felt dangerous—like she might be the one thing too heavy, the final crack that broke everything. So Vi stilled, fingertips memorizing the texture of Cait’s skin, holding on to the nearness of what she was already losing. Her voice fell to a trembling hush.

"You remember that winter you first dragged me home? I was just some angry kid, bleeding and snarling, scaring away anyone with half a brain. But not you—you just squared up and told me to get it together, poured me tea like I was a stray that belonged in your world. You fixed me without even making it seem strange. You let me sit with you, like it meant something. No one ever…no one ever did that for me before. Only you."

Vi’s jaw locked, veins bright with the ache she refused to let loose. "You always were the fancy one, Cait. I used to think if I loved you too hard, you’d shatter—and then you’d go climb out windows in boots so ugly it broke my brain, and you’d just laugh. You made impossible things seem easy. You made me believe I could change, because you already believed it for me. You—Gods—Cait, you were magic. I never said it because the word felt too loud. You were everything I didn’t know how to want without losing myself."

She slid to her knees, as though begging was a posture she ought to have learned sooner, the linoleum biting through every nerve. Vi reached out to smooth a strand of dark, damp hair from Caitlyn’s forehead, thumb trembling, wishing her touch could pull her free from whatever darkness was closing in.

"I can’t—" She broke off, breath hitching. "I can’t do this without you," Vi whispered, shuddering with every syllable. "Please. I know you hate this—being still, being helpless, but you can wake up now, okay? Just…just open your eyes and tell me I’m being dramatic. Roll them at me, like always. Call me an idiot, Cait. You always pulled me back. Please. Just—just pull me back one more time." She clung to Caitlyn’s arm, the coldness biting so deep her own hands trembled. Every second, she felt herself slipping, refusing to fall, clinging to denial, begging for the impossible.

She tried again for humour, for Caitlyn’s wicked smirk. "You always hated syrupy speeches, but this is me making a mess for you—so come on, Cait, embarrass me one more time. You live for it. Even now, you’d probably say ‘Really, Vi? Not in front of everyone.’"

Her tone softened, full of old things unsaid. "Remember the fence I broke my hand on? You called me an idiot, then patched me up, made a lesson out of it. ‘Scars give you character, Vi,’ you said, with that look of yours. Well—turns out you’re my biggest scar. The one I never want to lose. You cut deepest, Cait—your friendship, your faith. You made me braver. You—"

Vi bent, pressing her lips to Caitlyn’s cold knuckles, letting the confession whisper between them: "I’m sorry, Cait. I should’ve said this before. I wanted to. You… you’re the reason I tried. You’re where I began to hope I could be someone better. With you I was always more than what I started as. Nobody…you never saw what you did to me."

Then grief surged, and the truth ripped out, unguarded and naked. "If you’re in there—please, Cait. Please come back. Scream at me. Rip me a new one. Anything. I don’t care—just give me a sign. This isn’t funny, Caitlyn. It’s time to wake up." Her next words snapped out sharp, brittle—her voice cracking in a fragile facsimile of Caitlyn’s command. But the only answer was the hush and hum of machines. No brush of lashes. No movement beneath the too-thin blanket.

One last plea, hollow and pleading: "Cupcake?" The nickname fractured in her mouth—what once was playful now a prayer. Hope guttered out, leaving Vi stripped bare before the enormity of loss, the force of love she had spent years hiding.

Behind her, footsteps—slow, careful, as though afraid to break what was left. Tobias appeared in the doorway, eyes brimming, voice thick. He stepped forward, placing a steady, warm hand on Vi’s quaking shoulder.

"Vi. You have to let her go now," he whispered.

Vi shook her head, choking, the words refusing to surface. She bent lower, pressing her brow to Caitlyn’s frigid hand, shoulders wracked with sobs barely leashed. "I can’t. Not yet. She—she has to know." Clinging tight to Caitlyn’s limp fingers like an anchor against oblivion, Vi’s voice broke all the way through. "I love you," she whispered, hopeless. "Do you hear me? I love you, Caitlyn. I always have. I should’ve told you, should’ve—"

The confession was broken off as Tobias’s arms enfolded her, careful but insistent, trying to draw her away from the edge. Vi fought, wild with grief, hands locked on Caitlyn’s as if refusing to let go could bind that soul to earth. "Please, Caitlyn, please. Come back. Please." The last words fell into pieces—jagged sobs, shuddering. Tobias pulled her back, her fingers slipping—helpless and final—from Caitlyn’s forever.

-

Vi stared into the jagged shards of the shattered hospital bathroom mirror, her knuckles split and trembling. Blood trickled in furious ribbons down the porcelain sink, glistening under the harsh fluorescent light, but she barely registered the sting.

Let it bleed. Let it hurt .

At least pain was honest—a sharp, insistent truth amid the cold void gnawing at her chest. The wreckage she’d wrought was nothing compared to the hurricane raging inside.

Caitlyn was gone.

Gone .

Vi’s mind spun in frantic, suffocating spirals, strangled by questions that clawed and tore at her throat: Why? How could this happen? Where was she—why hadn’t she stopped it? Why hadn’t she saved her? Only fragmented whispers of hushed conversation pierced the fog of her grief. Car accident. Drunk driver. Dead on impact. She’d thought—prayed—it was Hanna. It gave Vi comfort to know the woman hadn’t felt any pain. She hadn’t dared asked about Caitlyn. Wouldn’t give the thought shape, because then it would become real—more than the ache beneath her ribs, more than the memory of Caitlyn’s laughter ringing through her apartment at 2 a.m., tangled hair and giddy secrets and warmth sprawled across sofa cushions. Caitlyn: her best friend, her partner in every joy and disaster. Caitlyn: whose touch lingered on Vi’s bruised forearm, whose midnight confessions still echoed in Vi’s bones. Was Caitlyn scared? Was she awake and alone as she waited for help to arrive? Did she know she wasn’t going to make it? Did she think about-

A guttural sob wrenched itself free from Vi’s chest as she slid to the cold tile floor, clutching her shredded hand to her ribs, folding in on herself as if she could shrink away to nothing. She thought of Caitlyn’s hand tangled in hers during every hospital visit, every reckless adventure that had left Vi battered but thrilled—always, always Caitlyn, steadying, scolding, laughing, loving in all the ways Vi could never name without breaking herself open. She screamed—not words, but a raw, animal howl that shattered against the tile and ricocheted across the empty stalls, scraping open the hollow ache inside her.

“This isn’t real,” she gasped, voice torn in the crook of her trembling arm. “No. Wake up, Vi. Wake up.”

The door scraped open—slow, uncertain. Footsteps approached, tentative on the antiseptic white tiles. Vi lifted her head slowly, wild with a feral mix of murder and torment, eyes red-rimmed, burning beneath a shock of sweat-stuck pink hair.

“Get out! I swear to-”

She stopped, startled. A small man in a white coat filled the doorway—spectacles glittering in the sharp light, golden hair tufts spiked and unruly—a Yordle. Dr. Heimerdinger, his name stitched in looping blue thread. He hovered, awkward, unease flickering in his round, furred face.

“What?” Vi spat, every syllable jagged as shattered glass.

Heimerdinger winced but stood his ground. “I… I am truly sorry for your loss.” His words came haltingly, foreign but edged with genuine sorrow.

Vi’s laugh was the brittle chime of broken windchimes. “Yeah?”

Yet, he didn’t budge. He watched her, his strange blue eyes unblinking, steady even in the pitiless hospital glare.

“What?” she snapped, anger flaring like magnesium.

Heimerdinger peered over his glasses, gaze sharp as a scalpel. “Vi—”

Her jaw clenched. “How do you know my name?”

He lifted his small, ink-blotted hands, golden fingers curling anxiously. “Let’s say… I know more than that.” He paused, uncertain, feeling for solid ground in a strange landscape. “My knowledge of human customs is, ah, incomplete.”

“Who are you?” Vi rasped, wrenching herself upright, muscles taut, every nerve on fire with agony and defiance.

He bore her fury with quiet gravity. “Someone who can offer you a choice.” His voice softened just above a whisper. “A chance. Not at undoing—but at a do-over. Of sorts.”

Vi stared, bloody fists trembling, disbelief warring with the hope sharpening her breath. “You’re a riot, doc. Save your magic tricks for someone who actually believes this shit.”

But Heimerdinger remained where he was, his gaze impossibly ancient, bottomless as the grief swallowing her whole. “I am not offering tricks. I can send you back. Not anywhere you wish, but to the crossroads—the moment fate braided the path for you both.”

The word cracked through her like a bullet.

She choked out, “What did you just say?”

Heimerdinger stepped in, voice low and unwavering. “I can send you back, Vi. But before you answer—”

Her voice snapped, raw and desperate. “Is this real? Or are you screwing with me? Because if this is a joke—if this is some sadist’s game—”

He shook his head, grave as the tomb. “No matter the road, Caitlyn was always meant to die today. That I cannot change. Not you. Not me.”

The words struck her like a train, every syllable pounding the breath from her. “So—what, you’ll put me back, but the ending’s already written?”

He nodded, ancient sorrow in his eyes. “You may shape your story, Vi, but you may not erase its end.”

Vi’s vision blurred, fire and salt pooling at her chin. “Then what the hell is the point?”

“To say what you never did. To hold her, one last time. To love her the way you always hoped to. Some things remain fixed, Vi—but how you let them end is still yours to choose.”

The silence pressed in, thick as grave dirt. Blood pooled, cooling around her knees. At last, her voice cracked, hope and terror interwoven like splinters.

“Send me back. Please.”

-

Vi clawed her way out of suffocating darkness, consciousness tearing back into her skull like shrapnel. Pain hammered and radiated, molten and relentless, from her head’s base down her spine to the hollow above her heart. She kept her eyes sealed, a final line of defence—the world could flood in at any moment, savage and pitiless. She curled in on herself, fist clenching so tight her nails left half-moon scars in her own skin, barricading against the jagged, splintered memories pressing in.

Wedding. Home. Hospital. Wedding. Hospital. Wedding. Caitlyn. Hospital. Caitlyn. Car. Caitlyn. Goodbye. Caitlyn. Dead.

Dead.

Dea—

No.

NO.

Her chest caved, ribs knitting into a steel cage; every breath scraped razor-sharp, slicing her lungs. Dread pooled in her gut, thick and cold, twisting everything inside. The shrill shriek of her alarm jerked her from the undertow, breaking the spiral. She ripped open her eyes, blinking through a blur at the fissured ceiling over her. Nothing fit. The world felt fractured, incomplete. She’d fell asleep in the hospital restroom—last night... right? Her hands shook as she fumbled for her phone, certain she hadn’t set an alarm. Why would she? When had she?

7:00 AM.

The numbers glared, bright and pitiless. Below them, the date scoured her veins: January 25th, 2024. Her heart throttled in her chest. That couldn’t be. She wasn’t supposed to be—

Heimerdinger. The doctor.

Her phone buzzed, violently, making her flinch. Words flashed on the lock screen—a contact, a name, a nickname more intimate than air.

Cupcake. ‘What should I wear for my date toni...’

Vi didn’t need to read further. She remembered every word, every typo, the ritual teasing cadence. They were etched inside her. Haunting her. Dr. Heimerdinger had said...

One year. That was all the time they had been granted.

One year.

ONE. YEAR.

Pulse roaring, Vi hurled herself into clothes, indifferent to fabric or colour—just movement, now, forward, before the world shifted and closed her out again. The mirror offered nothing. Vanity didn’t matter. Only certainty, only the gut-deep need to seize and spend every fragment of this impossible reprieve.

She crashed down the stairs, heart jackhammering, legs trembling and unsteady as she spilled across tile and into the dawn. The city choked in silver mist, dew trembling on her windshield. She flung herself behind the wheel, shattering the hush, burning through stoplights and horn blasts, weaving between crimson and gold, the rules nothing, the danger less than ash.

She screeched up to Caitlyn’s building, car slewing over yellow lines, half on the curb. She could pay the ticket—or not. It didn’t matter. Nothing did, except this. Except Caitlyn.

Up the steps. Each one was fire, each one a prayer and a plea. She pounded on Caitlyn’s door, fist aching, heartbeat a thunder in her throat, half expecting to wake up again, the nightmare retold. The inside of her burned with panic and hope—the terrifying, exquisite hope, like waking into light after drowning.

Caitlyn yanked the door open in a flurry of white robe and tangled night hair. Vi saw her—there, bewildered, sleepy, impossibly real. In that blink, she lost everything but the need to anchor herself, to never let go again. She crashed into Caitlyn, arms banding tight, crushing her close, body-to-body. As if she could weld them together, erase all the distances between them and that yawning precipice Vi never dared name. She inhaled the living warmth—soft skin, sharp citrus, that hint of floral perfume—and choked on a prayer of gratitude, of terror, of longing.

Caitlyn gasped, arms flailing in surprise, then caught her, feet dangling. “Vi—!” Her voice was feather-light with confusion, laughter still caught on the edge, flickering. A warmth—fierce, familiar, their secret language—flickered between them. “What’s gotten into you?” But she cradled Vi’s cheeks, hands trembling. “Vi, you’re shaking—are you… are you crying?”

Vi pressed her face into Caitlyn’s shoulder, trembling. She tried to calm her inhales, to hide her sobs in Caitlyn’s hair, but she couldn’t stop the shuddering relief. She clung harder, desperate and terrified.

Don’t let me lose you again .

“Don’t go on that date tonight,” Vi’s voice slipped out, splintered and pleading. Raw, stripped bare. Not as a joke. Not as her best friend’s overprotective ribbing—but as something deeper, secret, sacred. The truth that had lived caged in her heart for so long.

Caitlyn’s frown deepened, confusion clouding her blue eyes—soft, so full of concern it threatened to shatter Vi all over again. “What? Vi, you’re scaring me.” Her thumb stroked tears from Vi’s fevered skin, drawing closer. “Please. Tell me what’s happened.”

Vi shook her head, a rough, wordless sound tearing free, half laugh, half sob. “I need you to trust me. Just this once. Please, Cait. Don’t go.” She wanted to say I love you. I’ve loved you my whole life, in every second between laughter and sorrow, between police tape and midnight coffee and every roadside disaster. But she couldn’t, not yet. Only this.

Caitlyn cupped Vi’s chin, bringing their faces close, her eyes searching—fearful, gentle, always patient. “Vi. I’m right here. Whatever it is—whatever happened—just tell me. It’s me. It’s you and me.”

Vi tried to laugh, but it collapsed, brittle, useless. She touched Caitlyn’s cheek with desperate reverence, thumb tracing the arch of her jaw, aching for the right words. “Cait...”

The silence hung between them—old, layered with unsaid things. Caitlyn’s breath caught, her doubt swallowed by recognition. “Vi, talk to me.”

Vi exhaled, broken, letting the truth bleed free—voice husky, almost prayerful. “Please, Cait. Don’t let go. Just today. Just… us. Like before—before... Give me this. Please… say yes.”

Caitlyn’s hands stilled, heart in her eyes. Her lips quivered into a wistful, trembling smile. She pressed her forehead to Vi’s, their breath mingling. “I don’t know what’s happened, what haunted you out of bed this morning—but—” She closed her eyes, letting Vi’s closeness anchor her, as she always had since they were girls.

Vi clung to her, afraid that to loosen even a fraction was to lose her forever. “Stay. Stay with me.” The words trembled with love unspoken, with the terror of one more goodbye.

Caitlyn laughed—shaky, but bright, a balm against the storm. “Okay. You win. I’ll cancel. But you promise, Vi—promise you’ll tell me what is going with you?”

Vi’s answer was immediate, fierce, her longest-held vow. “Deal.”

Chapter Text

Caitlyn laughed—shaky, but bright, a balm against the storm. “Okay. You win. I’ll cancel. But you promise, Vi—promise you’ll tell me what is going with you?”

Vi’s answer was immediate, fierce, her longest-held vow. “Deal.”

JAN, 25^TH 2024

Vi paced around the cramped living space of Caitlyn’s one-bedroom apartment, her footsteps thudding against the polished wooden floor, each one slicing through the heavy quiet that weighed on the expensive furniture and pressed in from every shadowed corner. The silence felt almost sentient, thick and watchful, cloaking the air ever since Caitlyn had gently disentangled herself from Vi’s protective embrace with a soft – “I need to make the call.”

Vi had only nodded in response, lips pressed into a thin, unreadable line. Her silence offered Caitlyn a mute, hesitant benediction—an unspoken permission, veiled in uncertainty, for Caitlyn to choose a path that would, in its own way, decide the course of the rest of her life.

A choice Caitlyn, unfortunately, didn’t yet realize she was making.

That had been over five minutes ago, and Caitlyn still wasn’t back.

Now, with Vi trying not to overthink what was taking so long, silence stretched into unease and Vi found herself pacing every corner of Caitlyn’s vast living area. In doing so, Vi let her fingertips wander, drifting aimlessly along the edges of towering antique shelves that were cluttered with mismatched picture frames.

There were so many photographs. Each lined up in imperfect rows, forming a patchwork timeline stitched along the wood.

The order, so perfectly placed, telling a story of its very own.

Their story. Beginning to end. Them to now.

It was only as she had gotten to the end of the row that one photo in particular captured her attention.

It was a sun-faded snapshot, the quality of such showing its age. It the only photo she knew had been taken on her eighteenth birthday. In it, her face—unmarked by tattoos or scars—was a burst of laughter, every feature alive and aching despite living in a world that had tried so very hard to break her. Her eyes gleamed, sharp with reckless hope, incandescent beneath a dimmed future that had just started to look a little brighter. Remembering that day was almost bittersweet.

December 19^th, 2006 had begun like any other, it started in her cramped, dimly lit apartment, walls sweating damp around her, air thick with the sour taste of solitude and loneliness; she’d readied herself for a birthday spent alone, to see the day end with a very young Powder as her only companion. As the only one who acknowledged the day for what it was. Familial emptiness had pressed in, a weight growing heavier as the evening settled, threatening to pull her under.

Then the silence had shattered—gone before it ever really settled—with Caitlyn’s joyous laughter pealing through the gloom followed closely by Caitlyn’s parents, arms overflowing with clumsily wrapped presents and an uneven, homemade chocolate cake adorned with icing that wobbled under the weight of a shaky, “Happy Birthday, Violet.” Vi hadn’t needed to ask who had made it; the crooked lettering and the lopsided layers gave Caitlyn away, and the first forkful—saccharine, but burned around the edges—sealed the fact for her. Gods, it had tasted awful. Despite this, the night blossomed into unruly joy—golden, raucous, joyous; laughter ricocheted off waterlogged walls, filling the room with a warmth Vi could feel leeching into her marrow.

It was in that very moment she realized: despite all she’d lost, a family had found her, after all.

And this one had stayed.

Before Vi could move on to the next photo, Caitlyn’s muffled voice seeped into the quiet of the living room from the other room—a low, frayed thread of sound, her words snagging and dissolving into uncertainty, stretched thin by drywall and distance. Vi couldn’t make out the specifics, nor did she want to but, she heard the rhythm of hesitation, the rise and fall of promise and apology.

Vi drifted farther from the door that concealed Caitlyn, seeking comfort in the shadows that bleed on the floor near the window. Not that she got very far as, with a soft, barely-there exhale, Caitlyn reappeared in the doorway, her silhouette stark against the dim hallway light. For a moment, Caitlyn seemed not to notice Vi at all. Her attention curled inward; her small shoulders set downwards as she crossed the room to the kitchen until she reached the refrigerator. Without a word, Caitlyn yanked the chrome door open; the chilled glow spilled over her face, sharpening the weary lines beneath her eyes and limning her sharp cheekbones in light blue hue. She grabbed a bottle of water—her movements exact and methodical, knuckles paling against the condensation. The flick of her wrist as she unscrewed the cap, the sudden, percussive snap of plastic slicing through the taut silence: these small sounds felt too loud, puncturing the air already thick with everything unspoken.

“Did she take it okay?” Vi ventured at last, her voice low but curious, barely carrying past the hum of the fridge. Her words broke up, smaller and more fragile than she’d intended. She knew how much this evening had meant to Caitlyn, had watched her spend days meandering through anticipation since the last date ended.

Vi almost felt guilty for asking her to cancel.

Almost.

This date—their third, if Vi remembered correctly—had been the turning point in Caitlyn and Hanna's relationship. The milestone where “seeing each other” slipped into “together.” Vi remembered, with uncomfortable clarity, the look in Caitlyn’s eyes when she’d first shared the news with her: nervous hope shimmering beneath the surface, as if Caitlyn were probing Vi’s reaction, searching for something unnamed. Vi had reacted the way she knew she was expected to: she’d forced a smile, mirrored Caitlyn’s excitement, and told her she was happy for them—masking the sudden ache driving into her chest.

She’d played the part of best-friend perfectly.

Almost too perfect.

Looking back, Vi wondered if Caitlyn had noticed the dullness that had taken over her eyes. If Caitlyn had heard her heart as it had broken. There’d been a flicker of disappointment in Caitlyn’s expression, so fleeting Vi thought she’d imagined it—like Caitlyn had hoped for something different. Something real. But Vi hadn’t dwelled on it, she’d been too busy corralling her own feelings, locking them so tight she almost believed neither of them would ever see them again.

But that was then and this is now.

Caitlyn hesitated before replying, nudging the fridge door closed with her hip, her expression unreadable beneath the soft kitchen light. “She did. We rescheduled for next week, sometime.” She held Vi’s gaze then, blue eyes probing, searching for something she desperately hoped to find. Answers.

And Vi couldn’t fault her for wanting them. She had, after all, made a promise to tell her. Still, Vi lingered over the word Caitlyn had just lobbed at her. ‘Reschedule.’

“Oh.”

Caitlyn’s gaze sharpened, suspicion flickering across her features as she tilted her head. “Are you ready to tell me what’s going on, Vi?”

Vi’s mouth went bone-dry at the question. How honest was she willing to be? More importantly, how honest was she allowed to be? “I, uh… had this dream.” The lie hovered at the edge of the truth—maybe it was close enough. “About you.” The confession tumbled out, fragile and edged with Sorrow. “You…” She faltered, the words a tangle in her throat. She couldn’t say it. She wouldn’t. “It—it felt real. Too real. I couldn’t shake it. I had to see you, to be sure you were—”

Caitlyn set her water bottle down with deliberate care, closing the distance between them with measured steps. “That I what?”

Vi forced herself to meet Caitlyn’s eyes, her own vision blurring as tears welled, hot and traitorous. “That you were alive.” The admission fractured in the quiet air, as jagged and raw as the fear that drove it. “I know it sounds stupid—I just needed to see you.”

At that, Caitlyn’s voice gentled, the steely reserve in her tone shifting, its edges smoothing with something delicate, almost sacred—a trembling lace hem fluttering at the edge of a gathering storm. She reached out, her touch hesitant but anchoring, the warmth of her concern weaving a lifeline through Vi’s spiralling dread. “Vi, it is not stupid. I would be the same if I were in your position. If I had a dream in which you-” Just picturing a world—a dream—in which Vi was gone sent a shudder rippling through Caitlyn’s slender frame, her arms tightening involuntarily. “I’m sorry.”

“And I’m sorry about your date,” Vi offered, her voice ragged, guilt coiling thick and sour in her gut as she tried to seem sincere.

Caitlyn’s smile unfolded slowly, “Don’t apologize. You matter more than any date ever could. You know that.” She punctuated the words with a gentle, playful punch to Vi’s arm, hoping to dissolve the lingering heaviness. After all, Caitlyn didn’t truly understand how valid her fear was. If she did…

A trembling breath shuddered from Vi, “Thank you.”

Caitlyn wiped sweat-damp palms on the thighs of her worn, greying sweat pants, drawing herself up a little taller as she let a note of forced vibrancy light her words. “Want anything? Coffee? Or, if you’re feeling adventurous, I could attempt to whip us up some eggs.”

“Sure. Though maybe I should be the one cooking the eggs.”

---

“You cook. I clean. That’s the rules.”

Vi opened her mouth to protest, but the futility of it held her back. Caitlyn could be as stubborn as granite when she had her mind set. Instead, Caitlyn gestured toward the living room, “Go put something on the television for us,” her voice light but brooking no argument.

Vi made it as far as the kitchen doorway before pausing, arrested by the soft sound of humming drifting behind her.

She turned, unable to resist. And she watched.

Sunlight filtered through the window over the sink, gilding the suds with fractured rainbows that danced across Caitlyn’s damp knuckles and hair, which had slipped from its loose bun to hang in wisps around her bowed head. There was a quiet grace in the way Caitlyn moved—each gesture deliberate, determined - beautiful. How was this woman so perfect? How did she make the simple act of washing dishes look so effortless.

Why had she chosen Vi as her person, when she could have commanded the devotion of anyone she wished?

How could the universe be so cruel as to dangle something so precious, so fiercely good, and then threaten to tear it away without warning?

In that moment, memory struck her, sudden as a blade: Caitlyn, waxen and impossibly still in a hospital bed. Her vibrant skin leached of colour, almost translucent, lost beneath antiseptic linens and the metronome beep of machines that measured out borrowed time.

No.

Panic reared, a wild, unreasoning animal in Vi’s chest. She nearly collapsed under the weight of it, but instinct propelled her forward instead.

Stop.

Without thinking, she crossed the kitchen in two strides and wrapped Caitlyn up from behind, arms fierce and possessive around her waist—a living promise driven by the ache of  losing her.

Caitlyn startled, her humming catching in her throat, fingers bracing against the wet porcelain before her body softened. The tension melted away as her soapy fingers laced with Vi’s on her forearm, offering comfort without question.

She was so warm.

So alive.

She didn’t know if she could let go.

Vi pressed herself closer, nuzzling into the soft hollow where Caitlyn’s neck met shoulder, breathing in the scent of citrus shampoo and faint salt, skin alive and pulsing beneath her lips—the sacred certainty of existence, right here.

Caitlyn shivered beneath the embrace; her laughter, when it came, was threaded with nerves. “That dream must have been something, huh?”

Vi flinched at the word, dream.

It hadn’t been a dream at all. It had been her reality.

It would still be her reality.

“Cait?” The name scraped raw in her throat.

“Yeah?”

Vi clung tighter, her words spilling beneath the rush and clatter of the faucet. “Will you promise me something?”

Caitlyn stilled, “Anything.”

“Promise you won’t leave me.” The plea hovered, naked and trembling in the bright kitchen light—Not ever. Not again.

Caitlyn turned within Vi’s arms and cupped her cheeks, her touch gentle but grounding. Tears threatened, and Caitlyn’s thumb found one to sweep it away. Her expression was luminous, shaped by both grief’s shadow and a fierce tenderness that carved deep lines around her eyes. “Vi,” she whispered, her voice unravelling into the cavernous ache between them, “I want to promise that. I do. But…”

Caitlyn’s gaze flickered down, haunted by her own memories. She knew, better than most, the truth: life was capricious, brief, and so very fragile. A promise like this was an ache unto itself, impossible to keep in a world where she’d seen too much loss—children and elders both, each absence as senseless and shattering as the last. None intending to die.

Vi’s arms tightened, fingers digging into Caitlyn’s shirt, desperate to anchor her to the present, to keep her tethered, no matter what the world demanded. “Please,” she whispered, voice breaking. “Even if it’s... I need to hear it.”

Caitlyn’s resistance crumbled; the wreckage of Vi’s pain too honest to bear. She bent her head, pressing a kiss into Vi’s hair, grounding them both. “Okay. I promise. I promise you, Vi. I won’t leave.”

Relief washed through Vi like a tidal wave causing her knees to buckle, and she folded into Caitlyn, pressing their foreheads together, as if the shared weight could lend them strength to face a relentless world together. They stayed that way for a long, breathless minute, suspended in each other’s arms, heartbeats thudding out all the urgent words they didn’t dare speak aloud.

Vi pressed trembling kisses—first to Caitlyn’s hair, then her brow, then along the delicate arch of her cheek, down to her nose, and finally to the tear that traced a shining path across Caitlyn’s face.

When had she started crying?

In response, Caitlyn let out a shuddering sigh and clung tighter, fingers digging into Vi’s back as if she could hold the ache at bay.

But Vi, for once, chose hope over fear. She let longing guide her, moving her lips along Caitlyn’s soft, salt-streaked skin—over cheekbones, tracing the edge of a jaw etched with old grief and new tenderness—until finally, inevitably, she found Caitlyn’s lips. She kissed her with all the fierce yearning she had kept caged for so many silent years. For an infinite, suspended heartbeat, Caitlyn yielded—her lips softening, a whimper escaping as her hands knotted in the fabric at Vi’s hips.

The world stilled at the connection. It was magic, fragile and electric, a turning point written on their skin.

And then, the moment shattered. Caitlyn jerked back, her palm splayed between them over Vi’s racing heart, a wild, cracked laugh escaping her lips—laced with panic, “Wait—Vi—”

She couldn’t wait.

She didn’t have time to wait—not with the memory of darkness pressing in, not with the images-

Vi reached for her again, desperation and fear twisting through her veins as the distance between them widened. The further Caitlyn pulled away, the more the haunting visions crowded in, pressing against her skull with unbearable persistence.

But, no matter how hard Vi held, Caitlyn retreated further from her, arms crossing tightly over her ribcage as if bracing herself for something. “Vi, please. You’re not yourself right now…”

Vi searched Caitlyn’s eyes, desperate to anchor herself in their blue depths. “It’s not the dream. It’s you. I want you. I’ve wanted—”

Caitlyn flinched, her gaze dropping, shutters falling over her eyes as though each word from Vi’s lips was a dagger to the heart.

“Why now?” Caitlyn’s voice cracked wide open, pain flooding through every raw syllable. “Why… why now, Vi? Why now… when I’m finally learning who I am without wanting you? After all the years I spent waiting, loving you silently, dreaming you might see me as anything more—now, when I’m just starting to breathe on my own?”

Vi could only stare, numbed by shock, her mind tripping over every revelation. When? Caitlyn had loved her? The question spun unanswered, lost as Caitlyn pressed on, voice trembling with the strain of holding back tears.

“Do you know how many times I tried, Vi? How many nights I prayed, begging the universe for a sign from you? A sign that you… Now you want me because you’re scared? Because you’re hurting?” Her voice buckled at the edges, tears streaking down her cheeks, all that old, aching pain pulsing in every syllable. “I can’t. I just can’t.”

Caitlyn whirled as if to leave, desperation flickering in the curve of her spine, but Vi caught her by the wrist. Her grip was gentle, almost reverent, yet tense with the storm of words she couldn’t yet speak.

Vi drew her closer, hesitant, their faces inches apart so that every exhale ghosted across parted lips. Their nerves were raw, exposed, each heartbeat loud in the fragile silence between them. This kiss, when it came, was not the fiery promise of old—it was a question, whispered with longing and uncertainty, delicate as morning frost barely clinging to the earth. Caitlyn whimpered, pulled taut between the instinct to flee and the desperate, flickering hope she couldn’t stamp out. Vi tasted her terror and her longing, unsure which would claim her first.

“Don’t,” Caitlyn pleaded, her voice snagged on the edge of surrender and escape. “Don’t do this to me, Vi. Not now.”

A vicious ache hollowed out Vi’s chest as the words I love you battered against her teeth, wild and uncontainable. But she bit them back; they were raw and sharp, too brittle to offer in this broken, uncertain moment. What Caitlyn needed wasn’t another promise—she needed proof.

Instead, Vi’s whisper frayed through the quiet between them, the words trembling in the air. “Let me prove it to you. Please. One date. If it’s too late, I’ll leave you along, pretend this never happened. Just…let me try, Cait. Please.”

“Okay.”

JAN, 27^TH 2024

As soon as Caitlyn crossed the threshold of the bar, Vi’s breath seized in her chest—sharp and sudden, a gasp that was drowned only but sound of Caitlyn’s heeled footsteps. Time fractured and stilled around her, each heartbeat stretching as she took in the vision that had materialized before her: Caitlyn, her Caitlyn, radiant and untouchable in a midnight-blue gown that shimmered like spilled starlight. Vi had always found Caitlyn beautiful, but tonight beauty was annihilated beneath awe, a wordless shock. The world lurched, off-balance, as if gravity itself bowed to her. In that moment, Vi forgot air, forgot her own body; she could only stare, heart ricocheting wildly behind her ribs.

Caitlyn’s steps faltered just inside; her eyes blown wide by the transformation of the familiar bar around her. The Last Drop—what was now a faded carcass of a place, all crumbling brick and shattered tiles—now shimmered with impossible, makeshift warmth. Rotting beams soared overhead, laced now with a web work of fairy lights that mapped new galaxies above their heads. Candlelight bubbled from a single battered table—dozens of flames, restless and alive, casting a restless tide of gold that drowned out a decade of mould and grime. From the shadowed corner, a battered record player spun a wordless melody, slow and aching: a symphony that curled like honeyed smoke, thick and lazy, trapping them together in its spell. Even the omnipresent dust had vanished, as if the room itself held its breath, waiting for Caitlyn to arrive.

Vi, being Vi, had agonized over every detail of tonight with the anxious precision of a watchmaker, winding each piece until it fit just so. She wanted everything to be perfect—not just nice, not just special, but a memory that would live on full of meaning - something that would show Caitlyn just how deeply she cared. She wanted Caitlyn to see just how much she loved- No. She wanted Caitlyn to see just how serious she was—about her, about them. And to do that, Vi needed to get everything right—from the angle of the light streaming through vandalised glass, to the temperature within the room; it had to be perfect.

At first, Vi had considered taking Caitlyn to some high-end restaurant—one with linen-draped tables and polished silver cutlery, where the servers glided past in suits and conversations floated in elegant, practiced whispers. Maybe she’d cap the evening with a midnight walk along the empty sidewalk the overlooked the Pilt River. But that wasn’t Caitlyn. Caitlyn, whose family name could unlock any gilded door in Piltover, had grown up in the heart of opulence—a splendour that glittered like chains, more prison than privilege. Vi knew how Caitlyn chafed at the pressure, how she hated the fuss. So, Vi dismissed the idea before it could even take root.

The movies flickered through her mind next—she knew every line, every artful, effortless move that might make the average girl blush and sigh, but Caitlyn was not an average girl; far from it. She deserved so much more than overused pickup lines, programmed gestures and teenage moves. Besides, Vi wanted to talk—really talk. To woo her not with empty flattery whispered over popcorn, but with the raw honesty of her own voice, in a space where she could hear Caitlyn’s laughter ring clear, feel every rise and fall in her cadence like music.

The idea struck late at night, sudden and electric—a current running through her tired limbs.

The Last Drop.

She wanted to take it back to where it all began—to the place where Vi’s heart had first tripped over itself, seeing the girl with the sapphire gaze and iron spirit. Back when they were younger—too young to drink, old enough to crave the taste of freedom—Vander, Vi’s uncle, broad as a bear, gentle by nature, would let the girls slip away to the bar’s basement, an overgrown storage room reshaped into a makeshift haven, softly glowing and quiet, safe from the world’s clamour.

That was years ago now. Vander had vanished into memory, and the bar itself had slumbered in darkness, windows shuttered and unlit.

Yet tonight, that history became a promise.

That was how Vi found herself standing beside a battered, older than her table, its surface worn smooth by time and repetitive motion, with two mismatched plates—one chipped, one faded—set beneath a lamp that painted everything in honeyed, amber light.

“Wow. You look…” Vi’s words knotted in her throat, thick with astonishment. Beautiful? Gorgeous? None of those seemed worthy of her.

Caitlyn blushed, a delicate flush stealing across her cheeks. She dropped her gaze, lashes dark against pale skin, before daring another glance up—eyes glinting with shyness. “So do you,” she answered softly.

Tonight, Vi wore black trousers and a crisp, white shirt, sleeves neatly rolled to her elbows. Simple, but with an elegance that made it look regal—a quiet confidence only she could wear like that.

“Thank you,” Vi murmured, her voice low, almost reverent. Clearing her throat, she tried to steady herself, nerves humming beneath her skin. “I hope you’re hungry.” She gestured to the table, fingers trembling as she smoothed them against her trousers. Caitlyn nodded, her smile small and sincere, eyes shining, and stepped forward. Vi pulled out the weathered wooden chair—its legs scarred yet steady—waiting for Caitlyn to sit.

Caitlyn’s eyes caught on Vi’s trembling hands—a detail Vi tried desperately to hide—and Caitlyn’s smile shifted, brimming with a softness that felt almost too intimate. “Famished,” Caitlyn murmured, a wicked spark glinting in her gentle words. She crossed the scuffed floor with deliberate slowness, each step crackling with charged anticipation, pale gaze fixed on Vi as if drawn by gravity.

Vi let out a brittle, half-choked laugh, clutching the rickety chair for anchor. “Yeah. Guess I should apologise in advance if this isn’t up to your standard,” she muttered, her voice raw and scraping with nerves. She hovered, fingers white-knuckled on the chair back, holding herself taut and breathless as Caitlyn drifted gracefully into her seat, tension only snapping when Caitlyn’s grateful sigh broke the tension. Sliding into the chair opposite, Vi could feel her heart slam against her ribs, thunderous and wild, terrifyingly loud.

For a single, delirious heartbeat, silence pressed in, thick with expectation and the threat of something tipping over. Then Caitlyn broke it with a sly murmur, “I’m sure it’s wonderful. It smells amazing.”

Relief crashed through Vi, fast and reckless; “Please. Dig in.”

So she did. The moment flavour hit her tongue; Caitlyn released a fervent, tender moan. “Wow, Vi.” For a breathless beat, Vi lost herself—cheeks blazing red, hiding behind the motion of stabbing her food, unable to withstand the weight of Caitlyn’s gaze. “It tastes as good as it smells.”

They ate, laughter spiralling between them, small and sharp, ricocheting off the battered walls like sparks. Beneath playful bickering over burnt garlic, something softer began to unfurl—Vi watched, mesmerized, as the severity of Caitlyn’s poise faded, features growing warm and unguarded in the candle’s restless glow. The way Caitlyn gazed back—timid, searching, her walls lowering by inches—made something vivid and aching bloom inside Vi’s chest.

“I can’t believe you did all this,” Caitlyn whispered at last, her voice trembling near silent, blue eyes luminous in the flickering light. “For me.” The words hovered between them, glittering and fragile as spun glass. Caitlyn’s cheeks flushed with startled colour, vulnerability trembling at the surface.

Vi’s breath snagged in her chest, her reply coming out soft and ragged, stripped bare. “I wanted it to be perfect,”

“It is,” Caitlyn said, her tone fierce with certainty, enough to make Vi’s hands clench tight in her lap.

“I’m glad. Thank you for coming, Cait. For trusting me with this.”

Surprise flickered across Caitlyn’s elegant features, lips parting around unspoken wonder before settling into reverent awe. Her hand drifted towards Vi—hovering, uncertain and trembling above the scarred tabletop, so close, before she drew back, blue eyes luminous with hope. “Of course.”

