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The house was as quiet as the rest of Piltover seemed to be. Vi slept propped up on Caitlyn’s bed, her entire body aching too badly to get comfortable. Through that long night, she’d watched the tense line of Caitlyn’s shoulders eventually soften in sleep before Vi managed to doze.
She woke up in the gray of dawn hurting more than she had before she fell asleep. Her jaw ached, her scalp pulled tight against a swollen bruise, and her right forearm had a stripe of skin that continued to burn as if she were still being touched by Sevika’s sword. Everything else was sore from overuse. Caitlyn had rolled over sometime in the night, and her hand rested against Vi’s thigh, a point of comforting heat that contrasted with the pain.
Vi indulged herself as she studied Caitlyn, her sharp face with its blade of a nose, thin lips and proud cheekbones, all rendered soft in sleep. Caitlyn was girlish, which she rarely looked awake. She looked soft, content. It was a temptation to touch Caitlyn’s face, but Vi didn’t want to see the dawning of her pain when she woke to the real world and all its fucked up problems.
Instead, Vi eased out of bed, pissed blood in the fanciest toilet she’d ever used, and changed back into her clothes—funny how they’d been whisked away and handed back to her clean, mended, and smelling fresh for a second time. Even her boots were blood-free. It said a lot about a person if they lived in this house and still managed to be a good person.
Vi slowly pulled on her jacket, surveyed Caitlyn one last time, then sighed as she gently closed the bedroom door behind her.
The house was eerily quiet. There had always been noise no matter the hour at the Last Drop; that brief year in the Fissure, shifts overlapped so that the community didn’t have a consensus on day or night; and in the pit... They’d begged in the daylight and descended into the darkness to live. Vi swept her gaze across the opulent room that stretched before her and shook her head.
The carpet muffled her steps on the stairs, but her weight betrayed her progress. She walked across the front room and into the hall that led to the front door, refusing to look over her shoulder at the Kiramman family portrait. The tall doors locked from the inside, sturdy enough to have been a challenge for Mylo. Vi flipped the bolt, then tugged on the handle, pushing until she had enough width to edge out. She shut the door behind her, careful to hold the latch so it didn’t fall against the jam.
Vi studied the polished door, its knocker and stained glass, and the engraving of the Kiramman crest. Just the last two days in Piltover, she’d noticed that symbol marking more than a few buildings.
Even if she could erase the part she’d played in the nightmare of the last few days, the crest and all it represented should be enough reminder of why she couldn’t be here.
Vi pressed her forehead against the cool wood and took several bracing breaths as she firmed. She straightened definitively, shoved her hands into her pockets, and strode towards the gate. Her momentum propelled her forward even after she heard the front door open behind her.
“Have you ever had hollandaise?”
She’d been prepared for Caitlyn’s voice—she’d braced herself for tears, for anger, and even for this holier than thou matter-of-factness—but Vi sure as fuck wasn’t ready for Caitlyn’s bizarre words. It took her a moment to parse the words into a meaningful statement, and when she did, Vi still couldn’t connect them to this situation. She realized she’d stopped walking, but her confusion compelled her to respond.
“What?”
“You heard me.”
Vi turned on one heel; she needed a good look to rule out Caitlyn making fun of her. Caitlyn had thrown open the front door, and she stood on the doorstep only in her chemise and ragged-edged shorts. Despite her tousled hair and bare feet, Caitlyn carried herself with the utmost dignity. Her arms were folded, and her expression was firm with her mouth tense and her brows drawn into a tight line over her bright eyes. She was beautiful.
“Hollandaise,” Caitlyn repeated firmly.
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“After you walked away last time, I perserverated for hours about what I should have said to you, but all I could focus on was your...bullshit metaphor about water and oil. As if shouting, ‘But what about emulsion!’ would have made you turn around and take it back.”
