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Warm water slips down Caitlyn's body, warm and soothing, but her heart is a lump of cold and rotting wood sitting behind her ribs.
Water drops onto the bathroom tiles with a small ping, a constant, insidious noise, piercing through the haze of fog that surrounds her mind and the pain throbbing in her leg. Blood spills into the water, a droplet at first, then a stream into a river.
It pours out of her, as searing hot as the water and the burning of her lungs.
Her arms are braced against the wall and are the only reason she is standing. Beyond the wound in her leg - her fault, always her fault - she is exhausted, and finding the effort to take her uniform off in the first place had been almost impossible.
She cannot close her eyes, even as shampoo and water seep into them. They already burn with unshed tears, what is one more irritant? Because that’s all it is - an irritation, a nuisance - and that is all it will be from now on, because of Caitlyn and her clumsy mouth and her dumb decisions and her cowardice.
“What about us?”
What about them?
Near strangers, a relationship born out of necessity and exploitation, two inexperienced fools trying their hands at something that was bound to blow up in their faces.
“Oil and water.”
Topside and bottom. Rich and poor. Strong and weak.
Sun and moon.
There is a yawning gap between Caitlyn and Vi, in so many ways she would run out of breath trying to list them all.
The only thing that holds - held - them together is - was - the flimsy promise of trying for a better future, and even Caitlyn had been reluctant to accept that.
“Wasn’t meant to be.”
Vi had been so resigned in that moment, none of the fiery temper and cool stubbornness that Caitlyn had come to love, a once great building torn down and left to debris. Vi had tired of the dance Caitlyn hadn’t realised they were performing - or, rather, hadn’t realised they were performing until it was too late.
Caitlyn’s heart might have broken there, in that street with the pouring rain and flickering lamp post. She couldn’t find the words for a precarious, teetering moment, words lodging at the back of her throat, breath shuddering in her lungs.
“You’re just saying that.”
Let them be words and nothing else. Painful, but without consequence. Sharp enough to hurt, but leaving nothing more than an indent.
“Do yourself a favour, Cupcake.”
Cupcake - sweet and filled with empty calories. Sugary confectioneries for those who could afford them, a waste of resources and energy for anyone else.
A waste of time.
“Go back to that big, shiny house of yours and just… forget about me .”
And that had been possibly the most cruel thing anyone had ever asked of Caitlyn.
Her heart had shattered then, Vi’s words a hammer against a stained mosaic, splintering into her ribs and her lungs, and so visceral she was sure that if she looked down she would be able to see the shards poking out of her chest.
And because she is a fool, and a coward, and everything Vi had said had some twisted truth to it, Caitlyn had let her walk away.
Why had she let her walk away?
It is her fault. It would always be her fault. She is at the top of the world, with a big, shiny house, and anything she could ever want at her fingertips - except, of course, the girl she loves, because the universe is cruel in small ways like that.
Caitlyn screws her eyes shut, and she can see the scene all over again.
The resignation lacing through Vi’s expression, her hood over her hair regardless of how the water soaked through the fabric regardless. Maybe it was the rain, or maybe Caitlyn had glimpsed a shining tear falling along the curve of her cheek, and her mind wasn’t further torturing her with things that couldn’t be possible.
She had cried, she would admit that, to no one but the walls of her bathroom in her big, shiny house .
She opens her eyes, vision blurry around the edges and eyes prickling from the steam. The water that streams onto her is too much like the rain, even if it isn’t as frigid, even if she is staring at gold and white tile.
She can’t drown herself standing upright, and she wouldn’t have, anyway.
She isn’t so pathetic.
Over a girl like Vi.
Over something that can never be , and someone she can never have.
It is as simple as that.
They both had their own priorities, at this point, things they cared about independently. It had been a steady accumulation of disagreements, sharp words and sharper looks. Today had simply been the final nail in the coffin.
It isn’t like it matters, anyway, in the long run.
By now, Caitlyn should know that the past… is just the past, and the wheel of time keeps turning no matter who you are - rich or poor, a criminal or an enforcer.
The sun or the moon.
Caitlyn shuts her water off and forces her body to get out of the shower, hand reaching out and snagging the end of a towel. She rubs her face dry as she nears her mirror, exhaustion finally settling into her bones.