Soon, only streaks of sauce scarred their plates, and the cheap wine caught the trembling flicker of candlelight, painting ruby fires in their glasses. Vi hesitated, breath quick and shallow, then, with a sudden resolve that made her chair protest, she shoved to her feet. Caitlyn’s gaze snapped up, instantly alert, searching.

“Stay there.” Vi’s voice came out husky, almost conspiratorial, as she slipped into the shadowed corner. Kneeling at the battered jukebox her fingers shaking so badly the coin nearly escaped her grasp. She pressed it to the slot like an offering, then hovered, the moment taut—a heartbeat suspended—before selecting the song she’d replayed in her mind for moments just as this. “Our Love”: its first notes drifted out, soft and reverent, as if the bar itself bent to listen.

Vi returned quickly, handheld out: lifeline, dare, confession. Her eyes blazed with light and hope. “Dance with me?”

The silence between them throbbed—a single, electric breath—before Caitlyn stood. A rose blush crept up her cheeks, vulnerable and defiant all at once. She let Vi draw her into an embrace that fit—achingly perfect—her arms locking around Vi’s shoulders, Vi’s hands spanning the small of her back, anchoring her. The world slipped away—only the syrupy spin of the record and the hammering, secret thunder of Vi’s heart filling the void. They swayed, slow and infinite, until Caitlyn’s head melted onto Vi’s shoulder; Vi held her close, as if warding off the entire black-tide world outside.

Vi pressed her lips to Caitlyn’s hair—gentle, desperate—a wish woven into flesh, an unspoken plea to time itself: let this be the start of something beautiful. Within the candle-gold, cocooned from everything cruel, they stood: whole, unassailable, as though one breath could burn the universe to ash, and they would still stand together, just like this.

“How long have you known?” Caitlyn whispered against her neck.

Vi answered unflinching, truth laid bare and bleeding. “Since the moment I met you.”

Caitlyn turned toward her, close enough for Vi to feel every hurt, every wild possibility swirling in fathomless cobalt eyes. “Really?”

A haunted smile flickered at Vi’s lips as memory rose up, sharp as glass. “It’s true. The day we met, you stormed in her—in your perfect uniform, with your perfect eyes, standing there like you could bend gravity to your will. I told myself in that moment that I couldn’t like you. That I didn’t want to. That we were too different. That hating you was the way it was supposed to be. But the moment you looked at me, when our eyes finally connected and I knew you saw me as an equal, I just…knew; You were going to be the cause of all my troubles but also the reason for my salvation. And, I was right, that was what you became. You were the one thing I couldn’t survive losing. I just—” She pulled Caitlyn to her, voice breaking against the truth that hurt to speak. “I just didn’t truly understand how much until...”

Caitlyn gave a broken laugh, tears glinting in her lashes. Vi shut her eyes against the world, holding her as if wanting could make anything safe—at least, just for tonight.

“What about you?” Vi’s voice was a barely-there question, barely brave enough to disturb the silence swirling around them.

Caitlyn studied her, lip caught between her teeth, the weight of everything unsaid shadowing her face. At last, she let her fingers entwine with Vi’s—silent promise, trembling surrender.

“I think…I started falling before I knew what falling was,” she whispered, voice splintered between laughter and tears. “When my mother used to tell me stories of love—fairytales, if you will—” She stared at their joined hands, the contrast of pale and scarred skin. “—I always thought those stories were meant for heroes in shining armour, for other people, not for someone like me. Someone who was born with their story already written. But you…” Caitlyn faltered, searching Vi’s face for understanding. “You made me believe that maybe love was something ordinary people could reach for. Something I could reach for.”

Vi’s breath trembled, a laugh tumbling out as she tucked a stray lock behind Caitlyn’s ear. Her eyes shone, raw and exposed, all her edges and longing on display. “You make me want to be better. That’s never been easy. But with you... Cait, I would give you the world if you would let me.”

Caitlyn’s lips quirked, her smile trembling, eyes wet with something fierce. “Vi… you already have.” Her voice broke, spilling the words—bare, unshielded. “And, if I’m honest with myself, it scares me. I’ve always trusted discipline, control, but you—” She laughed, shaky and astonished. “There is a risk. If this already feels this good, what will be left of me if it ends.”

Vi pressed their foreheads together, her hands cradling Caitlyn’s face, shaking. “Is that a risk you are will to take?”

Caitlyn answered with a sigh—half prayer, half dare. “I am.”

Vi grinned, fierce and gentle all at once, a glimmer of mischief lighting her eyes. Her hand, calloused and steady from years on the streets, brushed a stray lock of hair from Caitlyn’s cheek. “I promise, Cait,” she murmured, voice soft but unwavering, “I’m not going anywhere. Not now, not ever.”

Caitlyn let out a shaky breath and closed the final space between them, fingertips trembling as she found Vi’s jaw. Her lips touched Vi’s, hesitant at first, a question asked in silence. Vi responded with equal tenderness, melting into her as the question became an answer. The music in the room faded into a distant hum, the world blurring at the edges as time spun out—endless, golden, and brimming with promise. When at last they parted, Caitlyn’s tears had slipped free, not out of fear, but shining with the fragile hope of something new.

“I’m sorry it took so long,” Vi whispered, brushing her thumb gently over Caitlyn’s wet cheek.

“I’m not,” Caitlyn replied, her voice unwavering, her smile fragile and radiant in the low light.

JAN, 29^TH 2024

As soon as Vi had dropped Caitlyn home after their first date, Vi had instantly began planning for the next one. No—"planning" was too plain a word to use, too shallow for the frenzy churning in her chest. Obsessing was more accurate: Vi needed every detail of their follow-up to be just as, if not more, perfect as the first. Having finally tasted what life felt like to be with, to kiss, to embrace, Caitlyn—the memory of such still pulsing electricity beneath Vi’s skin—she was sure she’d claw her way through heaven, hell, and everything in-between to make each minute, every second they spend together, count. Not even the tremor of fear curling through her resolve—fear that it would all unravel far sooner than she had been gifted, to have wrenched away as abruptly as it had started—could loosen her grip. If anything, planning their next date gave her a shield against the darkness crowding at the edges of her mind, against the deadline looming over their days like a sword poised to fall. What if time really was slipping through her fingers? What if she only had a single, fragile year held close in Caitlyn’s orbit, in the velvet blue of her eyes, in the whispered warmth of “good morning” before the doom crept in? Vi vowed she would make every second incandescent—a private galaxy of shared moments stitched together, constellation by tender constellation—so Caitlyn would never question or regret a single heartbeat spent by her side.

So, she obsessed.

She planned.

She filled battered receipts and the backs of envelopes with jagged scribbles, her rough fingers ink-stained and aching after long shifts—laboured hands seeking magic between calluses and bills. But that wasn’t all she was doing. When she wasn’t thinking up their next adventure, Vi’s thumb was flying across her phone, texting Caitlyn—sometimes in fierce, playful jabs that she knew wouldn’t make Caitlyn laugh out loud wherever she was, and other times with a trembling honesty that spilled out without caution, so vulnerable it left Vi’s heart trembling long after she hit send. It was, in so many ways, no different from the rhythm they’d always had—the familiar back-and-forth, ebbing between banter and open-hearted confession. The only difference now was the shimmering promise threaded beneath every word: a sense that things, at last, had become something more. Something different. Something better.

Every reply from Caitlyn was a spark flaring under Vi’s ribs, setting off a heat that spread through her chest—a wildfire she could neither smother nor fully understand. Yet, as Vi had anticipated, Caitlyn’s world spun with its own relentless chaos: late-night shifts at the precinct, case files piled high, and worries stitched tight between her brows. Their schedules overlapped only in stolen hours, tangled like cords in a drawer, sometimes impossible to unknot.

Still, Vi nurtured their growing connection—a never-ending thread spun out of words, emojis, links and even, when the need arose, GIFs of tiny galaxies that bloomed privately among the swarms of more pragmatic messages. She kept up a steady current of teasing and tenderness, letting her affection trickle through even when days stretched between them. She bridged every gulf with patience, conscious not to rush, letting Caitlyn set the pace—sometimes waiting an hour, sometimes two, letting herself be the gentle, metronomic beat between each message, determined to make the waiting pulse with ingratiating longing rather than hollow ache.

She kept that up until she finally had it figured out.

Her message was simple, but deliberate in its warmth:

‘7:30 pm at out spot. Dress comfortable.’

--

Vi tugged on her battered old hoodie—the faded blue one she had only just gotten back from Caitlyn, its cuffs stretched, the hem pilled, and a faint trace of Caitlyn's lavender perfume lingering in the fibres. She shouldered her fraying backpack, patches sewn over worn spots with mismatched thread all the while looking out of the window. The world outside was washed in the indigo glare of early night, the streetlights stuttering to life among the hush of cricket song. Without further ado, Vi stepped from her battered car and into the brisk chill—the kind of winter cold that bit through clothes and raised goosebumps along her skin. Alas, she wouldn’t let that stop her. In her palm, the bright-silver Kiramman estate key glinted between her fingers, weighty and cool, shining against the calluses of her hand before she pocketed it. She slipped past sculpted hedges that loomed in moon-cast silhouettes, climbed the high, wrought-iron gates with practiced nimbleness, and sprinted, heart pounding, through the long, uncertain shadows before she found her way to the old tree house. She knew she was being ridiculous. There was no need for stealth—after all, she had the key, a golden ticket - permission sealed by trust. But tonight, she wanted the thrill. She was taking it back, not just for Caitlyn, but for herself, for all the reckless lovesick girls she’d ever been.

The tree house—Tobias Kiramman’s prideful project, a whimsical fortress he had built for his daughter’s eighth birthday—perched above the estate’s sleeping gardens. Already, it glowed: a haphazard tangle of string lights looping through the branches, sparks of yellow warmth in the darkness. Despite the place rarely being used now, the groundskeepers kept it swept and safe, and that included changing the lightbulbs on the rope Caitlyn had hung as a teenager, Inside, Vi had made every detail a promise. Sleeping bags, faded but soft, pillowed into a sunken nest atop patched rugs. Glass jars—some still bearing the sticky remnants of jam—held flickering candles that cast hopeful, wavering constellations across the rough wooden walls. Vi had arranged everything to draw the eye to the ceiling window—a skylight cut precisely for stargazing, framed by beams Caitlyn had carved initials into so long ago. She’d packed a picnic basket: ripe strawberries that she had pre-washed, Caitlyn’s favourite imported Ionian chocolates stacked in neat rows, and a bag of peppery-salty popcorn—the exact kind they’d demolished, doubled over in laughter, on the first night Caitlyn had ever brought her here. Above her, the sky stretched ink-black, pricked with a slow burn of new-dawning stars. Vi had chosen tonight carefully—the only night all week the weather would be warm enough – well, less cold than it had been - the forecast perfectly cloudless, the kind of rare evening where not even the city’s polluted sky could dim the constellations up ahead.

With everything set, Vi looked down at her watch.

7.29pm.

Perfect.

Then, as expected, a faint shuffle in the grass below, the rustle of leaves shifting just out of sight. Vi’s heartbeat faltered, wings beating in her chest, as Caitlyn appeared at the bottom of the tree: a silhouette etched against moon-washed shadows, sweater snug along her athletic frame, hair pulled into a neat, practical knot that revealed the sharp sweep of her cheekbones. The silver-pale glow of moonlight traced her features, rendering her sharp and lovely as porcelain edged in starlight, unexpected softness beneath the steely line of her jaw.

Caitlyn moved with her usual quiet surety; the ladder barely creaked as she climbed, one hand steady on the rungs, her smile blooming at the threshold. It was a smile so bright and tender, it cut through the night’s chill and, for a breathtaking moment, Vi’s world narrowed to just this—a single point of luminous certainty suspended between earth and sky.

“Well,” Caitlyn said once she climbed through the hole, her perfectly pitched voice low and warm, “this takes me back.”

Vi grinned, “We haven’t come here for a while, so I thought we should change that,” she managed, aiming for nonchalance, though her hands trembled as a flicker of doubt ran through her. “Just like the old days.” With mock theatricality, she swept the blanket aside—a gesture part invitation, part shield against her own awkward hope.

Caitlyn laughed, the sound soft as glass bells but edged with mischief, then slid in beside her, her socked feet handing out of the cover. “Aren’t we a bit too big for this?”

Vi groaned, feigning exasperation, rolling her eyes. "You are. Me, not so much." Vi teased while wiggling her covered legs to prove a point.

Caitlyn had stopped growing well into her teens, long limbs all grace and strength now. Vi on the other hand had peaked at the age of thirteen.

Their bodies eased into the hollowed softness atop the blanket fortress, shoulders pressing, warmth bleeding together under the battered quilt. Stories and laughter ricocheted between them, low and familiar, while overhead constellations pulsed in the deep velvet sky. Vi insisted Pegasus was to the west, tracing shapes with a stubborn finger, while Caitlyn countered with Cassiopeia, her voice sweet and lilting in the hush, a contradiction of certainty and wonder. Vi, like always, surrendered the best snacks first, allowing Caitlyn to take the first pick of each— the chocolate, the strawberries, she even let her have the first handful of popcorn.

Caitlyn traced Orion’s belt across the dome of midnight, head thrown back, lips parted in awe—and Vi barely heard the words. All she saw was Caitlyn: her profile carved from shadow and starlight, beauty unravelled and remade by the wonder shimmering in her eyes.

Caitlyn caught Vi staring and nudged her shoulder, her eyes shining with amusement, “What’s with the look?”

Vi tried to breathe, her voice rough with devotion. “You’re beautiful.”

Caitlyn’s cheeks flushed, a faint rose blooming even in the moonlight. Her lashes lowered, voice fragile, “Vi—”

Vi risked closing the distance, threading her scarred hands through Caitlyn’s elegant, strong fingers—like weaving her heart into every line and hollow. “Don’t pull away. Let me say it. With all the stars we have seen tonight, your smile still shines the brightest.”

Caitlyn ducked her head, letting their hands twine, a single breathless moment caught between inhale and exhale—crystalline, luminous, impossibly fragile. “You’re ridiculous,” she whispered, but her gaze—deep and fathomless as the night itself—betrayed every unspoken truth.

Vi pressed a kiss to Caitlyn’s knuckles, lips lingering, almost trembling, a heartbeat longer than necessary. “Maybe so. Still true, though.”

Caitlyn’s laugh trembled, hopeful and unsteady, as she looked around their dim, makeshift sanctuary—the fortress of tangled blankets, a small constellation of half-eaten strawberries, battered lantern spilling honey-coloured light, spinning slow-motion shadows across their faces and the patchwork ceiling of leaves above. “You know,” she murmured, almost shy, “You really don’t have to do all this.”

Vi stilled, the quiet vulnerability in Caitlyn’s words stopping her breath. “What do you mean?”

“This,” Caitlyn repeated, hand sweeping over their little world—the jittery skyline, their heap of shared clutter, the sleeping bag. “You don’t have to prove anything. You already have me, Vi. You had me before you ever asked.”

Vi drank her in: the stubborn tilt of Caitlyn’s chin, the softness feathered at the corners of her mouth, the courage she wore like armour, but which now slid, just a little, aside. “I’m not trying to prove anything, Cait. I’m just… This isn’t about me trying to win you. This is me trying to show you, or at least try to, that I’m worthy of you.”

Caitlyn’s composure cracked, a smile tugging—lit from within, eyes bright as tears pooled at their edges, too luminous to hide in darkness. “Come here.” Caitlyn urged as they folded together, drawn by gravity that felt older than time, lips meeting in a kiss as soft as it was needy. Everything ever spoken and unspoken flickered in the space between—longing, fear, hope, want. When they finally broke apart, breath settling between them, Vi gently guided Caitlyn back down until her head, once again rested upon her shoulder.

After a few minutes? Hours? Whatever it was, Vi turned to speak, but Caitlyn, who Vi knew had had a long day, had already drifted to exhaustion—head tucked beneath Vi’s chin, breathing steady and precious as her face relaxed.

Smiling, Vi drew her closer, careful as anything, pressing her lips to Caitlyn’s brow before tucking the quilt around them with infinite tenderness. She whispered, “I love you, Cait,” and let the words drift upward, weightless and infinite, into the fragrant darkness. Curling herself around Caitlyn’s warmth, Vi closed her eyes and gave herself to the night—offering up a silent, desperate plea to a god she wasn’t sure she believed in: please, let this night last forever.

JAN, 31^ST 2024

Vi trudged home as the city closed in around her, its restless energy pressing from every side. The air tasted sharp and metallic—rain on concrete mingled with the bitter tang of car exhaust—while a smear of neon signs danced over the slick streets, their reflections fractured in every puddle she crossed. Each step felt intentional; her heavy boots splashed through filmy water pooled in the road’s broken veins, as if the day itself clung stubbornly to her ankles, weighing her down with the residue of hours spent fighting the city’s current.

Vi’s hand hovered over her pocket, annoyance flickering in her frown. She fully expected to see another useless spam text or some pointless notification from an app she’d meant to delete weeks ago.

She almost shoved the phone back, dismissing it without a second thought. But—what if it wasn’t nothing? What if it was Caitlyn? Or Powder?

She pulled the phone free. The relief was immediate—the glow of Caitlyn’s name on the screen sent a prickle of warmth rushing through her chest, melting her irritation into something giddy and light. She had to fight the urge to break into a skip, her heels squelching in the mud, the tired ache in her legs suddenly less important.

Once again, it had been days since she’d seen Caitlyn, and once again, the absence gnawed at Vi in quiet, persistent waves. Intellectually, she knew it had only been two days—less than forty-eight hours apart—but to her it felt endless, every minute stretching out, thin and taut, time slipping through her fingers faster than she could hold onto it.

Like time slipping through her fingers, thin and fast and wasted.

She finally opened the message: You free tonight?

The honest answer? Not really. Powder had begged her to drop by—insisting she had “huge news” and punctuating every word with clumsy, eager typos. That big news that Powder was so eager to share, was news of the baby’s gender. A little girl. Vi remembered from the last time this had happened. But Vi knew her little sister would understand if she pushed it to tomorrow night instead.

She tapped out a reply, her thumbs moving with instinctive certainty: For you? Always.

Caitlyn’s response popped up before Vi could even slide her phone away: Such a charmer. Come over?

Be there in 20.

Once inside, Vi tore through her apartment, nimbly weaving between teetering laundry heaps and the scatter of poorly placed workout equipment that jutted out at odd angles. She peeled away the day’s grime beneath a shower so scalding it left her skin tingling, red at the shoulders. Steam curled up, clouding the cracked mirror and fogging the cramped bathroom, while lazy drops of water still clung to her as she tugged on a battered pair of boots. Her faded gray tee stuck damply to her back; she hopped into ripped jeans whose frayed hems brushed her ankles, moving with practiced urgency.

Tonight, the city—usually vast, gray, and indifferent—seemed to soften just for her. Traffic lights flickered obediently to green, the usual crush of commuters dissolving at intersections and letting her slip through empty crosswalks unchallenged. It almost felt as if all of Piltover had conspired to smooth her path, tuning in to the thrum of her secret urgency.

Exactly twenty minutes later, Vi skidded to a halt outside Caitlyn’s door, her heart hammering wild and desperate in her chest. She raked a trembling hand through her rain-darkened hair, drops wicking down her neck and soaking into the already damp collar of her tee. She barely registered the chill. Raising her fist, she knocked—once, twice against the wood, hesitating just before a third. She didn’t want to seem too eager.

No answer.

She knocked again, more insistently this time, but it wielded the same result. The only difference being a muffled, distressed crash, followed by Caitlyn’s voice clipped with panic: “Shit. Fuck!”

Vi’s frown deepened, her brows knitting in concern. Caitlyn never swore—not even when they were teenagers. Something about being too refined for such actions. The uncharacteristic slip sent Vi’s mind racing. She palmed Caitlyn’s spare key, the one she had been given in case of emergencies, and lingered at the threshold, pulse racing.

This counts, right?

What she found inside was pandemonium—a churning blizzard of flour that rode the agitated air, relentlessly. The golden beams coming from the windows illuminated absolute chaos, turning each airborne particle into a shimmering mote in a wild, ephemeral snowstorm. At its epicentre stood Caitlyn, spectral and defiant in a powder-dusted apron, her hair electrified into a tangled mane, cheeks flushed, eyes fever-bright and rimmed with the red of desperate frustration. She clutched a checked dish towel in white-knuckled fists, wielding it as both weapon and shield, twisting the cloth with nervous energy as she spun frantic circles beneath the screeching smoke alarm. The relentless shriek cleaved the air, ricocheting through the kitchen as every flailing sweep of her arm kicked up fresh clouds of flour into the air.

Vi, once seeing Caitlyn wasn’t actually in any danger, lounged in the doorway, half-shrouded by the fugitive clouds of flour and, already fading smoke, her arms folded with deliberate nonchalance and a teasing smirk tugging at her lips. She arched a brow, eyes alight with barely contained laughter. “Should I come back later?”

Caitlyn spun so abruptly that a powdery explosion burst from her hair. Mortification and despair flickered in her features. “Vi! Don’t even—”

But it was too late. Vi’s laugh escaped, bright and untamed, echoing above the shrill kitchen alarm. Her mirth bounced off tile and glass, wild and unstoppable. Caitlyn glared, jaw clenched, and shoulders squared, but her glare wavered. She too was seeing the funny side, even though she was trying to hide it. “Sorry, sorry,” Vi gasped, though not even trying for sincerity. “It’s just—you’re way too cute. What even happened?”

Caitlyn’s shoulders slumped; the towel she clutched slipped, defeated, to the linoleum—a limp banner of surrender. “I was… gods, I don’t even know what I was thinking. I was trying to surprise you.” Her words came out in a rush, thick with embarrassment. “I know you had a rough day at work, so I wanted to make you dinner...”

Without hesitation, Vi moved away from the door, walked into the chaos and closed the last inches between them, looping her arms around Caitlyn’s dusted waist, drawing her close enough to share in her warmth and embarrassment both. Vi took in the scene: counters submerged under drifts of flour, utensils scattered where they’d fallen, and a saucepan on the stove still belching acrid smoke in plumes desperate for freedom. “It’s… uh… fixable?”

Caitlyn laughed—a shaky, brittle little sound. She scrubbed flour from her cheek with the back of her wrist, leaving a pale, crescent-shaped moon near her jaw. “You’re the worst liar,” she said, voice watery and thin, but edged with fondness.

Vi shook her head and snagged a clean towel from the counter, dabbing with practiced care at Caitlyn’s face, letting her touch linger, soft, along the curve of her cheekbone. “What were you trying to make, anyway?”

“Soup.”

Vi’s gaze swept the mess anew, drawn helplessly to the unruly dunes of flour spilling onto every surface. “Soup? Was… uh, was the flour supposed to be some kind of secret ingredient?”

Caitlyn froze, mortification welling up and blooming scarlet across her cheeks and the tips of her ears. “You’re not supposed to put flour in soup?”

Vi, once more, dissolved into helpless laughter, the sound softening into something gentler as she slipped one strong arm more firmly around Caitlyn’s waist, pulling her in until their hips brushed. “Oh, Cait.” Her voice trembled now with a loving exasperation, as if there was nothing in the world she’d rather do than laugh with her like this.

Caitlyn attempted her most formidable pout, lips pursed, and chin tilted, her eyes glinting with the stubborn, dying embers of defiance. Yet a reluctant smile broke through, small and insistent, sparking blue warmth that softened her features as she ducked her head. “Dinner’s ruined,” she confessed, her voice barely more than a whisper. “I used…just about everything I had left.”

Vi shook her head, removed her hands from Cait’s slender waist and pivoted toward the cupboards, surveying the meagre offerings with the practiced eye of a streetwise survivor. The shelves were near-empty—scraps and remainders: a limp, half-empty sack of flour slumped in one corner, a couple of eggs nestled protectively in their carton like lone survivors, the battered bottom of a cereal box, and a single vanilla pod dozing in an old jam jar, its fragrance barely lingering. The battle lines were unmistakable: Caitlyn skill lied anywhere but the kitchen. Still, hope flickered in Vi’s chest, papery but persistent. “How do you feel about dessert for dinner?” she called over her shoulder, brandishing the vanilla pod with a flourish and tugging on a faded apron in a caricature of ceremony. She wasn’t exactly a stovetop sorceress herself, but in this culinary disaster, next to Caitlyn, she felt almost invincible.

Caitlyn’s eyes brightened, “Pancakes?”

“Or cake,” Vi countered as she began gathering bowls, swatting a whisk from among a heap of battered utensils within the draw.

“Can I help?”

“You can supervise.”

“You’re no fun,” Caitlyn griped, but the set of her shoulders eased, melted by the easy banter.

“Maybe,” Vi conceded, a sly grin curving her lips. “But I do actually want to eat at some point tonight.”

Caitlyn opened her mouth for a retort but only produced a dramatic sigh. “Fair point.”

Side by side, hip to hip, the pair sifted flour, the fine dust swirling through the stale air like mist over cold fields. Light caught on the motes, painting drifting halos between them under the harsh kitchen bulb. Eggs cracked, shells scattering haphazardly on the aging Formica countertop, their tentative hands learning together—testing possibilities in the wake of earlier kitchen disasters. Bowls scraped, wooden spoons clattered, while Vi measured sugar, brow furrowed in exaggerated concentration, her tongue caught at the corner of her mouth. She sensed Caitlyn’s gaze flickering over, lingering a second too long, mischief dancing in her slate-blue eyes.

Without warning, Caitlyn seized a fistful of flour and blew, unleashing a snowy cloud that descended mercilessly on Vi. The flour clung to her lashes and cheeks, turning her auburn hair into a confectioner’s tangle, sugar-dusted and wild. The sweet scent of vanilla and rising dough sharpened on the air.

“Caitlyn!” Vi sputtered, blinking through the blizzard of powder, streaks of white tracing her skin.

“That’s for laughing at me!” Caitlyn crowed, narrowly dodging Vi’s retaliatory lunge. Her laughter was sudden and wild, echoing off the yellowed tiles, igniting a gleeful chaos that swept them up.

What followed was a dazzling skirmish—flour arcing through the narrow space, laughter bouncing bright and sharp from countertop to cupboard. Caitlyn scored another hit, a streak of white across Vi’s t-shirt, but Vi’s arms caught her around the waist and whirled her in a cloud of sweet dust, both shrieking and grinning. Vi’s handful of flour hovered, wickedly poised.

“Don’t you dare!” Caitlyn shrieked, features split in a grin so wide it threatened to break her face, but Vi only grinned wider. A perfect, weightless cloud dusted down onto Caitlyn’s dark hair, transforming her into a beaming, flour-crowned queen.

They collapsed against each other, breathless and shaking with leftover adrenaline, their laughter tumbling into something softer. Lips brushed lips—a playful, flour-smudged kiss deepening into a slow, infinite press, warm as rising sunlight. For a long, suspended moment, the kitchen’s chaos was irrelevant. Vi held Caitlyn close, feeling the wild rapidity of her heartbeat settle into quiet, raw affection.

Eventually they untangled, fingers sticky with sugar and dough, resuming their task with small, conspiratorial smiles. The cake soon rose golden in the battered oven, butter and vanilla sweetening the air with every minute. They regarded each other—their sweatshirts, their hair, their cheeks all whipped into wild, flour-frosted peaks—grinning and breathless, as if they’d won some secret victory.

Caitlyn announced her intentions with a breathless laugh, stripping off her flour-spattered apron. “I need to shower.” Determination gleamed in her eyes, and her hands worked quickly at her messy hair.

Vi very nearly offered to join—her smirk made the suggestion wordless. “I’ll jump in after you,” she said instead, watching the sway of Caitlyn’s hips as she turned for the bathroom.

As Caitlyn stepped away, Vi reached out and planted a perfect, floury handprint across the seat of her shorts.

Caitlyn yelped, then burst into peals of laughter, hips sashaying with exaggerated flourish as she disappeared down the hallway, shaking chaos from her steps as though it were nothing but dust. Vi watched her go, expression softening into something impossibly tender, before squaring her shoulders and returning to the mess—ready to restore order, one sticky bowl and dusted countertop at a time.

In time, the kitchen was restored—the air warm and sweet with the scent of vanilla, sunlight spilling through the window onto countertops scrubbed clean. A fresh cake, its golden dome dusted with powdered sugar, cooled on the wire rack, promising comfort. Laughter floated out from the hallway as they re-emerged into the bright space, their skin freshly scrubbed, cheeks flushed the colour of ripe apples. Water darkened the tips of their hair, which stuck up in tousled, comical spikes; for a moment, they regarded each other, dissolving into helpless grins.

They curled together on the old corduroy couch, the cake already half-eaten and crumbling between them, plates balanced awkwardly on knees. An old black-and-white movie flickered silently on the television, its quiet shadows painting the walls, but their voices and laughter layered richer colour over everything—a soundtrack intimate and alive.

“I’m sorry tonight didn’t go how I planned,” Caitlyn admitted, voice low, the words barely more than a whisper. They sat so close their knees touched, the contact sending slow warmth through them both. Caitlyn’s hands twisted in her lap, something wistful in her downturned gaze. Vi reached up and brushed an unruly curl from Caitlyn’s flushed cheek, tucking it gently behind her ear, fingertips lingering for a heartbeat longer than strictly necessary.

“It was perfect,” Vi murmured, honesty shining in her eyes, as if the interruptions and missteps had only deepened her affection.

“Yeah?”

Vi answered only with a steady smile, lowering her forehead so it rested against Caitlyn’s, their breaths mingling, the gentle touch an affirmation.

The evening unspooled slowly; they talked, flirted, teased, shared. Their hands ventured, tentative and daring, across arms and shoulders and hair, tracing patterns over skin. As the silences became their own kind of confession, Vi leaned in—her lips brushing Caitlyn’s, featherlight and questioning. She started to draw back, nerves flickering, but Caitlyn reached up, her hands slipping to cradle Vi’s neck, pulling her close with a certainty that startled them both. This kiss deepened, deliberate and tender, unfurling with sweet, deliberate patience—Caitlyn leading now, her usual shyness transmuted into hunger, into boldness. She shifted, swinging a leg over to straddle Vi; their bodies slotted together, Caitlyn’s thighs bracketing Vi’s hips. Vi steadied Caitlyn with trembling hands at her waist, the nearness sending electric sparks through her, each breath shared.

Then Vi stilled, tension feathering at the edge of her hunger. Caitlyn, sensing the catch, dropped a kiss at the corner of her mouth, her whisper sugar-soft against Vi’s jaw: “You don’t have to hold back, you know.”

A shiver chased down Vi’s spine; her grip tightened, need painting her cheeks scarlet. She gathered Caitlyn in, drawing her close until the world blurred at its edges, reduced to heat and breath and want. Yet as Caitlyn rocked forward, Vi hesitated, breaking the kiss, her forehead pressed against Caitlyn’s in quiet supplication.

“If we don’t stop now,” Vi whispered, the words snagging on her breath, “I’m not sure I will be able to.”

Caitlyn’s smile was gentle, silvered with tenderness. “Then don’t,” she breathed, her eyes luminous in the low light.

Vi laughed, low and unsteady, her fingers ghosting circles along the rise of Caitlyn’s cheekbone. “Don’t tempt me.”

Caitlyn only held her more firmly, gaze honest and unwavering. “I already did.”

Vi traced her knuckles down Caitlyn’s cheek, her voice a hush between them. “I want to do this right. With you.”

For a moment, neither moved—Caitlyn searching Vi’s face for the truth, the air thick between them. Then Caitlyn nodded, slipping off Vi’s lap only to tuck herself along Vi’s side, arm threaded through Vi’s, refusing to yield the closeness they’d found.

After a heartbeat, Caitlyn asked, breezily hopeful despite the thrum beneath her words, “You’re still coming to my parents’ garden party next week, right?”

Vi grinned and caught Caitlyn’s hand, twining their fingers with care. “Wouldn’t miss it for the world.”

Chapter Text

FEB, 03^RD 2024

Vi shoved the heavy door of the Kiramman manor wide, the ancient oak mouthing a slow, aching protest that reverberated through the marble bones of the foyer, shaking loose unseen dust motes to dance in the high, honeyed air. The early afternoon sunlight sliced in through the stained glass above, casting sharp, kaleidoscopic edges across her silhouette and painting her hazardously held gifts in unruly gold. In one hand she held a bouquet of wildflowers, hastily snatched from the overflowing displays of the most expensive florist in the East of Piltover, impulsive and defiant, their hardened stems thick and unnaturally bright, as if they had been soaking in dye rather than water. She had cradled the bouquet with the awkward care of holding regret—a riotous tumble of buttercups, bluebells, and violets, petals luminously fresh but overlapping—half hoping their raw, brash colours would disguise the carelessness of her gathering. The florist, a severe woman with clipped vowels, had told her to wait while she arranged them, but impatience had gnawed at Vi’s edges, her feet already pointed toward the manor.

Looking at them now, Vi realised that she may had been far too hasty in her retreat.

In her other hand, Vi gripped a bottle of Ionian whiskey—rare, coveted, and almost certainly overpriced. The glass was blown thick and heavy, its surface smooth except for the etched sigil of a long-extinct distillery on the side. Liquid the colour of polished chestnut sloshed inside, a fathomless brown that caught each stray slant of light and hurled it back as molten gold, turning the whiskey into a private treasure none could mistake for anything ordinary.

Let’s hope the taste lives up to the price.

The Kiramman’s had always wrapped her in the warmth of their home—not with formal titles, but with gestures and words. She knew the boundaries here, the secret rules: within the manor’s walls, family meant informality, a safe shedding of pretences. Cassandra would greet her at the top of the winding stairs, arms crossed stiff in rehearsal of disapproval as she eyed the expensive gifts, but Vi could trace the softening at her mouth, the almost-smile deepening the lines at her eyes. “What have I told you about this, Violet.”

Yet Vi’s fingers tightened around her offerings. To arrive empty-handed felt too much like confession—that she was still, in some unspoken way, other. A guest on borrowed time. She doubted, rationally, the truth of that fear, but old instincts clung stubbornly. So, she persisted, her gifts a silent refrain: I am grateful; I am thankful; I belong.

Not that she would ever tell them how she felt. The Kirraman’s would be heartbroken if they knew the true meaning behind each gift.

However, that didn’t mean she had any plans to stop.

From somewhere deeper within—likely the kitchen—the tumult of voices swelled and receded, laughter rising in bursts that tangled with the sharp, urgent clatter of porcelain and cutlery. The marrow of the house felt alive; the kitchen defiant against the sombre quite that echoed within the rest of the manor. Even after all these years, Vi will never how anyone can live in a house this large. Vi followed the sound, shoulders squared, pulse thudding in her throat as she walked beneath the foyer’s silent watchers—ancient, oil-painted eyes glaring from linen canvas’, their judgmental gaze a chill on her skin that she answered with a tilt of her chin.

Inside the kitchen, Cassandra commanded the space with the force and skill of a seasoned warlord. Her sleeves were shoved high, exposing forearms dusted with flour and sugar—a quiet testament to how involved she was in the whole process despite the professionals that worked around her. Fingers flew, nimble and manicured, arranging trays of golden pastries in neat, glistening rows and painting each vegetable with deliberate, artistic strokes. Her brow was furrowed in fierce concentration, lips pursed, every muscle harmonized in purpose—a maestro at the height of her symphony, orchestrating chaos at the breakneck speed of a storm. All around her, staff orbited in a rehearsed dance—performers with aprons and soft shoes—gliding through a practiced choreography born of familiarity rather than fear.

Tobias made his usual claim on the dining table just off centre, his presence sprawling across polished wood as if he were a fixture rather than a person. He cloaked himself in a fortress of scattered correspondence and a rumpled newspaper, a mug balanced precariously on the edge, his limbs haphazard and unguarded. His slouch was intentional, shoulders rounded with the kind of ease that came only to the unbothered. He was the eye of the kitchen’s hurricane, comfortable in the knowledge of where his true skills lay. Far, far away from the fray.

Vi grinned as she finally entered the room, letting the lively clatter seep into her bones and drive away the initial apprehension she always felt when walking in. “I come bearing gifts,” she called, raising her voice above the rhythm of organised chaos, setting the whiskey down onto the well-stocked bar as she did so.

Cassandra pivoted smoothly, a frown carved deep enough to be a warning for any trying soul—but as soon as her gaze found Vi, those sharp lines softened, melting the steel from her expression. Something rare and almost playful flickered behind her eyes—an unguarded spark that only those close enough would ever see. She wiped flour from her nimble fingers onto a towel, and her voice, when it came, carried a gentle chide, tempered with affection. “Violet, you shouldn’t have.”

“Yet, I do it anyway,” Vi shot back, thrusting the oversized flowers into Cassandra’s arms, all the while pressing a swift, loving kiss to a weathered cheek.

Cassandra fixed her with a look meant to intimidate, brows arched, lips twitching traitorously. However, with a resigned sigh and the faintest smile, she began searching for a vase, muttering curses far too gentle for what Vi knew the matriarch was capable of.

As Cassandra busied herself, Vi’s attention flicked hungrily across the bounty on the counter—cheese rolls crackling with butter, grapes sweating amethyst, root vegetables lacquered with honey and smoke. The smell alone had her mouth watering and her stomach growling in need.

She really shouldn’t have forgone breakfast.

Tobias didn’t even lower his paper when he heard the noise, just flicked its edge in warning, a dry rumble slipping through his smirk. “I wouldn’t if I was you. Cassandra caught me ‘sampling’ earlier and I nearly lost a finger.”

Vi’s hand hovered in midair above the rolls, the dare lighting in her eyes. “I’ll take my chances.”

He arched a single brow above the newsprint, “On your head be it, my dear.” He warned.

Vi’s fingertips brushed the edge of a roll—just as Cassandra materialized in front of her.

“Ah, ah!” she scolded, swatting Vi’s hand away just as she Vi thought she was in the clear. “You should know the rules by now, Vi.”

“Ow! What the—?”

Tobias’s lips twitched behind the newspaper’s rustling edge. “Told you.”

Vi pulled a face, overplaying the injury, though beneath the surface sting lingered a warmer ache—Cassandra’s laughter carried the silvered music of belonging, a melody Vi craved.

As expected, Cassandra ignored the feigned act. “I don’t suppose you know where my daughter happens to be?” Cassandra asked instead, her hands already moving—wrapping trays with swift, practiced grace, foil flashing in the early afternoon light as she tucked each edge with attentive care.

“Nope. She mentioned something earlier about dropping by work before making her way here. She should be here any minute.” Vi shrugged, sliding into the rhythm at Cassandra’s side, her hands helping cover each tray with foil.

Cassandra rolled her eyes, though her voice simmered with thinly veiled pride. “Anything to get out of helping—she really is her father’s daughter, that one.”

Tobias scoffed in mock offence, “Can you blame her?” he muttered, but the fondness in his tone softened the words.

Suddenly, the sharp, staccato click of heels echoed along the marble corridor, shattering the easy lull that had settled over the room. The main door swept inward in a rush of chilled city air laced with the scent of rain and lavender. Tobias, once again, peeked over the rim of his newspaper, his lips curling into a knowing grin. “Speak of the devil.”

