Chapter Text
It’s a Saturday morning, which means when Vi comes around from her dreamless sleep and reaches across the bed, her arm should find itself draped around the body of her girlfriend. But her arm falls through vacant air and lands with a soft plop on Caitlyn’s empty and neatly-made side of the bed. She makes a confused grumble, rolls herself around to find that yes, Caitlyn is not there. Okay, not her favourite kind of routine, but she knows what to do next. She turns to the bedside table on her own half of the room, and there on top of her phone is the little sticky note she’s expecting on top of her phone.
Sorry Love, got called in for a work emergency. Nothing I can’t handle, so I let you sleep in. I should be home around lunchtime, I’ll get your usual if I’m not too late. Please take a look at the trigger of my rifle if you get time, but don’t forget about dinner with my parents tonight!! See you soon, Love.
At the end, instead of a sign-off, there’s a little scrawled doodle of a cupcake, and Vi smiles affectionately despite her grouchy mood. She thinks about just flopping back down, rolling over onto Caitlyn’s side of the bed and nuzzling her face into the pillow. But then her stomach growls loudly at her, so she takes it as good a sign as any that it’s time to get up.
Instead of a proper meal, she fixes herself a protein shake after getting dressed in her gym gear, and knocks it back as she leaves the apartment to head up to their apartment complex’s resident gym. It doesn’t have all the fancy weight training gear the precinct gym room has, but it’s fine for a little Saturday-morning cardio. She starts on the treadmill at a brisk walk to warm up, keeping her eyes fixed on one of the TV’s nearby playing a 24-hour news station on mute with subtitles. When nothing comes up that raises any of her red flags or suggests anything to do with Caitlyn, she steps it up a bit, letting her mind just focus on keeping her breathing steady and feeling her muscles burn.
At one point Mrs.Bandera, the elderly yordle from the apartment down the hall from them steps up to the treadmill next to Vi’s. Users are supposed to reset the control panel to their lowest height after they’re done so that anyone can reach them, but of course some people are just plain inconsiderate. Soon Vi is hitting pause on her own routine to slow down the treadmill to offer her assistance when she notices the old dear straining to reach the buttons.
“Oh yes, thank you Mrs. Vanderson,” she says when Vi asks if she’d like her to set it to a more appropriate height for her.
“Mrs.B, I told ya to just call me Vi,” she says, taking the pins out of place so she can lower the panel, “and Cait hasn’t put a ring on it yet.”
“Well I think it’s about time someone made an honest woman out of her,” Mrs.Bandera says with a conspiratorial wink and Vi steps back with a polite chuckle after fixing things for her. Vi’s chest swells a little thinking of the implications of her neighbour’s comment. She shakes her head, smiling to herself, before getting back to her routine.
When she’s back in the apartment, she gets herself a proper breakfast and decides to skip a shower for now. She’s sweaty and gross, but she’s going to be getting her hands dirty in a moment anyway. Caitlyn still hasn’t returned home by the time she sets herself up at the coffee table by the couch and starts taking apart her rifle.
Vi remembers the first time she’d seen the exquisite piece of equipment, the barrel aimed directly at her face.
“Don’t move. I just want to talk,” Caitlyn had said. Vi ignored her, as she did a lot in the early days, and it had ended with her gift-wrapped at Caitlyn’s feet by a net fired from the gun. The first, but certainly not the last, time she’d be tied up at Caitlyn’s mercy.
The rifle was precious to her, even a blind man could see it, the way she took pains in maintaining it, the way she handled it, caressing the stock like the body of a lover, plucking the trigger like a harp string. So the first time she’d asked Vi for her opinion on it, she knew immediately it was a big deal. Sure, she’d seen Vi tinkering with her own modified gauntlets dozens of times. If Caitlyn’s gun was a piece of fine art in a museum, then Vi’s gauntlets are one of those modern, towering scrap-metal sculptures. Of no less artistic merit, but far less elegant.
