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Thwack!
She twitches. The ground is hard. Cold. Damp. It seeps into her muscles, her bones, her soul. She drains away, a bit at a time. Tears and blood and vomit in the gutter.
Thwack!
Concrete on her face. Boots in her ribs. Hands on her arms. Iron baton across her back.
Thwack!
It hurts. Gods, it hurts. Until it doesn't hurt. Again and again and again, the baton strikes.
Thwack!
She's one giant bruise, never healing. It's why they forced her to get the tattoos. To hide the evidence of their abuse. Then they stopped bothering to hide it. Nobody is looking. Nobody knows she's here. Nobody cares.
Thwack!
This goes on for years. Interrogations about people she never met. Crimes she couldn't have committed. They stop asking questions after a while. The beatings continue anyway.
Thwack!
Sometimes she 'earned it' for meting out her own justice against another prisoner, usually one of Silco's cronies. Sometimes the wardens want to blow off steam. Sometimes it's just for fun. Sometimes she tries to fight back. Sometimes that makes it worse.
Thwack!
All her strength is gone. The muscles she built and hardened are leaden weights. Dead weight. She can't resist the pillow held against her face. When she refuses to pass out from the pain, this is how they force her to sleep. She can't move, can't breathe, can't scream, no nonono NO, please PLEASE, don't leave Powder, can't leave Powder, can't help Powder, help ME Powder, help me SOMEBODY, help me ANYBODY, help me Mama, help me please . . .
Vi claws her mind to wakefulness, but somehow, this is even worse. She's numb all over, she can't move. The pillow is on her face. Oh Gods, she's still in prison! It can't be, she left, but she's still here, because they're still killing her, she still can't breathe.
Her lungs are burning now. She tries to suck in air, any air, one little wisp would do. The pillow is crusty with her drool and tears and snot. She tries to shake it off, tries to push it away, but not an inch of her body responds. She's sinking. Everything is already black and yet she's falling even deeper into the darkness. It smothers like the pillow, leaks into her ears and nose and mouth, a watery grave, a deep well.
“Powder fell down a well.”
'I'll see you there, sis.'
Hands on her shoulders. They're holding her down.
No, pulling her up. Pulling, lifting, up and up, until Vi breaks the surface, and she GASPS.
“Breathe, darling! Breathe ,” Caitlyn is saying into her ear.
Reinvigorating oxygen, not inky water or bitter remembrance, floods Vi's chest. Her body tingles all over, pins and needles; skin trying to crawl off. The panic recedes in waves with each deep, life-giving breath. Sense returns as the dreamscape fades, and everything fits together like puzzle pieces, immutable in time and order.
She's not in prison. That was years ago. She got out. Caitlyn got her out.
This beautiful, brilliant, perfect goddess who is far too good for her. Caitlyn gave her a life again, gave her fresh air and strong hands with long fingers which twist in Vi's sweat-sodden nightshirt. She holds Vi around the shoulders, trying to roll the heavier woman onto her back, careful of her head not yet supported by a noodle-loose neck. She whispers assurances, soothing truths when Vi feels herself full of lies and pain.
“It was a nightmare, my love, that's all. They can't hurt you anymore. We made sure of that, didn't we? Come now, breathe with me. Feel my chest and match me. Just breathe.”
Vi takes stock, the way she trained herself to whenever she wakes up. Get the lay of the land, who's around, what's going on.
They're in bed. The canopy curtains are drawn closed, but she recognizes the emerald brocade. It's Caitlyn's bed, so they must be in Caitlyn's room, in Caitlyn's home, their home, and far away from Stillwater. Only faint moonlight filters through the curtains, so it's still night. Vi is lying half on her side, hips twisted, left leg bent into the mattress. The woman clutching her and laying a gentle, flattened palm to her chest feels firm, steady, warm. Vi focuses on Caitlyn, lets her measure their breathing.
Caitlyn's heartbeat is a calming rhythm against her back. Breathe in, breathe out. Vi tests her fingers and toes, which respond sluggishly, but they all move. Breathe in, breathe out. She's eventually able to straighten herself onto a single plane and puts her own hand over Caitlyn's, threading fingers together. Their matching gold bands clink faintly. Breathe in, breathe out. The jitters from a rush of adrenaline start to fade. The other woman presses a kiss to the crown of Vi's head.
Breathe in.
Breathe out.
“I'm okay now,” Vi croaks, throat dry and scratchy. Her head throbs from having the air cut off for so long, but in truth, it could have been as little time as seconds. It's hard to tell in the sunken place of dreams and memory. She reaches back and cups Caitlyn behind the ear, guiding her forward while stretching herself until their lips roughly align. It's a sloppy exchange, brief but familiar. Vi murmurs, “Guess I owe you another one, Cupcake.”
“Hmmmm, you are running up quite the tab,” hums the reply, “but I can't take all the credit this time.”