Vi’s heart gave an anxious stutter as she turned, pulse fluttering in her throat, just as Caitlyn strode into the room with the effortless authority of someone who had long since learned to command any space with just presence alone. Every inch of her was precisely orchestrated: a dark, tailored coat cinched tight at the waist, its severe cut accentuating her confident posture; pressed charcoal trousers that flowed flawlessly over polished leather boots, each stride measured and unhurried. Her hair, impossibly sleek, was twisted and pinned into an immaculate knot at the nape of her neck, so smooth it seemed to capture the chandelier’s pale glow, scattering it in rare, cool glints. The effect was dazzling—Caitlyn Kiramman, elegant and unyielding, a study in impeccable self-control, her shoulders squared, gaze unwavering beneath the crisp lines of her collar.

Vi shrank a little beside the glittering edges of Caitlyn’s presence, suddenly far too aware of her own scuffed boots, frayed jeans, and rumpled off-white tee.

“Missed the memo about the dress code, I see,” Caitlyn drawled, her gaze lingering unabashedly as it swept from the battered toes of Vi’s boots to the small, frayed edge of her collar. Her voice curled with a teasing lilt, but beneath the mockery lingered something close to admiration—a warmth that glinted in her eyes just for Vi. She made it clear in her tone that she wasn’t mad—more... amused? or perhaps even taken off guard by how easily Vi wore her defiance.

Before Vi could muster a retort, Caitlyn closed the distance between them with elegant, deliberate strides, her movements smooth and practiced from years of learned poise. She bent to kiss her father’s cheek in greeting, then her mother’s, her touches gentle though edged with a trace of formality. Only then did she turn to face Vi. For the briefest moment—hardly more than a heartbeat—Caitlyn’s carefully assembled charm faltered. She looked at her girlfriend, and something softer shimmered through—raw and unguarded.

Vi, as always caught by Caitlyn’s gravity, forgot herself and leaned in, impulse plain as day. She went for Caitlyn’s lips, but Caitlyn, with years of social discipline hardwired into her bones, angled away at the last second. Her deft sidestep was graceful, almost apologetic—a move made for the public eye, protective as a shield. Vi’s kiss landed gently on Caitlyn’s cheek. And in that instant, a flicker crossed Caitlyn’s gaze: regret sharp as a pin, an unspoken apology, a longing carefully caged. A moment later, she looped her arms around Vi and pulled her close, the hug fleeting but fierce, her restraint and affection warring beneath her skin. “Sorry.”

Vi forced herself to swallow her disappointment, disguising it behind a crooked, irrepressible grin. They still hadn’t told Caitlyn’s parents about the true shape of their relationship; both seemed to crave a little more time where their secret was theirs alone, sacred and unspoken. So, Vi pressed a soft, conspiratorial kiss just below Caitlyn’s ear—a touch hidden by the fall of her hair—and whispered, low and smoky, “Hey you.”

“Hey yourself,” Caitlyn murmured back, her fingers seeking Vi’s hand for a clandestine squeeze—a silent promise exchanged by touch alone—before she slipped away, composure sliding back into place around her like an expensive coat. Vi tucked her hands deep into the generous pockets of her worn jeans, shuffling back instinctively so she wouldn’t be tempted to reach for Caitlyn’s waist, the familiar anchor of her presence. Not that anyone watching would find it odd. Their closeness had always been a visible thread between them—even in the days when friendship was the only word they dared use.

“So, what time are the guests due?” Caitlyn asked, her tone smooth and assured, stepping naturally into the mantle of calm authority she wore so well.

“In about an hour,” Cassandra answered, her smile touched with approval as she nodded to Vi. “Be a dear and help me carry this lot into the living room, will you?”

-

By dusk, the Kiramman manor had shed its formality. Laughter, no longer feigned, wound like smoke through the cavernous halls—gilded and endless, the gold leaf flickering in pools of gaslight—magicked into corners and stairwells as though the building itself had come alive to revel in the warmth of company.

At the bar’s shaded edge, Vi lingered in the quiet of half-shadow, bourbon swirling deep amber in her grip. She pressed herself into the quietest nook within reach, each muscle taut with the effort of invisibility, her gaze skimming restlessly across painted faces and jewelled throats, desperate for even a fleeting glimpse of the only thing that made these events bearable – Caitlyn.

She really did hate these things.

She didn’t fit in, and she knew it.

They all knew it.

What didn’t help was the fact that her and Caitlyn had been separated at some point in the last hour, the woman swept away by a tidal wave of dignitaries and distant relatives who were desperate for a moment to catch up with the young Kiramman. When it was clear that Caitlyn wasn’t to be found, Vi’s focus drifted instead to the two other faces she recognized amid the swell of silks and ties: Cassandra and Tobias. Mr and Mrs K. Mom and Dad.

The older couple orbited each other through the crowd - colliding, parting and gravitating back together with wordless synchronicity, Tobias’s hand never straying from the small of Cassandra’s back as if he couldn’t bare to be apart from his wife. Even amidst the chaos and the lacquered pretence, there was something private, almost sacred, in those very brief glances and stolen touches—a fragile tenderness Vi longed to cradle in her palms, a shard of real goodness she’d nearly forgotten could exist. Vi did not believe in fairytales, but if she did, she might have whispered that what those two shared was others could only dream of sharing. True love.

“What are you doing over here on your lonesome?” Caitlyn murmured, materializing at Vi’s side with a quiet grace, her presence so familiar that it cut through the din like a favourite melody playing in the background.

Vi straightened from where she leaned against a marble counter, letting her eyes flicker over the sea of sequined gowns and tailored suits. “If I said I was having fun, would you believe me?” she replied, her voice edged with dry humour.

“Not for a second.” Caitlyn’s answering smile was sly and bright, luminous enough to momentarily eclipse the fatigue that haunted her features—bluish half-moons shadowed beneath her eyes, evidence of too many sleepless nights and the burden of endless expectation. Despite the way she held herself, there was a tiredness in her posture, a quiet pleading for this evening to finally end. “You weren’t built for all this,”

“Neither were you,” Vi countered, one brow hiking in amusement. For all the weight of the Kiramman name, Caitlyn wore it like a borrowed coat, too stiff and ill-fitting to ever feel like hers. She hated the grandeur, the scrutiny, the hollow flattery masked beneath layers of etiquette. Vi knew it as intimately as her own distaste for the spectacle.

Caitlyn’s shrug was the very picture of practiced grace, all polished nonchalance, though her voice dropped to a wry whisper. “If it buys a night of peace from my mother,” she said, glancing sidelong at Vi, “I’ll toast every tedious dignitary, laugh at every tired joke, even bat my lashes for every pushy investor.” She said as her eyes drifted longingly to the tall windows at the edge of the room, where beyond the rippling glass, night and freedom beckoned.

Vi’s gaze softened; a spark of admiration flickered behind the teasing tilt of her smile—an unspoken affection, warm and secret, reserved for moments like these. “What do you say we get out of here?” she offered, a note of rebellion threading through her words.

 “I would love to. Though if anyone asks why we disappeared, I’m blameless. You made me.”

Vi’s eyes danced with shared mischief; she flashed the unmistakable crooked grin that had gotten them both into a tremendous amount of trouble when they were younger. “Deal.”

Caitlyn smirked, nerves hidden behind bravado, and nudged Vi gently toward the French doors leading out to the gardens.

Before them, the garden stretched wide and mysterious, a velvet-black river glimmering beneath the uncertain moon, steady and endless, its lush banks shadowy beneath the draping boughs of ancient beeches. The dark was broken only by the silver arc of the old stone fountain—moonlight caught in the droplets of water so that every spray gleamed jewelled, scattered with faint rainbows, as if the fountain sang a private lullaby just for these two souls adrift. Vi felt Caitlyn shiver beside her, the tremor running through the other woman’s frame as she rubbed her arms in a futile attempt to generate warmth.

Without a second thought, Vi shrugged off her jacket—her favourite, the one with worn patches at the elbows and the soft faded lining—and, without hesitation or ceremony, draped it around Caitlyn’s shoulders. “Here.”

Caitlyn tried to snort, summoning bravado, but her protest turned to a shaky laugh that clouded in the sharp night air. “You’ll freeze.”

Vi cocked her head, a sly, lopsided smile tugging at her lips. Her stance was all casual bravado, hands shoved into the pockets of her jeans, but her eyes glimmered in the darkness—unguarded, fiercely tender. “I can handle it,” she said, and for a moment, her gruffness softened, letting something honest slip through.

“Thank you.” Caitlyn’s reply was half-resigned, half-grateful, her breath catching as she melted into the cocoon of Vi’s jacket. The fading fabric held warmth and the echo of Vi’s scent—her own signature blend of soap, sweat, and something sharper, indefinably her. Caitlyn burrowed her hands into the deep, too-long sleeves and made herself small, letting herself be enfolded, if only by cotton and memory. The quiet intimacy of the moment pulled at Vi with unexpected force, each heartbeat crashing inside her chest, reckless and unsteady. The urge to close the distance, to draw Caitlyn in until there was no space left between. The longing mingled with fear and awe, threatening to overwhelm her, and Vi wondered if it was possible to love this woman too much.

They walked slowly across the perfectly clipped grass, its opulent greenness sank beneath their steps, dew clinging to the cuffs of their trousers and the edges of their shoes. The world shrank to a soft tunnel of shadow and shared breath, as if the night itself sheltered them, letting them exist only for each other.

After a long, easy silence in which their footsteps and the distant hum of cicadas felt like the only sounds left in existence, Caitlyn’s voice broke the delicate spell. It was so soft, Vi almost missed it, “I’m sorry. About earlier.”

Vi blinked, tension flickering across her features. “For what?”

Caitlyn’s eyes darted to the broad windows of the house, “When you… tried to kiss me. I just—” Her fingers twisted in the sagging, borrowed sleeves, knuckles blanching. “I don’t want you to think I’m ashamed or… embarrassed, I just… I want to tell them in my own words.”

Vi’s hand reached up, brushing a stray strand of night-dark hair from Caitlyn’s brow, her touch feather-light and steady, grounding them both. “It’s okay. Really. I get it.” Her voice was soft, braced with the fragile steadiness of someone balancing hope and fear. A pause lingered in the hush between them, uncertainty trembling in her hesitant exhale. She pressed on, gentler still, words suffused with quiet vulnerability: “Do you think your parents will be okay with… us?” Vi already knew Cassandra had always had a feeling, she’d told Vi as much during Caitlyn’s wedding. But this was different. This was now. This was real.

Caitlyn’s practiced poise faltered, the steel in her bearing softening as vulnerability flickered in her eyes. Her voice, usually resonant with authority, now barely clung to conviction, tremoring at the edges. “I hope so... But Mother—she wants me to fit the legacy. Someone who looks the part, acts the part—someone polished and perfect, who’ll keep the Kiramman name gleaming for Piltover’s sake. That includes picking the right partner.” She swallowed hard, gaze dropping to the grass as her fists clenched by her sides. “I’m terrified nothing I choose will ever be enough. That I’ll always fall short—never enough for them.”

Vi slipped her rough, callused hands into Caitlyn’s, her grip tight and steady as an unspoken vow. Without hesitation, she drew Caitlyn gently but insistently close, until their brows touched and the world shrank to the intimate space where their breaths mingled, warm and tangible between them. “They just want you to be happy, Cait,” Vi murmured. Her voice, gruff to others, now softened almost to a whisper, the sincerity in it resonant and unmistakable. “I know I’m not what your Mother and Father pictured when they mapped out your future. I’m probably the last thing they imagined—rough at the edges, from the Undercity, no pedigree or shine. But they know us. They know me.” She pressed her forehead more firmly against Caitlyn’s, eyes searching the vulnerable depths of her partner’s. “They know I’d rather break myself in half than ever let you be hurt. That l- being with you is the best thing I’ve got—that I would fight the entire city if it meant giving you even a chance at happiness.”

A shaky laugh broke from Caitlyn, raw and unguarded, as if each syllable threatened to tumble into tears. She squeezed Vi’s hands, her own slender fingers trembling and cold, seeking reassurance. “I wish it was that easy,” she whispered, her voice barely more than a thread, trembling on the raw edge between hope and despair.

Vi smiled—a fierce, lopsided grin, fire burning in her eyes, determined and blazing against the dark. “Doesn’t matter if it’s easy. It only matters if it’s real. I’m with you, Caitlyn. We’ll carve out a place for ourselves,” she promised, voice swelling with conviction, “even if the rest of the world tries to break us.”

“Promise?” Caitlyn’s voice caught, threaded with a rawness that exposed the feeling she’d fought to conceal.

“I promise.” Vi’s answer was steady, warm—a shelter in the cool night air.

A hesitant silence tangled between them, heavy with all the unsaid things, the throb of distant city lights, and the wind that whispered restless secrets through the hedges. Caitlyn’s lashes fluttered as she blinked away gathering emotion, the pale glow from the estate tracing a trembling outline along her jaw. She swallowed, voice fragile but resolute. “We should probably head back.”

Vi wrinkled her nose, the flicker of rebellious amusement chasing the shadows from her face. “Do we have to?”

Caitlyn’s answering smile was delicate, a fragile, conspiratorial curl that trembled at the edges, as if it could vanish at the wrong word. “Come on.”

Their fingers twined and they moved together, drawn toward the Kiramman estate—its marble façade ablaze with golden light, the riot of music and laughter swirling from grand, glazed windows. Each step bridged the hush of the garden and the electric promise waiting beyond, though Caitlyn lingered on the threshold—caught between duty and desire.

At the great oak doors, Caitlyn halted abruptly, her grip tightening. She pulled Vi close with a sudden, wordless urgency shimmering in her blue eyes. She cupped Vi’s face, her hands trembling just so, and pressed her lips to Vi’s—a kiss deep, hungry, edged with a soul-bare desperation. It was more than an answer to the ache of the day; it was reclamation, a fierce, reckless confession. When at last they parted, Caitlyn was left breathless, strands of dark hair tangled across her cheek, something wild and unguarded alight in her gaze.

“I’ve wanted to do that since the moment I saw you,” she breathed, her lips tingling with newfound courage, voice barely louder than the wind.

Vi’s laughter bubbled up, helpless and radiant, her whole face lighting up, joy blooming through her like wildfire and chasing the shadows from her battle-weary eyes. But as she turned to step into the manor, the laughter caught in her throat—Cassandra Kiramman stood framed in the doorway, her posture regal and unyielding, silhouette carved against the golden spill of lamplight that cast long, soft shadows across the threshold.

“Fuck…”

FEB, 07 2024

‘You ready to talk about it?’

Vi finished typing, her thumbs hovering for just a moment longer than necessary before she pressed send. A dull, deliberate click echoed from her phone as she set it down on the laminate counter, the sound made sharp by the shape of her small kitchen.

Four days had slipped by since the Kiramman dinner—four slow, dragging days measured out in avoidance and quiet. Caitlyn had thrown herself into work with an almost frantic dedication, volunteering for every extra shift and inventing new errands so she wouldn’t have to talk to, or even see, her parents. After Cassandra had seen them kissing—Vi could recall the exact moment, the surge of adrenaline, the sharp, electric jolt in her veins—Cassandra hadn’t spoken a word. Not then, not in the brittle seconds afterward, and not in the hours or the days that followed. It was as if they’d both conjured the memory out of paranoia, and the uncertainty left them ragged at the edges. Cassandra Kiramman was not a woman known for holding her tongue; her silence rang louder, more piercing, than any outburst ever could.

Vi’s phone shuddered against the table, screen igniting with a pale glow in the muted, rain-washed light.

‘If I say no, are you going to listen?’

Vi’s lips curled into a lopsided, familiar grin, the kind that crinkled the scar above her eyebrow. She thumbed out her reply—quick and brash: ‘Not a chance.’

Seconds later, the phone buzzed again with a low, insistent hum—this time, Caitlyn’s name pulsed across the screen. Vi swiped to answer, wedging the phone between the curve of her bare shoulder and a tumble of half-damp, rose-pink hair that still smelled faintly of cheap shampoo.

“Hey, Cupcake,” she said, her voice rough with affection—and muffled by a mouthful of cereal, spoon grating noisily against the battered rim of her enamel bowl.

“What have I told you about talking with your mouth full?” Caitlyn’s tone was crisp as pressed cotton, clipped with practiced authority, but a faint tremor of laughter fluttered beneath the surface, threatening to bubble up and unravel her calm.

“Deflecting already?” Vi asked, a teasing lift in her tone, eyes glinting as she propped her feet on the neighbouring chair.

The pause that followed was dense—a moment stretched taut, heavy with unsaid things. Vi could hear Caitlyn breathing, careful and deliberate, pulling a weighted breath from somewhere deep behind her ribcage. When she finally spoke, her voice was softer, flecked with something fragile. “My mother called this morning.”

Vi set her spoon aside, the clink against ceramic sharp in the hush. Her posture straightened, gaze narrowing with sudden, gentle focus as she listened for the fragile uncertainty threading Caitlyn’s words.

“She... invited us to lunch. At the house.”

Vi stilled, heart thudding a slow, distant drumbeat somewhere beneath her skin. “And?” She asked softly, barely trusting the sound.

The answer came, quiet as confession—barely more than breath. “I told her we were busy.”

“Cait.” Immediately, Vi’s voice gentled; steady, coaxing.

“I know, I know,” Caitlyn babbled, her composure shattering all at once. The dam inside her had finally given way, and guilt flooded every syllable until her voice shook, quivering on the edge of tears. “It’s just— You remember Maddie, right?” Vi’s stomach knotted at the mention of Caitlyn’s ex. Caitlyn had adored her, worn her love like an open wound, once whispering dreams of marriage in the grey, quiet hours of morning. Vi had never seen Caitlyn as distress as she was when Maddie had left. It had taken all Vi’s might not to track the Noxian down and beat her to a pulp for how she had left her. “My mother hounded me for months, swearing it was just a ‘phase’—said I could do better. That I deserved better. That Maddie wasn’t right for me.” Caitlyn’s voice broke, barely above a whisper. “Maddie couldn’t take the pressure. Couldn’t take me—couldn’t take my family breathing down her neck. She left.”

“And now you’re worried the same thing is going to happen again.” Vi’s reply landed, heavy and certain, a solid stone dropped into churning water; then, softer—a gentle anchor, a promise wrapped in velvet. “You forget, I’m not scared of your mother, Cupcake.”

Caitlyn laughed then, but it was a ragged, unsteady sound, like glass wobbling on the very edge of a table, threatening to fall. “You should be,” she whispered, her voice trembling.

 “You’re not in this alone. I’ll go with you—shoulder to shoulder. The moment it’s too much, we walk out, together. I’m not letting go of you, Caitlyn Kiramman. Not now, not ever.”

Vi listened, heart held in the balance, as Caitlyn’s breathing rasped through the silence—each exhale scraping over old doubts, the edges of ironclad armour softening.

“Okay,” Caitlyn whispered at last, “Maybe I could call her back. Say yes, to the invitation.”

Heat flooded Vi’s chest, pride unfurling, dangerous and dazzling, making her feel ten feet tall and starlit, daredevil bright. “That’s my girl. I’ll bring the charm—you bring the wine. Or hell, bring whiskey.”

This time Caitlyn laughed for real—a bright chime of glass in sunlight, hope-drenched and brave, golden as a morning after rain. “Deal. But Vi?”

“Yeah?”

“Don’t wear that T-shirt that says, ‘Lesbians eat what?’ My mother almost had a heart attack when she saw it.”

Vi snorted, grinning wild. “No promises, Cupcake.”

-

"You ready for this?"

Caitlyn hesitated, spine rod-straight in the passenger seat, shoulders stiff as if bracing for impact. Her manicured fingers pressed anxious creases into slacks already razor-crisp; every movement betrayed the tension coiling beneath her composed exterior. She glanced over the dash, the rain-speckled side mirror, the high polished fence standing outside, her gaze darting as though searching for any escape route, real or imagined.

"Ready as I can be," she said at last, her voice measured and crisp, the syllables boxed in tight control.

Vi’s grin lost its armoured edge, melting into something gentler, warmer—comfort threaded through confidence. She extended her hand again, steadier now, insistent and open; fingers fanned with a patience that was both invitation and shield. "I’ll walk in first if you want. Or let you hide behind me, if that helps."

Caitlyn shut her eyes, drawing one shaky breath, her composure wavering. Icy fingers sought Vi’s palm and clung there, her grip trembling—a fleeting, fragile plea concealed beneath layers of habitual defiance. “Don’t you dare leave me alone in there,”

"Not a chance," Vi promised, voice low and unwavering as she closed her hand around Caitlyn’s.

After leaving the car, the pair moved forward in tandem—each step along the flagstone path ringing out, the crunch a drumbeat marching them toward whatever storm waited inside.

At the porch, Caitlyn wavered, hesitation blooming in her every gesture. She raised her hand to knock, knuckles trembling, and delivered three precisely measured raps, as if meticulousness could shield her from the dread pressing in. Vi, ever attuned to Caitlyn’s unease, reached over, her fingers weaving through Caitlyn’s in silent support. But before comfort could take shape on her lips, the door swung open.

Cassandra filled the doorway, silver hair pulled back with ruthless precision, posture regal and unyielding. Her gaze swept over them, sharp and assessing—a hawk’s gaze, missing nothing. Yet, something in her face flickered: a softness, a hint of welcome, an almost imperceptible curl of something like pride.

“Come in, girls.” Her voice, warm but commanding, left no room for hesitation as she stepped aside to usher them inside.

Lunch unfolded with stiff elegance; every detail honed to perfection. Tobias moved at the room’s edges, vest crisp, pouring pale lemonade into crystal glasses. A sly, knowing smile tugged at his lips, his eyes flicking between Cassandra and Caitlyn, a silent player in a scene thick with undercurrents.

Vi and Caitlyn settled into their seats, side by side at the vast mahogany table, close enough that their sleeves brushed, yet a cold pulse of invisible distance separated them; glances zipped back and forth, every heartbeat fretful with things too unruly to stay hidden. Beneath the tablecloth’s snowy drape, Caitlyn’s knee bounced in nervous staccato until Vi’s warm palm anchored it, her touch both reassurance and vow—a silent current of skin and trust looping between them.

Silence fell, thick and almost suffocating, as if the mansion’s walls themselves listened in with ancient, jealous ears. Then Cassandra’s voice—smooth, unfaltering—broke through the silence. “Caitlyn, dear, how is work going?”

“Oh… I-it’s fine,” Caitlyn murmured, her fingers looping anxiously around the stem of her water glass, knuckles white, eyes boring into the blank void of her plate. She risked a sidelong glance at Vi, desperation threading through her gaze. What?

Vi shifted, her voice a low, deliberate rumble undercut with warmth. “Caitlyn is being modest. One of the lead detectives just retired at her precinct, and there’s been talk of Caitlyn taking the position.”

Cassandra’s emerald eyes slid over to Caitlyn, cool and probing. “I would expect nothing less. Achievement is our birthright,” she replied, savouring the pause until it stretched taut between them, the silence throbbing, raw and palpable, as if daring anyone to disagree. “And your work, Violet?”

Vi’s trademark grin faltered—a subtle crack in her mask. “Still the same,” she answered, thumb tracing the rim of her glass. “The Last Drop’s running smoothly. An investor stopped in a few weeks ago, talking about opening another branch here in Piltover. She said if it goes well, we might start thinking about expanding across the sea.”

“You don’t sound so happy about the prospect.” Tobias’s voice carried a razor’s edge of curiosity.

Vi’s hands tightened around her napkin. “The Last Drop was Uncle Vander’s baby. I don’t know how he’d feel, seeing it turned into just another branch—something mass-produced.”

The conversation stumbled onward, wrapping itself in layers of polite routine. Forecasts thick with numbers, endless wedding invitations, stories of lavish, joyless weekends in cavernous estates—all swirling in a careful, polite dance.

But then Caitlyn shattered the calm like a bell struck at midnight. She sat up, blue eyes blazing with sudden, fragile courage, her voice slicing through the hush. “Are you not going to ask?”

Cassandra’s face remained perfectly still, the cool elegance of sculpted marble betraying nothing beneath the halo of her carefully coiffed hair. “About what, dear?” she replied, each syllable measured and soft, yet her gaze was sharp as a chisel, unwavering in its scrutiny.

Caitlyn swallowed hard, her next words catching on the ragged edge of her throat. “Us. Me and Vi. What you saw.”

Porcelain touched porcelain as Cassandra set down her teacup with deliberate grace. In the charged quiet, the sound rang out—delicate yet resonant, precise as the tolling of a bell before a verdict, echoing across gleaming mahogany and flickering candelabra.

“Oh, Caitlyn.” The steel in Cassandra’s eyes softened, replaced by a shimmer of warmth and something achingly tender. “What is there left to say? I am not surprised, darling—only that it took you both so long to find words for what has long been written between you.”

Caitlyn’s brow caved, furrowed with the onslaught of uncertainty and fragile hope as they waged a silent war across her face. “You—” She tried again, her voice fluttering, fragile as spun sugar. “You aren’t angry?”

Cassandra laced her slender fingers together, rows of silver and opal rings catching the firelight from the chandelier—each one a sparkling fragment of history and memory. “Angry? No, love,” she said quietly, her voice low and steady, echoing in the profound hush. “There was always… something between you. An inevitability. I saw it flicker in your eyes as children, the way you laughed over tangled piano notes in the sunlit drawing room, daring each other beyond sense or propriety.” Her lips shaped a smile that trembled, equal parts pride and old regret. “If I am wounded, it is only that you felt you could not trust me.”

Caitlyn twisted her napkin tighter in nervous knots, as if the thin linen might hold back the tremor threatening to split her apart. Her voice barely emerged, small and raw: “I didn’t want to disappoint you.”

“My darling,” Cassandra breathed, her words bearing the heavy grace of truth. “The only disappointment would be to see you unloved.” She leaned forward, hands gentle on the table’s edge, her voice bruised but incandescent with honesty. “I want you cherished—truly, fiercely loved, beyond any hopes or fears I have ever held for you.”

For a heartbeat, the room was a held breath. Not even the clock dared tick. Then Tobias, ever the boundary-breaker, broke the spell with a wicked, sideways grin. “So—how’s it going, then? Always figured you two would either kill each other or run off and elope. I’m just glad it’s the former.”

Caitlyn startled out a laugh—a small, watery sound that caught on a tide of relief. Beside her, Vi squeezed her hand tight, anchoring her, and began to speak. Her voice was hoarse, but certain, words weaving out like spun gold, fragile yet resilient. Caitlyn joined in, and together their confessions and laughter formed something new—a precarious, silvery bridge stretching across old fears. Cassandra’s quiet acceptance radiated through the parlour, suffusing the air with warmth and scattering light into the shadowy corners where fear once lingered.

In the soft aftermath, as the last plates scraped clean, Cassandra pinned Vi with a look—sharp, sudden, uncompromising. “Vi, will you help me with the washing up?” This was no request. It was an invocation, a passage—a test that rang clear in the hush that fell between them.

“O-Of course.”

Once alone in the kitchen, Vi felt her nerves clattering like glass inside her chest, though she fought to keep her features composed—lips pressed thin, jaw locked, eyes masked against betrayals of fear. She met Vi’s eyes unflinching, her every line sending the message that here was someone unafraid to bear the ugly and the beautiful alike, someone who would not yield when it came to those she loved.

“I wouldn’t be much of a mother if I didn’t say my piece,” Cassandra began, her voice steady but edged with concern, her gaze unwavering as she met his eyes. “It’s my duty to speak up, whether you want to hear it or not, because Caitlyn means the world to me. I shouldn’t have to tell you that I won’t take kindly to anyone hurting my daughter—emotionally or otherwise. She’s stronger than she looks, but even the toughest hearts can break. I see how she looks at you—the way her eyes search for yours across a crowded room, how her smile is just a little brighter when it’s aimed at you, and the way her hand finds yours instinctively whenever you’re near.”

Cassandra’s hands twisted in her lap, betraying a quiet anxiety. “I’m glad she’s happy, truly I am, and honestly, I haven’t seen her light up like this in years. Sometimes, though, that happiness makes me even more afraid. Because the higher she climbs, the further there is to fall. I can’t help but worry about what might happen if things don’t work out between you—what it might do to her spirit. What it might do to both of you.” She sighed, the sound heavy with care and history. “I know love is never simple, never neat. It’s messy and difficult and sometimes it’s not enough to want the best for each other. But Caitlyn deserves to be cherished, and I hope you know what a rare heart you’ve found in her.”

Her words hung between them, weighted with equal parts warning and hope—protective but not unkind. “I’ll be having this same conversation with her about you, you know. She needs to understand her power to wound as much as her power to heal. For what it’s worth, I love you as my own. As fiercely, as imperfectly, and as completely as I love Caitlyn. You’re part of this family, and with that comes both my blessing and my expectation: that you hold each other carefully, and when the storms come—as they always do—that you find your way through them together.”

Vi swallowed hard, the ache thick in her throat, but she refused to cast her eyes down. She forced herself to hold Cassandra’s gaze, steeling every trembling inch of herself. “I swear to you,” she said, her voice rough with emotion, “I’d never hurt her. I’ve loved her longer than I’ve even understood what loving meant.” The confession trembled in the small space, naked and aching.

Cassandra let silence gather between them, brutal and bracing as winter wind, until the only sound was the hum of the refrigerator and the slow drip of the faucet—each second a test. Finally, her voice softened just a fraction, the steel edged with something bruised and vulnerable. “Love is a heavy thing, Vi. Sometimes heavier than you expect. Are you ready to live with that weight, even when it asks more than you think you can give?” Her gaze was fierce, yet searching.

“If it breaks me,” Vi said quietly, fiercely, “I’ll still carry it. I can’t imagine doing anything else.”

For a long moment, Cassandra simply studied her, one brow lifting by the barest fraction—as if weighing not just the words, but the shape and substance of the heart behind them. At last, she nodded, slow and grave, approval flickering in her eyes. She opened her mouth to speak, but the tension cracked as Caitlyn appeared at the doorway.

Caitlyn’s gaze darted between them—a glint of suspicion, a thread of longing, and that steady, quiet softness Vi could never quite steel herself against. “Everything alright in here?”

“Yeah. We’re good, Cait. Promise.”

Cassandra cleared her throat, gathering her battered satchel and weathered gloves with that same careful dignity as she’d carried through every room of her life. “I’ll leave you girls to it.” Her departure was brisk and efficient—heels tapping the boards in a cadence punctuating the end of something ceremonial. The door swung, then clicked shut, and the silence she left behind was thick and almost reverent.

As soon as the latch clicked into place, Caitlyn’s shoulders dropped, tension draining from her frame as she quirked a wry eyebrow, a faint smile tugging her lips. “So… did she give you the talk?”

“If by ‘talk’ you mean ‘threaten’—then yeah, you could say that. Try not to look so smug, Piltover.” Vi nudged Caitlyn’s shoulder, the gesture feigning levity but coloured by a hunger for reassurance only Caitlyn could give.

Caitlyn’s laughter bubbled out, bright and involuntary—and then snagged, catching in her throat as Vi’s grin turned sly and reckless, eyes kindling with challenge. “You better save some of that attitude for when we tell Powder,” Vi warned, a flicker of mischief chased away by the shadow of a more sombre caution in her gaze.

Caitlyn’s smile wavered, worry threading itself through the last traces of her amusement.

FEB, 15^TH 2024

"This is a bad idea," Caitlyn hissed, her voice little more than a razor scraping along the shadow-snarled corridor. Crumbling plaster blushed with mildew, and every footfall seemed to prod old, resentful ghosts. Her eyes never left the door looming before them—a warped sentry stitched together by rust-choked bolts clinging desperately to splinters of chipped blue paint. Her fingers clawed at her sleeve, knuckles stark and bloodless, trembling despite her desperate attempts at composure. Every muscle was drawn tight as a bowstring, one heartbeat away from snapping altogether, pressing her so close to Vi she could feel the heat radiating through Vi's battered jacket and the sharp tang of engine oil on her skin.

Vi flashed her trademark grin—crooked and audacious, angled like the blade of a gutter-knife. "Relax," she drawled, her tone a costume of nonchalance, “It’ll be fine. Promise."

Caitlyn shot her a glance sharp enough to draw blood, the sort of look that could make a lesser woman stumble. Her lips compressed into a mutinous line, gone the colour of old chalk left too long in a rainstorm. "Didn’t she almost blow up your last girlfriend?"

"That was an accident," Vi muttered, a grimace flickering across her face as if swallowing bitter medicine.

"Is that what she told you?"

Vi dragged a callused palm across the nape of her neck, fingers catching on the ridges of old scars. "This is different."

"How?"

Vi’s bravado guttered, the practiced smirk faltering as the edges of her mask began to peel away, revealing the bruised uncertainty beneath. Her next words slipped free as a confession, barely audible in the hush between them—so quiet Caitlyn had to lean in, catching sound with those storm-pale ears. "She actually hated the last one."

Caitlyn halted mid-stride, posture locked in place, blue eyes glacial and unblinking. She fixed Vi with a stare so precise and relentless it might have pierced armour, scrutinizing for any flicker of untruth or weakness. Her composure was so complete it bordered on brittle, as if held together by sheer force of will. "And...me?"

Vi’s mouth twisted, fragile hope tangled with stitched-together apology at war in the trembling curve of her lips. She glanced away, voice fraying. "She doesn’t hate you as much?"

Caitlyn’s laugh cracked, brittle as ice underfoot, and tumbled out—the sound closer to a swallowed sob than to genuine mirth, as if she had to summon it with a cudgel from the pit of her fear. "That’s not even remotely reassuring, Vi."

Before Vi could reach for Caitlyn’s hand, before she could lend her steadiness or steal a moment of calm, Vi rapped twice—her knuckles echoing against the splintered panel like the start of a fight. Inside, bolts rasped and groaned, then gave way. The door jerked open, yanked by Powder, whose smile was a mechanical rictus—too wide, too cold, the metal of it catching what little light there was. As Powder’s eyes found Caitlyn, her grin twisted vicious, posture closing and guarded, "Oh. You brought the bluebelly."

"Play nice, Powder."

Powder scoffed, resentment creasing her brow as she stepped aside with stiff-limbed reluctance. "I’m always nice."

Caitlyn threw Vi a silent, desperate glance as they crossed the threshold into Powder’s den—a nest of organized chaos where the air boiled with the tang of hot iron, scorched wires, sweat, and undertones of stain coffee. Contraptions jostled atop every available surface—spindly insectile robots crouched over twisted engines, and the singed skeletons of blueprints crackled beneath shifting stacks. Near the fogged, iron-barred window, a tiny rank of baby boots waited. Vi reached for Caitlyn’s hand, breath curling close to Caitlyn’s ear in a whispered hush, "It won’t be that bad. Promise."

But her words were as brittle as spun sugar on the tongue. The tension in the room had been wound tight as wire; it hummed now, a silent current that made hair prickle and stomachs twist—Powder’s lingering sneer and Caitlyn’s guard circling each other, both caught by the gravity of Vi’s loyalty, three bodies in a constellation shaped by history and unresolved war. Vi’s pulse battered behind her ribs, her knees tingling with restless warning; under neither law nor the gods of the Lanes would she ever leave these two alone. Not yet.

"So," Vi bluff-charged into the suffocating quiet, raking her voice through the silence, "how’s the baby holding up?"

Powder slumped into a battered armchair that groaned beneath her, oil-stained hands tracing lazy circles over the balloon of her belly. "This little hellion’s trying to murder me from the inside out. Sleep? Haven’t heard of her. Food? Might as well toss it in the sewer—nothing stays down. And it’s all Ekko’s bloody fault, isn’t it? Couldn’t keep his paws to himself, oh no—" A sharp wave of blue hair swung to cloak her eyes as she swatted at imaginary annoyances. "If you ever get it into your skull to breed, Vi, don’t say I didn’t warn you. Not one word."

Vi eased down beside her, the weight of a thousand bruised memories lending warmth to the nudge of her shoulder against Powder’s. "Just a little longer, Pow. You’re almost there."

Powder’s scowl deepened, lower lip jutting with childish defiance. "Easy for you, tough girl. Try playing stadium to soccer practice in your insides at two a.m. See how you like it."

Caitlyn pressed her fist to her lips, smothering a smile, eyes dancing with flecks of humour despite herself. Powder clocked her immediately, gaze flicking up sharp as bottle glass, challenge radiating from every jagged edge. "You think it’s funny princess?"

Before Caitlyn could muster a retort, Vi dove between the sparks, splicing through the rising hostility. "Actually, Pow, we need to talk to you about something."

Caitlyn instinctively withdrew behind Vi’s broader shape, hands curling tight, clawing at her coat as if hoping to vanish entirely. Vi caught the tremor, squeezed back, offering her a steady lifeline—anchored, immovable, a promise braced against the coming storm. "Powder, Caitlyn and I... we’re together."

The air solidified, pregnant with silence. In the den's crowded shadows, clockwork ticked like anxious hearts, and from far beyond the thin, battered walls, the wails and mournful trains of the Outer Lanes drifted in. Inside, though, time distilled itself into a single, fragile instant. Caitlyn stood with every muscle bared, colour draining from her face, as Powder’s eyes snapped between them—calculating, wounded, a thousand sharp-edged emotions swirling under the surface. At the core: something like betrayal, hot and raw.

"Why?" Powder’s voice was acid-wrapped, a hiss balanced between a sneer and a sob, uncertain on the brevity of trust. Buried beneath the bravado, Vi heard it—fear, old and pulsing. Replacement. Abandonment.

Vi held her gaze, refusing the sanctuary of denial, letting the walls come down. "Powder—"

"Are you sure?" Powder bit, brittle, voice shivering on the edge. "Like, actually sure? Because if you’re just bored, if she—"

"Powder. Watch your mouth." Vi’s voice sharpened, slicing off the words before they became something she couldn’t take back.

Powder recoiled, her bravado unspooling until she seemed years younger, shoulders sagging as all the fight leaked out of her. She slumped deeper into her chair, breath hitching in the charged quiet. But after a beat—when Vi was bracing for more—something gentler surfaced in Powder’s gaze; affection, battered and wary, battered as a stray pup but no less loyal for it. "Well then." She snatched up a half-finished clockwork bird, fingers quick and restless, tools clattering in her lap like rain tapping at glass. "You’re stuck with us, bluebelly. Hope you can handle it."

Relief broke over Caitlyn’s face, transforming her—her smile sudden and sun-bright, a thing vulnerable and radiant as it banished all remnant fear. "Thank you, Powder. Really."

Powder rolled her eyes so hard it looked painful, but the faint crook at the edge of her mouth betrayed her stubborn, ragged affection. "Whatever. Don’t expect me to braid your hair or croon those ridiculous Piltover lullabies."

Vi hooked her arm around Caitlyn, drawing her close, the tremors of doubt and fear dissolving in the warmth between them—solid, golden, unstoppable. "Told you. Not so bad."

Powder shot Vi a final glare, but her lips twitched upward in the ghost of a smile—fragile truce struck amid broken glass and fractured twilight, the first heartbeat of a new, imperfect family.