But Vi had proven herself as apt at fixing Caitlyn’s rifle, so much so that by now, years into the relationship, the rifle is as much Vi’s work as the original gunsmith’s. It fills her with an odd thrill when she thinks about it, and it’s silly really. But to have made such a lasting impact, to have become such an integral part of Caitlyn’s life that she had embedded herself into her most prized possession? It makes her grin.
She decides to give it a good, deep cleaning and oil while she’s at it. It deserved it, it had saved both of their lives’ and many citizens of Piltover hundreds of times over. But as a result, it takes her far longer to get to the actual problem. She’s rummaging through her box of miscellaneous spare parts when she hears the key in the lock of their apartment door.
“Vi? I’m home darling,” she hears Caitlyn calling out from the front hallway.
“Sitting room!” she yells from behind the screwdriver handle clenched between her teeth. She hears Caitlyn kick off her boots at the door, letting them fall with a clatter onto the floor, and her padded footsteps grow louder as she rounds the corner into the sitting room.
“Hey babe,” Vi spits the screwdriver out onto the coffee table. She doesn’t look up, too focused on her task. Caitlyn tuts when she sees the mess Vi’s made of the coffee table.
“I’ll put your lunch in the fridge,” she says, making her way across the open-plan space to the kitchen area and busies herself putting things away and turning the coffee maker on. Once the water’s boiled, she pours them both a cup. A drop of milk and two sugars for herself, just one sugar for Vi. Vi hums appreciatively when Cailtyn sets the drink just beside her workspace.
“Your take-up spring got stretched out,” Vi says, lifting up a small misshapen spring to show Caitlyn as she settles onto the couch beside her, tucking her legs up under her and leaning on the arm of it.
“That explains it then,” she says, and nudges Vi’s elbow with a socked foot, then drapes her legs over Vi’s lap when she takes the hint and leans back to make room for her.
“So who died?” Vi prompts as she starts reassembling the gun.
“Oh,” Cailtyn heaves an exasperated sigh, “it wasn’t even- whoever was in evidence lockup last didn’t clean up after themselves properly and didn’t lock the door right. So eventually something fell over and tripped the alarm, and because the door wasn’t locked right they thought someone broke into it. And of course we had to take bloody inventory of everything even after looking at the CCTV, because procedures and I had to wait around until they were done to sign off on it.”
“Babe you wrote those procedures.”
“I know! But I also wrote them when I was operating under the apparently false belief that my officers were competent at their jobs.”
“Ha! Who was it anyway?”
“Bloody Samson, because of course it was. Who else would it be?”
“I dunno, I thought maybe I messed up again and you were covering for me.”
“Trust me darling, if it were your fault I’d have come back and dragged you out of bed by your ears to come and help with the inventory,” Caitlyn sighs again, and rubs her temple. Vi doesn’t know if it actually bothers her, or if it’s just a stress-habit she picked up from her mother.
“Well, I’m glad you didn’t. Poor Mrs. B would’ve been stuck.”
“Oh?”
“Yeah, all the treadmills were set up too high for her again. It’s really getting to piss me off,” Vi frowns, slots a piece of the rifle back into place with perhaps a little more force than strictly necessary, “it takes like, thirty seconds to make someone else’s day a hundred times easier, y’know? And people just don’t friggin’ do it.”
“That is pretty awful. Maybe you should write to management about it, ask them to put up a sign. Or get some properly accessible equipment.”
“Yeah, maybe. I’d need some other people to sign on though, and I don’t know if Mrs. B would even want all the fuss.”
Caitlyn just hums in agreement, eyes sliding closed. Vi notices,and gently takes the half-empty mug from her hand, sets it on the table. Caitlyn doesn’t protest, just hums again, something sounding vaguely like a “thank you”. By the time Vi is finished re-assembling the rifle, Caitlyn is sound asleep, head and shoulders slumped up against the arm rest, and pressed against the back of the couch, her legs still resting on Vi’s.Vi takes the throw blanket draped over the back of the couch and lets it fall across her body. She slowly sets the rifle down across the coffee table and pulls out her phone. They have time to rest before they have to get ready for dinner.