Only - there’s strange lines wiped in the fog, and it takes her a beat to see it, and another beat to look at the lines in their entirety
It’s - graffiti .
Familiar graffiti, dangerous graffiti, scribbled eyes and a barbed wire mouth and a cartoon monkey swiped into the fog of her mirror. It is ridiculous how fast Caitlyn’s heart starts going, a jackalope catching sight of a wolf with a bloody maw.
She grabs her uniform - still damp and filthy, crinkled, nothing she would ever wear a month ago - and fumbles with all the buttons, and the layers. Her eyes dart frantically around the room, for any indication of where she could be.
How could she have not noticed?
How could she have been so idiotic?
There’s nothing out of place in the bathroom, aside from the ominous graffiti on her mirror. She doesn’t feel safe stepping out of the bathroom, but what other choice does she have? Hide and wait until Jinx finds her first, or worse, her family?
She doesn’t need anyone else dragged into this mess because of her stupidity.
She needs-
She needs a weapon, something sturdy and reliable, her rifle. Vi will hate her for hurting her little sister, but it’s already too late for that, and Jinx is a threat no matter her family.
No matter if it breaks Vi’s heart more than it’s already broken.
Her rifle is in her bedroom, not three steps from the bathroom doors. If she runs for it, she can make it, and find wherever Jinx is and deal with her once and for all.
She practically flings the doors open, but as soon as she does there’s a pop and a rattle and something covered in crayon and spray paint rolls against her foot. She recoils backwards, hoping to make her escape into the bathroom but it's already too late.
“Nighty-night, princess ,” a faraway voice says as noxious blue gas fills the room and chokes the consciousness from Caitlyn.
She crumples to the ground, a marionette without its strings, and the last thing she sees are the ends of two electric blue pigtails swinging near the ground.
Like two identical nooses.
Vi doesn’t know what she’s doing anymore. It feels like everyday is just an impending march to her death and there’s nothing she can do about it. At least, up until a few hours ago, she had Caitlyn by her side.
Caitlyn, like the sun, the stars and the moon all bundled into one person who’s too sincere for the world they live in.
It had been a mistake, accepting her offer, and it feels like a distant memory, almost like a dream that had never actually happened.
Vi doesn’t know what she’s doing anymore, but her eyes snag on the other gauntlet knuckles down on the ground and she instinctively is crawling over to grab it.
It’s crackling its last breaths, blue lightning and the dry leaves, but it must still be usable.
She had made a deal with that man after all.
A deal that had only caused destruction and pain so far, but a deal nonetheless.
Vi regrets a lot of the deals that she has made, recently. She wonders if it will become a trend - in the event she survives to see the day after tomorrow. She wonders if this is the person she is.
A poor sinner shaking the Devil’s hand for what? Retribution? Greed? Vindication?
She wouldn’t know even if she was a hundred percent coherent.
Her body - her bones and her blood and the fragile make of her existence - feels like a sack of lead as she reaches for the gauntlet. There is a movement behind her, something electric in the air, but she’s too tired to understand that it could mean danger.
“ Bravo , sis,” is what she thinks she hears, before a sharp pain erupts in her neck and the world goes black.
Jinx is fine.
Better than fine, actually.
She’s never felt better in her life!
Never, ever, never, ever, never, ever.
Powder? Oh, you already know her. Constantly complaining and whining and asking for her family back. Doesn’t she know that they’re all dead and rotting corpses by now?
And that it’s all her fault?
Her name isn’t even Powder anymore, which is something she needs to get through her thick skull.
Not thick enough to keep the voices out - or that thing they had injected her with - Vi and Caitlyn.
But Jinx doesn’t really exist either.
She’s here and there, but she’s a flickering thing, an apparition, a ghost. There isn’t a lot of substance to her, not when the form that lets her move and babble and hurt is falling apart.
They can both feel it.
There’s something foreign in their blood and in their bones, and it’s crawling beneath their skin - but how would they go about getting rid of it?
Jinx finds it settling, if she’ll be honest, if you’ll hear her out. She finds a lot of things settling - art is one of her favourite hobbies, didn’t you know?
Powder doesn’t like it, but what does Powder even like in the first place? Certainly not her family, no, because if she had she would have appreciated them more.
Powder is scum on Jinx’s foot, the gravel that gets picked out of scraped knees and bruising knuckles.