FEB, 24^th 2024

Vi and Caitlyn curled together on the wide navy sofa in Caitlyn’s apartment, limbs entwined and tangled, the cushions melding around them as if intent on keeping them close. Rain scrawled frantic silver wounds down the windowpanes, each droplet tracing a desperate path, the storm pounding the glass in an insistent tattoo that thudded in Vi’s chest. Outside, the city raised its own distant clamour—horns bleating, engines growling, voices echoing beneath the relentless downpour—blurring into a roiling backdrop for their fragile cocoon. Lightning glanced off overloaded bookshelves, painting jittery shadows on the walls, the blue dusk deepening with every flicker from the glowing TV.

The movie, some tragic love story Caitlyn had picked from her collection, had disintegrated into a battered wreck of sound and light, skidding past Vi’s attention like the rain against the windshield, every line of dialogue and orchestral swell flattened into static. All her focus tunnelled in on Caitlyn: slender and impossibly delicate at Vi’s side, her body pressed close, breathing slow and even just under Vi’s chin, until every inhale was a taste—soft shampoo-clinging hair, the faintest hint of gunmetal and tea, dizzyingly real. Each breath hitched, rough-edged, happiness cleaving through Vi so bright and sudden it hurt—a perilous sweetness pulsing beneath her skin, words buckling under the sheer, devastating relief of trust, of belonging. Raw and remade by the hush of lamplight and rain, the world was stripped down to just this: Caitlyn in her arms, impossibly miraculous, as if Vi might keep her forever if she simply held on tight enough.

Vi’s fingers drifted with idle reverence, coiling a lock of Caitlyn’s midnight-silk hair around her knuckle, marvelling at its cool, luminous spill—a radiant darkness stark against the battered scars on her own hands. She dipped her head and pressed a kiss to Caitlyn’s brow, her lips trembling at the fever-warm reality of skin that pulsed with life. Caitlyn released a fragile, quivering sigh—barely a breath, but it reverberated through Vi like a secret plea—and burrowed closer, her body curving to fit Vi’s as if they’d been made to slot together. A hand slid beneath Vi’s shirt, fingertips splaying wide and reverent across her stomach—so light, so careful it felt consecrated, as if Caitlyn could anchor Vi to this moment with nothing but tenderness, weaving something holy out of warmth and hope.

And then the moment buckled.

A screech of metal tore the air, sharp as a blade, jolting through the flat, warping the television’s haze into savage clarity. Vi flinched, heart hammering, the breath punched hard from her lungs as adrenaline flared ice-cold along every nerve. Sirens wailed in ragged blue-and-red arcs across the screen, neon wounds ripping open scenes of shattered glass, black oil gleaming in rivers as a car’s crumpled skeleton steamed under flickering streetlamps. For a moment, Vi’s heart seized with sudden, animal dread, the panic wound tight and bright as barbed wire. She stared at the screen, limbs locked, as the female protagonist clawed her lover from the wreckage, hands drenched in luminescent red, voice cracking and raw with terror. Her love collapsed onto the rain-slick pavement, clutching the limp body in a death grip, sobbing raggedly: “Don’t leave me. Please.” The plea rang out, pure and desperate and endless, and it punched into Vi, shoving her brutally into memory.

The world upended. The safety of Caitlyn’s living room dissolved—no rain, no lamplight, only the stifling fluorescence of a hospital room. The air tasted of antiseptic and panic, sharp and sterile, the shriek of monitors a frantic Morse code Vi could not decipher. Caitlyn sprawled lifeless across the bone-pale sheets, skin mottled, lips tinged blue as dusk, eyes pressed tight against the assault of the world. Vi’s own voice echoed through the memory, warped and shredded, unspooling threads of apology and terror. Grief surged close behind, burning and acidic, eclipsed only by the unfamiliar shape of shame—she couldn’t remember if the last words she’d spoken were I love you or just the same wrecked, small talk that in hindsight didn’t matter. She clutched Caitlyn’s slack hand, clinging to the weight of every wrong choice, every minute devoured by rage or pride, the crushing knowledge that understanding—what it meant to love Caitlyn, truly love her—had come too late.

I can’t do this without you.

This isn’t funny, Caitlyn. Wake up. Please.

Please.

No.

Stop.

Vi, you have to let her go.

No.

Vi. You have to—

Stop.

Vi—

A touch reached in, impossibly gentle, slicing through the razor tangle of memory—a thumb stroking Vi’s cheek, a palm warm and steady, grounding her in the present. Vi startled, lungs spasming for air, vision clearing as if surfacing from deep water. Caitlyn knelt before her now, her eyes wide and storm-bright with worry, searching Vi’s face with careful thoroughness, as though determined to find every fracture and mend it one by one.

“Vi?” Caitlyn’s whisper was a trembling lifeline, brittle with the effort to sound calm. “Where did you go?”

For a moment, Vi just stared, starving for every beloved detail—Caitlyn’s vivid sapphire eyes, wide with fear and hope, the anxious furrow knifing between her brows, the defiant tremor playing at the corner of her mouth. A navy wisp of hair, mussed from how she had laid, curled stubbornly against her temple. Vi ached to confess everything: how dread still haunted her every waking moment, how she panicked at the thought of having to relive that moment. That there were wounds time had left raw edges on, and some nights she questioned if her strength held at all; the past threaded through her blood, a constant, punitive ache. The words crowded her throat, but Vi’s lips could only tremble in silence. Caitlyn was here—solid, alive, and heartbreakingly unbroken. The agony unclenched in Vi’s chest; with shaking fingers, she reached out and tucked that stray strand behind Caitlyn’s ear, desperate for the grounding shock of contact, the tactile proof her world had not ended, not yet.

But it will.

“Nowhere,” Vi choked out, her voice cracked and unshielded, loathing both the lie and how fiercely she craved to make it true.

But she hadn’t forgotten. The memory waited in her bones, dormant and venomous.

She leaned forward, pressing a kiss to Caitlyn’s lips, trembling with confession withheld—a frantic, wordless apology, a desperate attempt to pin herself to the present before the past could drag her under. Caitlyn responded slow and steady, circlet arms winding around Vi’s shoulders, pouring love and warmth into the kiss. When she finally drew back, her gaze swept over Vi’s face, ocean-deep and restless, worry shimmering beneath the calm. Are you really here? Are you still with me? Caitlyn’s eyes demanded, and Vi flinched from the truth: she feared, deep down, she might one day slip for good—that she will tell her just how little time they had.

“You sure?” Caitlyn breathed, their foreheads nearly touching, her voice a gentle wound laid bare.

Vi nodded—too quickly, too fiercely—then clung to Caitlyn, arms sliding up the elegant line of Caitlyn’s back. She pressed each point of contact into memory, frantic to anchor herself to this moment, to hope that if she just held tight enough, the breaking world would hold. The next kiss blossomed wilder, urgent—hesitant at first, then ravenous.

Desperation bled from Vi’s touch as she searched for solace in Caitlyn’s skin. Her lips travelled—questing from the angular line of Caitlyn’s jaw to the delicate hollow where her pulse throbbed beneath pale skin. Each touch was an incantation, a shuddering benediction. Vi’s heartbeat thundered, frantic and out of rhythm, racing the relentless drum of rain at the window. Caitlyn’s pulse, sure and steady beneath Vi’s lips, was a lifeline—proof this was real, that Vi was not lost in some fragile, impossible dream. That she was present.

Caitlyn’s soft, involuntary moan rippled down Vi’s spine, heat and need both. She yielded to the unspoken plea, recapturing Caitlyn’s mouth, kissing her deeper. Vi’s hands moved upward, caressing the sleek strength of Caitlyn’s neck, guiding her with tender reverence, claiming the moment with an urgency that trembled between newness and something ancient. With a rough exhale, Vi drew Caitlyn into her lap. Their embrace tightened, a haphazard sanctuary from cold and memory. Vi’s hands explored with trembling awe, gliding over Caitlyn’s thighs—muscle beneath velvet skin—before arching around to grip the soft curves of Caitlyn’s hips, anchoring her closer, erasing the barrier of breath and distance.

A whimper, raw and plaintive, escaped Vi’s lips—a plea and a promise, her desire overflowing the bounds of restraint. She tore herself back, gasping, and found Caitlyn’s eyes squeezed closed, lips parted, breath caught in anticipation—her vulnerability bared, waiting. Vi’s heart softened, her thumb sweeping gentle across the flushed cheek before her. “Are you sure?” she murmured, voice trembling—a prayer laced with awe, concern, and hope in equal measure.

Caitlyn’s eyes fluttered open. In that instant, Vi saw a galaxy of unspoken emotion—desire blazing with devotion, longing woven through love, longing echoing in wide, dark pupils swallowing the blue. “I’ve never been more sure of anything,” Caitlyn breathed, the words a hush in the storm but, to Vi, a promise that resonated through every wound and hope in her soul.

As their lips met, a spark ignited, and in an instant, it became a raging inferno. Vi's kiss was a force of nature, sweeping away any hint of hesitation.

Vi's hands roamed freely, exploring every curve and plane of Caitlyn's body as she lifted her effortlessly, thighs cradled in a display of raw strength and adoration. Each step was a graceful dance, a sacred procession toward the moonlit bedroom. The silver light bathed them, casting a romantic spell over the scene, as if the moon herself conspired to make this moment perfect.

-

Laying Caitlyn on the bed was like placing a precious gem on a bed of velvet. The silk sheets caressed Caitlyn's skin, accentuating her beauty—the soft rise and fall of her breasts, the delicate flush on her cheeks, and the deep pools of her eyes, brimming with unspoken passion. Vi's hands shook ever so slightly as she reached for the hem of Caitlyn's vest, her fingers brushing against the soft fabric. With a delicate motion, she lifted it over Caitlyn's head, revealing the delicate lace of her bralette, its simplicity contrasting the vibrant pattern of the borrowed shorts—a mischievous memento from their teenage years when Caitlyn had snuck into Vi's wardrobe.

It wasn’t the first time Vi had seen Caitlyn in a state of undress before; Caitlyn had never been one to shy away from her. But this was different—this was the first time Vi had seen her like this. Caitlyn’s chest rose and fell with heavy, uneven breaths, her pale skin flushed a delicate pink that deepened at the hollow of her throat and along the line of her collarbone. A sheen of sweat glimmered along her temples, dampening stray locks of blue-black hair that clung to her brow. Her eyes, usually sharp and discerning, were now impossibly soft—wide and glassy, shining with something raw and unguarded. There was a hunger there, a vulnerability threaded through need, folding Vi in with silent invitation.

And in that moment, Vi broke. The usual rush of desire—hot, breathless, urgent—was gone, washed away like sand in a tide. What filled her instead was quieter, heavier: a need that ached in her bones, pulsed beneath her ribs. This wasn’t hunger or wanting or impatience—it was a raw, honest longing to close the painful gap between two souls aching for each other. Pleasure was beside the point; touch became language, every brush of skin a desperate prayer for connection. In the hush between heartbeats, Vi reached not for sensation but for something vaster, wrapped in tenderness: a devotion so profound it trembled between them, reverent and unspoken, promising everything without a single word.

Caitlyn reached up, her fingers trembling as they traced the line of Vi’s cheek, her breath trembling on the precipice of speech. “You—” The word splintered, never finding completion. Vi’s eyes filled with awe. “You’re so beautiful,” she whispered, the reverence in her voice more powerful than any vow.

The removal of clothing became a sensual ritual; each piece discarded with growing urgency until they were both left bare. Caitlyn in a modest pair of panties and Vi in a fresh pair of boxers. Vi's body hovered over Caitlyn, a declaration of possession, as their bare chests met, hearts thundering a shared rhythm. Their thighs entwined, a sensual knot of limbs, as their kisses deepened, tongues dancing and exploring.

Vi's rough and tender caress seared a trail across Caitlyn's hip, igniting a wildfire of sensations. Each finger, weathered by years of hard work, carried a spark that set Caitlyn ablaze, making her tremble with anticipation. The connection between them was a live wire, buzzing with raw desire, as if their bodies were conductors of some primal energy. Caitlyn's breath hitched, a soft gasp escaping her lips as her body instinctively arched, offering itself to Vi's exploration.

Vi, captivated by Caitlyn's response, was determined to fulfil her need. She yearned to map every contour of Caitlyn's form, to decipher her hidden longings, but in that moment, she was solely focused on bestowing upon Caitlyn the ecstasy she so clearly craved.

Vi's exploration became more intimate as her fingers delicately traced the contours of Caitlyn's stomach, each touch sending a shiver down to the very core of their beings. She kissed and savoured the sweet spot where Caitlyn's shoulder melted into her neck, relishing the soft gasps and whispers that escaped with every caress. With each passing moment, Vi descended further, her senses heightening with anticipation. As her fingers breached the boundary of Caitlyn's panties, a rush of warmth and desire overwhelmed Vi. The realization of the intimacy she was about to partake in sent a thrill through her veins. "At last.” She thought to herself. Her hand, guided by a primal instinct, lowered slowly until her entire palm encased Caitlyn’s core. The sensation it caused them both was electric. Caitlyn arched into the soft touch, her body singing with pleasure, while Vi whimpered at the wetness and heat that greeted her. Caitlyn's body subconsciously opened to Vi's intimate caress, inviting -urging her to explore, to claim what was rightfully hers and in that moment, Vi felt a sense of belonging, of being truly desired, and she knew she could linger there forever, her hand just resting upon her. Feeling her. Cupping her.

The same couldn’t be said for Caitlyn.

Caitlyn's hips undulated seeking a firmer touch, her body crying out for more. But Vi wasn’t ready to give this up just yet. “Let me have this.” She pleaded, her breath hot against Caitlyn's ear, as she teased her with the barest movement of her fingers. Caitlyn's lips parted in a silent plea, her lower lip trapped between her teeth. She arched her back, offering herself completely – fully, as if to say. Okay. I’m yours. Have me however you want me.

Witnessing Caitlyn's surrender, Vi felt a surge of protectiveness and love. It was a gift, she realized, a privilege that Caitlyn was offering her—a vulnerability laid bare. Caitlyn, always so guarded about her body and her heart, had granted Vi access to her most intimate self. The trust implicit in that gesture was staggering. A fierce determination took root within Vi; she wanted to honour this moment, to make it a sacred experience for Caitlyn. Knowing her lover's past, her steadfast rule of emotional connection before physical intimacy, Vi felt a heady sense of power and pride. With each passing second, she craved more—not just the physical release, but the emotional depth that Caitlyn's surrender represented. Vi's movements became a deliberate dance, a sensuous torture. She grazed her palm over Caitlyn's clit, feeling a growing warmth and a pouring of moisture beneath her touch. Her hand moved in rhythm with Caitlyn's escalating desire, their breath and heartbeats synchronizing. “Vi…” Caitlyn's pleas, uttered through glittering, tear-filled eyes, only intensified Vi's resolve to draw out this moment of exquisite vulnerability, to make it a memory that would forever bind them together. “Please…”

Vi’s heart thundered in response, echoing the raw yearning in Caitlyn’s eyes. Each rapid beat sent waves of anticipation through her, fusing love and longing until they were indistinguishable. She ached to give herself wholly, to communicate the immensity of her devotion through every caress, every breath. Vi understood exactly what Caitlyn was asking for—what her soul so desperately craved. With a gentle yet assured touch, she guided a single finger within, feeling Caitlyn’s body tense and then yield beneath her. Caitlyn’s neck arched gracefully, her lips parting as a soft gasp escaped, and her head sank into the pillow with a contented thud, the subtle shift sending shivers through Vi’s core. “This okay?” Vi once again whispered, her finger stilling inside. While there was no restriction when entering, the last thing she wanted was to cause Caitlyn pain.

“A-Amazing…”Caitlyn moaned, her legs opening wider to accommodate her body for the penetration. “You can… You can move.” She whispered, her forehead against Vi’s neck before she placed a soft kiss under her jaw.

Vi's hand, guided by an unspoken understanding, cradled Caitlyn's cheek, lifting her face with tender care. Their lips met once more, a reunion of passion. This kiss was an affirmation, a silent promise in the language of love - ‘I’m here. I’ve got you. Trust me.’

Vi started to move within her.

"More," Caitlyn whispered, her voice fragile and raw against Vi's lips, a testament to her trust and the depth of her need.

Vi's heart, overflowing with affection and a primal need to pleasure her, responded instinctively. She eased another finger inside, filling her, stretching her - taking her.

Caitlyn's body trembled at the stretch then tensed, not in discomfort, but of the feeling that was brewing within her stomach. Vi, attuned to her every reaction, quickened her pace, her thumb joining the symphony, strumming Caitlyn's most sensitive strings. Caitlyn's breath became a series of rapid, sharp intakes, her body coiling, ready to spring.

"Vi, I—" Her words were cut short by a rush of pleasure, her body seizing, a lightning strike of ecstasy. "Oh... Gods. Please-“ A cry filled the room, reverberating off the walls, a primal sound that spoke of untamed pleasure.

Vi, ever so tender, drew her close, their foreheads pressed together in a sacred ritual of intimacy. The silence that enveloped them was a symphony, punctuated by the rhythmic harmony of their hearts. Their shared breath, warm and heavy, danced in the air, a tangible manifestation of their unity. It was as if time stood still, and in that infinite moment, their souls intertwined, forming an unbreakable bond. Vi's lips barely moved as she whispered, her voice feather-light, “You okay?”

“Incredible,” she whispered, her voice trembling with lingering euphoria. She pressed a tender kiss to Vi’s bare shoulder, her fingers tracing lazy circles on Vi’s flushed skin while Vi continued to plant gentle, playful kisses across her cheeks and eyelids, each one featherlight and reverent.

When the last waves of pleasure finally ebbed from Caitlyn, she let out a shaky laugh and mustered her strength, pushing weakly at Vi’s sturdy shoulders in an attempt to roll her over. But her limbs, still trembling and boneless in her post-orgasmic haze, refused to cooperate. Instead, Caitlyn sagged back against the rumpled sheets, giggling helplessly as Vi’s weight and warmth blanketed her.

"It’s okay," Vi murmured, her husky voice laced with tenderness as she picked up on Caitlyn’s intentions. Callused fingers swept slowly through Caitlyn’s sweat-dampened hair, soothing her scalp with butterfly-light reassurance. "Relax. Rest. We have time—"

In a fluid motion, Caitlyn's thigh found its way to Vi's centre, a gentle caress that belied its deliberate purpose. The contact sparked an electric current that coursed through Vi's body, manifesting as a muted groan of pleasure. Though Vi's boxers provided a barrier, the sensation was unparalleled, igniting a fire within her that no fabric could extinguish. Caitlyn's breath, now warm and tantalizing, ghosted across Vi's ear as she whispered, "I want to make you feel good," Her words, dripping with desire, eroded Vi's remaining resistance, leaving her teetering on the precipice of surrender.

Vi's resistance crumbled at the edge of Caitlyn's words, her voice laced with temptation. "You sure?" Vi managed, her voice hoarse with unspoken desire.

Caitlyn's response was a seductive whisper, carrying the weight of untold promises. “I’m sure.” With gentle force, she guided Vi's mouth towards her own, their lips meeting in a kiss that tasted of longing. Caitlyn's thigh continued its slow, sensuous dance, applying just the right amount of pressure, while her wandering hands traced patterns on Vi's skin, eliciting sensations that ranged from scorching heat to delightful chills. Kisses trailed down Vi's jaw, each one a fiery brand that marked a path to her quivering collarbone, setting her heart ablaze with unquenchable passion. "Can you cum like this?"

“I-I think so…” Vi's mouth went dry as she felt herself being drawn into a vortex of ecstasy. Caitlyn's kiss deepened, and her tongue traced the contours of Vi's lower lip, a silent plea for entrance. The sensation was electric, and Vi granted her access, their tongues entwining in a dance of surrender.

"Then do it," Caitlyn whispered, her breath hot against Vi's mouth. “Cum for me."

The words acted as a catalyst, and Vi's control shattered like fine crystal. "Oh..." Vi's voice cracked, her restraint shattering like a dam, releasing a torrent of sensation. Her hands gripped Caitlyn's shoulders, nails digging into soft skin, leaving marks of possession. Caitlyn's name was a prayer on her lips, each syllable a plea for more.

“Fuck," Caitlyn whispered, her tone a soothing balm. "You look so good."

Vi's climax hit like a tidal wave, crashing against the shores of her being. Her body arched, a living bow, as she surrendered to the overwhelming force. A cry, primal and untamed, escaped her throat, reverberating in the air, a testament to the raw, unbridled ecstasy she experienced in Caitlyn's arms.

"Cait..." Vi's voice broke, her body tensing, every sense alive.

Chapter Text

MAR, 02^nd 2024

Vi, Caitlyn, Mel, Jayce, and— reluctant last-minute addition— Viktor were all huddled around a small sized, old wooden table tucked into the farthest, quietest shadow of The Last Drop bar. The table’s surface, once glossy, was now dulled and bruised with age: a palimpsest of deep knife gouges, looping initials, and a stubborn, glassy sheen from spilled spirits that stubbornly adhering clothed elbows to its tacky surface. Its crooked legs, uneven and bent, sprawled unevenly across the pitted floorboards, causing the whole rickety contraption to lurch alarmingly with even the slightest jostle, threatening to topple glasses or send someone’s drink sloshing onto the floor.

Not that any of them seemed to notice. 

Vi, at home amid the rotting timber beams, half-hazardously built foundation, and the faint, ever-present tang of chemicals that seeped up from the sewers, sprawled with careless grace among her seat, her boots hooked around Caitlyn’s chair rung as she listened intently to the conversation that was happening around her. Jayce, immaculate as always in his signature tailored waistcoat, and Caitlyn, statuesque and crisp in her pressed black turtleneck, sat like strangers from a brighter, less chaotic world—yet there was no hint of discomfort or nervousness as they bickered as siblings often do. Mel, ever the observer, watched everyone with held back amusement, spinning a gleaming coin between gloved fingers, her golden eyes flashing in the bar’s sickly as she hummed and ah’d every so often to show she was involved. Even Viktor, hunched protectively over his glass with a trembling metal prosthetic, seemed to relax in the obscurity, the shadows softening his usual harshness as he listened to the muffled symphony of voices.

The moment hung as if the boundaries between Zaun’s rough-edged shadows and Piltover’s polished pride had blurred. In this tucked-away area, the city’s haves and have-nots found common ground—a secret place where the world’s hierarchies faded and all were rendered, almost, equals.

Exactly as Vander had always intended.

There was an ease among them that rivalled every other table around them—a closeness forged not just through shared ambition or mutual respect, but also through hours spent together, learning and understanding, building a camaraderie that never felt exclusive. It was a feeling Vi would never have dared to assume, not back when this started. For a long time, she had convinced herself the group tolerated her presence only as a favour to Caitlyn—her rough manners, her brash humour, the perpetual smell of oil and sweat on her skin dissonant with their elegant, well-practiced politeness. Sitting at the edge of every conversation, she would watch them—Mel poised and brilliant, Jayce restless with ideas, Viktor ice-edged and inscrutable—and in the corners of their laughter, Vi always expected to find the emptiness of polite acceptance, not genuine interest. She half-expected their attention would drift past her the moment Caitlyn wasn’t at her side, that she was simply the misfit shadowing the Councillor’s daughter, included out of obligation rather than choice.

But over time, these suspicions began to crumble as easily as the aging varnish on their favourite table. Vi could see it most clearly in the way Mel and Jayce listened to her with just as much focus as they gave Caitlyn or Viktor, their eyes sharpening and softening by turns. Even Viktor, always an odd thread in any tapestry, never missed a chance to pull Vi into conversation, challenging her ideas with dry wit and unexpected empathy. If someone made a biting joke at Caitlyn’s expense, Vi would answer with twice the savvy, earning smirks from Jayce and a rare chuckle from Viktor, as Mel pretended to scold them all for their uncouthness. No matter how highborn the conversation grew, they made room for Vi’s raw candour, just as eagerly as they welcomed Caitlyn’s measured logic or Mel’s sly, political gambits. She was neither a guest nor an outsider—here, at least, Vi was indisputably one of them.

She belonged.

Still, there were moments—like tonight—when the gulf between their upbringings stood out in stark relief.

It started, as it often did, with Jayce. No sooner had Vi taken a swig from her first beer than Jayce was pulling a tumble of rune-scored protypes from beneath his coat, splaying them out on the battered wood to the eager interest of the group.

Jayce's hands, always restless, bore the unmistakable evidence of his craft—knuckles thick with old scars, nails pared short and stained black from endless hours at the forge, the scent of smouldering metal and sharp ozone clinging to his skin no matter how thoroughly he washed. In the warm, flickering lamplight, his fingers moved with almost musical precision as he demonstrated his latest Hextech marvels destined to change the face of domestic life. The inventions themselves pulsed with cerulean energy, light welling up and twisting through runes like veins beneath skin, promising untapped potential barely held in check. Watching him, Vi felt the old ache stir within her—a fierce hunger to shape and redefine a city that had never quite belonged to her, a longing to seize the dreams that Hextech teased within arm’s reach. Jayce unveiled one device after another: door chimes acutely attuned to voices, refrigerators that spew of recipes and, most beloved, if utterly superfluous—coffee pots whose uncanny intuition could rouse them to life before their owners even opened their eyes. Here, the line between her world and theirs shimmered, tantalizing and just out of reach, yet she remained anchored in the centre, belonging and apart all at once.

Once, these marvels would have set Vi’s teeth on edge, just further proof that the upper echelons of Piltover had more money than sense, inventing new forms of laziness and calling it progress. But now, she could see them for what they really were: novelties, clever entertainments for the privileged who had never gone without a warm meal or a soft bed. Still, as she watched her friends lean over the luminous curiosities, their voices rising in excitement and mockery in equal measure, Vi found she didn’t resent it—not nearly as much as she used to.

“Honestly, you wouldn’t believe how many requests I’ve gotten to venture into hex-powered adult toys. I have even been offered coin upfront to start working on them immediately.” Jayce crowed, tipping his head back and flashing a toothy grin. He punctuated the claim with a flourish of his clever hands, but Vi caught the flicker of uncertainty in his tone—the way his bravado faltered ever so slightly at the edges. “Can’t say this is where I pictured my inventions ending up,” he admitted, chin tilting forward, eyes darting to Viktor as if searching for approval. “Guess I have to pay the bills somehow, right?” He chuckled, but the sound landed softer than before, betraying the cut of doubt threaded through his pride.

Viktor’s answer came as a quick, half-hidden smile, his lips quirking, eyes glinting with a rare mischief. “Well, Jayce,” he said, voice as dry as a winter wind, “if you must revolutionize pleasure, at least you do it suitably. I daresay the world could benefit from a little more joy.” Still, as his fingertips drifted absent-mindedly over the prototypes, tracing the delicate runes etched into their metal, he seemed a little distant—lost among mechanisms, searching for something pain and invention could not quite touch.

Mel’s laughter spilled out, rich as velvet and brimming with delight. “Oh, Viktor, let the man have his moment. He’s a pioneer in uncharted territory—surely that deserves a little celebration?” She flicked a sly glance at Jayce, raising her glass. “To revolutionaries, both noble and… delightfully scandalous.” For all her composure, Vi glimpsed the tension in Mel’s jaw, the careful weighing of every word and every triumph. When the others’ laughter subsided, Mel leaned closer to Vi, her tone softening to an intimate murmur. “Someday, we’ll toast to victories that shake all of Piltover, not just its bedrooms.” The shadow in her emerald gaze flashed, then melted beneath another radiant smile. “But for now, let’s enjoy what we’ve snatched from the universe, hm?”

Caitlyn’s laugh was low and genuine, warm with encouragement. “Only you, Jayce.” she said, reaching across the table to clap him on the shoulder. She turned her smile toward Vi, eyes sparking, “Anyway, next rounds on me,” she declared, her voice smooth, brimming with authority. With a gentle squeeze of Vi’s hand under the table—an anchor, a promise—she stood, every movement polished, and slipped into the pulsing tide of the bar. Even as voices rose and glasses chimed, Caitlyn commanded the space around her, that effortless gravity never shaken.

As Caitlyn’s striking silhouette dissolved into the crowd, Viktor arched a brow and gave a soft, sardonic chuckle. “I’m surprised she offered. She has been glued to your side since the moment the pair of you arrived.” he murmured to Vi, voice full of an affection both teasing and sincere.

Mel leaned in, voice pitched low and conspiratorial, lips curving into a catlike smile. “You two look almost absurdly good together,” she teased, each syllable spun with silk and sincerity. “All I have to say is – finally.” She nudged Vi beneath the table, eyes glinting with playful envy. “Had to be someone who could keep up with you, darling.”

Jayce, ever the instigator, joined in with a bark of laughter. “She is right. About damn time, Vi! Now we can all stop pretending not to notice you two making moon eyes at each other.” He waggled his eyebrows, prompting another round of ribbing and conspiratorial laughter.

As the group dissolved into affectionate jibes, their voices merging in bright, overlapping harmonies, Vi felt warmth rushing up her cheeks—half embarrassment, half hope so raw it ached. She wanted, desperately, to earn not just their trust, but their pride. To be seen, not just as Caitlyn’s shadow, but as her equal, her choice. She fumbled for a retort, hoping to hide the quiver in her voice. “Don’t you lot have anything better to talk about?” she shot back, trying for nonchalance, though her eyes shimmered with too many feelings to name. And as laughter pressed around her, Vi realized how dangerous—and how precious—it was, to lay herself so bare before these people: her found family, her fragile, extraordinary home.

Still, as often happened when Caitlyn wasn’t close by, Vi’s attention drifted toward the absence that tugged like a loose thread at the edge of her focus. Conversations and laughter merged into indistinct noise as her eyes sought out Caitlyn’s empty chair, then travelled across the bustling room to the bar where she knew Caitlyn would be. The bar. It didn’t take long to find her target. Caitlyn’s dark hair gleamed, catching the glow of lanterns overhead as she lingered there, shoulders squared with easy confidence—or what passed for it. While Caitlyn wasn’t new to spending time in Zaun, Vi knew that it still caused her the slightest of unease. The Kirammans, even now, where not the most liked in these parts. But, even after Vi’s insistence that they could stay topside, Caitlyn claimed it was fine, that she knew Vi would protect her. She was right of course. ‘With her life.’ She had responded. Vi smiled at the memory of earlier in the day. But her smile faded when she realised Caitlyn was in mid-conversation with someone. Vi relaxed fractionally when she realised that there seemed to be no threat, but she kept eye just in case.

The longer she watched, the quicker she started to realise exactly what was happening. Caitlyn was being hit on. Or it seemed that way at least. And, Vi cannot say she was surprised. Caitlyn turned heads wherever she went; that unwavering, magnetic confidence was an armour as much as a charm. Vi tried to shake off the restlessness gnawing under her skin; trust was a kind of faith, one she told herself she possessed. But she remembered too well the cost of certainty—how every promise was cradled in the memory of something lost.

She trusted Caitlyn could handle it.

Yet, the seconds piled into minutes and Caitlyn seemed to linger, more engaged than Vi expected her to be. Vi’s curiosity sharpened, laced with the first thorn-prick of unease. She watched more intently now: Caitlyn’s posture attentive, the woman beside her obscured but somehow confident in her stance, as if she knew her. Maybe just a friend from work, Vi thought, or maybe an old face she hadn’t seen in a while, but the thought wobbled, perched precariously inside her chest. They seemed much more familiar, comfortable that just acquaintance.

Then the woman turned, and the music and laughter faded, as if snuffed out by a sudden gust. Hanna. The name thundered silently—Vi’s heart lurched, plunging into freefall. Jayce’s voice blurred, grew distant, stifled by the roar of blood in her ears.

Hanna.

She saw Hanna’s hand reach out, fingers tracing a light, intimate line along Caitlyn’s forearm. That wasn’t a problem. What was a problem was the Caitlyn did not draw back. Didn’t even flinch. If anything, she embraced it. Something in Vi coiled up, cold and sharp—anger and shame twisting together.

Not at Caitlyn; never at Caitlyn.

At Hanna.

At herself.

She grabbed her glass and downed it in one furious, burning mouthful, hoping to drown the need to walk up to the bar and drag Caitlyn away from her touch.

Her mind careened, unspooling memory after memory—the night she’d begged Caitlyn to cancel that date, the desperate vulnerability in her trembling words. Had Caitlyn done so out of force rather than want.

Does she regret it?

On some level, Vi hated how little it took to unravel her—how one glance, one touch, could crumble the confident mask she wore. Uncertainty pressed hot and suffocating around her ribs as doubt curled inward, squeezing until each breath felt thin, shallow. Vi’s thoughts tangled into knots of jealousy—old and fresh, ugly and honest—cocooning her away from the laughter around the table. Not for the first time since they became official, she wondered if she would ever be enough.

She had to turn away. She couldn’t watch. She couldn’t witness the love she had so briefly be tugged away.

Again.

She didn’t look up from her hands until she felt Caitlyn return to the table.

Caitlyn’s hand settled on Vi’s shoulder, gentle and intimate, weightless yet impossibly steady. As if she had longed for Vi just as Vi had longed for Caitlyn in the short time they had been parted. Vi’s muscles tautened, every fibre pulled tight, unwilling to grant herself the comfort of Caitlyn’s gaze though she could feel it burning, knowing that Caitlyn was expecting a smile – acknowledgment of her return.

For a beat, Vi was overwhelmed by the urge to dissolve into that gentleness, to act as Caitlyn expected. To smile. To overlook. But pain won out—the old habit of holding sorrow beneath a veneer of bravado, a secret language she had taught herself long before she had met Caitlyn. To speak her fear still felt too perilous, like cracking open her chest that had always been her only protection.

Caitlyn, knowing Vi like the back of her hand must have noticed the change because her brow knit with confusion; her fingers lingered just a moment longer before she turned back to the group, painting her voice with feigned ease even as the glimmer of concern rimmed her smile.

Vi wasn’t angry.

Not truly.

She was sad.

She was scared.

The knot in her chest burned, thick and molten, winding itself tighter with every heartbeat, tension simmering beneath her skin like a hairline fracture aching before the shatter. If she tried, she still couldn’t have named what she felt—only that she was brittle, stretched thin as spun glass, one word away from shattering entirely. Part of her ached to bridge the gap, to pull Caitlyn close and demand honesty, or reassurance, or maybe the simple absolution of ‘you’re enough.’ ‘You are all I need.’ Simultaneously, some ancient piece of her recoiled, seeking sanctuary from the suspicion burrowing like a parasite, threatening to poison this night—this fragile celebration she’d longed to cherish—with rot.

“You alright?” Caitlyn’s asked after a few minutes, low and private, spun soft for ears meant only for Vi—even as Mel, Jayce, and Viktor’s debate about moral conundrums and self-sweeping brooms crackled at the edge of perception.

Vi’s response came quick, edged and brittle, a quip raised by reflex. “Why wouldn’t I be?” she muttered, swirling the dregs in her glass. Still unable to look, afraid of what she would see. Regret. Longing for someone else.

“Did something happen? Did Jayce say—”

“I said I’m fine, Cait!” Vi stated sharply, her voice splitting the bar’s half-light with surprising clarity, the hurt in her tone sharper than anticipated. The words struck with more venom than she meant, and as Caitlyn flinched, Vi felt a sick hot shame twist beneath her breastbone. What are you doing? Why? The question throbbed, accusation and self-loathing entwined.

An uneasy silence crept between them, thick and fragile, distorting the press of nearby laughter, the scrape of glass on wood. “O-Oh. Okay.” Caitlyn dropped her gaze, lashes trembling, a nervous flicker that only magnified the raw sincerity behind her eyes. Always so open, Vi thought, envy rising with a bitter tang. How does she do that—how does she risk so much in showing? Vi’s hand twitched with longing, pride fighting the impulse to reach out—to admit that beneath her sharp words was not anger, but fear.

She should just apologise and leave it at that.

However…

“So, who was that?” The words dragged themselves out heavy and resentful, shaped by a bitterness she tried desperately to hide. Vi already knew, of course. She’d spent countless nights in the past watching from the corner of her eye, heart scraping itself raw as she witnessed the love between Caitlyn and Hanna blossom.

“Who?” Caitlyn’s reply was gentle yet confused.

“Don’t play dumb, Cait.” The old anger reared up, venomous but misdirected—never truly for Caitlyn, more for the wounded piece inside herself that could only anticipate abandonment, who instinctively rehearsed disaster. “Who was the woman you were speaking with at the bar? The woman who was all over you?”

Caitlyn flinched as if struck, pain flickering sharp and bright across her face. Vi’s regret surged in response, sick and heavy as bile, but jealousy tangled with longing, confusion layered under old, barbed memories.

The day Caitlyn had told her she was in love.

The days Caitlyn had told her they had made love.

The day she had come home with a ring on her finger.

The day she had announced the date.

“That was…” Caitlyn hesitated, anxiety fluttering across her features. It wasn’t guilt—and Vi knew Caitlyn too well for that mistake—but something quieter, weariness that seemed etched deep into her bones. “She…That was Hanna. She’s—”

“The girl you were seeing.”

“She just wanted to say hello—”

“Yeah. It really seemed that that was all she wanted.” Even as the words lashed out, Vi despised their shape, hated the desperation that gave her away.

“What? Vi, what’s gotten into you?”

“It seemed—”

“Vi!” Caitlyn snapped, restraint finally breaking, her voice trembling as every head at their table turned to stare at the outburst. “She’s here with her girlfriend, okay? She just wanted to check in. She—” Caitlyn’s voice faltered, threads pulled loose. Vi recognized the instant Caitlyn’s strength gave out, the moment the mask slipped, and exhaustion won. “You know what? I don’t… I can’t do this right now. I don’t want to do this right now.”

The words struck with force, panic igniting every nerve in Vi’s body. Fear narrowed her world to a single desperate desire to undo the damage: “Cait—”

“I’m going home.” Caitlyn’s voice had the weight of a stone closing a crypt—the verdict final, unmovable. She stood up. Grabbed her jacket and started towards the door before Vi even realised what had happened.

Vi jerked upright, every muscle crackling with tension, ready to break. “Wait!” She called out—raw, afraid, hope slipping through her fingers as Caitlyn left without a backward glance. “Please.”

Caitlyn didn’t stop. Didn’t even faulter.

Outside, the night slapped her raw, the air sharp and electric against her cheeks while neon streaked the rain-slick pavements. Vi caught up, her hand seizing Caitlyn’s arm, the touch desperate, trembling with the need for forgiveness, but the contact felt wrong—intrusive—possessive. So, as soon as Caitlyn stopped. Vi let go.

“What, Vi?” Caitlyn’s voice frayed at the edges, exhaustion blurring with heartbreak: disappointment and a dozen smaller hurts concentrated into the space of her name.

“I’m… I’m sorry. That was—uncalled for,” Vi managed, her voice scraping raw with remorse, words she’d never learned sticking painfully in her throat. And when Caitlyn turned away instead of shouting, refusing even the ease of anger, Vi realized how much more terrifying resignation could be than fury. The admission tumbled out—unguarded, half-broken. “I was jealous, okay?”

