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It's nearly midnight. Caitlyn knows by the half-past chime of the upright clock down the hall. The sound is faint but gentle, nearly lost behind the door. She tilts her head to catch it. Its bells have come to sound like home.
She thumbs the edges of the book she holds open across her legs. Heavy, hard-bound, and perfect, it smells like her father's study. The Forest Beneath the Sea.
Vi's favorite novel.
The book belongs to Vi, given to her as a gift on the date they'd picked to be her birthday.
"Lot of trenchers don't know their birthdays," she shrugged when she was asked.
Caitlyn smiled at her across the breakfast table.
"I suppose you get to choose, then."
Vi stopped with her fork in her eggs and thought about it.
"Well...what was the date we met?"
Caitlyn still remembers the look on Vi's face as she peeled back the paper, how her gaze had come up wide and searching, not for her, but for her father.
Tobias' eyes had twinkled as he spoke.
"I had your name embossed on the cover after the fifth time you asked to borrow it."
It's a bittersweet novel, and Caitlyn has found the tear stains that put ripples in the pages. Never mentions them, of course. Not sure Vi expected her to notice when she crawled into bed one night and placed the book in her hands.
"Read to me?"
She was tentative. Quiet. Eyes downcast. She pressed into sore places on her wrist.
Caitlyn studied her. "Read to you?"
A nod.
Caitlyn let silence ask for an explanation.
Vi lifted a shoulder. "Bad day. Can't focus. And…your voice, you know?"
—"Keeps me here."
That's how it started. Vi doesn't ask often. Caitlyn worries about why, so she offers. On hard days, dark days—Bad Days—when she can see the cracks and the shadows inside, the fractures Vi desperately tries to set and splint so no one will catch her wincing, she offers.
"Would you like me to read to you?"
There's always hesitation because to Vi the question means she's been seen. She knows. Caitlyn knows. But they keep it in subtext, tuck it between the lines. Vi pulls the book down off the shelf and comes to bed.
She's never said no.
It almost always works. Nestled into the bed covers, legs close and sometimes tangled, Caitlyn reads and Vi listens. Three pages, and Vi is usually gone. She fades out fast. Caitlyn can tell without looking when she goes. She knows her that well. Her weight changes, her breath evens out. Vi falls into herself, so much smaller without all that armor.
But sometimes, not even her favorite book read softly in her favorite voice is enough. It isn’t enough tonight. Vi is restless. She keeps resurfacing. Three times Caitlyn has lulled her to sleep. Three times Vi's body has tightened and snapped her awake again.
A Very Bad Day.
They both know there will be nightmares, even if she manages to go under. Caitlyn watches as Vi shifts, tossing, her sighs quiet but heavy. Marking her page with a ribbon, Caitlyn eases the book closed and rests it in her lap. Tucking loose hair behind her ear, she looks down.
Vi's face is half-buried in the pillow and framed by shower-wild hair. Her brow is furrowed.
“Having trouble sleeping, love?”
Vi doesn’t answer. Instead, she slides open a single, silver eye. Her gaze drifts and considers, heavy and burnished. Caitlyn can feel its weight rolling along the angles of her face. It feels tangible. Always does. Her cheeks warm. They always do.
There's a tightness in Vi’s expression. It deepens the grooves around her eyes. Lines that shouldn't be there. Not on a person so young.
Sighing, Caitlyn settles next to her, the book set aside on the nightstand, the lamp wick turned down low. She leans on her elbow, her head propped in her hand, and reaches out to guide feathered hair out of Vi's face. That one, bleary eye sharpens briefly, tracking her hand until it gets close. But Vi knows, relaxes, her gaze shivering out of focus as she's touched.
"Would you like to talk about it?" Caitlyn asks. Her voice is barely there, less than a whisper. Vi's tension returns for a moment. A different kind, this time. The stress of wanting to say yes but needing to say no.
"Not right now?" Caitlyn guesses, and Vi doesn't even have to nod. The way the lines of her body resettle, unwinding into the mattress—it's answer enough.
Caitlyn curves closer, her hand floating back to till the soft hair at the nape of her neck. Tucking an ankle behind her leg, she gathers Vi to her, nosing down into the top of her head.
"You know I'm here, though," she says. Not a question. Just a reminder. Vi nuzzles under her chin in answer. Her sigh is all Caitlyn could ever ask for, warm and soft in the hollow of her shoulder. An unspoken, 'Yes, I know. Of course, I know.'
Caitlyn kisses her. Her lips press to a jagged line near Vi's temple, one usually hidden by a fringe of red hair.
"Anything I can do?"
She kneads the offer into Vi's skin.
Vi's breathing pauses, held in thought. Caitlyn traces a divot of scar behind her ear and waits.
"...my back?"