She’s falling apart.
Who is?
They both are.
But they’re not-
They’re different-
There’s something.
There’s always something-
In their skin.
In their blood.
In their bones.
-And it wants to get out.
“No one is leaving here alive.”
It’s the first words Jinx- Powder- her sister says after slamming Caitlyn into the table, and Vi has no idea how to feel, because she is sitting tied to a chair at a table full of people she thought she’d never see again.
There are even dead people at this table.
“ Powder,” Vi pleads, though she isn’t sure what for. Caitlin’s life? Her own? Her sister back?
Caitlyn stares at her wide-eyes, shining with terror, hair still wet and plastered to her forehead. Her chest heaves with shaky breaths.
On the other side of the table, Silco gives a lethargic mumble.
“I’m just kidding,” Powder says, a raspy quality to her voice that only appeared when she was sick, when they were younger. She pushes off the wheelchair she has Caitlyn in, and Caitlyn flinches away, whimpering.
Vi watches as Powder steps over, boots clunking heavily against the ground in the silence of the room. Her skin is deathly pale, almost transparent, veins purple and shining starkly against it.
She has a wild gleam to her eyes - a wolf about to chew its own foot off to get out of trap - and they shine pink in the candle light.
Her eye bags are impossibly deeper, like twin bruises stamped hatefully onto her face. There’s something jerky to her movement, as if she doesn’t quite remember how a human body should move.
“Now, where should I sit?” she asks, looming over Vi’s shoulder.
To their right is a simple, wooden chair you might find in a school house, a clumsy heart cut out of its back with the word POWDER written on it with peach pink crayon, the ‘O’ decorated with a smiley face.
“That’s… your choice, really,” Powder tells Vi, moving to her left and drawing attention to the chair there.
It’s low and made out of rusted, twisting metal, JINX sharply sprayed onto it with hot pink, still wet, still drying.
Vi can’t help the gasp that escapes her when Powder suddenly drops her hands onto the table, and leans in so close Vi could count the freckles on her face if she wanted to.
Something is dropped into her hands, firm and assuring, cold steel and frigid pale fingers.
A gun.
Jinx has handed her a gun.
“Make her go away,” Jinx asks her, voice as fragile as a winter’s breeze, grime on her face and grease in her hair. “Please. Send her on her way and-“
Caitlyn shouts a muffled protest. Powder glances at her, expression twisted with irritation for a split second before it settles. She looks back at Vi, eyes imploring.
“And… you can have Powder back.”
Vi stares at her, breaths struggling out of her lungs. Caitlyn looks at her, makes a noise that Vi can’t figure out if it’s actually supposed to mean something.
She wants her little sister back so badly - but to her, she’s right in front of her . She’s different, but she’s still Powder.
Vi stutters, staring past Powder’s almost pouting expression, staring at Caitlyn.
“I- I can’t. ”
She turns her head away in shame, unable to look Powder in the eye, and she just scoffs in disgust, swiftly taking the gun from her hands.
“Maybe I wasn’t kidding,” Jinx says, high-pitched and like a haphazard house of cards, trembling and about to crumble. “Maybe no one is leaving here alive.”
She points the gun at Caitlyn’s head without hesitation - and she’s so different to the Powder who used to help the birds get out from the basement into the fresh air above.
But her jaw is clenched, lips twisted in something beyond annoyance or frustration.
She’s furious.
About something else .
“No! Powder, listen, ” Vi begs, desperation lacing her voice, straining against the rope that binds her. “We- we can just go. We’ll leave and never come back.”
Powder gasps, her expression losing its acidity. “Where would we go?” she asks, genuinely confused, and she jerks her head, features flashing with a myriad of emotions. “No, no, no. She’s not saying that.”
“It’s true, we’ll leave this behind us,” Vi tells her. She leans against rope, even if it constricts her breathing. It’s the truth. “We’ll put this behind us. You’ll never have to see him again, Powder.”
Silco mumbles in protest, leaning forward as well, looking ridiculous with his gag. Good. It’s what he deserves.
If anything - Vi is glad her sister is the one who to gag him, in the end.
“What do you have to say about that?” Jinx questions venomously. She doesn’t seem- like herself. Hasn’t, for a while now, but she almost seems subdued.
She walks over and tears the gag from Silco’s mouth so forcefully his head turns.