She’s almost two hours deep in a stupid debate on social media about the best Star Guardians anime, when Ciatlyn’s phone begins vibrating against the coffee table. She quickly scoops it up, and gently slides out from Caitlyn, who doesn’t budge. Caller ID tells her it’s Jayce, so she goes to step out onto the balcony so they don’t wake Caitlyn up.
She punches the well-known code in, her own birthday, and answers.
“Hello hello?”
“Vi? That you?”
“Yeah, Haircut. Cait’s out cold, what’s up?”
“Oh, I ran into her this morning and she looked…”
“Pissed off?”
“Not the word I would’ve used, but sure. She said she’d talk to me later about it. Everything alright?”
“Ugh, yeah just some stupid shit at work. Someone forgot to lock a door properly and she had to do a load of paperwork about it.”
“Ah, well, at least it wasn’t anything bad. You’re having dinner with Mr. and Mrs. Kiramman tonight, right?”
“Yeah, don’t remind me, I’m nervous enough already,” she groans, and quickly glances back inside to see Caitlyn still sleeping soundly. “What if they say no?” she hisses anyway, better safe than sorry.
“Why would they?” Jayce sounds genuinely confused.
“Well...y’know, I’m…”
“You’re....the best thing that ever happened to their daughter?” He tries to encourage her.
“I’m an ex-con! And an orphan, and uneducated, and I ain’t fancy like them, and-”
“And yet you’re still one of the best people I know,” he cuts her off before she can spiral, “she loves you, more than anything. Put it like this, you’re not asking for permission, you’re telling them “you’re going to be okay with this, or you’re going to lose your daughter”, because Vi, I promise you, Cait’s going to say yes.”
“You...you’re right, I know, I know it’s just...sometimes hard to believe, y’know? Doesn’t seem like that long ago I was looking at the business-end of her gun. It’s weird, man,” she muses, leaning against the balcony railing, looking over the streets of Piltover below. If she squints across the river, she can just about make out the hazy neon sign that loomed directly above her old home in Zaun.
“Life is weird,” she can almost hear him shrug, “you still planning it for next week?”
“Absolutely, anniversary of the first time she kicked my ass. Think I’m gettin pretty good at this romance stuff.”
“Sure, Vi,” she hears the fond chuckle in his voice. From inside she hears movement, and looks around to see Caitlyn starting to shift and wake, “alright Haircut, I gotta go, Sleeping Beauty’s had enough. Thanks for the peptalk.”
“Anytime. Pass on my regards.”
“Will do.”
She hangs up, and steps back inside just in time for Caitlyn’s eyes to flicker open and dart around confused for a moment before her gaze settles on Vi.
“How long was I out?”
“Mmm, two hours, give or take. I was gonna wake you soon anyway, we both need to wash,” she wiggles her eyebrows suggestively. Caitlyn picks up on the innuendo despite her sleep-addled mind.
“No. If we try showering at the same time we’ll definitely be late. You are physically incapable of keeping your hands to yourself.”
“Only when it’s you, darling,” Vi places a quick peck to her lips, and Caitlyn takes it. Until she attempts to deepen it, and pushes Vi away.
“Down, girl. We have to get ready. I’ll go first, need to wake up,” she ignores Vi’s needy pathetic whinging and heads into the bedroom to use the ensuite. When Vi hears the shower start up, she takes a moment to herself. She hangs Caitlyn’s rifle back up on the rack over where it lives proudly above her gauntlets. She hunkers down to eye level with them, feels around the interior joint of the left hand and pulls it. A hidden compartment pops open, revealing a small velvet ring box. She flips it open, grinning like, well, a fool in love, and snaps a quick picture to show off to Caitlyn’s parents tonight.
It’s Saturday evening and Vi’s getting ready for the rest of her life.