Caitlyn’s laughter was brittle, hollow, no comfort left within. “Yeah, well. It’s not a good look, Vi.”

“I know.”

“So, tell me—what the hell was that, then?”

Vi’s shoulders curled inward, arms folded across her ribs, “I… I can’t.” How could she? How could she tell her that Vi may have been the reason Caitlyn gave up the love of her life. How could she tell her that maybe they were not meant to be.

Caitlyn’s breath caught, a tiny fracture splitting the moment. “You don’t trust me? Is that what this is?”

Vi drooped further, sinking beneath a guilt as heavy as chains. “Of course, not—” The words fell like stones, half-choked.

“Then tell me—”

“I can’t, okay!” Vi’s voice cracked, anguish shot through with fear: of being too much, of not being enough, of something in her heart being unworthy or unfixable.

Caitlyn drew inward, eyes shuttering as all that familiar kindness folded away, replaced by something harder, more remote. “Got it,” she whispered.

“Cait—”

“I can’t do this right now, Vi. I’m tired, and I—” Caitlyn’s voice shivered at the end, shoulders trembling with the effort not to cry, not to scream—just to keep moving. Vi watched helplessly as Caitlyn, hand trembling, hailed a cab: in that moment, she saw fully how pain moved through them both—different rivers, yet each one cold with current.

“Cait?” Vi tried again, her voice stripped of whatever armour she had left, raw around the seams.

But Caitlyn still couldn’t look at her. Wouldn’t. The gesture was a door closing, heavy with finality. “I’ll… talk to you soon. I just… I need a minute.” She vanished, the cab door closing with the dull weight of something precious being locked away, with no guarantee it would ever be reached again. Red taillights slashed through the dark, and Vi stood stranded, feeling the echo of hope ebb out until only the hollow ache remained.

Under the sickly streetlamp, Vi’s breath scrawled pale ghosts in the air, and the ache roared so deep it felt like the only thing she’d ever possessed. Cold chewed at her fingers and heart together, and she wondered—dangerously, bitterly—if this kind of loneliness was all she’d ever truly inherited.

“Fuck!”

MAR, 07^th 2024

Vi had been a wreck ever since Caitlyn left her stranded on the cracked, rain-slicked sidewalk outside The Last Drop, the world closing in around her with humid silence. Jayce had appeared not long after, his brows knitted with concern as he demanded to know what the hell had happened, but Vi barely registered his voice. She brushed past him, shoulders hunched, deciding to stumble her way home through the glistening maze of empty streets and the echo of Caitlyn’s absence. Every clumsy, frantic attempt to reach her since—anxious texts written with trembling thumbs, voicemails growing raw and pleading, trembling bouquets thrust toward Caitlyn’s stone-faced receptionist—was met with chilly, deliberate absence. Caitlyn’s replies arrived short and clipped but Vi pressed on, driven by a storm of guilt and desperate fear, the kind that roosts like a vulture in the hollow between her ribs and sharpens every breath into a knife. She tried to honour and respect Caitlyn’s need for space, yet she found herself circling back, tracing Caitlyn’s footsteps in memory and reality both, unable and unwilling, to let the wound fester in the dark. At night, worry chewed at her—skinless, exposed—while anxiety wound itself tight around her lungs, choking any hope of rest. What if the damage she’d done wasn’t temporary? What if she had ruined the best thing that had ever happened to her? What if…

Vi replayed her outbursts movie-like, every scene burned into memory, each apology snagging on the barbs of humiliation and self-loathing.

Was she selfish—irredeemably so? Maybe Hanna was Caitlyn’s true north, the one she was supposed to be with. Vi tried to imagine Caitlyn’s future through the lens of time made precious: a year left, each week telescoping into an infinity of moments. Shouldn’t Caitlyn savour every breath beside the person who made her feel safest, understood—whole? She had chosen to spend her life with her before, there surely was a reason for that. However, did Vi have the courage to step aside, to vanish into the periphery, unmoored? Or was the prospect of that emptiness, that screaming vacancy Caitlyn would leave behind, too much for Vi to bear?

Vi’s chest constricted as she closed her eyes, forcing forth memories she wished she could excise. She pictured Hanna and Caitlyn laughing, their intimacy as effortless as sunlight through gauzy curtains, the kind of private communion that left Vi shivering on the outside. Love seemed to flow between the two in soft tidal currents, unhurried and gentle, never fraught with panic or shame. Vi wondered if she would ever belong in a love so careful, so quiet; if, at her core, Caitlyn only clung to Vi out of guilt, or pity, or the haunted possibility of what could have been.

Yet beneath all that guilt, something fierce remained, gnashing and stubborn, a kernel she couldn’t root out. She wanted to let Caitlyn go, to free her of chaos and pain—but her heart didn’t know how. She didn’t know if she could. The ache beneath her bones was keener than remorse, raw as withdrawal, selfish as hunger. She moved through her apartment as if in a cage, air thick with the phantom traces of Caitlyn’s laughter, her shadow pressed into the couch cushions and the hollows of Vi’s chest.

She had to do something. Anything.

She knew Caitlyn had the day off; that knowledge prickled against her skin, urgent and impossible to ignore. Now, with dread stuttering her pulse and resolve scraping her raw, she fumbled her way into a worn coat, stepped into brittle winter sunlight that glared as if accusing her. If begging was what it took, she would beg. If pain was required, she would bleed. Maybe Caitlyn would see the truth: that for Vi, loving was always a battle with herself.

She rapped on Caitlyn’s apartment door, knuckles pink and split from nervous picking, the sound ricocheting through her ribcage.

Caitlyn answered at last, looking smaller than memory had preserved her—shoulders curled protectively, eyes rimmed with exhaustion, wariness making her seem carved from delicate glass. As their gazes hooked, Vi felt something ancient and aching unravel in her chest—a yearning to bridge the unbridgeable, to offer balm she didn’t know how to make, to plead for forgiveness she knew she might never earn.

“Can I come in?” Vi whispered. She was suddenly terrified she’d never again hear “yes,” that “no” would be the death knell she’d been half-expecting all along.

Caitlyn stepped aside, arms hugging her ribs as if holding herself together with muscle and memory alone. “Yeah,” she murmured at last. “You can.”

Vi lingered on the threshold, fingers twisting in the hem of her jacket. “I just—I wanted to say I’m sorry. For what happened the other night. I— That wasn’t fair. I shouldn’t have—”

Caitlyn interrupted, her voice sharpened by hurt, each word flensed clean to the bone, stinging like salt in a wound. A shield built from pain, and behind it, Vi saw fear humming in the tightness of Caitlyn’s jaw. “Is this how it’s always going to be, Vi? Every time someone tries to talk to me, are you going to act like this? Because I can’t—I won’t do that again.”

Vi’s resolve faltered, shame burning beneath her skin, prickling like hot needles beneath her collarbone, suffocating in its heat. “No, Cait, I—” The word came out thin, barely there. “Cait, I swear—I know you’ve already been through hell with this. I’m not—I don’t want to be like them. I won’t be like them. But sometimes I make mess up. I act before thinking. I let my thoughts get the best of me. I get jealous. I wish I didn’t but... I do. You’re so beautiful, so brilliant, and I don’t understand what you see in me.” The secret twisted inside her, ugly and desperate, until it tore free. “Sometimes I think you only agreed to this because you pity me. Because you see me as something shattered and loving me is just another way for you to rescue me.”

Caitlyn’s lips parted in protest, hurt flickering through her eyes, but Vi pressed on, scraping herself raw, all defences spent, desperation hollowing her out until only truth remained.

She owed Caitlyn honesty, even if it cost her everything.

“But that’s not fair for me to say. It’s not fair to you, and it sure as hell isn’t fair to us—to what we have.” Vi’s voice grew thick, words slow and deliberate, as if trying to weigh each one with the gravity it deserved. “Logically, I know that’s not what this is. I do. But I can’t turn it off—this fear. It won’t let me go. I’m terrified, Cait. Terrified all the time. I’m scared someone will see you the way I do—see you, really see you—and you’ll realize how small and unfinished I am beside them. That there is someone better out there, someone worthy of you.” Her voice stuttered, breaking. “I’m terrified that when…” Words caught in her throat, the weight of them crushing. How can she say what she really means. She is terrified that when the moment came for Caitlyn, when her life flashed behind her eyes, that she will have longed for more. For something better. The words caught in the space between them, thickening the air until it stung in their lungs. Vi’s hands curled into fists against her knees, nails digging crescent moons into her skin. “I don’t know how to stop being scared, Caitlyn. I don’t know how to just let myself believe I can be enough for you.”

The silence between them stretched and tangled, knotting itself around every wound and hope, settling with the weight of a gathering storm. Rain battered the windows outside, echoing the heaviness inside the room. Every unspoken fear crowded closer, jostling for air, but neither woman seemed able to move or speak, their bodies locked in the tension of everything unsaid.

Then, at last, Caitlyn exhaled—quiet, shaky, as if she’d been holding her breath for years. She shifted closer, reaching for Vi, her fingers trembling as they brushed over Vi’s jaw, featherlight and deliberate, steadying them both. “Vi,” she breathed, her voice raw and edged with vulnerability, “I would never ask you to stop being afraid. I don’t want you to change nor need you to change. I need you exactly as you are—even when you’re scared.” A laugh escaped her, fragile and watery, clinging at the edges of a sob. “Sometimes I think you don’t even notice how strong you are. How you hold everything together, even when you swear, you’re breaking apart. I don’t need perfection, Vi. I don’t want it. Least of all from you.” She pressed her palm to Vi’s cheek, thumb brushing away the tears that had escaped—anchoring them both to this moment. “You’re the one I choose. Not Hanna, not some promise of a future where everything is neat and easy. You, right here. Especially when it’s messy. I want all of it. I want you.” Her voice faltered, thick with tears she refused to shed, each word trembling with desperation and hope. “But I need you to trust that’s true. To trust me. Because…because I can’t lose you to this, Vi. Not again. This can’t be what tears us apart. Promise me.”

“It won’t. I swear it.” Vi drew a breath so sharp it left her lightheaded, relief and longing coiling together inside her until she couldn’t disentangle pain from hope. Her hand closed around Caitlyn’s, squeezing as though she might anchor herself to the warmth of Caitlyn’s touch, the scattered pieces of love they’d carefully pieced back together. “I know I’ve said this a thousand times before, but I need you to hear it now—I love you, Caitlyn.” The words came out quiet, but certain, trembling with urgency. Love, a word they’d always spoken as friends, wove through their history like a secret thread—but now the confession was transformed, edged with risk and need. She’d always imagined the first time would be gentler; now, the words burst out like a dam breaking, uncontainable before her fear could swallow them. “I am in love with you. I am so deeply, wholeheartedly, impossibly in love with you that sometimes my body doesn’t know how to hold it all.”

A fragile, exhausted smile unfurled across Caitlyn’s lips, sunlight struggling through the remnants of a storm. “I am in love you too, Vi. More than you could ever possibly imagine.”

MAR, 16^th 2024

Vi couldn’t sleep. Not that it surprised her much. She hadn’t had a good night’s sleep since that day. Afraid to close her eyes and end up back where she started: alone, huddled in the cold hospital bathroom with the antiseptic stench prickling her nose, the linoleum floor biting through the backside of her trousers. The darkness pressed in around her now, thick and suffocating, as if stitched from velvet and secrets, wrapping her in layers she couldn’t peel back. Only the distant swell of city life—sirens blurring as they got further away, the hum of late night traffic—bled in thinly through the cracked-open window, barely enough to remind her she wasn’t quite swallowed by silence. Faint reminders of a world still turning outside these walls, oblivious to her insomnia.

She glanced at the clock: 3:07 a.m.—its red digits an accusatory glow slicing through the shadows, strutting across her anxious mind, marking each second she failed to rest. She lay motionless, limbs sunk into the mattress as if pinned beneath invisible hands, her thoughts spiralling unchecked—fragments of memory crowding with ghostly persistence, half-formed fears slithering in the dark.

Was she doing enough with the brief time she had?

She shifted beneath the blankets, her restless gaze wandering to Caitlyn’s sleeping form—a quiet anchor steadied against the turbulent currents of Vi’s unease. Caitlyn lay turned toward her, one hand open on the pillow, palm-up as though she waited even in sleep for Vi’s touch. The slow, rhythmic rise and fall of Caitlyn’s chest calmed Vi in a way she could never quite put into words—a living lullaby, breathing out comfort into the uncertain dark, reminding her with every exhale that she wasn’t alone. Caitlyn was here, sharing this fragile peace. Enveloped in sleep’s gentle spell, Caitlyn appeared untouched by worry; the lines smoothed from her brow, lashes resting peacefully against her cheeks, lips parted in a faint suggestion of a smile—as if she dreamed Vi was beside her. Moonlight, filtered through rain-smeared glass, painted trembling ribbons of silver across Caitlyn’s high cheekbones, illuminating the subtle spray of freckles scattered across her nose and temple—constellations that Vi ached to trace with her fingertips. She let her hand hover, fingers trembling—feather-light and hesitant—before brushing a stray strand of midnight-blue hair from Caitlyn’s cheek. The contact was electric, achingly tender; Vi pressed a shaky, reverent kiss to Caitlyn’s forehead. In her sleep, Caitlyn sighed—a low, contented sound, half dream and half memory—and instinctively pressed closer. Her hand found Vi’s side and curled there, warm and protective, anchoring them both to this moment and to each other. The touch, so gentle but unyielding, soothed the storm that churned inside Vi.

A smile, soft and unexpected, tugged at her lips. “I love you,” Vi breathed, so quiet it barely stirred the still air.

Carefully, Vi slipped from the bed, muscles flexing in a slow, practiced motion, feet landing soundlessly on the cool wood floor. She hesitated, glancing back at the warm hollow left in the tangled sheets beside Caitlyn. The apartment was a hushed cavern of shadows and remembered warmth, every surface touched with that uncertain blue before dawn—a liminal hour when dreams linger, and the real world has yet to intrude.

In Caitlyn’s office—really a corner oasis of order—her impossibly tidy desk beckoned: rows of books stacked with almost military precision, pens aligned like slender sentries, notepads at right angles, a single brass lamp turned off but waiting for the morning’s discipline. Vi hesitated at the threshold as if stepping into forbidden territory—her own untidy anxieties feeling clumsy, alien, in a place where even the paperclips were sorted by size. She let her fingers drift over the smooth spines of Caitlyn’s notebooks, savouring the crisp texture of the paper, the calm geometry of the space. Her gaze landed on a heavy pad of paper, and a navy fountain pen—Caitlyn’s favourite—and she plucked them up before padding into the faint blue gloom of the living room.

Vi curled up on the couch, pulling her knees to her chest, pen and pad balancing precariously in her lap. The silence thickened, settling around her like a blanket of dust, pressing at the edges of her mind. She welcomed it—the rhythm and scratch of pen to paper kept panic at bay, a borrowed ritual to ward off the encroaching dark of her mind.

She began to write, methodical and hopeful—a list. Restaurant names gathered from Caitlyn’s half-distracted conversations, each one sparkling in Vi’s memory like scattered coins: little Italian places tucked behind alleyways, rooftop bars that looked over the skyline, small cafes with silver spoons and blackberry tarts. She scribbled down cities crowned with unfamiliar horizons; places glimpsed in magazines or on Caitlyn’s phone. Single earrings admired behind glass; trinkets Vi committed to memory with the desperation of someone afraid of forgetting. Wants. Hopes. Dreams. Ambitious little blueprints—ways to make each word a promise.

She barely noticed the phantom tide of time slipping by—numb to the world until the stillness shifted with the weight of another presence.

Caitlyn stood in the doorway, wearing one of Vi’s oversized shirts—years old, faded, soft as a memory. Her blue hair was a tousled cloud from sleep, falling in wild tangles around her face and over her shoulders; her eyes were heavy-lidded, that particular shade of tender blue reserved for the quietest mornings.

Their gazes met—Caitlyn’s lips curling into a slow, knowing smile softened by sleep, her eyes searching for the shape of Vi’s storm, the flicker of what remained beneath her calm.

“What are you doing up?” Caitlyn's voice rasped, thick and rough with sleep, but gentled by affection—and something like worry, the soft ache of someone who’s spent too many nights waiting for Vi to come back to bed.

Vi fidgeted, hugging the pad defensively to her chest, her nails digging crescent moons into the heavy paper. “Couldn’t sleep, that’s all. Go back to sleep. I’ll join you soon.” The words came out too quickly, a flimsy shield around the dark press of insomnia and doubt—a secret long since grown habitual, as if the mere act of hiding her struggles might make them less real.

Caitlyn crossed the quiet space, each step careful, then knelt at Vi’s side. Without a word, she reached up and ran her fingers through Vi’s tangled hair—a slow, grounding touch, her fingers lingering at Vi’s scalp as if braiding reassurance into the fragile, freshly made morning. “You always say that, but you never do,” Caitlyn teased, her voice gentle, her body folded close, peering down at the shielded notepad. “May I see?”

Vi shrank back, embarrassment tightening her frame, shame flickering in her posture as she hesitated. But Caitlyn only smiled—a brief, conspiratorial flash—and expertly plucked the notepad from Vi’s arms. Her movements were achingly gentle, as if to say: There’s nothing here you need to hide from me. “‘Things to do for Caitlyn,’” she read, her voice trembling between a laugh and a catch of emotion. Her smile flickered as her gaze moved over Vi’s messy, heartfelt script; her thumb ghosted reverently over the inked lines, as if touching the actual moments Vi meant to give her.

Vi’s ears burned, embarrassment scratching hot under her skin. “It’s stupid,” she murmured, chin dipping toward her knees. “I just-” The words came out smaller than she intended, truer—a confession.

Caitlyn’s blue eyes shimmered, “It’s not stupid,” she whispered. Setting the list aside as if it were something sacred, she pulled Vi into her arms, holding her vulnerable and whole. Her embrace was both a shield and surrender, wrapping Vi close—fierce but careful, as if she understood Vi’s heartbeat too wildly under her ribs, needing to be contained if only for a minute.

Vi watched Caitlyn’s face as her eyes drifted back to the list—saw surprise light her features at half-forgotten mentions, tenderness crease her brow at Vi’s clumsy spelling, then a shadow of something deeper, more complicated, crossing her delicate face: the wordless recognition of how finite all time is, how fleeting every wish becomes with the turning of the world.

Without speaking, Caitlyn picked up the pen and, in careful, upright letters, inscribed at the top of the page: Things to do with Vi.

Vi let out a shaky laugh, her voice startled and almost raw, eyes shimmering with unshed tears. “You’re making your own?”

“Yes,” Caitlyn replied, her voice trembling with a fierce, hopeful vulnerability. She linked their fingers together, grip firm—almost too tight, as if what she held might slip away if she let go. “What if we both make a list… A bucket list of sorts.”

Vi hesitated, heart thudding painfully, as if her chest were hollowed out under something too heavy to name. “A bucket list?” Her voice was edged with superstition. She’d always feared naming hopes aloud at night, as if speaking dreams into darkness might tempt fate, inviting their end.

“Things to do before we die.” Caitlyn chuckled softly, shaking her head, golden hair falling into her eyes, her laughter muffled by the hush. She brushed the strands away absently—casually beautiful in her rumpled comfort.

Vi hesitated but agreed.

So, side by side on the living room floor, they wrote. Caitlyn, at first, scribbled light-hearted entries: try restaurants neither of them could pronounce, share some outlandish dessert in a neon-lit cafe abroad, take a dance class and laugh when they inevitably stumbled, get lost in some foreign market’s bright chaos, wake up together to sunrise outside the city’s endless sprawl.

Then her hand slowed. She grew serious, her mouth set, the tip of her tongue pressed to her teeth—choosing her next words with care:

             See the world.

             Get married.

             Have a child—or two.

             Grow old together.

Vi stared at the final line, breath stalling in her chest. How could she promise dreams she knew would never come to pass? How could she dare offer forever when forever was just a year? How could she look into Caitlyn’s eyes and say, “Yes, I’ll make this happen,” when she knew it would be nothing but a lie? How could she- God, she would give anything to see Caitlyn—her Caitlyn—holding their child, joy creasing her eyes as she held them to her chest. What she would give to be able to watch her walk down the aisle, radiant in white, towards her; to see silver glint in her hair in a distant, gentle future. Her throat clenched. “Cait…”

Caitlyn turned, worry kindling in her eyes—scanning Vi’s face as if searching for invisible bruises. “What’s wrong?” In their shared reflection she glimpsed her own terror—two souls clutching the same trembling light, both shivering at the thought of it being snuffed out.

Vi shook her head, the words at war within her, each syllable sharp and aching. “I want those things too.” Her voice splintered—rough, carved out by longing and fear. “I want to give you everything.” Every syllable a truth, but never enough. Wanting had never been the enemy. The enemy was time. Time—merciless, thinning around them, slipping away before Caitlyn could claim any of those fragile futures.

Caitlyn took Vi’s trembling hands, her fingers warm, steady—the anchor Vi had trusted through every storm. “You will. You already are. For as long as we have, whatever time we’re given. That’s enough for me.” Even as she spoke, Vi heard the tremor beneath Caitlyn’s strength—the delicate balance of hope clung to by two people who understood how easily happiness could be lost.

If only she knew.

Vi pressed herself into Caitlyn’s shoulder, silent tears soaking the collar of her shirt. She breathed in the mingled scent of Caitlyn—vanilla, sleep, the grassy sweetness of hair, the clean air of dawn. Love, safety, and something more—something rare, something defiant—surrounded them. She wished, fiercely and helplessly, that loving Caitlyn might somehow be enough to protect them from the world. That, for once, time might show mercy—might let them have just a little longer, stealing hours from fate, daring to hope that love alone could be enough. Hope had always been their shared rebellion—fragile, stubborn, and impossibly brave.

Chapter Text

APR, 04 2024

Vi sat across the street from Caitlyn’s Piltovian apartment building, staring up at the broad, freshly washed windows that gleamed like polished gold in the gentle honeyed glow of the early morning sun. The city she had grown so fond of was hushed, its people half-waking, while others remained half-still, its usual bustle pressed into silence by the dawn’s early light. Normally, Vi would relish in the silence that surrounded her, but Vi’s pulse thudded its own anxious rhythm, the sound rather loud in her ears that it overwhelmed the serenity as she lingered in her very own pocket of worry.

She hoped—truly, achingly hoped—that this was a good idea.

After a few moments of relaxed breathing, Vi glanced over her right shoulder at her battered, solitary suitcase slumped on the cracked leather back seat. She had been rash in her decision, she knew she had, but time was fleeting, and it was time to make words a reality. If Caitlyn wanted to see the world, then she was going to. Vi was going to make sure of it. Even if that meant facing the wrath of work-prepared Caitlyn as she did so.

Besides , it was too late to back out now.

So, with no time to waste, Vi drew in a bracing breath, shut off the engine, opened the car door and stepped out of her car. Her heavy boots struck the pavement with a hollow echo as she did so, a gust of cold morning air instantly wrapped around her, prickling goosebumps across her skin and briefly stealing her breath away as she hurriedly crossed the empty, dew-slick street toward the expansive entrance.

Inside, the apartment block’s hallway stretched ahead, bathed in soft, glaring light pooling beneath the overhead sconces. The delicate perfume of jasmine and freshly laundered linen drifted through the space—Caitlyn’s presence, unmistakable and intimate, saturating the air. It slipped beneath doorframes and curled around Vi like an embrace, loosening the tight band around her chest, her next breath coming easier, deeper. She found herself at Caitlyn’s door almost without thinking, her hand flattening against the lacquered wood—fingers spread, savouring the polished surface—caught in that trembling pause between doubt and hope, where every possibility pressed at the edges of her mind.

Steeling herself, Vi squared her shoulders, letting a slow, grounding breath fill her lungs. She closed her eyes for a heartbeat, then opened them and lifted her hand, knuckles poised. Her soft knock seemed insubstantial at first, but in the quiet pre-dawn, it echoed down the shadowed corridor, reverberating louder than it should.

Here we go.

Time seemed to warp, each second stretching into eternity. Vi could hear her own heartbeat, a deep, insistent drum thrumming in her ears, louder with every passing moment. Then, at last, the door swung open on well-oiled hinges.

And there she was.

No matter how many times Vi found herself in Caitlyn’s presence, it never ceased to unravel her. Just the sight of her—sent an involuntary tremor through Vi’s carefully constructed calm. Caitlyn’s very existence was gravity, pulling Vi from orbit, unmaking her composure with frightening, effortless grace.

How had she ever gotten so lucky?

Caitlyn stood illuminated in the threshold, sunlight spilling across her like a benediction; one half of her face sculpted from gold, the other softened to velvet shadow. Her enforcer uniform was crisp, the blue shade looking gentler on her than it did the others, the collar unbuttoned enough to reveal a slim edge of throat, holster slung with brisk authority across her shoulder. Her hair, damp at the temples, coiled in a fastidious bun under her beret, and her cheeks glimmered with the starlight blush she had used since she was a teen. Caitlyn—so perfectly composed—let her guard slip the instant she saw who dared to knock, surprise rippling over her features.

“Vi? What—?”

“Pack a bag, Cupcake.” Vi forced a lopsided grin to the surface, breath stubbornly unsteady beneath her borrowed bravado. Something dizzy and wild spun beneath her ribs; this might be the bravest, most reckless thing she’d ever done—or the biggest mistake.

No in-between.

Caitlyn gaped, words tangled and dying on her lips. For a suspended heartbeat, neither of them seemed to know how to move, the silence spun taut between them. Then Vi squared her shoulders, taking command.

“Chop-chop, we don’t—”

“Vi? What in the world are you talking about?” Caitlyn’s gaze flickered rapidly—from Vi’s battered boots, to her own pristine uniform, to the antique silver watch glinting at her wrist. “My shift starts in twenty—”

“Not today, it doesn’t.” Vi declared as she slipped past her, trailing her fingers softly over Caitlyn’s sleeve, and sauntered into the living room like she owned the place. Sunlight painted lazy diamonds on the hardwood, and Vi straightened, chin high—her confidence a little forced, but powered by sheer stubborn hope. “Nor tomorrow. Nor the day after.” She announced, throwing a quick, hesitant glance over her shoulder to gage the woman’s reaction. Caitlyn didn’t look angry, just bewildered; cautious. Confused. That was something. Confused, Vi could work with.

So, without pause, Vi strode into Caitlyn’s bedroom, boots flattening the plush weave of Caitlyn’s favourite rug, and flung open the closet doors. She reached up for Caitlyn’s prized travel suitcase—the one Caitlyn kept hidden behind folded clothes—dragging it down with reverence. “Your mother called in some favours at the precinct,” Vi explained, her voice casual as she set the suitcase down and unzipped it with a flourish. “She pulled forward your scheduled annual leave, told the captain you had urgent family business you were required to attend.” She looked up, eyes bright. “So? What do you say? You and me, on the road. Just like old times.”

Caitlyn lingered just inside the doorway, the paragon of Kiramman discipline suddenly unravelled, shoulders dipped, eyes wide with vulnerability. In her gaze, a storm gathered: confusion, longing, hope—all shimmering close to the surface. Vi’s hands shook a little as she started pulling shirts and soft jumpers from Caitlyn’s drawers, folding each one with rare and tender care, willing herself not to retreat in the face of that bottomless blue gaze.

For a moment, time stretched, brittle and precious.

And then Caitlyn moved. With determination, she crossed the thick carpet in large steps. She reached out, fingertips feather-light as they brushed Vi’s arm, barely daring to touch. Gently, she coaxed Vi to turn, her touch burning a gentle trail through the fabric of Vi’s worn jacket. Before Vi could stammer out any of her carefully-rehearsed justifications—each one suddenly made meaningless by the look in her eyes—Caitlyn surged forward, pulling Vi into a kiss that stole the very air from the room.

It was a kiss brimming with astonishment and longing, sweetly urgent yet fiercely grounding—a heady collision of unspoken hopes, of all the silent questions Vi had carried with her since dawn. Every uncertainty that had gnawed at her resolve melted away beneath the soft press of Caitlyn’s lips. There was nothing in the world but the fluttering touch of Caitlyn’s hands cradling her jaw, the electric warmth of breath shared in the scant space between them, the gentle yet undeniable insistence of her mouth conveying what words never could. When Caitlyn finally drew back, her eyes glimmered with unshed tears and a joy so profound it teetered at the edge of laughter.

Vi let out a shaky breath, a fuzzy grin spreading helplessly across her face. Words tumbled in her chest, crowding at her lips before she could shape them. “You always said you wanted to see the world. Ionia specifically. But work… life… it always got in the way. I remembered your parents talking about a cabin they owned on the border of Ionia, so I spoke to them to see if we could borrow it for a few days. It’s only a few hours if we drive.” She hesitated, her fingers toying with the hem of her jacket. “So—”

Caitlyn silenced her with another kiss, her lips lingering with a gentle insistence that made Vi’s world narrow down to warmth and closeness.

But no matter how much she wanted to just lose herself in the feeling, to savour each second of Caitlyn’s lips moving with hers, Vi couldn’t keep the restless joy bottled up. The words tumbled out, almost tripping over themselves, “I even managed to wrangle a few days off myself. Powder even—” She started to tease, but Caitlyn pulled her closer, silencing her with another kiss—this one deeper, slower, Caitlyn’s hands curving along Vi’s jawline, thumbs stroking her cheekbones as if memorizing the shape of her.

They parted, foreheads pressed together, breathing the same air; Caitlyn’s hand traced a slow, circling path along Vi’s jaw before tucking a stray strand of pink hair behind her ear. “How long have you been planning this?” Caitlyn asked softly, her voice velvet and uncertain.

Vi ducked her head, a lopsided grin flickering before bashfulness chased it away. “Since that night you wrote your list.”

“Vi—”

“I know. You don’t like surprises—”

Once more, Vi was interrupted, this time by the soft crack in Caitlyn’s voice. “Thank you,” Caitlyn whispered, the words trembling and thick, burdened with unspoken meaning.

Vi’s heart surged, pushing hard against her ribs as she cupped Caitlyn’s cheek, thumb brushing away the shimmer of emotion in her eyes. She recognized the look—the rare, unguarded vulnerability that Caitlyn only showed to her. “You’re welcome,” Vi breathed, and then stole another kiss—a delicate, lingering brush of lips full of promise. But it wasn’t enough for Caitlyn.

Caitlyn’s arms slipped around Vi’s waist, drawing her in closer, their bodies pressed together in urgent intimacy. Her hands slid lower, settling on Vi’s hips and then lower still, fingers splaying to pull her even nearer. Caitlyn’s lips parted, her tongue tracing Vi’s mouth with a plea, a question, daring entry with aching need.

For a moment, Vi surrendered, tasting the pure want in Caitlyn’s kiss, until she recognized just where it was leading. With a rueful groan, she broke away enough to speak, her breath shaky against Caitlyn’s cheek. “As much as I would love to continue this…” she managed, brushing her nose against Caitlyn’s. “We must get going if we want to get there before the sun sets. Be ready in ten.” Vi said, her tone attempting sternness though her voice wavered. She gently disentangled herself from Caitlyn’s arms, regret slicing through her resolve, and moved toward the door with determined strides.

She had to leave now—before Caitlyn’s longing unravelled what little control she had left. Sunset be damned.

Exactly ten minutes later, they sat side by side in Vi’s car, the battered old engine purring beneath their feet—a throbbing promise. Caitlyn curled into the passenger seat, her rigid police uniform traded for sleek black leggings and one of Vi’s washed-out hoodies, its sleeves much too long for her delicate wrists. She tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear, the ghost of a smile haunting her lips, flickering alive as her eyes locked with Vi’s.

“You ready?”

 Caitlyn’s smile blossomed in the soft blue glow of the dashboard, casting gentle shadows across her cheekbones. Her gaze didn’t waver. When she spoke, her voice was a secret velvet note between them, trembling with anticipation. “Let’s get this show on the road.”

-

Vi had been driving for just over six hours now, her steady legs guiding her weathered Subaru along the serpentine roads that threaded through the dense Ionian woodlands. Shadows from towering firs and ancient oaks flickered past, painting restless patterns across the dashboard. The journey—as always, when they travelled together—had begun with the quiet shimmer of adventure: an undercurrent of possibility that seemed to flicker in both of their veins, a magnetic pulse that urged them forward. Anticipation fluttered in waves through her chest, each passing mile ushering them further from the city’s relentless noise and deeper into a hushed wilderness that unfurled in wild, untamed green once they crossed the border. Every now and then, Vi would crack open her window, letting in a sharp breath of air infused with pine sap, fresh-cut grass, and the ghost of distant woodsmoke curling up from unseen hearths. The chill snapped against her skin, making her laugh, and Caitlyn—swaddled in a worn plaid coat Vi kept in the trunk for emergencies—would draw her knees even higher to her chest. She’d grumble about the cold but burrow deeper, her nose disappearing into the faded neck of Vi’s oversized hoodie, the threads rich with memory and comfort. Their conversation had ebbed and fizzed, the playful friction over which radio station to choose igniting into laughter bright enough to make the car’s interior feel almost luminous. Within that cocoon of battered upholstery, bouncing knees, and shared secrets, the air shimmered with the exuberance of youth they both pretended to have outgrown. Every exchange—a graze of fingers across the gearshift, a conspiratorial glance—thrummed with silent meaning, a covert language of trust and longing. In that cramped, humming bubble of warmth and possibility, the world outside shrank to nothing but the charged, breathless anticipation swelling within their little universe.

As the highway unspooled before them into a landscape softened by mist and—valleys veiled in shadow, meadows heavy with dew, evergreens bowing beneath the weight of winter’s last sigh—a gentler mood had settled between them. Words drifted away, replaced by a companionable silence that stretched like a woollen blanket, heavy and reassuring, across both their shoulders. The radio spilled melancholy melodies—sweet, aching refrains that mingled with the percussive lull of tires sluicing over rain-darkened patches, the rhythm of travel steady and hypnotic. When Caitlyn, her voice soft and frayed at the edges with exhaustion, quietly offered, “Want me to take over the drive?” Vi only smiled, reaching over to squeeze Caitlyn’s hand, folding it between one of her own with deliberate tenderness. She drank in the droop of Caitlyn’s shoulders, the hopeful weariness curled at the corners of her mouth, the dark lavender shadows bruising the delicate skin beneath her eyes. The high-stakes promotion Caitlyn was chasing had left its marks—late nights spent beneath harsh fluorescent lights, silent dinners punctuated only by the ticking of clocks, a feverish dimming of her once-bright laugh. Vi promised herself—this weekend, she would be the balm to every bruise, the steady shelter against every storm. She would gather up every fragment of Caitlyn’s faded light and fiercely help her shine again.

Three-quarters of the way, Caitlyn had finally succumbed to sleep, folding herself into the passenger seat with an almost childlike trust that made Vi’s heart ache with love. Her cheek pressed against the cool glass, loose hair catching stray sunbeams and blazing copper in the late afternoon light; her lips parted in unguarded rest, breath leaving ghostly blooms against the window. For a short moment, Vi just watched her—watched the tension melt from Caitlyn’s brow, saw the quiet grace steal over her features, smoothing out the sorrows of a long, taxing year. The gentle shiver of her lashes at rest almost undid Vi with tenderness: it seeded in her a fierce protectiveness, a swelling urge to cradle Caitlyn against all the world’s sharp edges. As Vi turned the radio down—a piano sonata that seemed to cradle the hush of the car—she kept one hand steady on the wheel and let the other drift to Caitlyn’s thigh. Her touch circled in slow, protective patterns, promising warmth and constancy with every stroke. In their moving bubble of silence and sun and private vows, she tried to whisper with every caress: You’re safe. I’m here. You can rest now.

At last, six and a half hours after their departure, the Subaru rattled up the winding gravel drive, tires snapping over drying puddles, dusk spilling rose and molten gold through the tangled branches above. The cabin emerged at the crest—bathed in honeyed, late-summer light, its silhouette edged in the blue shadows of coming night, standing as a haven against the darkening woods. Vi lingered, not ready to break the fragile calm. She savoured the quiet etched into Caitlyn’s sleeping features, the uncommon vulnerability softening the lines of her fierceness; that wild, impulsive strength now threaded through with something gentle, almost luminous in repose. With her heart swelled near to bursting, Vi let the moment linger—knowing Caitlyn would want to greet this unfolding magic wide awake, with eyes open to all that waited.

“Wakey-wakey,” Vi coaxed, her voice honey-laced, lips brushing Caitlyn’s temple in a touch of warmth and promise. With careful hands she unlatched the seatbelt, leaned in closer, and pressed a kiss to Caitlyn’s brow—a benediction, the gentlest invitation back to the world.

Caitlyn roused slowly, blinking up at Vi, bleary and a bit wild. “Vi?” she mumbled, confusion tumbling through her features before memory pieced itself together—the journey, the woods. “Did I really fall asleep? You should have woken me.” There was laughter beneath the softly chiding words, drowsy and without its usual iron control. She tried to smooth her tangled hair, fingers faltering, only for Vi to reach over and tuck a loosened strand, fingertips grazing Caitlyn’s cheek with deliberate care.

Vi shook her head, a slow, bright smile blooming as she nodded toward the glowing cabin beyond the windshield. “You looked too peaceful. I couldn’t bring myself to wake you. Besides, we’re here now.” Vi whispered, her voice soft as snowfall, before slipping out of the car and circling around to open the passenger door.

Caitlyn stepped out with Vi’s gentle support, her muscles stiff from the long drive. Frost-laced pine needles crunched underfoot, sharp and fragrant, their scent rising in the icy air. Caitlyn, shivering in the crisp afternoon chill, instinctively leaned into Vi’s arms, pressing her face against the warmth of Vi’s jacket as she laughed, breath hitching in the cold. Vi’s grin was unstoppable as she wrangled both suitcases, balancing them with practiced ease while keeping Caitlyn tucked close by her side.

The cabin before them was a scene from a forgotten painting: weathered stones anchored its corners, rough-hewn timbers soaked up the day’s last rays, and multi-paned windows blazed with the promise of sanctuary. A thin ribbon of smoke, dusted with snowflakes, curled from the towering chimney, hinting at crackling logs and enveloping warmth waiting just beyond the door.

Inside proved even more enchanting. The ceiling beams, honey-dark and low, arched overhead, sheltering the space like a watchful guardian. Butter-soft leather sofas, their surfaces burnished with use, begged for the weary to sink into their embrace. The grand hearth—an altar of stacked stone and iron—commanded the living room, its fire a living heart that tossed shadows and light across battered armchairs drawn near for comfort and late-night confessions. Lining the bowed bookshelves, an army of well-loved volumes stood shoulder-to-shoulder, their spines split, and pages dog-eared, each a vessel of borrowed adventures and private solace. Mugs stood sentry beside the sink, their chipped pottery edges promising cocoa’s sweetness or the spiced bite of mulled wine on frosted lips. Above the broad glass doors to the terrace, a skein of fairy lights twined through the rafters, weaving cascades of soft gold across rough floorboards, while outside, the lake shimmered silver—it’s still waters holding the last breath of the sun.

