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Caitlyn didn't know the words to describe what she felt for Vi. She didn't think there was a word that could encompass the way she wanted to hold her and never let go, to run her hands through the knots in the scruffy pink hair, to place a kiss on Vi's lips, and then a trail leading down her body. Caitlyn liked to consider herself intelligent, but staring into Vi's grey eyes left her stupid and witless, ready to do whatever it was that this violent, reckless Zaunite wanted her to do.
But Caitlyn was pathetic, and so she did none of those things.
Instead, she would merely let her eyes wander and linger when she thought Vi wasn't looking. She would like awake at night, a small smile playing on her lips and she imagined scenarios, each more unlikely than the last. Perhaps most pathetic of all was the way her breath would hitch and her tongue would lay dead in her mouth whenever she got close to saying 'I love you', leaving her jaw slightly ajar and her looking the fool.
Caitlyn was getting tired of this scene.
Alas, what was there to do? Embarass herself futher? No thank you! She would take this secret to her grave, and then a little further. While Caitlyn was not a stranger to damaged reputation - see: joining the enforcers - Vi was different; everything to loose, no way to gain. What would be the point in ruining a perfectly good friendship for some useless pining that would surely go nowhere? No, there was no way Vi would ever hear a whisper of this.
So you can image Caitlyn's utter shock when the words 'I think I'm in love with you' slipped, completely unprompted, from her mouth.
Vi stared, and oh how Caitlyn was pinned under those grey eyes.
"What?" the small scar on Vi's upper lip stretched around the word. Caitlyn coughed. Were her hands always this sweaty? The walls always this close?
"Oh, um - uh - that wasn't - I didn't -" she tried to save herself from the complete embarrassment that was to come. Caitlyn hoped Jinx would come and shoot her in her stupidly red face.
"No," Vi said, taking a step forward. Caitlyn tried to take one back in response, but found her boot grating down a brick wall. And then she stumbled slightly, because this couldn't get any worse. "You said - you said that -"
"Nothing," Caitlyn said, trying to regain some of the cool composure that made her such a good enforcer. "It was nothing, just - just commenting on the weather.'
Vi's eyebrows knotted.
"But I thought you said -" Vi's mouth opened and closed, but no sound came out, clearly too disgusted with Caitlyn's declaration to even speak of it. God, Caitlyn had to go and ruin everything, didn't she?
"Well, what I said was..." she paused. "What I said was 'I think the weather is lovely today.'" It was a lame excuse, but it would have to do. Vi's eyes flickered up to the overcast sky, then into her own. It took all of Caitlyn's willpower not to stare at Vi's lips.
"Right," Vi said, taking a step back so Caitlyn could finally breathe again. "Well then... right."
"Yeah," Caitlyn said breathlessly, still slightly winded from the whole experience. "Shall we, uh, continue on then?"
"Guess so," Vi shrugged, pink hair tousling in the wind. God, even after all that, Caitlyn was just as pathetic as before, wasn't she?
Silence reigned over them, the crunching of gravel underfoot the only thing to be heard. Vi, however, kept opening her mouth as if she had something to say, but couldn't. Caitlyn didn't think she wanted to know what it was that was on her mind, so she didn't ask. Eventually, after almost a full ten minutes of this routine, Vi grabbed her arm.
"I think I love you, too," she said fast enough that Caitlyn took a moment to process it, then another to process the meaning. By then, however, Vi was already walking much quicker than she was before, and Caitlyn was left dazed and rooted to the spot.
Caitlyn might not have the words to describe what she felt for Vi, but maybe she wouldn't have to. Maybe Vi would understand.