The words are quiet, felt more than heard. They thrum along her collarbone and she stops, closing her eyes for a moment. Because if Vi is asking, it means the breaks are bad tonight. Caitlyn curls red hair around her fingers and lets her mouth move where it is.
"Of course."
Vi shivers. She always does when Caitlyn whispers over old wounds. With a muffled chirr, she nudges closer. Her exhale sounds like relief.
Another kiss.
"Shirt off?" Caitlyn asks. Her hand drifts down to Vi's sleeve, her fingers smoothing along the seam.
Tufts of unruly hair brush the underside of her chin as Vi nods. "Uh-huh."
Caitlyn pushes back the covers.
"Alright, love. Here." She gathers the hemline of Vi's shirt into her hand. "Up for me?"
Groggily, Vi shuffles onto her forearms, and Caitlyn eases the shirt up over her shoulders.
"Duck."
Vi drops her head. Limbs are unlooped and untangled and the shirt ends up heaped on the far side of the bed. Vi remains propped up on her elbows, unsteady, too exhausted to be awake, too anxious to sleep. She sways.
Caitlyn traces a line between her shoulder blades. "Relax back down."
Vi's body tenses and releases on another shiver. She blinks as it races through her.
"'Kay."
Headfirst, she settles again, burrowing into the pillows.
Caitlyn curves into her side. "Better?"
Vi's ribs flare around a sigh, huge and heavy. Closing her eyes, she noses down into the crook of her arm. She nods.
"Good," Caitlyn whispers. Putting her chin back in her hand, she reaches out, running her thumb slowly along the ridge of Vi's undercut. Hair furrows beneath her touch. A scar flashes among wine-red roots, sickle-shaped. Caitlyn skirts it. Knows it's raw. Vi always jumps when it's touched.
"I pissed off a guard. He was wearing a ring."
The blow carved apart a nerve. It never quite healed. The thought makes Caitlyn's scalp prickle with empathy.
She keeps her hand feather-light. Carefully, she trails around the warm shell of Vi's ear. As they dip, her fingers glance off of steel. Vi hums, brow knitting, and rolls her head, asking her to linger.
She does, tracing easy spirals down into the tender swale beside her jaw. Pale skin pebbles and lifts. Vi lets go of a helpless sound as Caitlyn coaxes another tremor out through her shoulders. The crease above her eyes deepens.
Caitlyn lowers onto the pillows, vigilant. "Feel nice, love?"
Vi sinks, tucking behind her arm. Her head tips. Bleary. “Mm-hm.”
Caitlyn brushes a kiss over the faultline in her eyebrow.
“Good,” she says. She lays her cheek into the notch of Vi’s arm. "Sleep if you can."
"M'kay."
Caitlyn smiles. Gently, she wanders. Her touch hovers, unspooling to loop circles around the flywheel on Vi's throat. Cogs flex in the half-light as she traces them. She follows their dark geometry to the ink that brindles the planes of Vi's back. Dizzying. Complex. Pistons, plates, and wires. Whorls of steam, now powder blue. Bold strokes of gearwork shrinking into labyrinths of crisp detail.
Beautifully designed.
So precise.
Just like the monochrome sketches tucked shyly behind the drafting table. The ones Caitlyn wants to frame.
She found them by accident while searching for spare loose-leaf.
"Good lord, Vi. These are beautiful!"
Startled eyes swung towards her.
"What? Those—? Oh. Shit. No, that—here, that stuff's just practice."
Caitlyn lifted the drawings out of reach as Vi lunged.
"Psh, 'practice,'" she scoffed, "Looks far more like 'perfection' to me."
Vi's freckles vanished instantly into her blush.
Caitlyn beamed.
The memory makes her smile.
Her hand roves. Her eyes follow. Bands of muscle move under her touch. She counts ribs, their rungs stark under taut skin. The ink is everywhere. A maze. Kaleidoscopic. Stunning. She loses herself among the lines. Minutes roll away.
Down the hall, the clock tolls softly. Lullaby tones. Quarter ‘til midnight.
Vi stirs.
Caitlyn catches a flash of silver, there and gone. It disappears beneath dark eyelashes.
She waits.
Vi murmurs into the quiet. "Hey."
Caitlyn floats to another tattoo, runs a finger along its stippled edge. Prompting. "Hey, what?"
Another flash. Gaze fleecy. Pupils soft.
Voice softer.
"...I love you."
The words slow Caitlyn's hand. It stops. Unfurls. Goes heavy. Heart brimming, she bends beneath the covers, finding Vi, matching angle to angle, curve to curve. Drawing her into an embrace—the one they know best.
Sidelong.
Vi pours into it. Malleable. Warm. Her exhale tapers into a chirp.
Caitlyn holds her. Finding a place to press her lips, she speaks through a kiss.
"I love you, too."