“Her name is Jinx ,” he snarls like an animal wounded both physically and in pride, spitting the words at Vi. He turns to Jinx, voice low and wanting, “She’s lying . You’ll be with her a day before she realises you aren’t that girl anymore - and turns her back on you.”
Jinx taps the gun to the lips, looking nowhere in particular, making little noises at the back of her throat.
She turns to Vi, a desperate lilt to her voice, “You aren’t- lying. You wouldn’t lie to me…. Not again.”
“I’m not lying. I’m on your side, I promise,” Vi answers as reassuringly as she can, desperate for Powder to hear her.
Jinx is still, for a beat, then she suddenly snaps her wrist down and shoots Milo - the dummy version of him. His head hits the table , breaking a glass and rolling it down the table.
Vi stares.
It’s all she can do.
“ Shut up! We’re talking!” Jinx snaps at no one, but she’s looking at Milo.
Silco takes the opportunity to offer his pleas, his words slimey and revolting. “The topsiders offered me everything. Independence, a seat at the table. All in return for you. They can all burn. Everyone betrays us, Jinx . Vander. Her . They will never understand.”
Silco and Jinx stare at each other.
Vi doesn’t understand how a man like that could possibly love anyone, or care about anyone, or understand an actual person.
“It’s only us. You’re my daughter. I’ll never forsake you.”
Jinx breaths in heavily, her eyes gleaming with more than insanity. It’s all that Vi can take. She squirms in her bindings, teeth gnashing.
“You’re Vander’s daughter,” she yells from across the table, fury taking over her common sense. “You’re my sister . Powder, I’ve- I’ve done things I’m not proud of, but you?” She’s choking on her words and something else she won’t think about. “You tied up the Silco who ruined our lives. You’re the only person who’s done that. Ever.”
Powder’s expression is flooded with confusion. Her lips part, chapped and picked at, and looks between Vi and Silco like she doesn’t understand what’s happening.
“Don’t listen to her - they always lie in the end,” Silco hisses. “She doesn’t know you are , not anymore. No one knows who you are except for me. I helped make you, Jinx.”
“Powder, he’s- manipulating you! You said it yourself- he’s a liar and a backstabber and you shouldn’t listen to a word he says ,” Vi retorts viciously, fingers twitching as if she could wrap them around Silco’s throat if she wanted to.
Silco’s scarred features morph with his fury. He jerks towards Powder so hardly that his chair squeaks across the ground. Jinx recoils away from him, eyes wide.
“She doesn’t know what happened to you, she’ll never understand you. I understand. Jinx. I’ll always understand.”
Slippery bastard.
Vi can recognise the look in Powder’s eyes, the way they flicker between Silco and Vi.
Its conflict - body and mind warring with itself. And she understands it, because belonging and being able to rely on someone is all she’s ever wanted.
It’s all they’ve ever warned.
It’s an addictive feeling.
Being known.
Being understood.
And it’s corrosive.
It gets beneath your skin and buries into your bones without remorse, insidious and a rotting thing lying in wait.
Vi swallows her fear and trepidation. If this is the last chance to make Powder listen to her, properly hear her words, then she has to make it count.
“Remember, in spring, when we used to run up topside and grab wild flowers from the parks and from rich people’s gardens?” Vi asks, desperate but quiet, terrified but subdued.
Powder angles her body away from Silco… and starts nodding. “I… remember.”
“We’d get- we’d get a lot before we got caught, then run down to Vander’s store when they came looking for us. It was… insane how many enforcers they sent after us for stealing flowers,” Vi continues, almost laughing at the memories of them.
Powder smiles , the manic look in her eyes lightening, posture relaxing imperceptibly. “Spring was the best time for flowers. Less bees. And there were fruit and berries sometimes.”
“Right,” Vi agrees, smiling softly despite herself. She tries not to sound eager, but it’s hard, because for once Powder is beginning to look like herself. “We’d make flower crowns, and tea, even though it was spring, and bake them into cakes. If we had extra, we’d press them and make bookmarks.”
“Yeah,” Powder says, thoughtfully, like she had forgotten all about it until now.
“That’s not the person you are anymore,” Silco sneers, straining against the fibery rope and making his chair creak. “Do you think someone like you, like us, can go back and pretend like everything's okay? Do you think they will let you?”