Vi had no idea what to do with that information. Caitlyn’s mouth twisted briefly, and her gaze turned to her feet as she shook her head. All at once her dignity fled, and what had been a firm stance shrank into a self-protective hug. “And here you are, walking away again, and ‘But hollandaise!’ was the first thing to drop out of my mouth. Some politician I’d make.”
“I don’t get it.”
Caitlyn’s entire body sagged with a weary sigh. “Hollandaise is sauce that blends oil and water.”
The embarrassment and disappointment wrapped up that explanation coaxed something affectionate inside Vi. She shrugged and couldn't hide her slight smile because, “That’s pretty...you, Cupcake.”
She earned nothing but a look of pain. “Don’t call me that. Not when you’re about to do this again after everything we—” Caitlyn’s voice cracked on the last word; Vi felt the sting of sympathetic tears. She shifted helplessly. “Caitlyn, I’m sorry.”
“Why do you keep running away?”
“Come on. I don’t belong here.” Vi gestured behind Caitlyn, waving her arm to indicate everything around them that proved her point.
“And what about with me?” Caitlyn met Vi’s gaze, her own stark with her previous tears. Fear hadn’t eased its etching on her face yet. “Can you not even entertain the possibility that we might work? That we might belong?”
Vi hesitated. For the first time, she let herself imagine how welcome it would be to do just that, but that only illustrated how tempting it would become to make a small safe place for herself within Caitlyn’s life. It was the way of heartbreak, but apparently Vi was the only coward here. No matter how much Vi tried to push her own reckless desires away, she couldn't ignore how vulnerable Caitlyn must have made herself to say the words aloud.
Vulnerability got people killed.
Vi flipped up her hood and looked towards the gate.
“I need you, Vi.”
Vi flinched as she heard the echo of those words screamed at her back and had to swallow to clear the thickened saliva from her mouth. Like everything Cailtyn said, Caitlyn clearly believed it, and that was the worst part.
“I can’t do this.”
“Why not?!”
Vi’s words tore out of her at a shout. “I’m terrified, okay!”
Caitlyn stared at her before she impatiently brushed the tears from her eyes. “Of what?”
“Of you. Of this.” She gestured between them. “How the fuck aren’t you?”
“This is right, Vi. I know you feel it too.”
She saw her sister’s face, pulled in pain and disappointment. The slow drop of her body into the seat branded Jinx. Vander dead below her, Claggor and Mylo lying dead beneath the rubble. Then little Powder staring at her in horror after Vi hit her, after her older sister called her a jinx.
“The only thing I’ve ever done with anything like this is lose it.”
“What?” Caitlyn’s exasperation opened her stance again. “You lose it just the same if you walk away now!”
Was it really that simple? She wondered at the gnawing thing inside that pushed her to run away, straight into the next brawl—fear, self-loathing, maybe just hedging her bets. But Caitlyn was right; this thing between them did work. Even if it only worked for a few weeks, it would still be more than she’d get if she walked away now. She’d already lost everyone she ever cared about.
Except Caitlyn.
“Fuck it,” Vi whispered under her breath. She set her jaw, fixed her gaze on the Kiramman crest etched into the stone by her boot, and breathed hard. She thought of Caitlyn’s fingers against her face, the look of fear in Caitlyn’s eyes at Powder’s table, her haughty stare across prison bars, Caitlyn’s forehead pressed against hers in the flicker of pale purple light, Caitlyn lying bleeding on the bridge. Vi’s heart thundered as she focused and pulled up enough emotion to spur her to make the right decision.
When her emotion peaked, Vi set her jaw, turned on her heel, and made the right fucking choice. It was time to stop running away.
At the eaves of the Kiramman house, Vi glanced at Caitlyn. She ignored the tears in Caitlyn’s eyes, shrugged, and said, “You’re right. It was a bullshit metaphor.”
“Idiot,” was Caitlyn’s choked reply. Then she was in Vi’s arms, and their fucked up world seemed just a little bit less fucked.