They wandered the snug rooms in unhurried awe, fingers twining as their laughter wove through air tinged with cedar and hearth smoke, echoing back from stone and timber and making the place come alive in their presence.

She was going to have to find a way to thank the Kirammans for this.

By the time their bags had been unpacked, both were showered and changed for the evening, night had crept in—its deep violet cloak blotting out the remnants of day, while the horizon still shimmered with the last molten glow of sunset brushing the jagged treetops. Vi paused, savouring the moment, then caught Caitlyn’s hand and gently wove their fingers together, anchoring them both in that fragile sliver of perfect stillness. With a quiet smile, she led Caitlyn out onto the terrace, where anticipation sparkled in every detail.

Tobias had kept his word: woollen blankets were draped over the backs of sturdy wooden chairs, waiting to welcome the chill of night. A crystal bowl of frost-laced wine rested in its nest of half-melted ice, beads of condensation trailing slowly down its surface like tiny rivers. Candlelight trembled atop a cloth-covered table, flames dancing to a rhythm only the night could understand. A tray of fruit—ruby strawberries sliced and gleaming, moonlit grapes dusted with dew—was set between them, the sweetness promising to linger on their tongues.

Caitlyn stood transfixed, her eyes sweeping the scene, lips parting with the beginning of a question. “Vi—how did you—?” she whispered, wonder threading through her words.

Vi just grinned, pride and delight mingling in her gaze, and gently tugged her toward the chairs. The two of them snuggled into the blankets, shoulders pressed close, and let silence swell sweetly around them as they watched the sun dip below the winding river, its surface catching the last reflections in molten ribbons. Caitlyn curled into Vi’s side with a contented sigh, the tension of travel melting away, as if she knew—deep down—she was exactly where she’d always belonged.

Caitlyn curled deeper into Vi’s side with a contented sigh, her fingers twining in Vi’s. “I could stay like this forever,”

Vi brushed a strand of hair from Caitlyn’s brow, her thumb lingering on the smooth curve of her cheek. “Me too.”

Apr, 03rd 2024

Vi huffed and puffed, every breath steeped in the cool, earthy perfume of moss and pine needles crushed beneath her boots. Her chest rose and fell in a relentless, stubborn rhythm, as if she could will her exhaustion back down into the soles of her feet. The mountain path was a narrow, serpentine ribbon unfurling at their feet, forever twisting beneath a vaulted cathedral of emerald leaves. Overhead, the ancient branches knitted together so tightly that sunlight struggled to pierce through, filtering down in fractured golden ribbons and shifting mosaics of shadow that danced across the forest floor. With each determined stride, Vi felt the ache burrow deeper into her calves, her resolve pressed taut against bone and muscle, and with every step, she silently cursed herself for falling for Tobias’ wild tales about hidden waterfalls and a sight so beautiful they had to experience it. Still, there was no turning back now—the forest held them, pulling them ever forward. “Almost there,” she muttered under her breath, her words scratchy and winded, barely more than a rasp lost to the hush of leaves. She leaned heavily into the makeshift walking stick she’d fashioned from a weathered branch, the bark rough against her palm but solid and steady beneath her weight.

At her side, Caitlyn climbed as though the mountain had laid out the trail for her alone—graceful, sure-footed, her breaths soft and steady. Not a bead of sweat marked her perfect brow, and the rise in the path seemed only to sharpen the proud set of her shoulders. When Vi stumbled, faltering against a tangle of roots, Caitlyn paused to offer a hand—steady, warm, and undeniably inviting—while a bright, playful spark lit her sapphire eyes. “Need a hand, darling?” she teased, head tilted, a mischievous smile flirting at the corner of her lips.

Vi gritted her teeth and shook her head, flinging a stray curl out of her face. “I’ve got it, princess,” she shot back, her tone more bark than bite.

Caitlyn’s responding laughter was low and musical. She didn’t retract her hand, simply let it linger nearby—just in case Vi changed her mind. The climb shifted with that gesture; it was no longer a contest of grit, but a shared story to be written step by laborious step. The weight in Vi’s limbs eased, carried in part by Caitlyn’s gentle steadiness and infectious spirit.

Eventually, after what felt like an endless climb, the path ahead softened, its steepness finally relenting beneath their weary feet. The dense press of the forest fell away, trees growing sparse until only a few silver-trunked birches lingered at the trail’s edge. The warm, green of leaves gradually loosened, unravelling into a vast wash of open sky overhead. They emerged through the final curtain of branches, and the air around them seemed to expand—a shared, breathless inhalation flavoured with cool, sugar-crisp freshness. The mountain breeze carried the delicate perfume of distant cherry blossoms and something wilder, sharper, like river stones and hidden snow.

Caitlyn stopped dead in her tracks, her gaze arrested by something just beyond the tangle of brush. Sunlight slipped over her shoulders, catching the delicate arch of her brow and the faint colour blooming on her cheeks. Her lips parted in amazement, blue eyes wide with wonder at the sight ahead. Vi—never one for subtlety or brakes—had barely enough time to halt before barrelling straight into her. Only Caitlyn’s quick hands, long fingers wrapping around Vi’s shoulders with easy confidence, kept them both upright. Laughter spilled between them, bright and sudden as bells in the quiet.

“Careful, love,” Caitlyn said, grinning as she squeezed Vi’s arm. “Unless you planned to sweep me off my feet.”

Vi snorted, her rough-edged laugh carried by the wind. “I’ll save the sweeping for when there’s less of a drop behind you. Wouldn’t want to make it literal.”

“Such a gentleman,” Caitlyn teased, her accent curling around the words.

“What made you stop anyway?” Vi asked, her curiosity sharpening.

Rather than answer, Caitlyn simply swept her arm wide in a graceful arc, fingers splayed, an unspoken invitation: Look.

Together, they turned to the scene unfurling before them. And what a view it was. Ionia sprawled in riotous, breathtaking beauty: valleys wreathed in shifting mists that clung to the rolling hills, rivers like molten silver winding through endless stretches of emerald, their surface glinting in the midday sunlight. Far-off villages were cradled among groves of ancient, flowering trees, rooftops peeking out like precious gems scattered across a green tapestry. The air was rich with the scent of damp earth and wild blossoms, the wind running playful fingers through Caitlyn’s hair, tugging loose strands into a shimmering dark waterfall laced with copper sparks. Her cheeks were flushed from the climb, delight painting her skin gold in the sunlight, every line and freckle sharply etched in the clean mountain air.

Yet, for all that splendour, Vi found her gaze anchored on Caitlyn alone. Even with paradise unfurling beneath their boots and nature’s magnificence flaunted in every direction, Caitlyn eclipsed it all. Vi watched the shifting wonder play across Caitlyn’s face—the awe wide in her eyes, a luminous, unguarded joy, the smile curving her lips and making Vi’s chest tighten painfully with adoration. In that moment, Vi understood; this was the magic she’d been searching for all along. Not the breathtaking vista. Caitlyn.

Wordlessly, drawn by a pull deeper and older than the wind, Vi closed the space between them, slipping her arms around Caitlyn’s waist. The fit was perfect, the warm pressure of Caitlyn’s back against her chest as familiar as breathing. Caitlyn leaned into her without hesitation, their bodies moulding together so close that the grandeur surrounding them faded to a blessed quiet. The rest of the world retreated, leaving only the shared rhythm of their heartbeats, echoing in the sight of open sky and golden sun. Vi rested her chin on Caitlyn’s shoulder, her nose breathing in the faint scent of wild jasmine in Caitlyn’s hair. Together, they stood in a moment that felt carved out of time, suspended and sacred, holding each other at the centre of a vast and silent paradise.

For a while, their words meandered lightly—casual, gentle, pointing to clouds shifting into shapes and the play of sunlight over distant hills, laughing softly as birds soared overhead. But the conversation began to deepen, the silence between sentences settling into something heavier, more resonant. Caitlyn’s voice turned quietly wistful, painting the quiet air with stories of her childhood: her father’s awed descriptions of mystical mountains shrouded in morning mist, tales of hidden valleys and wonders glimpsed only in dreams, memories borrowed from starlit nights and the pages of old books. Each word spun a glimmer of longing across her face; her eyes shone with unshed wishes and distant hopes, the endless blue of the sky reflected in their depths. “I never believed my father when he told me about all this,” Caitlyn admitted, her words barely more than a breath as her fingers threaded gently through Vi’s, clinging to something real. “About the magic. The feeling. But now… now I think I finally understand what he was trying to tell me.”

Vi’s grip tightened just a little—a silent vow. “If I could,” she murmured, her voice thick with longing, “I’d bring him here for you. Let you both see this together."

A gentle laugh escaped Caitlyn, soft and shaky, and she tilted her head so her forehead rested against Vi’s, breath mingling in the cool mountain air. Her words came in a whisper, fragile as spun glass. “I know you would.” She fell silent for a heartbeat, eyes searching Vi’s—then confessed, “But… is it bad that I’m glad it’s you with me instead?”

Vi’s smile trembled, eyes glistening with tears unshed, shimmering in the fading light. She lifted a calloused hand, fingers tracing the elegant line of Caitlyn’s jaw, rough-world strength cradling delicate skin as if she held something priceless. Her thumb drew slow, reverent circles—a silent worship—before she leaned in to press a kiss to Caitlyn’s cheek, soft as moth wings, brief as a prayer. The touch was fragile, holy, a vow written in warmth between them. “Not at all. Come on—there’s one more surprise I want to show you, before we head back.”

-

Vi squeezed Caitlyn’s hand tightly, their fingers weaving together with the kind of ease that feels both accidental and destined. She tilted her head toward Caitlyn, grinning, and said, “Watch your step,” her voice low and teasing as she drew Caitlyn down the tangled hillside path. Caitlyn’s pulse danced beneath Vi’s thumb as Vi traced slow, reassuring circles over her knuckles, grounding her against the wild energy of the woods. Mossy stones and slick roots conspired against every footfall, but together they navigated, stumbling with laughter—Caitlyn’s breathless, Vi’s rolling and warm. Every time Caitlyn’s balance faltered, Vi’s hand tightened, a promise written into their entwined fingers: I’ve got you. Sunlight filtered through a lattice of leaves, flickering gold on emerald, painting secret trails across their path—a winding ribbon Tobias had claimed would be almost invisible by summer. But it was the song of water, lilting and daring, that urged them onward, an undercurrent to the rhythm of their shared steps and eager hearts.

Vi ducked beneath the low arch of a beech branch, pausing with a soft, “Hold still,” as she brushed a cluster of dewdrops from Caitlyn’s dark hair. Caitlyn looked up, laughing in surprise, cheeks flushed, locks damp and curling under Vi’s fingers. For a moment, Vi simply stared—entranced by Caitlyn’s open, startled smile, the curve of her lips, the light in her eyes. Then she pushed aside the glossy, rain-scented leaves, and the woods opened like a secret door. The world on the other side was pure enchantment: a waterfall tumbling down black stone in silvery ribbons, its roar softened by moss and the cry of the glen. The pool below mirrored the sky, shifting points of light dancing on the surface where sunlight fractured. Silver fish darted beneath the ripples, threading through pale pebbles and the ghosts of fallen petals. Caitlyn caught her breath, transfigured by awe—her hands pressed to her lips, eyes wide and shining. “Vi… it’s beautiful.” she whispered, wonder turning her voice to music.

Vi’s heart soared at Caitlyn’s awe. But mischief, irrepressible and bright, took hold—she tamped down her own reverence in favour of spontaneity. As the last tatters of morning mist dissolved, sunlight spilled gold through the branches and gilded everything in honey. With a grin, Vi wrestled with the zip of her jacket. “What do you say we take a dip?” she joked, tugging off the jacket and flinging it into a patch of clover where bees browsed lazily. Sweat cooled on her flushed skin, the ache of the climb replaced by the electric anticipation of the water.

She peeled her tank top away, letting it sink slowly to the mossy ground, the fabric catching on a pale root before coming to rest. Caitlyn’s gaze lingered—caught in the delicate balance between bashful uncertainty and fascinated awe—tracing the elegant slope of Vi’s shoulders, the sinuous knot of muscle moving beneath bronze-tinged skin. Sunlight splintered through the canopy above, painting Vi’s bare arms in shifting gold as laughter bubbled up between them, unrestrained and wild, infusing the secluded clearing with its reckless sweetness. Vi, unburdened by self-consciousness, shimmied out of her sports bra. Next went the shorts, and then the soft cotton of her boxers, each barrier dropping away until she stood shameless and unmasked before the crisp mountain air, goosebumps rising along her skin.

“Vi!” Caitlyn’s voice broke the spell, her laughter tumbling behind the shape of Vi’s name in breathless, incredulous delight. “What on earth are you—”

Vi’s glance over her shoulder was pure mischief, emerald eyes alive with the thrill of her own audacity. “What does it look like?” she teased, a wicked, delighted smile curving her lips as she stepped toward Caitlyn, water and sunlight glimmering in her wake, closing the distance until only the thinnest thread of hesitation lay between them.

Caitlyn’s heart thudded, caught in the tremor between yearning and fear, fingers twisting uncertainly at the hem of her cotton shirt. “What if someone—”

Vi’s voice dropped low—softer, intimate, velvet and sure. “No one’s here. I promise. It’s just us. Besides—” she leaned in, conspiratorial, “I’ll make sure no one sees you but me.” Her hand, warm and callused, replaced Caitlyn’s trembling grip, her thumb tracing quiet circles, coaxing Caitlyn to let go.

Caitlyn flushed, the heat of embarrassment surrendering to the steady glow of Vi’s gaze, her nerves melting into laughter, light and unguarded. She let Vi peel away her shirt and then her sports bra, each touch gentle, reverent, as if uncovering something precious. Vi’s eyes burned with admiration and hunger, yet softened, patient. Steeling herself, she finished undressing—each article folded and stacked with deliberate care, the simple act weighted with purpose, as though she were offering a secret or a prayer. Sunlight broke free of the leaves, dappling her bare skin with gold, and the moment felt suspended in amber: fragile, sacred. Vi’s heart raced—a pulse of reverence mingling with the bright wildness of joy.

Vi reached out, palm open, voice softened by awe. “Come,” she whispered, and Caitlyn’s hand found hers, their fingers interlacing, both sets trembling with promise and anticipation. “Ready?” Vi asked, her voice a teasing caress, tender at the edges.

“Only if you don’t let go,” Caitlyn answered, her smile blooming, shy and luminous, betraying a secret courage.

Vi squeezed her hand, steady as a vow. “Never,” she breathed, and together they leapt—bodies arching, laughter shattering the silence as they plunged into the lake. The water hit them like glass, cold and electrifying, stealing their breath in sharp gasps and squeals that tumbled into new, unrestrained laughter. Breaking the surface, they clung to each other, legs tangled beneath the water, hearts drumming in tandem as shock faded to exhilaration, the world narrowed to the warmth of each other’s arms.

Once their bodies had attuned to the temperature, they chased each other through glimmering, moonlit shallows. Vi’s icy fingers skimmed over the goosebumps rising on Caitlyn’s skin, teasing her with gentle touches as Caitlyn retaliated by splashing water in wide, sparkling arcs that caught the moon and fractured it into scattered jewels. “You’re impossible!” Caitlyn cried, breathless with laughter, as Vi spun her around in the water, the surface churning in their wake before she pulled her close with a triumphant flourish. Their bodies pressed tightly together, skin slick and shivering, senses heightened by the cold and the thrill.

“You love it,” Vi countered, gently tilting Caitlyn’s chin upward so that their faces hovered just a breath apart, droplets of water trembling on Vi’s dark lashes, poised between them like a promise.

When Caitlyn shivered—whether from exposure or anticipation—Vi gathered her closer still, strong arms wrapping protectively around her slick frame, encouraging Caitlyn to tangle her legs around Vi’s waist. “I’ve got you,” Vi whispered, her voice rich and steady, so close Caitlyn could nearly taste the words on her lips—a murmur threaded with warmth and unwavering promise. Their noses brushed, breaths mingled, and for a moment time stretched as Caitlyn searched Vi’s eyes before finally connecting their lips. Vi moaned softly, hands trailing down to find Caitlyn’s bottom, fingers squeezing with a hunger she could barely restrain.

“Thank you… for bringing me here,” Caitlyn breathed against her lips, her words shaped by gratitude and wonder.

“Thank you for coming,” Vi answered, her voice a feather-soft vow before she claimed Caitlyn’s mouth in another deep, lingering kiss. They stayed like that for a moment, floating together, Caitlyn’s core pressing insistently against Vi’s stomach, the water cocooning them with gentle waves. Vi entertained the thought of swimming them toward shore, intent on losing themselves further, but then Caitlyn’s teeth began to chatter, sharp and sudden in the quiet.

“Let’s get you back,” Vi urged, drawing her close, “Before you catch a cold.”

-

The walk back to the cabin seemed endless, their progress swallowed by the blanket of the encroaching dusk. Each footfall landed with reluctant weight, as though the sodden earth below sought to claim them, drawing them downward and folding them into its chill, patient arms. Exhaustion pressed against them with the persistence of a rising tide, seeping through muscle and sinew, settling deep into aching bones until every step felt like uneasy negotiation with gravity itself. The twilight air was dense and damp, muffling the world to only immediate sensation—the slap and squelch of boots sinking into the mud, the dull throb radiating up through tired calves, the delicate spirals of breath that coiled away and vanished into the violet gloom. Huddled in fog at last, the cabin slowly emerged: its outline smudged and softened by the mist that surrounded them. Behind warped windowpanes, the tired golden wash of lantern light spilled in aching bars across scuffed floorboards, promising warmth and shelter.

Caitlyn barely slowed at the threshold, her exhausted figure tense with resolve. She barrelled inside, trailing streaks of mud with every footstep, before making a beeline for the bathroom with purpose. Harried by a bone-deep chill, she tore at her damp layers—tee twisted over her head, shorts peeled from sticky skin, boots kicked across the cracked tiles—her hands trembling with the frantic need to cast off the day’s lingering cold, stripping layer by layer. Without turning back, she called out, voice teasing yet warning: “I’m grabbing the shower first.”

Vi couldn’t help but let a laugh bubble up, watching Caitlyn’s urgency with weary affection. “Try not to use all the hot water!”

From behind the bathroom door, Caitlyn gave a ragged little laugh—closer to an exhale, sharp with relief—before the latch snapped into place, sealing her away in a cocoon of steam. Despite temptation to follow and let the shower chase away the ache in her own bones, Vi turned to the cold, yawning hearth, knowing the cabin’s chill would only deepen without a fire’s defence. The weather had fooled them into complacency on the hike—warm sun lingering overhead, wind that blew warm air—but the moment daylight began to wilt, so did all comfort, and the first drizzling rain found them still miles away from the cabin.

Vi knelt and worked methodically, hands stiff and clumsy as she arranged a pyramid of dry kindling, stacking squat little logs atop each other with deliberate, practiced care. Twice her cold-numbed fingers snapped wooden matches, filling her nostrils with sharp sulphur, before at last a wavering flame caught—a thin, stubborn tongue licking the bark and threatening to gutter out. She shielded it with her hand, coaxing it to life, watching little sparks leap and die, until finally the fire shivered then surged, its belly finding hunger in resin and splinters, eager for sustenance. Orange light slowly pushed back the shadows, and as warmth crept in, hunger surfaced with it—sharp, insistent, hard to ignore. It had been hours since they had last eaten. With that in mind, Vi perched on the edge of the ratty old armchair, scrolling blankly through restaurant menus, her thumb hovering over dish after dish before settling, with a deep, private relief, on noodle soup—perfect.

She ordered enough for both herself and Caitlyn. Plus a little extra if they were peckish later in the evening.

By the time Caitlyn reemerged, the bathroom’s steam had woven itself into her dark hair and stained her cheeks with a feverish flush, soft cloudlets still clinging to her skin as if reluctant to leave the heat behind. In the small living room, Vi had already changed into worn gym shorts and a loose T-shirt, crouched near the battered hearth where a brisk fire muscled warmth into every corner of the space, making the air pulse with red-gold heat. The scent of woodsmoke tangled with the sharp perfume of sesame oil and ginger, drifting above the mound of takeout cartons she had set between them on the faded blue rag rug. Outside, March rain battered the glass and pressed night close against the windowpanes; inside, the glow made colours bloom—firelight flickering along the strong line of Vi’s jaw, transmuting Caitlyn’s damp profile into something halfway between luminous and secretive, rain trailing silver lines behind her.

They settled shoulder to shoulder, knees touching in an easy intimacy, the fire’s warmth seeping deep and gentle into their sore muscles, unwinding the day’s bruises. Noodle broth shimmered in plastic tubs, glistening coils tangled with snow peas and pink curls of shrimp, floating with mushroom caps and lazy spirals of scallion. The warped coffee table was a beleaguered island in the storm, cluttered with careless heaps of carrot slaw, napkins askew, chopsticks sticky with sauce. 

“Would you rather sneeze every time you orgasm, or orgasm every time you sneeze?”

Caitlyn groaned, dramatically pressing the heel of her hand to her forehead as she sank lower on the rug. But a reluctant smile caught at the corners of her mouth, her eyes alight with something reckless. “You always know how to lower the tone,” she grumbled, her blush leaping from her cheeks to her collarbone.

“That’s not an answer,” Vi insisted, nudging Caitlyn with her shoulder, her grin bright as a struck match.

Caitlyn made a show of pondering, head tilted back, the soft fall of her damp hair brushing Vi’s arm. “Fine,” she relented at last, lips pursing as if weighing the cosmic importance of the question. “Orgasm every time I sneeze.”

“Seriously?”

She shrugged, mouth quirking with a private dare, blue eyes steady. “Makes sense, doesn’t it? There are studies—sneezes actually release en—”

“Endorphins, I know. You quote the same research every time,” Vi cut in, eyes playful, her teasing edged with affection.

Their voices bounced off the old floorboards, volleying absurdities back and forth—a game that grew wilder with each question, their laughter warming the chill in the room, chipping away at the residue of exhaustion in their bones. ‘Would you rather be perpetually sunburnt or perpetually hungover…’,  ‘Would you rather lose all your memories or never form new ones…’

The dilemmas, at first harmless, became confessional; answers grew hesitant, admitting to fears that lived under the skin.

The laughter faded into a quiet neither strained nor awkward. The silence just there as a comfort. Until Caitlyn’s gaze slipped across the room, following the circle of candlelight flickering on the polished rim of her mug, her lips pressed together in thought. When she finally spoke, her voice was low, barely cresting the distance between them—fragile, uncertain. Curious. “Would you rather… outlive your partner, or have your partner outlive you?”

Vi’s hands hovered over the takeout noodles, fingers tense on the chopsticks, her body suddenly still. The fire snapped in the grate, the flames shifting shadows across Vi’s cheek, catching the tension that tightened her posture. “That’s a little heavy, even for you,” she managed, aiming for lightness, but the falter in her voice was unmistakable.

Caitlyn didn’t flinch. Didn’t even look over. “Well?” she pressed, a single syllable that shivered with quiet insistence.

Vi’s answer wouldn’t come. While the question was relatively innocent, she felt herself submerging beneath a familiar, tidal dread. Hospital corridors lit with sodium glare; Caitlyn’s father’s voice cracking behind grief, ‘You have to let her go.’ “I…” She cleared her throat, once again trying to lighten and hide, “That’s not something I want to be thinking about, Cait.” She tried to layer on a laugh, but it crumbled into silence.

Caitlyn waited. She persisted. Unaware.

“I used to think I’d want my partner to outlive me,” Cait said, her hands closing gently around the chipped ceramic mug as if for reassurance, fingertips seeking warmth against the cool air that pressed in around them. “It always felt like the safe answer—the one you’re supposed to give. It’s selfless, right?” A shadow flickered across her freckled face, gone in a blink. “But after we... the answer became muddled. Death is crueller to the ones left behind. The idea of you grieving, carrying that weight—God, Vi….” Her voice trembled, and she looked away, bracing herself against a memory. “So now, I ask myself, could I bear the burden? The pain, the grief, every hollow morning after, every echo in this empty kitchen... Could I take it all, just so you wouldn’t have to?”

Vi sat motionless, her hands trembling slightly in her lap. A thousand answers formed in her mind, none of them worthy of the gravity of Cait’s words. Cait saw the shimmer in Vi’s eyes and went on, gently, her tone almost reverent.

“That question’s been stuck in my head since a few weeks ago,” Cait confessed, her voice barely above a whisper. “I was first on the scene—a family-owned store, sunlight slanting through dusty windows, just a normal day turned nightmare by a robbery. The husband took a bullet for his wife. And the sounds she made after—” Cait’s fingers tightened around the mug, knuckles white. “It wasn’t just sorrow. It was this raw, furious anger, like he’d stolen something from her by dying. A howl that made the air vibrate. Witnessing it, I realized... if that was you, if you were the one left mourning me—” Cait’s voice caught, heavy with grief she had only imagined but already ached from. “It broke something in me to even imagine it.”

A single tear slipped down Vi's cheek, tracing a silvery path. Cait reached for her hand, squeezing it gently.

“I’m sorry,” Cait said, voice cracking just a little. “I didn’t mean to make it so heavy.”

Vi shifted forward, her gaze shining with unshed tears. “Cait…” Her voice trembled, stripped bare of its usual bravado, every syllable blooming from a raw, honest place that felt almost dangerous. She forced a crooked smile—an echo of her old irreverence—some stubborn instinct for levity flickering through the gathering sadness. “Is this your roundabout way of saying you wouldn’t take a bullet for me?” The joke cracked, jagged at the edges, carrying more longing than laughter, but it was all she could give.

Caitlyn leaned in until their foreheads touched, the gesture reverent, as if they were confessing in a chapel of shadows and fading light. She pressed gently, anchoring them both, her breath warm on Vi’s lips as the world beyond their little room faded to a hush broken only by the rain’s soft insistence against the window. Her first kiss was feather-light, hesitant as a question trembling on the brink of revelation; the second, steadier—growing in depth and certainty as their fear and longing coiled tighter, threading between them until it was impossible to tell whose heart beat harder. Outside, the storm petitioned the night, but here, time suspended. In that quiet, Caitlyn’s words tumbled out, honest and sure, “I’m saying I would. Without a single thought. Because I’m selfish, Vi. Because the idea of living without you terrifies me more than anything. So, if that moment comes—if it ever comes—let me be the one. Let me go.”

Vi drew back, just far enough to see her face clearly, lashes spiked with tears and uncertainty. “And if I say no?”

Cait’s laugh spilled out, rough-edged and full of light, the sound both relief and challenge. “Then I’d say you’re too damn stubborn for your own good.”

Vi’s answering laugh was shaky, soaked with tears and rediscovered hope, threading between them like a lifeline in the dark. “Would you rather—”

“Oh god… shut up,” Caitlyn murmured, her voice thick with affection and the tremor of almost-lost things, gathering Vi into her arms again, kissing her with a hunger spiked by desperation—with a promise she pressed into Vi’s mouth, hoping it would be enough.

Apr, 04^th 2024

Vi drifted awake, eyelids fluttering as consciousness tugged her from the depths of a restless dream. Disoriented, she blinked into the faint, silvery light seeping through the cracked windowpane, where a film of frost etched delicate patterns onto the glass. The old wooden floor pressed into her shoulder blades—unyielding and bitterly cold, its warped boards tracing ridges into her skin. She was acutely aware, with a sinking clarity, that she was far from their bed. Drawing a tentative breath, Vi listened to the way it caught in her chest and released it as a sigh so delicate it nearly vanished, dissolving into the atmosphere that filled the room. Echoes of her dreams lingered at the edge of her thoughts, ephemeral as mist, their meanings slipping away each time she tried to grasp them.

Against her side, a pool of warmth broke the chill—a living heat both soft and fiercely reassuring. Caitlyn lay curled close, her form a wiry line of comfort in the scant grey light of dawn. Bare skin glimmered with a muted radiance, defiant against the winter air that nipped at the room’s shadowy corners. Caitlyn’s head rose and fell with each breath against Vi’s chest, her dark hair a tangled, silken curtain spilling across pillows, shoulders, and hips—a braid of sunlight and shadow interwoven with faint traces of lavender, and the lingering perfume of laughter and spilled wine still clinging from the night before. The fire in the old hearth, once bright and crackling, had since surrendered to crumbled ashy embers, painting the air with the memory of warmth. Yet, Caitlyn radiated heat like a captive sun, her presence holding the cold at bay with every drowsy, velvet breath whispered across Vi’s bare skin.

Vi smiled, the hard lines on her face softened in the dawn as she stretched a careful arm down toward the discarded blanket at their feet. The fabric, thick and scratchy, was infused with the comforting scents of woodsmoke, dried lavender sachets, and the faint undertone of clean cotton washed in river water. She pulled it higher, draping it deliberately over Caitlyn’s slender frame, tucking the worn edges beneath her shoulder to shield her from the icy air lurking just beyond their shared heat. Vi’s knuckle traced a languid, reverent line down Caitlyn’s spine, the ridges and hollows memorized in darkness and daylight alike. The movement left Vi’s own shoulder exposed, a prickling shiver racing along her skin where winter’s breath found purchase, but she did not care; it felt like a ritual of closeness, a mute benediction, a silent offering laid before this precious woman resting atop her heart.

Caitlyn stirred, dust motes swirling as she mumbled softly, curls unfurling over Vi's collarbone and throat. Still hovering at the edge of dreams, she pressed closer—her brow knitting, lips pouting in wordless protest, resisting any force that might pull her from Vi’s warmth. She burrowed in, an arm winding possessively around Vi’s waist, slender fingers clutching at her side as if to anchor Vi—anchor them both—to the shifting mattress of the world. Vi pressed her smile into Caitlyn’s tangled hair, drawing in her familiar scent—sun-warmed linen, the sharp clarity of citrus from her shampoo, the soft echo of yesterday’s wine, the fading lavender sachets nestled in the nest of their shared sheets. For one weightless moment, the world with all its restlessness shrank away, leaving only breath and heartbeat and the secrecy of this cocooned, stolen morning.

“Morning,” Vi whispered, her voice still thick and rough with sleep, the words muffled against the soft curve of Caitlyn’s cheek. She pressed a kiss to Caitlyn’s forehead—slow and reverent, lingering as if savouring the moment—feeling the tickle of lashes against her skin and the contented sigh that answered.

“Mmm.” Caitlyn let out a sluggish murmur, her body shifting just enough so that one brilliant blue eye emerged from beneath a tousle of dark hair and settled lazily on Vi’s face, noses nearly brushing. “Mornin’, beautiful,” she slurred, lips curving in a crooked, not-quite-awake smile that deepened the dimple in her cheek. “Sleep well?”

Vi began to reply, but Caitlyn eased out one long, elegant leg from beneath the tangled blanket, wincing as her toes brushed the icy floorboards. “Next time,” Caitlyn muttered, voice drowsy but touched with mock indignation, “maybe we actually head to the bed.”

Vi’s sleepy laugh vibrated low between them, warm and full of affection. “What, and give up the joy of you complaining about me taking too long?” Vi half-sat up, the blanket slipping from her broad shoulders as she prepared to get up.

Caitlyn managed a drowsy snort, but her grip around Vi tightened, possessive and protective. “You so much as move an inch, I’ll turn into an icicle, so just don’t,” she warned, voice hushed and conspiratorial, every word fanned softly against Vi’s bare collarbone. For a fleeting breath, Vi let herself imagine the impossible: a whole life built on mornings like this—sharing slivers of dawn, tucking into each other’s warmth, weaving an unspoken rebellion against the cold indifference of the world outside.

The silence pressed in again, thick and cocooning as the old wool blanket around them, punctuated only by the easy rhythm of their breathing and, from somewhere beyond misted windowpanes, the rough cawing of magpies scavenging through crusts of tree barks. Vi’s fingertips traced lazy, reverent circles across the gentle slope of Caitlyn’s back, cataloguing the subtle ridges of vertebrae and the sinewy grace of muscle beneath delicate skin—a cartographer memorizing the topography of home anew.

Eventually, Caitlyn lifted her face, cheeks flushed with warmth, eyes uncertain. “What time did you say we need to leave?”

Vi combed through Caitlyn’s hair with gentle fingers, tucking a strand behind her ear. “I was thinking noon. Maybe if we leave early enough, we will beat the traffic.”

Caitlyn’s nose wrinkled adorably, a solemn pout forming on her lips, her blue eyes wide with playful plea—somewhere between a storm cloud and a summer sky. “Do we have to?” she whispered, her tone plaintive. “Can’t we just… stay here?”

Vi’s smile ached, tenderness blooming in her heart like a second sunrise. With her thumb, she traced the soft angle of Caitlyn’s cheek, pausing at the faint freckle near her jaw—a secret star she’d catalogued in the darkness a hundred times. “That sounds perfect, Cait,” she murmured. “If only.”

Caitlyn chewed her lower lip, gaze skittering to the ceiling beams, before pressing closer into Vi’s embrace, suddenly shy. “Vi?” she began, voice uncertain but thick with hope, “Move in with me.”

A ripple of surprise quivered through Vi—a tremor felt down to her toes. Her breath caught; the world contracted to the gentle pressure of Caitlyn’s palm splayed across her heart.

“Are you sure?” Vi whispered, her words trembling on the edge of fear and longing—prayers she scarcely recognized as her own.

Caitlyn’s answering smile was sunlight, radiant and sure. “Why not?”

Vi laughed—a bright, infectious sound that scattered the remnants of cold and night. She cupped Caitlyn’s face between her palms, rough thumbs brushing over flushed cheeks. “You’re certain?” 

Caitlyn answered not with words, but with a kiss, soft as a sigh, sealing the promise between them. For a heartbeat, their world was reduced to this single, tender moment—limbs entwined, hearts pressed close under the patchwork blanket, the first light of forever trickling through the cracked old window.

-

Apr, 23^rd 2024

As soon as they returned from Ionia, Caitlyn and Vi plunged headlong into the search for a place that they could call theirs. When Caitlyn had first asked, Vi had assumed that Caitlyn had meant her Vi to move into Caitlyn’s apartment. But Caitlyn, ever full of surprises, shook her head. “I want something new,” she’d said softly, her hand finding Vi’s. “A home that’s ours, that we chose together.”

But house-hunting, as Vi expected, turned out to be a riddle they couldn’t solve in one stroke.

Every viewing unravelled into laughter or affectionate squabbles as they uncovered new deal-breakers. One place had a view to die for, but the price tag made Vi’s brow raise and whistle low in disbelief. “You know I can cover a little extra,” Caitlyn had offered, the words slipping out as naturally as her smile, without a trace of hesitation. Vi only answered with her usual crooked grin and a dismissive shrug, her eyes softening but her resolve unyielding. “Not happening, Cupcake. If we’re doing this, we do it right. Both of us.” Caitlyn sighed, rolling her eyes skyward, but at the end of her breath was acceptance, gentle and absolute.

The next apartment loomed with gleaming surfaces and cold edges, everything too modern for Vi, who balked at stepping over the sterile threshold. The one after reeked of neglect, a desperate maze of peeling paint and creaking floorboards that would require more than just a ‘little’ work to transform into a home.

On a whim, after a week running on the fumes of disappointment, Caitlyn suggested they try looking in Zaun—somewhere nestled between the noisy warmth of their favourite bar and the steady hum of the station. Somewhere that tasted a bit more like home. But each stop came up short: windows rattling in the draft, hallways too cramped to breathe in, or spaces that felt foreign—apartments that could never quite become ‘them.’

Then, on an early afternoon thick with the promise of transformation—a day when city air shimmered above cracked pavement and sunlight danced on glass—Vi found herself alone behind the bar. She worked elbow-deep in fragrant soapsuds, wiping stubborn fingerprints from pint glasses, all the while humming a half-remembered song off-key, its melody braided with the unhurried clatter of preparation. Her phone buzzed against the scarred wooden counter, its screen lighting up with Caitlyn’s message: tantalizingly brief. Just a time. An address. No explanation. No sign-off.

Heat prickled along Vi’s neck as her curiosity sparked to life, a jolt running beneath her skin. She finished her chores with urgent precision, hands moving quicker with every heartbeat. After locking up, she stepped into the street, letting the city’s pulse blur into the background as she walked, sneakers tapping in time to her anticipation. The GPS shepherded her away from the bustle, down quieter lanes where sunlight dappled cracked sidewalks and potholes. Soon, the asphalt gave way to a narrow earthen path edged with wildflowers—foxgloves, Queen Anne’s lace, and yellow daisies swaying in the mellow breeze, nodding at her like old friends. The air here was sweeter, tinged with loam and the whisper of grasshopper wings.

At the path’s end nestled a cottage that seemed more grown than built, its roof thick with tangled ivy and moss, rosebushes spilling in wild pink blooms around the doorway, petals scattered like confetti on the flagstone.

On the porch, sunlight caught in Caitlyn’s hair, crowning her in a halo of gold. Her hands were tucked coyly behind her back, and there was a secretive curve to her mouth, as if holding the final punchline of a joke. When Vi’s footsteps crunched onto the gravel, Caitlyn met her gaze and grinned, drawing forth a jingling set of keys, letting them glitter between her fingers and the sun. “You made it,” she said, her voice bright and edged with a tremor of nerves that made Vi’s heart stutter.

Vi’s grin was all swagger. “Well, how could I resist a summons from Piltover’s finest?” she teased, letting her voice curl around affection.

Caitlyn glanced down at the keys, her cheeks warming with a delicate flush. “Grayson is selling this place,” she said, her voice edged with a shy excitement that didn’t quite mask her nerves. “She knew we were looking for somewhere new, so she handed me the keys and told us we should take a look.”

“Then what are we waiting for?” Vi grinned, her impatience bubbling over as she plucked the keys from Caitlyn’s hand and slid them into the lock, her fingers brushing over the worn brass with anticipation.

Inside, the cottage welcomed them with a kind of patient grace—floorboards crooned contentedly beneath their footsteps, each groan and sigh telling stories of years gone by. Sunlight spilled through gauzy curtains, pooling on the timeworn planks in ragged patches of gold, like syrup poured over old wood. The air was laced with the calming scent of lavender, underscored by a deeper, indefinable note—dusty books, maybe, or the lingering traces of someone’s laughter and sorrow. It felt lived in, forgiving, and Vi felt instantly anchored, as if invisible threads tied her to this moment, to this place, to Caitlyn.

Moving as if in a gentle dance, the two women wandered in tandem, their fingertips trailing across the age-softened wood of doorframes and mantels, tracing the grooves cut by years of use. They whispered over paint chipped by time, read the stories of careless knocks and careful repairs, lingered over shelves left slightly askew, crowded with the detritus of someone else’s history. Vi led the way into the kitchen, her eyes wide and sparkling with possibility, voice light with teasing. “Imagine all the dinners you could burn in here.” Caitlyn just grinned, her eyes rolling as she gave Vi a playful nudge in the ribs. “I’ll remember that next time you’re too tired to cook and come begging.”