“With your head, she could do a lot, ” Caitlyn argues with a scathing tone. So caught up in the moment, Vi hadn’t realised she had managed to cut herself lose and move the metal plating from her face only-
-She’s cut herself free, but she remains seated, rope sliced and limp on the floor around her, hands in view.
Vi stares at her, dumbfounded, wondering when Miss Prissy became so bold and wondering if she knew the significance of staying put.
“Hey, you’re- you-“ Powder struggles with her words, swivelling the gun towards her. Her hand tightens, but several moments pass and she still doesn’t pull the trigger.
“I’m sorry, Powder,” Caitlyn tells her, easing a trembling breath out. “I swear, I’m not taking your sister from you. You can have her all to yourself, if it means you’ll leave with her and leave him here.”
“ Caitlyn, ” Vi says, shocked, unable to articulate the emotion coursing through.
“Oil and water,” Caitlyn replies, completely unaware of the six inch dagger she’s plunging into Vi’s heart.
“Don’t talk about my sister like that,” Powder snaps, gesturing with the gun, but there’s something almost childishly confused in her voice.
“Powder, please, ” Vi begs her, hoping her sincerity and desperation are audible. She waits until she has Powder’s full attention before continuing - and those pink-tinted eyes are heavy and weighted. “I would walk into Hell with you if it meant I could stay by your side. I would kill for a lot of things, and I would die for our family, but I want to live for you.”
Powder’s expression cracks like a lake during late winter, as the warmth of spring seeps into the world and melts the ice.
“She’s lying to your face! You’re my daughter, Jinx, there’s nothing that will change that! I made you. You’re only alive because of me. What will I do without you? Think of how you’re forsaking me?” Silco hisses and spits and crackles like a dying flame.
Powder hesitates and glances over her shoulder at him. When her eyes meet Vi’s again - lighter, somehow - they’re desperate, like a child begging to be told what to do.
Vi’s heart cracks a bit more for her dearest, little sister.
“We can have spring again,” Vi promises.
It is the straw that breaks the camel’s back.
Powder runs over to Vi and throws her full weight onto her, wrapping spindly arms around her shoulders. Vi can’t reciprocate the hug, not with the way she’s tied up.
She accepts the hug as best as she can anyway, burying her face in the crook of Powder’s shoulder, skin clammy and feverish at the same time.
Silco is yelling up a storm, but they don't care.
For the moment, it feels like only they exist, the break of the sun over a new day, a pair of butterflies dancing in the wind, giddy with each other’s presence.
The rope tying Vi’s arms down suddenly goes slack, and she doesn’t care to wonder why before throwing her arms around Powder and squeezing so tightly something might crack.
“I’m sorry, I'm sorry, I’m sorry, ” Powder sobs into her shirt, thin shoulders trembling with the weight of her guilt.
“It’s okay, Powder, it’s alright,” Vi assures her softly, carding her fingers through her hair, pressing a kiss onto her forehead, even if it’s too hot and too cold. “I’m sorry. I should have been a better sister. I should have been better.”
Powder only sobs harder, gun clattering to the ground.
Vi doesn’t care - the only thing that matters to her right now is the fact that her little sister is crying, and the man who caused it all is still running his mouth.
There’s a feather-light touch at her shoulder, and Caitlyn appears in her peripheral vision. Her eyes are soft at the display of sisterly love, but there’s pain tightening her features.
There’s a lot they have to talk about.
Still, Caitlyn leaves the duo alone for a moment and strides over to Silco. She finds his gag on the floor and secures it onto his face, despite his genuine attempts at trying to bite a finger off.
“Vi?” Powder asks, voice wobbly and hiccupping.
“Yeah?” Vi responds, arms still wrapped protectively around her, hand idly running through her hair. It’s so long. She always thought Powder would like to grow her hair out.
Powder hesitates, chewing her cheek. When she finally speaks, she hides her face in Vi’s shoulder. “Can we make pink lemonade and lavender cookies? Like we used to?”
“Of course we can,” Vi answers, she swears , if it’s the last thing she’ll ever do. “ Just like we used to.”
And there are so many other issues they have to deal with, and so many anxieties that fill Vi’s mind, but all she can think about is the way Powder still fits perfectly in her arms, slotting in them like she was made to be hugged and cared for and loved .
Just like they used to.