Only then does Vi notice a skinny silhouette in the moonlight, barely wider than the ornately carved bedpost behind which it pretends to hide. Vi curls herself to a slouched position, elbows on knees, and calls softly, “You lurkin', Pow-Pow?”
“Couldn't sleep. Lotta ghosts in my bed,” Jinx mumbles from the other side of the curtain. She pokes at it, a single finger tracing shapes in the brocade.
The younger woman has been getting better recently. She's less distracted by the voices which haunt her, thanks to the stability of her new home, and the council-mandated psychological medication courtesy of the best apothecaries money can buy. But nights can be rough for both sisters.
“I was out like a light,” Caitlyn explains. “Too many long nights at the station. Yes, Vi, like you keep saying. My point is, and I'm ashamed to admit, that I may not have noticed your distress if Jinx hadn't come in.”
“Set off your crime detector, did she?” Vi jokes, and Jinx giggles at Caitlyn's expense.
Her thin lips twist in a wry smirk, “Something like that. It's all right now, Jinx, why don't you join us?” At the questioning arch of a scarred eyebrow from her wife, Caitlyn sits up against the headboard, one hand rubbing soothing circles around Vi's back. “I understand there are times when you need your sister more than me.”
“Um, you two are decent, right? I don't need to, like, see the evidence of your canoodling!”
Caitlyn's light chemise is flattering — very much so, to Vi's gaze — but perfectly modest. So Vi laughs, “Yeah, yeah. Come and get your cuddles, squirt.”
Tentatively, Jinx ducks under the bed curtain, big pink eyes luminous in the dark, long cyan braids trailing behind her. Not having much of a wardrobe of her own, she's petite enough to wear Caitlyn's old clothes. Vi isn't sure how she feels about seeing her sister in her wife's attire, but those fleecy pajamas are adorable on Jinx. The younger woman is slow to taking a seat, as if wary that the plush bedspread with ensnare her. She folds one leg under her, the other left dangling, weighed down by an ankle monitor.
Not the most fashionable piece of jewelry, the clockwork device is another condition of Jinx's house arrest. Unless kept wound by a special key which only Caitlyn and Vi have copies of, it will emit an ear-piercing shriek and certain other 'countermeasures' will deploy to discourage an escape attempt. It's crude — cruel, even — but proven effective.
Granted, Jinx is smart enough that she could have tampered with it, escaped it easily, but the fact she hasn't is a testament to her putting genuine effort into being rehabilitated.
Or maybe she just wants to spend time with her sister and is treating this like a vacation. It helps that either Vi or Caitlyn is almost always home to supervise these days, so they haven't been working together as much, but have been building a functional rapport with the (hopefully) reformed serial vandal/demolitionist. Piltover has been much quieter now that Jinx is off the streets, while the Kiramman manor is significantly more lively.
“What happened to you? Did the ghosts get you too?” Jinx peers at her sister like she's a faulty sprocket in a jammed mechanism. “I've never seen you like that before. It was, um, kinda scary.”
“Not gonna lie, it scares me too, Pow. Sometimes my brain wakes up before my body and if I'm in a bad position, well, I guess you saw how it can go. It happens when I'm dreaming of, uh, Stillwater. What it—what they did to me, in that pace.”
“I'm sorry, Violet. Didn't know you had it bad too, all this time.” Jinx lists to the side, hesitant but wanting to make contact.
Vi lifts an arm and beckons her in, so she accepts the invitation, resting a cheek on one shoulder and wrapping arms around her sister's waist. They haven't shared this kind of easy intimacy since childhood and Vi lets out a shuddering breath of relief. She gropes behind herself and Caitlyn joins hands again, scooting forward to rest against her wife's broad back.
“Ew, you're all sweaty,” Jinx observes. “Kinda stinky too.”
“That happens, I've noticed,” Caitlyn agrees. She cards fingers through the shaggy hair at the back of Vi's head, where it's grown long enough to fall over her neck, and Vi can feel the dampness of it.
“So much judgment in my time of weakness,” Vi scoffs in mock offense. “You never used to mind sleepin' with your stinky sis.”
“Yeah, and we used to be dirt poor. Bathing was a luxury when we were kids.” Jinx then stage whispers to Caitlyn behind a hand, “We used to make sure the well water was safe by holding up a flame to see if it ignites! Hazard of living in the Fissures.”
Vi turns to Caitlyn and insists, “She's making it sound worse than it was,” out of some irrational need for her wife to not think she married a hopeless slob.
Her sister sighs dramatically. “All I'm sayin' is there are, like, four bathtubs in this place? And two more restrooms that have just showers! I've used all of them,” Jinx intones seriously. “It wouldn't hurt to freshen up a bit.”
Caitlyn jostles against Vi's back from trying to stifle her amusement. The soft warmth of her body takes some of the sting out of her wife's teasing: “Far be it for me to chase you out of our marital bed over something so trivial, darling. I took an oath to honor and cherish you, in sickness and in health, after all.”