The kitchen opened up into a living room, small but not cramped—a place that seemed to invite secrets and shared silences. It was comfortable. Intimate. The kind of room that might ring with laughter on stormy evenings or settle into gentle quiet during long, companionable nights. Down the hallway, sunlight pulled them toward a waiting sunroom, its windows dusted with golden garden light and leafy shadows waving on the floorboards. The larger bedroom was lined with built-in shelves, half-empty and gathering dust in eager anticipation, as if yearning for all the novels they’d stack, or the mismatched knickknacks that would soon mark this patch of earth as truly theirs. Caitlyn spun plans aloud: “My books here…your gloves there…plants in every window. You think we could fit two armchairs by that nook?” Vi’s reply was a smirk: “Only if one’s big enough for both of us.”

They drifted to the second bedroom, the air thick with potential.

Here, in the smaller room, dust motes hung suspended in the drowsy afternoon light. Caitlyn lingered, running her fingertips along the faded blue wallpaper, the pattern ghosting beneath her touch. “We could turn this into a gym or an office—at least for now,” she murmured, her voice gentle, barely above a whisper that took its time settling over them.

Vi edged closer, a glint of teasing mischief in her eyes. “Yeah? Until what?”

Caitlyn’s hand stilled; there was a pause, as though she weighed the next words. “Until we have a child,” she said, and the admission unfurled in the silent room.

Vi blinked, momentarily at a loss, caught by a sudden gravity. “A child?”

Caitlyn’s laugh trembled through the stillness, bright and a little shaky, carrying hope. “I only plan to do labour once—if you want more than that, it’s all you.”

The idea—wild, strangely possible, impossibly sweet—rooted itself in Vi’s heart. She imagined small feet chasing sunlight across the floorboards, the thump of giggles and stumbles echoing under the beams. She saw sleepy Sunday mornings, rumpled sheets tangled around warm bodies, dreams seeded in every dusty corner and growing with them, soft and certain.

If only. 

At the front door once more, Caitlyn hesitated, nerves glinting in her eyes—hope as fresh and fragile as a soap bubble, trembling in the sun. “Well?” she asked, breathless after all these imagined futures. “Do you see it—us—here?”

Vi let her gaze roam through the cottage one last time. She saw it all: warmth layered over wildness, the gentle mess of life, shared meals, books half-read, sleepy goodnights spoken in the threshold’s shadow—a tapestry of their lives beginning to twine thread by thread. Her answer came instinctively, fierce and certain as gravity. “When can we move in?”

Caitlyn’s joy shattered the last of her composure, her face breaking open like dawn. She laughed, a sound clear and sudden, and launched herself into Vi’s arms, nearly knocking them both against the sun-struck wall. Their laughter spiralled up to the old beams, filled the hollow spaces, and spilled down the empty hallway—a promise, echoing, bright and undeniable, sealing the house with the sound of beginnings.

“I’ll put in an offer,” Caitlyn managed, cheeks flushed with triumph and hope.

Chapter Text

May 07, 2024

It was officially move-in day.

Finally.

Vi, as she had fully expected, hadn’t slept well the night before. How could she? How could she, when her mind spun ceaselessly, a churning storm of anticipation and excitement—the sort that caught in her chest and fluttered, wild and insistent, beneath her ribs? How could her body rest when every muscle vibrated with the union of nerves and elation, her skin buzzing as if the night itself hummed with possibility? The constant anxiety that had lived within her for the past five months clung to her like an old wound, refusing to let her surrender to happiness fully or wholeheartedly. And still—Caitlyn’s voice rang in her memory, full of conviction, since the purchase calling the cottage their forever home. The place they would grow and blossom. Vi wanted to believe it, wanted to taste that word and let it linger, but deep down she knew: their forever, the forever Caitlyn was talking about, was perilously brief—

No.

She cut off the thought, clenched it between her teeth and pushed it aside. Not now. Not when the thrill churned higher than the fear, when the fire in her chest felt like lightning, a bright and effervescent excitement snapping in her veins, persistent no matter how her brain tried to douse it. Every hour—every second—before dawn stretched out elastic and aching, pulled tight with longing so sweet it bordered on pain. This wasn’t just any move. She was moving in with Caitlyn. Her best friend. Her partner. Her person. The knowledge sparked and sizzled through her blood, leaving her grinning in the dark, feet kicking at the tangled sheets as she imagined all the small and sprawling pieces of a future together, no matter how fragile it might be.

She was determined—she would make the most of this.

She was determined not to let fate ruin what was now.

Most of her life—the artifacts of years spent loving and fighting and growing within this space—had already migrated to the cottage: cardboard boxes stacked in silent, patient towers, waiting to spill their secrets into new corners. She imagined Caitlyn next to her, lifting lids and laughing as they discovered pieces of Vi’s oddball history, weaving their lives together one keepsake at a time. The remnants—the everyday necessities—were zipped away in a neatly packed suitcase that she had packed the night before, standing sentinel by the door, the last loyal witness to her final acts in this worn apartment. Even that seemed to buzz with possibility, ready to step into something wonderful.

But even as excitement fizzed beneath her skin, sadness had threaded through each movement, softening her exhale.

Because with every beginning came the shadow of an ending. Today shimmered with that bittersweet finality: not merely the expiration of a lease, but a closing of the only true sanctuary she’d ever crafted for herself, patchwork and imperfect as it was. Behind her lay rooms that bore the stamp of her living—echoing laughter and joy, shelves marked by ambitions realized and abandoned, ghost-voices of heartbreak and healing.

But that was then. Now a new chapter beckoned—one conjured from hope and intention, a tomorrow she believed will be better.

And she, for one, could hardly wait.

Not when she had already had a taste of what was to come.

Though Caitlyn technically still paid rent on her apartment across town, the enforcer’s loyalty had drifted to this little place with Vi, nights when she wasn’t on shift spent tangled in her lover’s warmth, impromptu dances to music only they could hear, and the silent, electric conversations that hovered until the edge of dawn. It had been magical.

Right.

This day, this move, marked something larger than a logistical exchange of boxes or a checked-off to-do list. It was a celebration. They had both received their keys a few days earlier, but no day off had aligned so they agreed to wait to move in until they could walk in together. Most of the heavy lifting was already done. Their closest friends—and even Caitlyn’s parents, who beamed with a bittersweet pride—had happily taken charge of the heavier tasks: moving the furniture they’d painstakingly chosen, arranging framed prints that mattered, draping throws in colours Caitlyn and Vi had argued over and then agreed upon. Now, stacks of half-unpacked boxes lined the entryway and living room, muted and silent, each one waiting patiently to yield its contents. The only downside was that Caitlyn had suggested to spend the night apart. In their own places so today felt more special. Vi could hardly fault Caitlyn for wanting to spend one final night ensconced in her own quiet solitude, in a space soon to belong to memory.

As soon as the first slices of sunlight spilled across a tangle of battered covers, Vi sprang from the blow-up bed as if every morning she’d ever missed had been compressed into this one exhilarating jolt. A fierce, unrestrained energy charged her movements: she snatched up a shirt with only half its buttons clinging on, yanked a pair of socks—one navy, one neon green—from beneath the bed, her hands frantic and clumsy with urgency. Her hair—tangled and wild—was raked back with impatient, trembling fingers, her teeth attacked with a too-hard, too-hasty scrub, her face given a perfunctory swipe from a crumpled cleansing wipe instead of a proper wash. Time pressed on her with an iron hand. The soon she was ready, the sooner she got to see Caitlyn. She swept up her battered, sticker-plastered suitcase in one arm, wrestled the threadbare duvet under the other, then paused just long enough to claim a pastel-striped gift bag crowned with a froth of crinkled tissue paper - inside, a secret something for Caitlyn.

Once assembled, Vi hesitated in the kitchen before she set her single, battered house key on the scratched counter awaiting kickup from her landlord. This was it. The metallic chime of silver against counter rang like a final bell, gentle and final, echoing in the hush that pressed close around her.

All she had to do now was leave.

Vi lingered on the threshold, her gaze skating over the unpainted walls: dappled in the rising sun, decorated once with thumb-tacked notes and crooked sketches from Powder’s childhood, constellations of moments frozen in faded ink and paper. She took in every tiny scar—the dimple where a bookshelf had fallen, the faint ghost of a water ring, the pencilled line halfway up the way that she used to level her framed photos. In those marks dwelled laughter carried into the night, the drum of storm rain against old glass, victories as scrappy and bright as she was. The ache surprised her: a tenderness so fierce she nearly let go of her suitcase just to stand and feel it a little longer.

“It’s been real.” She whispered, her voice echoing in a place she no longer belonged.

The drive to her new home measured fifteen minutes by city standard, but that morning it seemed to stretch on forever. Every red light, every crowded crosswalk, was another breath drawn sharp with hope, another flickering reel of imaginings. Vi pictured Caitlyn waiting—heart beating out of rhythm, pacing on the freshly painted porch, keys spinning nervously around her finger, hope shining behind her eyes while she religiously checked her phone for update of Vi’s arrival.

And as she turned the corner, minutes later that she had planned to,  the street unfurled precisely as it had in a hundred anxious hopes. A sturdy wooden home crouched between sycamores, their branches slick with dew. Caitlyn stood on the worn stone step, bathed in the gentle gold of sunrise, key glinting in her hand, a suitcase twin to Vi’s propped at her feet. Exactly as she imagined her to be.

As soon as Vi was parked and her car door clicked open, Caitlyn’s expression bloomed—her smile too bright for the still silence of morning. Within seconds, she bounded down the steps, coat flying like a cape behind her, and they melted together in the middle of the waking field: arms knotting instinctively around each other, two chords woven from the same song. Caitlyn’s hands gripped Vi’s waist: Vi thrilled to the flutter of Caitlyn’s pulse, the shared heat of breath at her neck as Caitlyn whispered, voice trembling—bright as struck crystal—“Welcome home.”

Vi closed her eyes and let the words crash over her, dissolving the ache of every parting, a sugar-rush of belonging as fierce and fragile as the air around them. She let her suitcase tumble from her grip, surer of Caitlyn’s arms than of gravity itself, desperate to freeze this perfect, impossible suspension in time. They walked towards the cottage arm in arm, Caitlyn’s thumb brushing reverently over the back of Vi’s hand. The front door opened easily on its new hinges, fiberglass singing beneath Caitlyn’s shining key. Their eyes met—sparkling with unspoken laughter and promises frothed up from hope alone—and in the hush between them, a future cracked open: a thousand radiant mornings that belonged only to them.

Before another word could pass Caitlyn’s lips, Vi grinned—mischief brightening her whole face—and swept Caitlyn clear off her feet in a gleeful, overdramatic bridal carry. Caitlyn squealed in delight—silver and ringing, open and pure—her laughter tangling into Vi’s collar as she clung tighter, cheeks flushed a floral pink, as if the promise of summer had gathered there just for them.

“Vi! Oh my god!” Caitlyn gasped, breathless and incredulous.

“What? It’s tradition,” Vi teased, her low laugh spinning around them like a ribbon of music, gentle and fierce and meant for Caitlyn alone.

With Caitlyn pressed laughing against her chest, golden sunlight breaking over the threshold, Vi carried her over into the new world they’d made together—dust motes spiralling like confetti as their feet touched the hardwood. Their first step rang out, heartbeats joined in the hush, and in that suspended breath between stories, adventure sparked: the promise of everything beautiful and fierce and possible still to come.

They had yet to see what their people had done with the place. The pair wanted it to be a surpise.

Already, their friends lingered in the walls—Jayce’s laugh ricocheting off corners still damp with paint; Viktor’s steady craftsmanship imprinted in every trim and handle; Mel’s warnings against clutter embedded in the echo of music; the steady comfort of Caitlyn’s parents and their houseplants, leaving the scent of earth and belonging behind. Where the rooms once sagged in tired yellow, now they pulsed with thoughtful blues, misty greys, and fresh white. The newly polished hardwood winked up at her, fragments of morning catching on each shifting grain. For the first time—maybe ever—Vi felt the landing of a wish: a home built deliberately, not lucked into by accident, but held together by intent and dreams, rooms emptied of old ghosts so the new electric thrum of future could move in.

She knew from that moment - She was home.

-

Later that night, Vi knelt in the heart of their new living room, surrounded by a riotous sea of cardboard boxes—some stacked with careful optimism, others sagging open, trailing scarves of packing tape and unruly wads of newsprint. Each box felt like a small, private universe, packed with the secret weight of memory and lingering possibility: the old blue mug chipped on one side, or the scarf Caitlyn had knit during the long, snowy lockdown, smelling faintly still of vanilla and woodsmoke. With cautious reverence, Vi unfurled a delicate lampshade from its cocoon of crumpled paper, her hands steady and slow, as though every object might yet reveal the secret alchemy that would turn frenzy into sanctuary. She set it aside like a blessing, in a patch beside a half-assembled bookshelf.

From the kitchen, the familiar lilt of Caitlyn’s humming drifted in, winding through the mellow hush: the tune soft, sly, punctuated by spontaneous trills that summoned vivid pictures of drowsy summer evenings, the slow choreography of dinners prepared hand-in-hand, and laughter echoing through rooms they had yet to make memories in. Moonlight splashed through the freshly cleaned windows in silver shafts, lighting up swirling dust motes that danced on the citrus-edged air—the scent from this afternoon fevered scrub filling the house with the bright effervescence of beginnings. Their bedroom was already a hushed nest, tangled sheets and muffled laughter layered over something tender, the bathroom scrubbed new and sparkling, but here—amidst the inviting tumble of clutter—Vi’s heart beat fast, thrilled by the mess. This was the heart of their home taking shape: a mosaic of ambition and compromise, stitched together by hope and love.

Earlier that day, before the first roll of tape screeched from cardboard or the inevitable hunt for misplaced trinkets, Vi had walked silently out to the car while the Caitlyn was unpacking in the spare room. The grass was cool beneath her sock covered foot, late morning fog curling at her ankles. Her hands cradled a small, unassuming package, its weight more emotional than material. Navigating the fortress of boxes, Vi tucked the parcel deep behind their sofa—a fresh purchase, still smelling sharply of new fabric, the one they’d chosen after hours of gentle debate at the warehouse. Mischief bubbled in her chest as she imagined Caitlyn’s inescapable curiosity—her brow furrowing, mouth twisting wryly. Vi had to bite down on a laugh, tongue pressed to her teeth. She hid the gift and her anticipation both, content to let them wait for just the right moment.

Now, evening was here and Vi was ready. It was time. Caitlyn’s silhouette was framed within the walls of the kitchen, elegant and vital, her arms stretched as she unpacked a nest of crystal glasses wrapped in faded newspaper from three birthdays ago. For a moment, Vi lingered in the doorway, caught by the beauty of it: Caitlyn aglow in the slanting light, hair a wild cloud of fire, cheeks flushed from effort and happiness, moving through the kitchen as if she’d lived there for ages. Every gesture was sure, graceful, as she arranged glasses beside the battered cast iron kettle—a vision of belonging so intense it made Vi’s chest ache. She just watched, letting this living painting etch itself into memory: Caitlyn humming, moonlight curling through tousled curls, the world collapsed to that cosy, secret place where only the two of them existed.

Quiet as a breeze worried through curtains, Vi stepped into the kitchen, the wrapped gift hidden behind her back. Circling behind Caitlyn, she pressed close, fitting herself to the subtle arch of her lover’s back, arms winding around her waist with practiced ease. Her palms flattened over the soft cotton of Caitlyn’s shirt, fingers splaying wide as if to catch and hold the warmth diffusing from within. Surprised, Caitlyn gave a delighted, unguarded laugh—a sound of pure joy—her body yielding into Vi’s embrace. Grinning, Vi pressed her lips to Caitlyn’s cheek, scattering slow, affectionate kisses along the curve of her jaw, breathing in the familiar blend of expensive perfume and the faintest notes of lavender that always seemed cling to Caitlyn’s hair.

“I have something for you,” Vi whispered, her voice low and rich with mischief, as she produced the bag from behind her back.

Caitlyn turned in her arms, blue eyes wide and shining in surprise, eyebrows arching in playful rebuke and open wonder. “Vi… I thought we agreed on no gifts?” she breathed, but the words danced with something tender, almost reverent. Her hands shook—just enough to betray anticipation—as she unfolded the colourful paper, its whisper soft in the hush, and peeled away the layers of wrapping to reveal an old wooden photo frame.

As Caitlyn parted the final filmy tissue and glimpsed the photograph within, her carefully cultivated composure shattered. Laughter shimmered on the threshold of tears, even as her voice was caught somewhere between a gasp and a sob. Reverently, she ran her fingers along the photograph’s edges, the motion slow and hesitant, as though afraid the fragile slip of memory might vanish if she so much as blinked. Shock and joy warred across her features, mingling into something too raw to name.  “Vi… where did you find this?”

Vi’s eyes softened, their usual fire banked by something gentler. She folded herself into the artificial light, gaze distant and almost glassy as she studied the photograph. It was the two of them at thirteen: awkward and vulnerable, caught in a moment of unguarded happiness. Caitlyn’s birthday, in the gardens of the Kiramman family estate—the fountain standing in the distance, laughter echoing despite no walls to bind them. Vi remembered the precise, needle-fine disquiet of that day: her borrowed dress shirt creased and itching, blazer ripped and two sizes too big, shoes that scuffed with every anxious step, every inch of her a careless rebellion in carefully pressed clothes. She had been sure the invitation was a mistake, or worse, an experiment in charity—one destined to end in pointed smiles and silent condemnation. 

She saw it all in the photograph, memory rising unbidden: Her fingers drummed a jittery rhythm against her knees, silent punctuation to every spike of nerves. All around, rangy light skittered across the room, catching on the soft clusters of Caitlyn’s and Vi's classmates—a sea of Piltovian girls, clustered like petals, their laughter sharp and crystalline, all tulle and pearls and innocence balanced on the knife edge of childhood. Their eyes carved out quick judgments, lips pressed into shapes of restrained curiosity, and not a single one had offered Vi even a nervous hello. Not that she wanted it, not really. It was easier to push herself smaller, to shrink into the hard curve of her shoulders—hoping she could disappear before anyone noticed her.

All the while, Vi waited for the moment of dismissal—for the thin-lipped Kiramman matriarch to ask her and Vander to slip out quietly, ensuring presence didn’t taint the afternoon’s perfection. But the moment never came. An hour passed, slow and heavy as molasses, until something shifted in the air.

Caitlyn, radiant but visibly uncomfortable, her white dress pristine but awkward, finally peered through the velvet crush of expectation. Her long fingers fidgeted with the threads of her skirt, motion restless, as she extricated herself from the gravity well of her entourage—the pastel-ribboned girls with their brittle smiles, the delicate cascade of compliments and half-heard secrets woven through the room. With a hesitant boldness, she crossed the lacquered expanse and claimed the chair beside Vi, abandoning her audience in a gesture that bordered on rebellion. Vi stiffened, braced for the perfunctory kindness or the surgical cruelty she was certain was coming. In all their weeks at school together, Caitlyn and Vi had exchanged barely two words—a passing nod, a glance that skittered away before it could mean anything. Why she was here was beyond her. Vi told herself she didn’t care, but her knuckles whitened, betraying the truth.

She did. She wanted companionship. She wanted friends. Above all, she just wanted to fit in.

“Why are you here?” Vi muttered under her breath when the girl sat but did not speak, the words rough-edged with suspicion. “Aren’t you supposed to be off playing princess?”

Caitlyn blinked, wounded at the edges but regaining her footing with surprising swiftness. She slouched, gaze drifting over the decadent sweep of the room—balloons with large numbers straining toward the ceiling, a pile of unopened gifts stacked haphazardly, like relics of someone else’s celebration. “This wasn’t my idea. My mother planned all of it,” Caitlyn said, her voice slipping into a quieter register, trembling at the edges with honesty. The words hovered between them, a truce offered without pretence; in that instant, Vi saw past Caitlyn’s polish—a girl as trapped as she was, squeezed between expectation and defiance, desperate to be seen for more than her surname.

Vi let out a snorting laugh, half deflection and half disbelief. “Figured it wouldn’t be good enough for a spoiled Piltover princess,” she said, feigning bravado. “What were you hoping for? Horse-drawn carriage? Gold-”

Caitlyn hesitated—then something like longing glinted in her eyes. “Actually, I wanted laser tag,” she murmured. The confession was abrupt and surprising. She rolled her eyes, a flush creeping up her cheeks. “But my mother called it improper. Said it was undignified for a Kiramman.”

Struck dumb, Vi blinked at her. For a moment she only saw the outline of this supposedly perfect girl heavy with her own disappointments. Caitlyn did not look like someone who fantasized about running wild, swapping luxury for neon vests and plastic blasters. Vi herself had only ever dreamed of playing—not in glossy arenas, but in the back alleys of Zaun, where the stakes were always real.

“Laser tag?” Vi repeated, unfamiliar laughter creeping into her voice.

Caitlyn’s mouth tilted into something hesitant yet hopeful. “Yeah. You know, with those-”

“I know what laser tag is, princess.”

Caitlyn’s eyes darted down, suddenly sheepish. “Didn’t mean to sound like I thought you didn’t.”

And for the first time, the tension between them loosened—just a fraction, but enough to catch the faintest glimmer of possibility. Impulsively, Vi reached across the brittle gap between chairs, seizing Caitlyn’s elegant, unguarded hand. “Come on birthday girl,” she urged, a lopsided grin splitting her face.

Caitlyn’s eyes widened, a laugh bursting out before she could stop it. “Are you serious? What if someone notices?” Vi shrugged, her smirk widening.

“Let them. They’ll probably blame me anyway. Gotta put the ‘bad influence’ title to good use.”

They darted from the stuffy air of the party, out the French doors and into the sunlight-dappled garden. The fresh-cut grass swallowed the sound of their escape as their skirts tangled and their bodies twisted. Caitlyn’s porcelain veneer splintered beneath every slide and stumble; grass stains bloomed wildly across her dress, her copper hair crackled with stray leaves, childlike and free. Vi barrelled ahead, sneakers kicking up dirt, gleefully reckless. “Tag! You’re it!” she called behind her, voice ringing bright as spring water. Caitlyn stood gaping for a moment, then launched after her, shoes flying, laughter chasing the sun.

For a few precious minutes, there were no expectations, no walls. They were just girls—young, unruly lives colliding, the boundaries between Piltover and Zaun dissolving in the golden haze of a stolen afternoon. Somewhere behind them, half-hidden and indulgently amused, Vander lifted his battered camera and caught it all on film: Vi, limbs akimbo and daring the world to catch her; Caitlyn, windblown and wild, trailing in pursuit, her face alive with fearless joy and something brighter still—a promise that, in that perfect moment, they had truly seen each other.

“Powder found it,” Vi said now, her voice a quiet warmth threaded with the gravity of memory. “Digging through Vander’s attic for baby things. She came across the old box.” She smiled then, a touch fierce, a touch wistful. “She wanted you to have it.”

Caitlyn’s fingers trembled over the glass, her face open and luminous—each emotion flickering like dawn on a lake. Her laugh came soft, a little uneven, threaded with awe. “We were such small,” she whispered. “It—” She faltered, overcome, and Vi drew her closer, thumb grazing a tear from Caitlyn’s cheek.

“Feels like yesterday,” Vi said quietly, tucking a wild curl behind Caitlyn’s ear, knuckles sliding softly along her jaw.

Caitlyn pressed into her hand, letting Vi’s steadiness ground her. “It does.” She pressed her brow to Vi’s, breath mingling, eyes closing as the memory thrummed between them—sharp and golden, undimmed.

Hand in hand, they drifted back to the living room, arms still tangled, clutching the photograph between their joined palms. They found an empty stretch of wall just where the afternoon sun spilled warmest, and in that hush woven of promise and recollection, Caitlyn hung the frame. It caught the light, glinting softly—a relic of their past and the first anchor of what would be a new home. For a long, golden moment they stood there, wrapped in sunlight and each other’s arms, letting the memory spool out to fill every corner: laughter, belonging, and the kind of quiet, complete love that could make anywhere feel—irrevocably, tenderly—like coming home.

MAY, 14^th 2024

Vi stepped out of the bathroom, steam curling around her in ghostly tendrils, veiling her silhouette in a dreamy haze. A towel, loosely slung over her collarbones, bared the clean lines of her shoulders while stray beads of water mapped glimmering paths down her arms and spine. Each droplet left behind shimmering constellations on the polished hardwood—tiny, iridescent echoes of her wake. The air was thick with the herbal tang of wild thyme and the sweet, heady aroma of coconut shampoo, clinging to Vi’s skin as she raked the towel through her haphazard curls, taming them into dark, glistening spirals that kissed her cheeks and brow.

From across the softly lit room, she stole a glance at Caitlyn. Propped against the carved oak headboard, Caitlyn sat cocooned amid red sheets, her striped pyjamas crisp and sharply tailored, blue and white bands stark against the silk. Her knees were drawn up beneath the duvet—a hidden bulwark of comfort—while the persistent glow of the bedside lamp bathed her sculpted cheekbones and the elegant line of her jaw in honeyed light. Her glasses had slipped artfully to the tip of her nose, the hardcover novel slack in her hands, its brittle spine barely cradled—forgotten, as all her attention settled on Vi.

A long, deep breath escaped Vi, crackling with contentment, as she stepped barefoot onto the cool boards. Every muscle in her frame hummed with the afterglow of exertion—half-tingle, half-dull ache—that reminded her she had pushed herself just a little too far. She flung the damp towel over a brass rack near the bed, but as she shifted, a sudden jolt of pain flared sharply beneath the skin of her right shoulder, an unwelcome ember left from earlier sweat and strain. Grimacing, she rolled her shoulder, hopeful the tension would dissipate, but before stoicism could settle over her face, she caught Caitlyn’s gaze sharpening with concern.

Not missing a beat, Caitlyn snapped her book closed, placing it gently on the nightstand with a kind of habitual reverence—only ever reserved for delicate things and, lately, for Vi herself.

“What’s wrong?” Caitlyn asked, her voice a velvet ribbon laced with worry, each syllable falling in that low, lilting accent—gentle but laden with insistence, like silk against skin at midnight.

Vi tried for bravado, quirking a half-smile, her eyes glinting with ill-concealed pain. “Just the usual,” she shrugged, casual as a daredevil bluffing a wound. “Shoulder’s being stubborn again.”

Caitlyn’s brow arched with aristocratic scepticism, but her expression melted, impossibly fond. “Lie down,” she instructed—soft with concern, the note of command so understated that resistance seemed almost childish.

Vi surrendered with exaggerated drama, grinning as she dropped herself onto the bed, sprawling belly-down across the mussed duvet. The pillow beneath her cheek was crisp and faintly cool, perfumed with the familiar floral-and-clean linen scent that always lingered around Caitlyn—a soothing, domestic warmth that banished the world beyond their walls. The quiet shuffle of drawers and the gentle creak of springs followed as Caitlyn crossed the room, nimble hands seeking the small cobalt glass bottle on the dresser. A sudden haze of lavender oil filled the air, calming and thick as dusk.

With the poised grace of a dancer, Caitlyn settled astride Vi’s hips—her knees bracketing Vi’s body with practiced intimacy. Gone was their usual banter and teasing, replaced now by a hush brimming with anticipation as Caitlyn’s hands met skin. Her palms, warm and deft, slicked with oil, pressed into the knots beneath Vi’s shoulder blades, her thumbs moving with patient insistence, working at tension spun into muscle and sinew.

“If this is my reward for getting banged up,” Vi mumbled, spreading her arms in mock surrender, “I may have to start getting injured more often.”

Caitlyn clicked her tongue, the sound softened by a bemused smile curving her lips. “Don’t tempt fate, Violet.” Her fingers glided to the stubborn knot, digging with gentle precision.

This time, Vi let out a guttural sigh—half-laughter, half-release—sinking deeper into the mattress. Normally, pride would have sealed her lips, made her posture stiff and unyielding, but Caitlyn’s ministrations dissolved all instinct for armour. The rhythm of Caitlyn’s hands became a lullaby in motion—tender and exact, sweeping across shoulders and down the sculpted valleys of Vi’s back, scattering ripples of warmth and safety where pain had lived. Each stroke kneaded away not just soreness, but hardship—unthreading the day’s knotted worries until only languid comfort remained. Vi’s eyelids drooped, her breathing slowing to a gentle tide as laughter, lavender, and love grew thick in the golden-lit air.

Gradually, as slumber began to pull at Vi’s consciousness, Caitlyn’s touch lightened—fingers trailing ghost-like over the cartography of ink that adorned Vi’s shoulder blades. Her fingertips hovered over the tattoo: a latticework of gears and fine, precise lines, where mechanical sharpness dissolved into something living, warm, and utterly personal.

“You never did tell me what made you choose these,” Caitlyn whispered, her words hovering as delicately as her touch. 

Vi angled her head, letting the lamplight gild the bare curves of their faces. “Powder designed it,” Vi answered, each syllable plucked from the depths of memory. “When we were kids, she’d draw for hours—she was always seeing hidden connections, threads nobody else could spot. After our parents died, she told me I was her person. The gear that kept it all together when everything fell apart. She drew this for me—I kept it in my wallet until... Eventually, I realized it belonged somewhere permanent.”

Caitlyn’s fingers traced reverent, circling paths over the tattoo, almost as if she could feel Powder’s spirit stitched into every line. “It’s beautiful,” she breathed, her voice trembling with awe and something softer, more personal.

Vi’s mouth pulled into a small, wry smile. “Why the sudden curiosity?”

Caitlyn hesitated, her fingertips sketching airy arcs along Vi’s back, an openness flickering in her gaze—rare, childlike. “I’ve wondered for a long time,” she admitted quietly. “And… I’ve been thinking.”

At that, a spark of interest brightened Vi’s bleary features, drowsiness dissolving. “Thinking about what?”

Caitlyn bit her lip, that mask of composure slipping so she seemed almost shy, like a schoolgirl poised to confess a secret. “Getting a tattoo myself. I’ve admired yours—all of them. The stories behind them. But I never found something that felt right… until now.”

Vi propped herself up, curiosity kindling into delight, searching Caitlyn’s eyes. “What changed?”

Caitlyn’s smile was slow to build, mysterious and unbearably sweet. Her fingers circled once, tenderly, at the small of Vi’s back. “Sometimes, you find something—or someone—worth marking yourself for. Worth carrying with you. I think I have.”

Vi rolled onto her side, eyes shining with anticipation. “So? Are you going to tell me what—or who—that is?”

But Caitlyn merely leaned in, laughter threaded through her next words, low and fond as a caress. “You’ll just have to wait and see.”

May, 21^st 2024

Vi came home from work, weariness draped across her shoulders like an old, familiar coat, heavy enough to press her spine downward. The city’s echoes—hurried footsteps on concrete, the distant wail of sirens, the relentless push of strangers’ arguments—still lingered on her skin, an invisible residue she couldn't quite shake. Only when she stepped inside, exhaling as she kicked off battered boots and let her keys fall with a metallic clatter that shattered the hush of the entryway, did the tension begin to slip from her frame. “Cait?” she called, voice tender with longing, coaxing sanctuary from the quiet shadows that lined the hallway.

Muted lamplight poured into golden puddles across the familiar, honeyed hardwood, catching on the spines of scattered novels and a denim jacket draped haphazardly over the arm of an old corduroy chair. A gentle, lived-in disarray softened the edges of the room, a testament to the comfort they were building together, and the sight always made Vi’s chest loosen in relief. Deeper inside, the sultry croon of jazz curled from the stereo, a trumpet weaving smoky ribbons through the dimness while a piano lingered underneath—plush, inviting, patient. Jazz and the city: the soundtrack to Vi’s evenings, but rendered here new and intimate by the warmth of home. Threaded through the music came another invitation: the rich aroma of garlic and rosemary, underscored with the buttery suggestion of something simmering low and slow on the stove. Hunger nudged her fatigue aside, sharpening her senses, her stomach twisting with pleasant anticipation—craving not just food, but comfort.

Tracing the wall as she walked, fingertips running along the textured paint and the little dings in the corners—marking each place Cait’s laughter had echoed, where they'd cuddled, argued or simply existed—Vi moved quietly through the house, drawn deeper by the flicker of candlelight. The dining table, usually buried beneath unchecked papers, had been transformed: tall ivory candles spilled milky halos onto the tablecloth, their gentle flames setting the crystal and ceramic aglow. A basket lined with linen cradled still-warm, crusty bread; beside it, a small bowl of marinated olives gleamed like black jewels, their oil pooling in delicate reflections; a plate of cheeses—creamy brie, sharp cheddar, peppered goat—circled with halved figs that glistened in honey. Every detail whispered intention and care, turning the ordinary into quiet celebration. For a heartbeat Vi could only stand and stare, heart tripping in her chest at the romance conjured from everyday things, gratitude simmering through her.

At the stove, Caitlyn moved with a gentle grace, hips swaying to the pulse of the music, her movements practiced and unhurried. Strands of navy hair had escaped her hasty topknot, catching the candlelight in coppery halos around her face as she stirred a thick, velvet sauce in her beloved chipped blue ceramic pot. Steam curled around her in slow, opalescent ribbons, softening the kitchen’s lines and painting her skin in gold, as if she were some benevolent hearth goddess conjured to life by love and a little butter. The faint, bright perfume of lemongrass clung to her as she turned, cheeks flushed pink by effort and welcome heat.

Vi blinked, the magnitude of Caitlyn’s gesture leaving her raw and wordless, “What did I do to deserve this?” She breathed, reverence thickening her tone, gratitude swelling behind her ribs until it ached for release. 

Caitlyn met her eyes, candlelight sparking gold in ocean depths warm enough to melt every sour note the city had left behind. “I just wanted to surprise you,” she said, a shy pride tucking at the corners of her mouth, “You’ve seemed tired over the phone so I thought i'd do something nice for you. Go shower—dinner will be ready in ten."

Some things couldn’t wait. Vi crossed the linoleum in three hungry strides, closing the distance for a kiss that lingered—soft, slow, a promise to savour, to stay. The scent of warmth and lemon, familiar and intoxicating, wrapped around her; Cait leaned into Vi’s touch, the day’s exhaustion dissolving between them, traded for something sweeter and far quieter. “Be right back."

In the shower, hot water cascaded over her, battering the crust of city and work from her skin, drumming against tense shoulders until her muscles began to unknot, surrendering at last. Steam enveloped her, cloaking the world in white, shrinking life down to the pulse of her heartbeat, the soft hush of water, the imagined taste of Caitlyn’s cooking. Swaddled in a towel that smelled faintly of cotton detergent, Vi regarded her pile of worn sweats—habitual, safe. Tonight, though, something inside her tugged her higher, toward hope. She pulled on dark jeans that hugged the curve of her hips, found a crisp white button-up with its sleeves rolled to her elbows, and swept her fingers through damp hair, taming stray waves into something simple but true. If Caitlyn had conjured this pocket of welcome, she would at least try to meet her halfway.

The dining room dazzled when she returned. Caitlyn’s eyes glittered as she laid the last fork in place, her smile so real and open it made something inside Vi ache. Possessed by a playful urge, Vi swept in and pulled out Cait’s chair with exaggerated flourish, adding a theatrical bow for good measure.

“For you, my lady,” she intoned, pitching her voice low and courtly.

Cait rolled her eyes, but her mouth curved into a grin she couldn’t contain, pink blooming prettily on her cheeks in the candlelit glow. “Oh, such a gentlewoman,” she laughed, but slipped gracefully into her seat, the moment thickening with quiet joy.

They drifted through dinner on easy currents of conversation, letting the world outside fall away. They traded the small victories and stumbles of their day, let private jokes tumble between them until everything difficult shrank, reduced to something harmless by shared laughter. Every forkful, every torn piece of bread spread with cheese and honey, every olive savoured for its sharp brine, became a communion all their own. Under the table, Cait’s bare foot nudged Vi’s, sometimes gently teasing, sometimes only reassuring—a silent, wordless language composed of touch and intention and history.

When the plates were cleared, the candle wax dripping low and translucent and the last of the wine shimmering ruby in their glasses, possibility crackled in the space between them. Caitlyn grew quiet, her bubbling laughter slipping away, replaced by a nervous undercurrent. Her fingers traced the rim of her glass in slow, concentric circles, until—finally—her words spilled free, “I did it."

Vi stilled, “Did what?”

Cait searched her face, vulnerability flickering like candlelight in her eyes, unguarded and true. “Last week, when I told you about finally getting that tattoo?” She let out a breath, shakier than she meant. “I did it. Today.”

For a moment Vi could only stare, her heart racing bright and wild, “Can I see it?”

Instead of answering, Caitlyn pushed her chair back, her face blooming pink as she shrugged out of her cardigan. Her hands, slightly unsteady, found the hem of her shirt and gently lifted it along with her camisole, revealing the delicate curve of her left ribcage. There, stitched into her skin as if by magic, was a chain of violets—each petal and leaf rendered with exquisite care, the colours soft yet vibrant. The violets nestled close, trembling with an illusion of life, as if a breeze might rouse them to gentle sway.

Vi drew in a shaky breath, transfixed by more than the art. She saw what lay beneath—the story, the intention. A swell of pride and wonder and a protective tenderness so fierce it nearly made her tremble.

“Cait…” she managed, the word shimmering with hope and awe.

Arms folded near her heart, Cait’s voice quivered. “Do you like it?”

Vi moved to her, almost without thinking, and settled her hands at Cait’s hips, feeling warmth and nerves simmering through denim. She gazed into Caitlyn’s luminous eyes, then bent to press a reverent, lingering kiss just below the fresh ink, where the skin was unmarked and impossibly soft. The moment shivered, a vow carried in touch as much as breath. “Like it?” she murmured, lips brushing the delicate slope. “It’s… wow.”

Caitlyn’s laughter rippled out, warm and airy, half relief, half joy, walls falling away in the small, golden-lit world they’d built between them. She tangled her fingers gently through Vi’s hair—not to claim, but to anchor herself to this heartbeat, this belonging, this improbable now.

Quietly, she began, “When I was little, my mother woke me before dawn to watch the violets open. We’d sit in grass, a cup of tea in hand, and pick a single violet to keep by the window until it sprouted. She told me violets meant love—they’re fragile, you know, and need shelter from storms and careless fingers.” Cait’s voice broke softly, eyes shining with memory, pain and healing spiralling together. “I always tried so hard to be careful. I nurtured it. Fed it. Protected it. Then you crashed into my life. My very own Violet that i vow to love, too cherish. To nurture. For as long as you let me."

Chapter Text

JUN, 01^st 2008

Vi was nervous. No, that wasn't even close to the truth—she was terrified.

Absolutely petrified.

Three days ago—three long, sleepless, harrowing days ago—Vi had been invited to the grand Kiramman estate to hang out with her new...friend? Caitlyn Kiramman. It was a surprising weekly ritual that had started a few days after Caitlyn’s birthday party had splintered the invisible barrier separating Piltover’s golden darling from Zaun’s battered street rat.

