Chapter Text
Caitlyn stared at the ceiling above her bed, daydreaming. She saw Piltover's roofs, and backalleys, and the bridge leading towards the undercity. She loved going with Vi in the middle of the night. Vi had taught her some basic parkour, and shown her around the undercity a couple times. There was a thrill in it (well, other than the butterflies the other girl gave her in every moment they shared). Prissy, stuck-up, daughter of a councilwoman, Caitlyn Kirraman running around the rooftops at night. Who would’ve thought, right?
Suddenly, as Caitlyn was in the middle of her daydreams, thinking of bright pink hair and a red stolen jacket, there came a loud knock on her bedroom door. “Come in,” she shouted loud enough for her father to hear. “Cait, your mother and I have that charity gala later tonight, and we were wondering if you and Jayce would want to come as well?” he said with an air of uncertainty. Her father was the only one who knew the true nature of hers and Jayce’s relationship, that they were only together for the public eye, so that they could both appear straight. “I suppose we are due for another public sighting..” she mused out loud. “I’ll let your mother know you’ll be there”, he said as he closed the heavy door.
She soon began getting ready, choosing a tight fitting blue-green dress with a slit in the left side. She knew it was going to catch some eyes, one particular set of gray eyes in particular. She left a note on her pillow to explain where she was for the night, and went downstairs to meet Jayce.
“You look good”, a soft voice said from just below the stairs. There Jayce was, in all his glory. She hugged him, as they really were best friends, and she hadn’t seen him in nearly a week. Apparently he was close to a breakthrough, and hadn’t left his lab in days. Something told Cait that Viktor had forced him to go out tonight, for publicity’s sake. As she had her arms wrapped around him, she saw her mother looking over. She quickly gave Jayce a kiss on the cheek and took his hand in hers. Her mother looked satisfied with this. “Well we best get going then”, Jayce said awkwardly, trying to get out of the tense room.
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Vi stared at the bottom of her sister’s bunk. It was well into the night, but anxiety had been eating at her all day, for no apparent reason. She desperately wanted to go see Caitlyn, but was paralyzed in bed. “What if something happens to Powder while I’m gone? What if Vander is still awake? What if her mom catches me again??”, she thought, weighing her options.
Eventually, she couldn’t fight it, and she got out of bed. Stumbling through the dark of the basement bedroom, she struggled into a pair of ripped jeans and pulled on a sweater she had stolen from Cait the last time they saw each other, which was only three nights ago but felt like an eternity. Vi inhaled the sweet scent while the sweater went over her head.
She made sure Powder was safe and asleep before making her way up the stairs and into the bar area. Vander closed early on weekdays ever since he adopted Vi and Powder, just to make the schedules easier to manage. The room was relatively dark, but for a few neon signs along the walls. Vi snuck behind the bar and grabbed a random bottle. “This should calm my nerves”, she thought as she stuffed the bottle into her bag. She made sure there was enough padding that the bottle wouldn’t break, and made her exit.
After about half an hour of parkour, she was now right in the heart of Piltover. She found a secluded rooftop and opened her bag. She got out the bottle and finally looked at the label. Maker’s Mark. Vander always liked bourbon, and Vi drank it if he offered (half of the reason being that she wanted to look tough), but if she was being honest she did prefer “fruity” drinks. She made sure she knew how to get from Caitlyn’s mansion from where she was, and opened the bottle. The smell alone made her grimace. She took a large gulp, the liquid burning her throat as it went down. “Damn, should’ve brought a chaser,” she muttered to herself. She took a few more swigs off the bottle before putting the cap back on.
Feeling sufficiently buzzed, she began the easiest route she knew from there to Caitlyn’s window. As she opened her window, however, she saw that the room was empty. Just as she was about to leave, she saw a note on the pillow of Cait’s bed.
“Jayce and I were offered to attend a charity gala. We needed another public appearance, you know that. There's a garden not too far where we could go, if you’re up to finding me tonight. XO Cait”.
Vi swore to herself and left the room the same way she had entered. Shakily, she tried to figure out the best route to where Cait would most likely be. Someplace they could hold a gala, but with a garden nearby. Once she figured out where they were, she set off. She almost fell off the rooftops a couple times, but each time regained her footing. By the time she arrived, she was sore from her drunken clumsiness.
As she peeked through a window, she saw all fancy dresses and nice suits. There was Jayce, in his white and red suit… and then she saw Cait. Vi felt her breath get stuck in her throat as she looked at the other woman. “She’s so gorgeous..”, Vi whispered to herself. An accented voice came from behind her, “Jayce isn’t looking too bad tonight either”. Vi whipped around, ready to fight whoever had found her in the night. “Oh, Viktor”, she said with a sigh of relief, “you scared me”. “Yes I know, it was quite funny,” Viktor said with a smirk.