Jinx cackles and snorts. She lays across Vi's lap and pokes her blooming cheeks. “Don't sulk, sis, it's all in good fun! They say it's bad for a marriage to go to bed mad. We love ya, sweaty pits and all.”
“I wouldn't have you any other way,” Caitlyn agrees, rosy cheeks bunched and tooth gap showing through her broad grin. “Please, never change.”
The nightmare thoroughly forgotten, Vi grumbles, “If you two are done, I'm ready to turn in for real over here. Taking a shower would wake me up even more, so you're gonna hafta suffer through it for the night.”
Vi reclines again, but cringes at the feel of the crusty pillow. She flips it over and punches it a couple times until it's just right, then gets comfortable. Despite her earlier complaint, Jinx burrows under the bedspread and curls, latching onto her big sister like a lamprey. Caitlyn, taking care to keep her slip from riding up, turns sideways and also lays against her wife. Vi wraps an arm around them both and feels the last dregs of tension siphon away.
However, Caitlyn is still fighting to suppress an amused smirk and Vi demands, “What?”
“Nothing,” she dismisses. One slender hand brushes pink bangs aside and traces down a chiseled jaw. They turn into each other for another chaste kiss. She whispers, “Can I not simply admire my gorgeous spouse?”
“No mushy stuff ,” Jinx warns, her voice muffled by Vi's shirt.
Vi ignores her sister and says, “Don't try to distract me with your feminine wiles, Cupcake. It's not 'nothing' if you have to say so. What happened to 'open communication is the key to a healthy marriage'?”
Caitlyn confesses, “Oh, very well! I just . . . think it's cute, the way you two have these little rituals. I'm an only child, so I've always had the whole bed to myself until relatively recently.”
“You don't say?” Vi prods, voice dripping with sarcasm. “S'pose that would explain why I sometimes wake up with your arm over my face or your cold toes in my back?”
“In my defense, you are a bloody great hot water bottle, darling.”
“She ain't wrong,” Jinx pipes up, her chin now digging into Vi's shoulder. “Besides, you're not one to talk. You use'ta turn around in bed like a dog! Hey, Cup-Cait, I ever tell ya about the time—”
“That's enough outta you!” Vi chides. “Or so help me, I'll make out with my wife until you die from humiliation and she has to arrest me for murder.”
Jinx mashes a palm against Caitlyn's face — ignoring the older woman's startled “Oh!” — and objects, “Nnnnnooo! She got too many already. Where's my kiss goodnight?”
She yelps when Vi traps her around the shoulders and peppers her face with smooches, going, “Mwah! Mwah! Mwah! ” until Jinx's squirming protests turn into a (semi-)accidental headbutt.
“Ouch! Yeah, no more, okay? Quota filled!”
“My poor girls,” Caitlyn laments. “Whatever am I going to do with you two?” She cranes her neck to give Vi a peck on the bruised forehead, then surprisingly does the same for Jinx's matching boo-boo.
The younger woman's childish pout cracks and she buries her face again to mask a watery sniffle. Vi knows her sister better than anybody and can tell that simple gesture touched something in Jinx which has craved tenderness for too long. Vi felt the same way, when she and Caitlyn first danced around the idea of being together. The passion was real, but the timing was wrong.
“What about us?”
' “Oil and water”? Yeesh, still can't believe I said that.'
Despite the grief and woe in the days which followed that misguided ultimatum, the two women couldn't help but come back to each other. Caitlyn had a will of iron and a spine like steel, but was also be the softest, goofiest, most delightful person Vi had ever known. The most forgiving too; how else to explain welcoming in your former kidnapper? 'Saint Cait' had no reason to give Jinx a second chance, other than out of love for Vi. And somehow, against the odds, the three of them formed a strange little family.
She has a trusted partner in all aspects of life. Her sister is home, safe and happy. There's no room for sorrow when Vi's heart feels so full.
The sisters finally settle down, so Caitlyn tucks the bedspread around them all and makes sure Jinx's braids lay above it, so as to not get tangled in the night.
In a low voice she says, “You should really get in the habit of brushing these out before going to sleep, you know?” A satin ribbon secures her own navy locks and the mass drapes over one shoulder. Jinx hums indifferently, so Caitlyn tries again, “I could . . . do it for you, if you like . . . sweetheart?”
The younger woman nods sleepily and yawns, “Ooohh-kay. Thanks, Mama.”
In the still of the night, Vi feels against her neck the heat of her wife's face flushing with embarrassment. She has to bite the inside of her own cheek to not laugh.
Caitlyn begins to hum a lilting tune, some Piltie lullaby Vi doesn't know, but has heard before at times when she needed comforting. Jinx's breathing has found the sedate pace of slumber and Vi feels herself soon to follow. She's floating on the surface of a calm sea, not weighed down by the women under her arms, but buoyed. It almost impossible to have such good fortune. Death and heartache, crime and punishment; they all seem so far away.
Right now, Vi's life is perfect.