Vi didn’t know how or why it had happened. 

That fateful afternoon, after spending a gruelling hour poring over their homework—Cassandra Kiramman’s stern insistence ever-present—the pair had turned the marble hallways into their very own on foot racetrack. Caitlyn, all noble grace and coltish limbs, darted after her with a determination that belied her genteel upbringing. Vi’s worn boots squeaked and skidded on polished floors, while Caitlyn’s laughter—bubbling and infectious—rang out, delicate as crystal, beside Vi’s unexpectedly loud, hoarse guffaws. Their voices echoed off arched ceilings and between the velvet-draped windows, weaving through patches of sunlight that dappled the corridors across intricate mosaics and gilded mouldings. For those fleeting moments, Vi felt lighter, freer, as though every footfall pulled her further away from Zaun’s thick, choking smog, its toxic tang replaced by the estate’s fresh, citrus-scented air.

But freedom, she realised rather abruptly, could not be trusted.

In a burst of reckless energy, Vi rounded a sharp corner, unlaced boots pounding on wood, her limbs veering dangerously close to the edge of an intricately woven Ionian rug. The fabric, buttery soft beneath her feet, betrayed her in its stability and all of a sudden, Vi still didn’t know how, her left boot caught, balance abandoned her, and she crashed shoulder-first into a side table carved from deep, shimmering mahogany. Perched atop it, as if daring fate, was a towering vase—cobalt blue and chased with gold filigree. For one long, excruciating heartbeat, it trembled, held upright by nothing but luck and terror.

Then it toppled.

Free-fell as if in slow-motion.

And all Vi would do was watch.

The crash was cataclysmic—a shriek of shattering porcelain that cut through the mansion, echoing down every corridor and through every ornate parlour, as if the house itself recoiled in pain. Shards, large and small, exploded across polished floorboards, sparkling in the afternoon sun like violent confetti.

Vi, still unable to comprehend exactly what had happened, stared at the ruin, heart hammering within her chest, knowing that this reckless, carefree moment might cost her more than any scolding ever could.

Fuck!

Vi wasn’t the only one who couldn’t believe what had just happened as, Caitlyn who skidded to a holt behind her, stood frozen, eyes wide with horror and disbelief. Vi still remembered the way Caitlyn’s pale lips had parted in a silent gasp, her cheeks draining of colour. The shock on Caitlyn’s face had barely registered before the air was split by the hurried pound of footsteps on the nearby staircase and Cassandra’s anxious voice floating from the nearby, “Girls?”

Unable to think clearly, Vi spun on her heels, bolted down the corridor toward Caitlyn’s bedroom, her heart hammering so hard she could taste the metallic tang of panic. She threw the large window open, scrambled through the opening, tumbling hard onto the manicured grass outside before sprinting all the way back to Zaun, her breath ragged, lungs burning. She hadn’t even dared look back—not even when she heard Caitlyn’s wobbly, “Vi? Wait!” trailing after her like a rope she didn’t have the courage to grab.

Now the consequences weighed heavy on her shoulders, each memory pressing down on her lungs until it was hard to breathe. Cassandra was going to kill her. Or worse—send the Enforcers down to Zaun, kicking open doors and demanding restitution Vi could never pay. The thought twisted her stomach, a cold ache settling behind her ribs. She couldn’t let that happen. She had to do something, anything. 

Which was how she ended up standing, shivering, in front of the Kiramman manor once again, her hands clasped tightly behind her back to keep them from trembling, the chill of early afternoon air biting at her fingers and seeping through her patched jacket. She could still hear the porcelain bursting; she could still see Caitlyn’s stricken face.

When she finally mustered the courage to knock—a soft, uncertain tap almost lost in the quiet—her hands wouldn’t stop shaking. Caitlyn would still be at school, she hoped. At least she could spare her new friend the humiliation of witnessing whatever punishment awaited.

The grand door creaked open on silent hinges. Cassandra Kiramman stood framed in the gilded entryway, backlit by the warm glow of the foyer’s chandeliers, her tailored gown immaculate as ever, one elegant eyebrow arched in silent question. The reek of expensive perfume, floral and sharp, mingled with the faint smoky scent of the fire burning somewhere deeper inside the house. In the vast, echoing silence between them, with the city’s distant rumble carrying on behind her, Vi felt very, very small.

“Er… Hi, Mrs. Kiramman,” she stammered, her voice rough and uncertain, throat thick with nerves. She’d rehearsed this greeting a hundred times on the walk over, but the words felt foreign now, inadequate.

“Vi,” Cassandra replied, her tone as cool and measured as ever, but not unkind. Her blue eyes searched Vi’s face, unreadable, assessing.

Vi could feel her palms sweating, her heart thumping so loudly it almost drowned out her thoughts. She drew a ragged breath, clutching the memory of why she was here. “I… I just wanted to apologize for—for breaking the vase,” she managed, her voice catching. “As soon as it happened, I…” With a fumbling motion, she pulled her hands to the front, awkwardly uncurling her fist to reveal a small stack of tarnished coins, some Zaunite bronze mixed with Piltovan copper. “I know it’s not enough to replace it, but… it’s all I have. I tried to sell some of my things...” Her mind flashed to a few nights ago, desperately rummaging through her meagre belongings in the cluttered bar attic—threadbare gloves, a whistle she’d carved as a kid, a pair of sturdy boots, mementos of a life built on necessity. “I did a few odd jobs for the neighbours, raised some coin…” Her voice wobbled as she looked down at the pitiful offering in her hand. The coins barely made a sound; they rested, weightless and shaming, against her grime-stained palm. It was so little—barely enough to buy a loaf of bread, let alone an ornate vase worth more than she’d ever see in her life. But it was something, wasn’t it? Some proof that she was trying to make things right, that she wasn’t just another reckless Zaunite kid. Maybe, just maybe, Caitlyn could forgive her.

Cassandra’s expression softened, the remnants of sternness giving way to something unexpectedly tender. “Oh, Vi.” There was a note of sadness in her voice, gentle as a sigh, that made Vi’s insides twist even tighter. A muscle in Cassandra’s jaw twitched, and for a moment her eyes glistened, reflecting a burden Vi couldn’t quite name. Maybe the vase had been an heirloom—irreplaceable, a piece of history reduced to dust.

“I-I know it’s not much,” Vi choked out, clinging desperately to her handful of coins, her throat thick with emotion, fear and regret blurring her vision. "B-but... it's all I have."

Cassandra knelt, gracefully folding down until her fine skirts fanned out behind her and she was eye-level with Vi, reaching out to rest a gentle, steadying hand on her shoulder—silencing her with the simple weight of contact. “Come here,” Cassandra murmured, her voice soft and inviting, opening her arms to encompass Vi in a rare gesture of warmth.

Unsure, Vi hesitated before allowing herself to be pulled into the embrace. She stood stiff at first, arms hanging awkwardly at her sides, knuckles white around her coins. Cassandra’s hand moved in slow, grounding circles on her back, her fingers carefully smoothing Vi’s tangled hair. The warmth and scent of expensive soap and oak made Vi want to cry from relief and embarrassment in equal measure.

“Is that why you ran off so suddenly?” Cassandra asked, voice thick with understanding, as though she’d seen through every masquerade Vi had ever worn.

Vi nodded mutely against Cassandra’s shoulder, blinking back tears.

“We were worried about you,” Cassandra continued. “Caitlyn especially. She was up half the night, you know. We thought something had happened to you.” Her hand didn’t stop its soothing motion.

“I’m sorry,” Vi whispered, the words barely audible, her breath fogging against Cassandra’s silk collar. “I just... didn’t know what to do.”

“There’s no need to apologize, Vi. Accidents happen. It wouldn’t be the first time Caitlyn’s broken something in this house, and I guarantee it won’t be the last.” Cassandra pulled away just enough to brush a stray lock of hair from Vi’s damp cheek, her touch feather-light. “The most important thing is that neither of you were hurt. That is all Tobias, and I care about. I hope you didn’t sell anything you care about.”

Vi shook her head quickly, relief flooding her features, the tension in her jaw finally easing. She hadn’t sold anything that mattered—at least, nothing she couldn’t bear to lose.

The relief in Cassandra’s face was subtle but palpable: a softening around her eyes, a sigh of released worry.

“I appreciate your apology. And your courage, coming back here. That means a great deal to me, Vi.” She squeezed Vi’s shoulder, gentle but firm. “Now, if you’re up for it, why don’t you go upstairs and say hello to Caitlyn? She’s been beside herself with worry. At one point, she even asked me to send Enforcers down to Zaun—just to make sure you got home safely.” A hint of warmth crept into her smile.

A genuine smile broke through Vi’s nerves, small and tentative at first, but growing. “Okay.”

Cassandra rose in a single elegant movement, stepping aside and holding the door open with a graceful sweep of her arm. Vi took a deep breath—she could still feel the lingering warmth of Cassandra’s hug pressed between her shoulder blades—and made her way up the grand spiral staircase to Caitlyn’s room. Her footsteps creaked softly on the polished wood, each step feeling like a tiny act of courage, the banister gleaming beneath her trembling fingers.

She paused outside Caitlyn’s door for a heartbeat, the apology trembling on her lips, then pushed inside.

She barely had time to take in the sunny room—its lush drapes, the row of medals lining the mantle, the faint scent of lilacs—before Caitlyn leapt from her bed, crossing the space in two quick strides and throwing herself into Vi’s arms with enough force to nearly knock her off her feet.

“Vi!”

-

Vi sprawled across Caitlyn’s bed, limbs flung wide atop the faded pastel patchwork quilt, watching as Caitlyn hunched over her desk beneath the glow of a small, art nouveau reading lamp. Golden light pooled in fragile circles, illuminating Caitlyn’s workspace where papers lay scattered—homework assignments with neat blue pen, thick textbooks cracked open to dense diagrams, scraps of half-finished doodles curled at the edges. Amid the chaos, Caitlyn remained immovable, her brow furrowed in intense concentration, a pen scratching out silent answers. The hush in the room prickled at Vi’s patience. She’d already tried counting the looping cracks creeping across the ceiling, tracing idle patterns on the quilt’s worn seams, even balancing a dull yellow pencil on the tip of her finger—anything to banish the boredom that gnawed steadily at her. Caitlyn had promised this would only take a few minutes. But the clock on the nightstand ticked with agonizing slowness; Vi could have sworn she’d been lying there for hours, each passing second stretching like taffy.

"Are you done yet?" Vi called, her voice tipping from hope into impatience, just enough to be heard above the scratch of pen on paper.

"Almost."

"You said that ten minutes ago."

"It was barely a minute ago you asked the first time."

Vi scowled, grabbing the closest scrap of paper from the nightstand, crumpling it in her fist, and lofting it toward Caitlyn’s chair. The wad bounced harmlessly off the metal legs before rolling under the desk. Caitlyn didn’t so much as glance back, though Vi saw the corners of her mouth quirk, a mischievous smirk hidden beneath the curtain of her hair. Sighing, Vi let herself collapse backwards into the pillows, staring up at the shadowy ripples the lamplight made on the ceiling as her thoughts wandered.

She could have left—no one was chaining her here. The silence pressed in, heavy and expectant, tempting her out the door and down the quiet, chandelier-lit hallway, through the grand foyer where oil paintings watched over polished floors. She could easily see Caitlyn at school tomorrow. But Vi didn’t move. She liked this, being here in Caitlyn’s bedroom, surrounded by her things—the faint floral scent of her pillow, the faint hum of the air conditioner, the star-shaped stickers peeling from the edge of the bookshelf. Even doing nothing together felt strangely right. She wasn’t sure when that had begun to matter. Just a month ago, Caitlyn had been another uptight rich girl in Vi’s mind—someone to be resented for the quiet privilege that her name afforded her. While Caitlyn had tutors, shooting lessons, and a never-empty pantry, Vi and Vander scraped for every spare hour and dollar just to keep Vi enrolled in school. Then Caitlyn had invited her to that ridiculous, over-the-top party.

 The next day, when Vi was sitting alone at lunch as she always did, Caitlyn appeared beside her, offering a shy, uncertain smile and a sandwich sliced diagonally. The gesture had felt awkward at first, forced, but Caitlyn kept coming back. Day after day, she asked again: Could she sit with Vi? Would she wait with her after biology? Did she want to grab ice cream after school? It crept up on Vi, slowly—lunches morphing into lingering in the hallway together, which became strolling past the iron school gates side by side. One Friday turned into dinner at Caitlyn’s house, then Sunday mornings in her sunlit backyard, then lazy Saturdays holed up with Caitlyn’s family dog drooling at their feet. Before long, Vi realized she missed Caitlyn whenever they were apart, counting the hours until they saw each other again. Somewhere along the way, the two of them became a pair in everyone’s eyes—where one went, the other was never far behind.

“Okay. I’m done,” Caitlyn announced at last, her voice splintering the quiet.

“Finally!” Vi shot upright, feigning exasperation, though her eyes flashed with something closer to relief.

“Don’t you have homework to do?” Caitlyn asked, her hands moving in deliberate, practiced motions as she stacked the papers by topic and tucked stray pencils into a patterned ceramic mug.

“I’ll do it tomorrow.”

“It’s due tomorrow, Vi,” Caitlyn said, arching an eyebrow.

Caitlyn didn’t know Vi had already finished her assignments the day before, curled up on the lumpy sofa at home under Vander’s watchful eye. Still, Vi couldn’t bring herself to relinquish her carefully cultivated air of nonchalance quite yet.

“Can we play now?” Vi asked, tilting her head in hopeful impatience.

Caitlyn’s laugh rang out—clear, warm, spilling through the room like sunlight and making something flutter and ache deliciously in Vi’s chest. “Yeah, we can. But first…” Caitlyn’s fingers knotted together as she hesitated, flushing beneath the scattered lamplight. “I, uh, made something for you.”

“You did?” Vi blinked, startled out of her anticipation, the raillery dropping from her face.

“Yeah…” Caitlyn drifted to her bedside table, opened the top drawer, and carefully extracted a tiny, chaotic bundle. She took a steadying breath before sitting beside Vi at the edge of the bed, knees bumping. In Caitlyn’s palm were two bracelets, obviously handmade—awkward, a little crooked, woven from strands of embroidery floss in exuberant shades of magenta and turquoise and moss green. Plastic beads with blocky white letters gleamed at their centres: a 'C' in yellow on one, a 'V' in blue on the other.

“What are those?” Vi asked, leaning close, curiosity overcoming her scepticism as she traced a finger over the uneven knots, each colour knotting into the next with deliberate care.

“Friendship bracelets,” Caitlyn said, as if it were the most natural thing in the world. A faint blush crept over her cheeks, and for an instant the confidence faded, replaced by shy hope. “I made them for us.”

Vi had never heard of friendship bracelets before—gifts seemed like something other people exchanged—but warmth unspooled in her chest at the idea of a mark that meant she belonged somewhere, with someone. Caitlyn threaded the bracelet with the C onto Vi’s wrist, fastening it with a gentle, practiced knot. Their fingers brushed; for one heartbeat too long, they lingered, the world narrowing to the point of contact. Then Caitlyn slipped the V onto her own arm, lips pulling into a bashful smile.

“There,” Caitlyn murmured, her voice now soft and uncertain.

Vi turned her wrist under the lamp’s glow, admiring the new weight and colour—a symbol, rough and vibrant, of belonging. “Cool,” she said, and found she meant it, grinning up at Caitlyn. “Now can we play?”

Caitlyn’s smile bloomed, the last remnants of tension melting away as she swung her legs up onto the bed. “Yeah. Let’s.”

JUN, 01 2024

Vi studied the frayed string encircling her wrist, a ghost of the bracelet it had once been. The plastic C, once a badge of colour and purpose, was now a pale wraith, its edges worn velvet-soft from years of anxious thumbs and dreaming fingertips. The band itself was threadbare, nearly translucent, its outline blurring at the boundary of her skin—sometimes she imagined it was being absorbed into her pulse. Yet for Vi, that distant afternoon when Caitlyn first knotted it for her still thrummed in technicolour: the secret hush of Cait’s room, sunlight streaming through dust, their laughter half-swallowed by nerves. Caitlyn had grinned—wide, trembling at the corners—and Vi’s heart had tumbled, wild as a startled bird. Without words, beneath the crook of their knees and shared youthfulness, they pledged never to untie their bracelets: a childish vow, yes, but one that quickly ripened into something holy. What started as a laudable ritual between best friends became a private enchantment against loss: so much faith twined into cheap vinyl, sun-dappled memories, unbroken hope.

Now, the bracelet seemed ready to give up its ghost—a fragile relic of all their bravado, stubbornly worn against expectation and time. In quiet moments, Vi sometimes lifted it to her lips, and swore she caught the faintest whisper of their youth: Caitlyn’s bedsheets—citrus-bright from detergent, softened by lavender body wash, a scent that conjured the blur of sleepover laughter and morning light in tousled hair. Embedded deeper within the faded band were the years woven around it: the echo and ache of arguments bouncing off beige dorm walls, breathless reconciliations whispered over chipped mugs as rain lashed windows, the burnt tang of exam anxiety and the silent aftermath of first heartbreaks. Their tears had seeped into its fibres, mingling with apologies and unsaid wishes. Some winters, late-night calls splintered into silence, and some springs, they slowly drifted, distance heavy as ice across a thawing lake—only to close the space again with a phone call or an impulsive, messy letter. Through each separation and reunion, the band endured—surviving summer thunderstorms and wild dashes into cold lakes, scraped knees and patched-up laughter, the gentle accretion of shared hours stacking into opalescent years. Vi cherished a secret belief: that every trial wound the knot tighter, every fracturing and mending spinning invisible gold into the battered string’s heart. But lately, something new had edged into her awareness—a sense of hollowness, subtle but persistent, like the press of an impending storm. She tried to cling to the old magic. Yet two days ago, the charm had given way: a single strand loosening from the knot, pale as lost hair, catching gold in the morning sun before slipping quietly away.

It felt like a warning: That their time was coming to an inevitable end. 

Heart pounding, Vi had instinctively twined the loose end back into the remains of the knot, her hands clumsy with fear—half-hoping her care might stave off the slow decay, desperate to keep their shared past stitched a little longer to her life. 

Since then, anticipation had gnawed at her, hollowing out her insides with every steady beat of the clock. Tucked deep in her pocket, Vi turned a small velvet box over and over in her palm, the flocked surface warming beneath fretting fingers until she could trace its every ridge blindfolded. The living room quietly held its breath around her. Every shelf and picture bore the intimate mess of their shared years: dog-eared paperbacks marked with under-linings only they understood; a sun-fade of photographic joy, their faces smudged with laughter, pressed together on a magnet-crowded fridge; a tangle of mismatched scarves pooled at the threshold, the debris of a hundred chilled mornings piled with affection. It was all imbued with the subtle electricity of promise—the pulse of a life built together, of love finding its way like a path worn through wild grass, familiar, inviting, always beckoning them back. 

She didn’t have to wait long. The staccato grumble of Caitlyn’s ancient sedan fluttered up the drive, its failing muffler an endearing siren song. The engine faltered, stuttered, then fell silent. A heartbeat later, the signature thud of the heavy car door punctured the hush, a sound that seemed to dissolve the knot of tension between Vi’s shoulder blades. Outside, dusk unfurled its banners—corals and dusk-lilacs drifting through the windows, painting the world with memory and longing. When Caitlyn swung open the door, a cool rush of evening air swept in, beaded with the scent of recent rain and wild mint bruised beneath hurried footsteps—a fragrance of return, and yet also beginning anew. Caitlyn slipped inside, her body bowed with the exhaustion of a demanding day: her hair a hasty knot, hope and fatigue mingling in the dusk-shadowed curve of her cheekbones. But her smile bloomed unguarded just for Vi, defiant and bright, an ember protected from the dark. She bent to press a gentle kiss to Vi’s temple, her lips marked by the tang of sweat, washed in the earthy note of afternoon coffee, city miles clinging to her skin. Bag dropped with a practiced swing, Caitlyn nestled against Vi on the well-loved couch, her exhale threading the quiet with a new sense of gravity—detangled, finally home, the world momentarily righted on its axis. 

“Long day?” Vi’s voice held the warmth of a thousand small kindnesses, her touch feathering along Caitlyn’s temple to tuck a loose strand behind her ear, a thumb lingering in an absentminded caress. “

The longest,” Caitlyn sighed, the words unravelling her tension, eyelids fluttering as she let herself go slack against Vi’s shoulder, stilled by the certainty that she belonged here. “But I’m home now. That’s all that matters.” 

Vi’s smile was a shy tilt of light, nerves pirouetting just under her stillness. After a moment’s quiet, steeling herself, she slipped the velvet box from her pocket—the evening’s last violet rays glancing off its deep black. She held her breath, then opened it, revealing two slender bracelets cradled in cream satin folds. Gone was the childish plastic: now sleek silver gleamed, cool and luminous, each band engraved with a letter that rooted them to their history. The metal shimmered back the failing light, newness soaking the memory-worn air—a pledge forged in resilience and the hope of continuity. 

“Happy anniversary, Cait,” Vi whispered, her voice trembling, heavy with all the love of years and the bittersweet ache of growing together—the moment quivering at the edge of possibility. 

Caitlyn’s weariness melted. Wonder kindled in her eyes, equal parts astonishment and devotion. With reverent hands, she lifted a bracelet and set it beside the faded string—new promise juxtaposed with the fragile testament of the past. She cradled the silver in her palm as if weighing something sacred, thumb gliding over the familiar, newly eternal letter.

“Anniversary?” Her voice was laughter lace-soft, coloured with disbelief and delight.

Vi’s smile deepened—scattering shadows like the moon breaking the surface of a dark lake. “Sixteen years ago today, we made a promise.” With hands just trembling, she clasped the new bracelet around Caitlyn’s wrist—cool metal clicking into permanence, a vow cast anew, small but immeasurable. “And today, I want to re-new it. To remind you. To promise you. To show you. That everyday, from that moment sixteen years to when our time is up, that I choose you.”

Caitlyn stilled. For a moment, her thumb danced the arc of silver, then rested, trembling, atop the battered vinyl knot. “You remembered,” she whispered, her voice thick with emotion, eyes shining with the light of all they’d weathered and all that remained to come.

“Every single day,” Vi replied, her words a benediction, both promise and memory intertwined—a love, fragile and fierce, strung between then and now.

"I choose you too."

JUN, 10 2024

Vi shifted on the tee, aligning her shot with the wary deliberation of a soldier skulking through foreign terrain. The graphite shaft of the borrowed club—an inch too long, grip worn to velvet by strangers’ perspiration—pressed into her palms, grounding her as if failure itself might drag her backward, inexorable as an undertow. Overhead, late-morning sun spilled through drifting banners of high cloud, dappling the fairway in sheets of molten gold and igniting the dew along the freshly cut fringe, so each blade sparkled with fragile fire. Vi narrowed her eyes, trying to sift focus from distraction: the sly, brisk wind tossing stray strands of hair across her vision; the bright, staccato flutter of hidden finches; the green, nostril-stinging bite of mown rye, a scent that tugged at barefoot childhood summers more than competition. Gritting her teeth, she forced herself into the trembling hush of concentration.

She inhaled.

Swung.

The ball snapped right almost instantly, veering from her intended axis, vaulting off the fairway into a congregation of wild thistle and nettle, then glancing off a slender birch with a sodden, hollow thunk. It slumped—spent and dispirited—into a sand trap, as though the journey itself had exhausted its will.

Vi’s jaw jerked, muscles ticking, her eyes squeezing shut as if she could bar out the blazing evidence of her ineptitude. Golf—not just a nemesis, but some mythic adversary custom-forged from futility and spite. And yet, here she was, for a single ridiculous reason: the memory of Tobias’s invitation, the irrepressible warmth in his eyes, that crooked, sideways grin which beckoned her toward hope—and inevitable humiliation. She recalled the fluttering anticipation that had driven her to the pro shop at dawn, where she’d chosen a gleaming glove with the desperate faith of a pilgrim seeking relics. It hadn’t helped. Not even close. She remained, gloriously and irredeemably awful.

Typical.

From behind, Tobias’s laughter rolled across the green—a deep, velvety baritone that seemed to soak into the sunlight and bounce from the willow branches overhead. “You’re not at war with the ball, Vi,” he called, every syllable buoyed by affectionate mockery and history. “What have I told you about—”

“—Keeping your eye on the ball,” Vi recited, scowling with hammed-up defiance as she stooped for her tee, retreated, and rammed both fists into her jacket’s pockets, performing an unceremonious, mutinous exit from the tee box.

Tobias had no need for pep talks or precision reminders; the course seemed designed with him in mind, each motion of his body as fluid as water smoothing over old stone. He strode forward, every line limned by shifting sunlight—a glimmer at the streaks of silver in his hair, another on the strong, weathered cut of his jaw. With that effortless rhythm and a swing honed by decades, he sent his ball slicing through the air; it soared in a perfect parabola, all clean velocity, before settling beside the flagstick as if guided there by the gentlest hand.

Vi let out a strangled breath that trembled at its edges. Of course. Dread for the coming holes prickled her skin, but pressed close to it was a twist of gratitude—for this exclusive sanctuary, empty of judgment save for the hush of trees and the patient, silent lake. Her defeats would fade beneath sky and leaf, witnessed only by the world and, of course, Tobias.

He pocketed his tee, tossed her a conspiratorial wink, and together they set off into the undulant, sun-drenched morning, their shadows stitching crooked seams of darkness into the green as they walked.

“Ten years of lessons,” Tobias teased as he caught up, bestowing a mock-suffering tilt to his head. “And you’re still a menace to both ball and spectator alike.”

Vi aimed a glare so theatrically fierce it nearly disguised the upward tug at the corners of her mouth. “Yeah, yeah.” Their banter was old, comfortably worn as the battered cart on the next path, but beneath it pulsed something truer—a devotion as steady and battered as the companionship that had shaped her. Tobias’s golden rule had always been this: golf, like life, wasn’t about winning, just connecting. But Vi, bull-headed by nature, had never discovered a game she could lose with grace. Not even at his side.

They neared the bunker, Vi’s ball half-buried and smug as a cat among the sand. She squared her slender shoulders, marshalling a gambler’s bravado, and shot Tobias a daredevil grin. “Watch and learn, old man.” She brandished her sand wedge like a broadsword, arranged her stance, and swung with a flourish. The club sheared through the sand—far too deep—and spat a mini sandstorm into the morning air, the ball flopping forward by a contemptuous foot.

 She scowled—first at the recalcitrant ball, then at Tobias, who, lips pressed tight, visibly battled laughter.

“Oh, Vi. All bark, no bite.” His eyes danced, bright and sharp as newly pressed cider, mischief alive in every crinkle.

She grumbled under her breath before steeling herself again. This time, her swing was studied, shoulders loose; metal kissed sand just so, and the ball skipped clear, arcing triumphant over the bunker to tumble onto the welcoming fairway, settling on the pale grass not far behind Tobias’s own. He offered her a slow, genuine smile, pride shining quietly in his eyes—a silent benediction that always melted her frustration into gratitude.

They trudged forward, refusing the gentling lure of the cart. Around them the world pulsed: crickets humming near rough patches, the air humid and smelling of loam and clover. Sunlight feathered through oak and ash, painting the rising fairway in a swirling patchwork of gold and bottle-green. On ordinary days, that walk would be alive with argument: the science—or folly—of Vi’s wild swing, the mythical “mulligans” she claimed with impish defiance. But today Tobias moved quieter, his silence a third presence, mercurial and weighty. His gait was measured, head bowing intermittently, as if he listened for some message only the land could deliver.

Vi watched him from the edge of her vision, balanced between worry and admiration, letting the hush spread unfettered as they wove through wildflowers and the gentle spill of oak shade.

When they reached their balls, sunlight dappled Tobias’s face through a lattice of old branches. The way he cleared his throat broke the morning’s spell—a timbre unpractised, gentle and uncertain. “There’s a reason I wanted you out here today,” he said, his words carrying the grain of gravity.

Vi arched an eyebrow, wielding humour as shield and sword. “I knew it. The dreaded fatherly ‘talk.’”

He laughed, letting the years etch their map across his face; warmth radiated from him in a single, generous wave. “No, no. That task was always going to be Cassandra’s. You—well, there was never much point intimidating you.” His laughter faded, replaced by a rare, sobering gravity that quietly rearranged the world. “Still, I did invite you here to talk. About Caitlyn.”

At that name, emotion flickered sharp and bright through Tobias, a lightning-bolt of love, memory, and something more complicated—something that hooked beneath Vi’s ribs and twisted at a familiar hollow. She nodded, silent as a path waiting to be taken, making space for his confession.

He drew a steadying breath, the air thick with anticipation, and slipped a small velvet box from the inner lining of his jacket. The box had once been a vivid crimson, but years had weathered it into a muted wine, the velvet tufted thin at the edges where anxious fingers had too often lingered. Its surface gleamed in places, rubbed to a sheen of near silk. “I’ve had hopes—and my share of nerves—about this particular moment,” he confessed, his words barely louder than the sigh of wind outside. His hand trembled, almost imperceptibly, as he extended the box toward Vi, his knuckles pale against the deep red. “This is Caitlyn’s. Or at least, I hope, will soon be.”

Vi's heart hammered, heavy and wild, each beat echoing with both dread and profound certainty. She recognized what lay before her bone-deep, long before her fingers grazed the tiny brass catch.. Yet still, she hesitated, dizzy with the realization of this threshold moment. The box creaked open. Inside, a ring lay nestled in the deep folds like something unearthed—slender as a whispered promise, its elegance fierce with inherited energy. The central diamond glinted, icy and pure as sleet on black stone, sharp with memories, its chill fire framed by two smaller stones. In the morning light, these gems fractured sunbeams into swirling galaxies—petal pink, starlit blue—shifting and restless in her palm. Tobias’s voice found her, low and steady, as if rooting them both in this haunted present. “It’s about tradition—the best parts of it. The centre stone belonged to my mother. When she passed, she trusted it to me, so I could give it forward, on my own terms, to my own partner. The stone on the left came from Cassandra’s engagement ring; the other from her the ring of her own mother. I had the band reshaped the morning Caitlyn was born to create space for a third stone, someday. As soon as I heard that the two of you finally took the step, I took it to the jewellers and added Caitlyn's birth stone to the gap and had another space created. One that will be filled by the gemstone of your own children.” Vi felt the ring’s history radiate between her palm, heavy and dazzling, spiralling through generations. Its significance pressed on her, a secret weight—at once intimate and unrelenting—as she hovered at the verge of acceptance.

“This—” Tobias’s voice was gentle, “I, by no means, intend to pressure you into a proposal. I give this to you with no expectation. I just wanted you to have it in case the moment ever arises. From this day forward, it belongs to you.”

Sudden heat welled in Vi’s throat and vision, choking off reply. “Dad… it’s—” The ring scattered rainbows across her trembling knuckles, “I don’t… it’s too much. I’m not sure I deserve…”

“Yes, you do,” Tobias insisted, his voice urgent and unyielding. He reached over and gently folded her fingers around the ring box, anchoring her wavering hands. “I decided this long ago. When you were ready, it would be yours. I’ve just… been waiting for you to see it. To accept it.”

Only then did Vi truly understand—the ring had always been meant for her, not bestowed by bloodline or duty, but by a love stubborn and patient enough to wait. A legacy not merely inherited, but chosen, offered with trust. Her mind flickered back to a memory, blurred at the edges with time: Caitlyn turning her hand beneath the yellow kitchen light, the engagement ring Hanna had given her sparkling in its own quiet way. Vi’s heart swelled, expanding with the knowledge that the ring before her was not the same—Tobias had chosen this one for her, had seen her for who she was, separate from and yet forever entwined with Caitlyn’s history. 

“Thank you,” she managed, voice thready as spun glass, her fingertip drifting over the stones. She lifted her gaze, tear-bright, to Tobias, whose own eyes brimmed with a tenderness she’d seldom seen. “So… I guess I don’t need to formally ask for Caitlyn’s hand, huh?”

Tobias grinned, sunlight gilding his reply. “You had my blessing, Vi, the moment you walked into our lives.” And in that moment, his words shone with the rarest sort of truth—the quiet radiance of love that is claimed, shaped, and fiercely cherished.

JUN, 20 2024

Vi and Caitlyn stood shoulder-to-shoulder in the sunlit Kiramman kitchen, their sleeves rolled up, forearms dusted with flour and speckled with the shimmer of olive oil as they chopped and sautéed a rainbow of vegetables alongside Cassandra. The marble counters gleamed beneath the spill of afternoon light. Outside, the day was soft and golden, a gentle breeze curling through the open window, stirring the long linen curtains so that sunlight flickered in shifting patterns across their faces. The air inside was rich with the heady aroma of fresh basil and rosemary, mingling with the deeper, mouth-watering scent of chicken roasting in the oven—a fragrant reminder of home and all its simple joys. This was their cherished bi-weekly ritual: lunch at Caitlyn’s childhood home, where warmth radiated not only from the summer sun streaming across cool granite countertops, but from the soft hum of familiar voices and the invisible thread of familial affection weaving them all together. Vi and Caitlyn always pretended it was just an ordinary meal, eager to downplay the significance, but beneath the surface they each savoured these afternoons: the playful nudges exchanged as they jostled for kitchen space, the brushes of skin that made Caitlyn’s cheeks flush and Vi’s lips curl with secret delight, the brief but perfect harmony they discovered amid the clatter of pans and gentle rhythm of laughter.

The kitchen itself felt vibrantly alive with their togetherness—painted with the light and music of their shared presence. Caitlyn, sleeves haphazardly rolled, would catch Vi’s gaze through the haze of steam, her mouth quirking into a mischievous smile just before teasing a witty remark. Her blue eyes sparkled, dancing with memories too recent to have faded. Vi, standing beside her with a cocky tilt to her chin, would answer every jibe with a quick-witted retort, her grin edged with affection that softened her rougher edges. Cassandra, dignified even in her apron, orchestrated the commotion with practiced ease, rolling her eyes at their banter—each gesture betraying how much she adored this ritual. She watched them with a blend of maternal pride and amusement, her lips twitching as she feigned exasperation, her gaze settling on the two women. 

As Caitlyn set patterned china plates upon the polished counter, aligning them with her habitual precision, Cassandra’s voice floated above the gentle din, cutting through the sizzle and laughter. “So, have you two thought about your plans for Christmas yet?” she asked, her tone light as a tossed herb but her eyes lingering, intent, searching the space between them.

Vi groaned, the sound rich with mock suffering as she flicked a carrot peel into the compost bin, wrist flicking with casual grace. “Christmas? Mom, that’s ages away,” she drawled, flashing Caitlyn a conspiratorial look—a silent joke passing between them. Cassandra, just like Caitlyn, always living in the future.

Cassandra merely chuckled, impervious to Vi’s theatrics. “It’s only six months away, Vi. Trust me, time sneaks up on us. Before you know it, we’ll be right back here, opening presents and arguing about who does the dishes.” Her words drifted over them, tinged with a delicate wistfulness—a longing for traditions both treasured and fleeting. She continued, her voice softening, painting half-formed pictures of her and Tobias traveling that winter: uncertain plans trailing after old memories of snow-dusted holidays, roaring hearth fires, laughter ricocheting off rich oak panelling, the old house transformed into a glowing refuge against the stark, frozen night.

Cassandra kept talking, but Vi froze.

Six months away.

Only six months.

Six months.

Vi’s hands slowed, the knife she held suspended above the cutting board, its reflection catching the light, the practiced rhythm of their cosy afternoon abruptly unraveling. Six months. The words echoed, hollow as a knell, louder than the laughter around her or the clatter of utensils. She had not forgotten—how could she, when the knowledge curled like black smoke at the corner of every thought, lurking behind even her happiest moments? Still, hearing it spoken aloud, in Cassandra’s light, practical voice, pressed the truth against her chest with unbearable weight—like a stone, cool and implacable, settling where her heart should be.

Most people let the future dissolve pleasantly into the haze of habit and expectation. They measured out their lives in holidays, in meals and plans that seemed endless—always replenished, always returning like the cycle of seasons. But Vi felt each tick and tremor of the clock, the way someone might feel the frantic shudder of a failing heart: desperate, clinging to the thud of each moment. Six months. How sterile it sounded—neat and clinical—when in fact it was a stingy sliver of forever, barely enough to cradle in cupped hands before it sifted through her fingers like sand.

She wanted more. Needed more. She wanted everything. Was that really so much to ask? Five years—to layer every wall of this kitchen with new memories, to lay the foundation of their own traditions, brick by brick, ritual by ritual. Ten years—to watch laughter carve beloved lines into Caitlyn’s bright eyes, to see their shared life stretch before them, unruly and unexpected. She saw it in daydream flashes: lazy mornings awash in honeyed sunlight, bodies tangled in sleep-warm sheets, half-forgotten jokes revived in bustling rooms, hands knotting together in the hush of twilight. Even a lifetime, extended far past any reasonable boundary, seemed too brief to satisfy the hunger for more afternoons like this one. Because time, she realized suddenly and with a cold, sinking certainty, would never love her back the way she loved Caitlyn. No, time was greedy, heedless, carving up years and hours and leaving only the bitter rind of memory to gnaw on.

A helpless ache twisted loose in her gut—a sickness woven of longing and dread. Why couldn’t she have bargained for just a little more? Already, Vi mourned not just the Caitlyn she would lose, but the infinite constellation of impossible futures now splintered before they had a chance to exist. There would be no slow decades of easy familiarity, no quiet fading into grey-haired contentment, no long record of shared disappointments, anniversaries, or private jokes stretched out like a tapestry between them. Instead, Vi clutched the cruellest gift: clarity sharp as broken glass, the knowledge that every laugh, every accidental touch, every lingering glance was already dissolving—rolling away like water off her open palm.

She wondered if losing Caitlyn would always be this raw, no matter the years, or if it was only the brevity that made the wound so fresh. Maybe love, no matter how it ended, always unravelled with aching slowness, not in shattering finality, not even in death, but in the quiet heartbreak of realizing you can never stretch a single bright afternoon into eternity.

Vi blinked hard, fighting to steady her breath, forcing her hands to continue their work despite how tightly her chest constricted. She looked toward Caitlyn, who was busy arranging cutlery, entirely unaware of the silent tempest gathering just a step away. Their ritual—a meal, a joke, sunlight pouring in through the windows—had always felt endless to Vi, a comfort nestled in the illusion that there was always another lunch, another sun washed afternoon, another laugh waiting just beyond the edge of the present. Now, she could feel the fragile thread of time growing taut, humming with the warning she could taste in the back of her throat: each moment was, in its own quiet way, a farewell.

A goodbye only Vi knew about.

Six months.

Chapter Text

EDITED AN. I WILL POST THE REST OF THIS FIC WHEN IVE COMPLETED IT AND POST IT AS ONE BIG CHAPTER. I JUST DONT KNOW WHO LONG THAT WILL TAKE SO FOR NOW, THE MESSAGE REMAINS THE SAME