“Hey, Viktor, you’re Jayce’s lab partner so you can go in there, right?”, Vi questioned. “I suppose I could, if I wanted to,” Viktor said playfully. “Can you go get Cait for me? I can’t go in looking like this,” she gestured to her outfit. Viktor walked into the gala wordlessly. Vi watched from the window as Viktor strolled over to Jayce, smugly said something that made him blush, and said something to Caitlyn. Almost immediately, she made eye contact with Vi. They held this for a few seconds before some people came outside, and Vi had to hide in the bushes.
Eventually, after three painstakingly anxious minutes (the whiskey clearly hadn’t done its job), Cait came outside. As Vi rose from her crouching position in the bushes, she was greeted by the same sweet scent that was on her sweater, but straight from the source. Cait met her in a hug so tight one would think they hadn’t seen each other in years. “I missed you,” she said in a small voice, as if afraid to disturb the calm of their hug and the night around them. “I miss you too,” Vi intended to whisper, but drunkenly said a little loudly. “Are you drunk?!”, Cait inquired in an incredulous tone. “Maybe a little bit”, Vi said, “don’t worry about it cupcake”. Caitlyn had a conflicted look on her face. “Well, do you think you’re okay to make decisions? Let me see how much you had,” she said. Vi showed her the mostly full bottle and nodded her head. Cait smiled, “cool”, she mumbled, then abruptly stepped towards Vi. She leaned forward quickly and captured Vi’s lips in a deep kiss.
Right on cue, since nothing can ever go right for Vi tonight, more people came outside from the building. The two women quickly jumped apart, which served nothing but to draw more attention to them. Both of their faces were fully flushed, and Vi was, well, wearing Cait’s sweater. They were in quite a conspicuous position, to say the least. Luckily for them, it was only Jayce and Viktor, who had enough balls to walk out hand in hand. “Be careful you two, and maybe get a room!”, Jayce called over teasingly. “Said the guys holding hands in plain sight,” said Cait, annoyed that they had been interrupted but grateful it hadn’t been anyone else. “Come on, cupcake, let's get out of here,” Vi said softly.
The two of them made their way to the nearby garden that Cait had mentioned. They found an archway of roses and stopped there. The nighttime air wrapped them in a comfortable embrace. “So…” Cait said expectedly. “So…”. Vi finally stepped up to the challenge. She took a step forward, brought one hand up to Caitlyn’s jaw and put the other on the small of her back, and kissed her. It was sweet at first, but soon became hungry. Vi kissed her like they may never get the chance to kiss again. They stayed kissing like that for what felt like an eternity, but was really only a couple moments. Cait was the one to finally come up for air.
“Well that was nice,” Vi said in a husky voice. Cait’s face was incredibly red, and her pupils blown out. “Yeah..”, she said breathlessly. “We can’t keep doing this you know,” she started, “we’re going to get caught eventually”. “But not tonight”. “We’re still close to the venue, someone could easily come from there and see us”, Caitlyn explained. “So what? They’ll see a hot boxer with the most beautiful girl in all of Piltover,” Vi said flirtatiously, “You afraid they’ll be jealous of me?”, she teased. “What? No it's not that, it's that I’m the daughter of a councilwoman and you’re..”, she trailed off, seeing the hurt in Vi’s eyes at her words.
“You’re ashamed of me..?”, Vi said carefully, trying not to let her voice waver even though she wanted to cry. “No, no it's not that, I promise it's not that”, Cait said, trying to console her. Vi felt the tears welling up in her eyes. “Vi, look at me,” Cait said softly. She cupped Vi’s jaw with one hand and gently moved her head to make eye contact. “Honey, you know why I have the arrangement I do with Jayce. Nobody can know about this, because of my mother. I’m sorry it’s like this. But if people see us, they’ll think I’m cheating on him, and that's even worse than if they knew I’m gay”, Cait explained, her face sad.
“Hey,” she softened “I love you”. It was the first time Cait had said that to her, and Vi’s eyes widened at the words. “I- I love you too,” Vi stammered out. Vi leaned in and kissed Cait again, soft and sweet. “Well it's not cheating if we’re drunk and I kiss you first,” Vi said, smiling. “That’s not how that works you know,” Cait laughed. “Well good to know you aren’t a cheater,” Vi chuckled, “but we know your mother could make any flimsy excuse work for us”. “Yeah… I suppose so,” Cait said with a small smile.
And so, they stood under that archway, kissing, smiling, and holding each other for the better part of the night. And later, in the earliest hours of the morning, Cait found herself once again daydreaming about pink hair, and a stolen jacket, and kisses under rose bushes.