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Time did not cradle Vi, it crushed her. It licked at her scars with fuel and fire. She did not keep pace with the passing of days, no, she stumbled into tomorrow etching lines into concrete, losing track. Time stole her away. Now, she would steal back a piece for herself. She would steal back a minute or two, and pierce the shards of it into her chest.
When Caitlyn, wrong side up and lying curled on her side like Vi, reaches her hand out, there's some part of her that knows she can't have this. When those fingers, long and slender, soft (not like Vi's hardened palms and calluses) graze her cheek, she takes that hand in her own and means to push it away. She means to say, "No," and guard her heart before she receives that fatal blow, but she takes something for herself instead.
Her lips do not open to speak, they only part to draw in breath, to press her lips to Caitlyn's fingertips, soft, and past her knuckles, and to the skin between forefinger and thumb. It's not a kiss, really. Is it? Vi's mouth tracing the softness of skin and hardness of bone, trying to pull those pieces of herself together. Trying not to choke out a murmur or a whine or a sob, while Caitlyn stares at her with those wide blue eyes; attentive and anticipating.
“Vi,” she says, the quiver in her voice pulling Vi back to those eyes, instead of submerged in skin on lips. Caitlyn's gaze is magnetic, and it pulls Vi in so that she can't bear to look away, not for a single second.
Vi muffles her words against Caitlyn's hand. “Sometimes, I think those monsters I made are still there…and I haven’t been able to chase them away, even after all this time spent trying to be strong…”
“Oh, Vi,” she breathes out, pressing back with the pad of her thumb to Vi’s lips to return the gesture. “I’m here, and I— it’s not been long but, I would help you chase your monsters away, if you were to let me.”
The setting sun silhouettes part of Caitlyn’s face, giving her a warmth that emanates from inside out, a warmth Vi hasn’t known for a long time. And not like this. Never like this, like unwinding bloodied bandages and letting the wounds seep and sting in open air, all for someone to see. She could trust Caitlyn, has trusted Caitlyn while walking this tightrope between life and death these past few days (her whole life). Now, she might just trust her to see her inner scars, and wind her right back up— put her together again.
“Caitlyn?”
She can see how Caitlyn worries her bottom lip between teeth, her startled blinking at Vi calling her name and the stillness of her hand, now in Vi’s own. There’s a steadiness to her even in her waiting, like she’s been here before; on her bed breathing in time with someone, feeling how Vi feels, which is to say—
“Yes?” It’s her voice which gives it away, though. Maybe, this is just as fresh as a feeling, be it the first time or not.
“You’re the first person to make me feel the way I do, you know.” Vi turns to lie on her back. She can’t look at Caitlyn now she’s been unwound like this, she has to focus her attention on something other than Caitlyn.
Caitlyn: lips parted, chapped, cracked from the biting no doubt, and the escaped strands of hair grazing against her cheek, her chin; the arch of her brow and under that the absurd warmth of those blue eyes, and the imperfections too. The hollow of her cheeks and the fatigue under her eyes, all of it in Vi’s mind's eye.
Caitlyn is all she sees really, eyes closed or staring up at beige, it’s nothing but her for this moment, at least.
The sheets rustle under Vi, and Caitlyn’s in her line of sight again. She’s above her, haloed by dusk, smiling something sincere without the teasing edge or bravado Vi would have hid behind if the roles were reversed.
“I didn’t know I could feel this much, this fast, until you Vi.”
And there's that smile again, soft and blinding. Unwinding, unwinding. It knocks the clean, Piltover air out of Vi's lungs entirely, and it pumps her heart with an adrenaline so fierce she's dizzy with it. This feeling displaces her.
Vi breathes, presses a hand to her chest. Then she smiles back.
“Bet you’re glad you broke me out of prison, huh?”
Caitlyn laughs with an ease, and it calms Vi. “Oh shush…but, yes, I am. Wish we could’ve met in better circumstances though.”
“Me too, cupcake.”
They both share a sigh, a contented sort of exhale, together. Caitlyn cups Vi’s face with both hands, thumbs circling her cheeks until she’s burning with a blush, and with an impatience for Caitlyn to kiss her, if she’s going to kiss her. Vi wants her lips pressed to Caitlyn’s, and had wanted it the moment she had really looked at her for the first time. Though this time, lying on Caitlyn’s bed, it’s more than just a carnal wanting; it’s an ache, a bone deep yearning.
She cracks another smile even with this new, insistent ache, voice low. “Fuck, Cait, are you waiting for me to tell you how much I want this?”
And Caitlyn leans down, leans in, but she does not kiss her yet. “You want this, even if—”
“—I do, I really do.” Vi rushes, the desperation dripping in her voice she knows, telling from her grip on Caitlyn’s wrists, a needy thing.
“And...what of all those monsters?”
Vi softens, impossibly from how melted and exposed she feels already, heart on full display. Letting go of one of her wrists, she strokes Caitlyn's cheek, taking her time savouring every small part of her.
“They can’t get us— not here, not right now.”
Caitlyn gathers up every last piece of Vi when she kisses her. She winds and winds those wounds back up but she lets them breathe. She kisses with gentleness and fervour, from the softness in her hands exploring the expanse of Vi (her hair, the underside of her jaw, her neck, the line of her collarbone) to the press of her body to Vi’s and the graze of teeth over her bottom lip, and the sounds that come from the back of her throat, the full body shudder she does when Vi touches her. Vi kisses Caitlyn and it only fuels her aching, the high not high enough, the fire not scorching and scalding. Funny how this putting back together is taking her apart in some other way. But that thought is a fleeting thing compared to the hotness of mingling breaths and lips and teeth, the sound of her name.
They do part, of course, but now Vi knows this touch and she can't give it up. Not yet. She doesn't have to ask for Caitlyn to wrap her arms around her, because she does, and they sink into a warm silence save the buzz of the lamplight and world beyond those grand, balcony windows. Beating hearts next to each other, lips bruised with new meaning, Vi wonders how to make this run past its course. Those monsters again, ones hard to pick out of the darkness and decay, settle with her once more. All the things she's done wrong, starting from her very first mistake to now (betraying her, leaving her.) And silently, she slips her hand into Caitlyn’s own, squeezing tight.
"It's all so fucked up," she says at last. "Though I guess, it always has been."
“I know...I know, but, I’m here Vi, for as long as you want. At the very least, there's us.”
Time did not treat her delicately. But Vi sears a small pocket of it, of the sensation and the memory, into some place no one else can reach. At least, she knew, at least they had this.