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The first time it happens, Vi knows she’s seeing things.
Knocked on her ass, head pounding, blood rushing through her veins, seeping out of a throbbing little slice along the line of her cheek, right over where her tattoo is hidden beneath streaks of charcoal colored face paint.
She lost the fight.
Not her first loss; she’s not at her best.
(Then again, the last time she was at her best , she was still a lanky teenager running through the lanes with Mylo, Claggor, and - her head throbs, she winces - and Powder. Something within her chest spasms. She ignores it.)
She looks around, eyes blurry - she’s not taking in much.
The winner, the guy who knocked her down, he’s being shown off to a jeering crowd, arms raised high in triumph. She doesn't care much - can't bring herself to. Still, there's not much else for her to do but recover enough to stand, and looking around makes it feel like time is passing just that much faster with how colors and faces start to blur and blend as she looks.
But then it hits her.
Dark hair, dark enough to be black until light gleams off a strand tinged with blue, a pale complexion, sharp cheekbones and a sharper nose. Bright blue eyes, unmistakable, impossible to miss.
(Impossible to miss, and yet Vi had missed those damn eyes so much.)
The face is obscured by shadows just enough that it doesn’t click for that split second - and when it does, when Vi’s gaze shoots back, the familiar face is gone. Swept into the crowd, overwhelmed by strangers all shouting and grinning and pumping their fists waiting for the next fight to start.
Something within her starts squirming, and her legs make to take a step towards where the ghost she had glimpsed had disappeared - but no, she can’t, someone’s grabbing her by the arm, leading her away. She strains, craning her neck for just a moment, for just one more glimpse , and-
And there’s nothing.
And she fights off the shame of wishing desperately that there had been someone there; fights it off because she knows that no matter how shameful she may feel for it, it won’t matter in the long run.
She knows she won’t see Caitlyn again. Not in any way that matters.
She knows that all she had seen, just then, was merely a trick of her own mind.
→
The next time it happens, it’s harder to ignore. Harder to avoid.
Hell, it’s harder to tell herself that it’s fake.
She’s drunk, or on the verge of being drunk. Too much alcohol, and music is pounding and thrumming around her and people are dancing, and none of it matters.
The alcohol is shit. Not the quality Vander had once served in The Last Drop, from what she can remember. The memory of sneaking a sip behind his back flashes through her mind, there one moment and gone the next. The alcohol in this place is shit, and costs too much for what it’s really worth.
It’s shit , but what isn’t shit these days? She buys what she can from the cogs she’d earned winning fights. Buys until she realizes the bartender has started watering down her drinks, snaps at the guy - recoils when her gut twists and turns away from the flare of her own rage and sees her .
Stolen clothing, light purple fabric and a hood hiding her face. Vi distantly recalls how she’d once scoffed at the way Caitlyn had buttoned up the stolen undershirt, just to maintain her modesty, or so Vi had assumed. Now, she stares at the woman as she weaves through the crowd, stepping farther and farther from Vi’s view. Her mind is too hazy to realize that it’s not real. She’ll never say it, far less admit it to herself, but a big part of her is too desperate for it to be real to even let herself pause and consider the circumstances. She ditches the bar, ditches her shitty watered down alcohol, and shoves through the crowd. She’s desperate, maybe a little too much, but there’s a voice in her head that insists it’ll be worth it if everything turns out real this time.
Of course, things are never that easy for her.
She’s been run shit outta luck for the past seven years. There was no changing that now.
One guy takes particular offense to her shoving - grabs her by the arm and tugs her back harshly. Drunk or not, she’s a fighter. Always has been. She feels herself getting pulled back, pivots, and swings, and everything falls into the same ruin that it always does, once she’s got her hands on something.
Blood smears across her palm, stains the wraps covering her knuckles, and she’s far too lost in it all to even recognize when exactly she loses sight of what was never really there in the first place.
Sometime afterward, she’s tossed out of the establishment. Stumbles over herself as she looks around, hoping for some stupid reason that Caitlyn will just be there . Waiting for her. Chasing after her, even, like that night in the rain. She’s still as angry as she was that night. Angrier, maybe. It’s hard to tell.
In the end, it doesn’t matter.
She finds no trace of her own minds’ tricks, and steers herself to the next bar that comes into her sights.
She didn’t care much about the previous bar anyway.
It had shit alcohol.
→
For some reason, the third time tricks her too.
Her face and hands and arms are littered with scrapes and bruises. She’s exhausted, can’t even remember how long it’s been since she last slept. She doesn’t want to sleep now, though. Forces her eyes open even as the world spins around her.
She’s - she’s- hell , she can’t even tell where she is. It’s dark though, almost refreshingly so. The shadows soothe her momentarily, chase off whatever warmth her body had scrounged together and stored right where she was sensitive. If she squeezes her eyes shut tightly enough, a bruise at her temple pulses, but she can pretend she’s not stuck as she is. She can pretend shit isn’t fucked, and that things are fine, and that maybe when she opens her eyes she’ll see something she likes.
Her thoughts flicker to Vander, first. Mylo and Claggor and Vander and Powder, all settled in the basement of The Last Drop. Then it’s Jinx, and that’s where a headache begins to form as her mind ping-pongs between her sister’s face, switching too rapidly between calling her Jinx or Powder. Eventually, guilt gnaws at her, and her brain traitorously settles on calling her sister the monster she created . She caves to the guilt. Lets it weigh down on her burdened shoulders. Lets it eat at her like maggots, like infection, like delirium and depression and all those other things that don’t matter anymore.
She thinks of Caitlyn for a moment, and then tries to shove the thought away. Sees the woman staring at her, silhouetted by a warm halo of sunlight in that big bedroom that Vi would loathe by principal if she had the energy to.
If she squeezes her eyes shut tightly enough, she can pretend she’s back there.
She can pretend Caitlyn’s hand has caressed her cheek, the first gentle touch that Vi can remember since before Vander had died, and she can pretend she’s just grabbed Caitlyn’s hand to hold it for that moment longer.
She can pretend.
And then there’s warmth lingering at her cheek, and for that one moment in which she has let her own mind deceive her yet again, she thinks that maybe she can open her eyes and stop pretending at last.
She thinks that she’ll see Caitlyn in front of her.
And when she finally opens her eyes, the warmth is quick to fade, and she knows that she was right the first time;
She won’t be seeing Caitlyn again.
Not in the way she wants to.
→
That’s not the end of it, but Vi had somewhat expected that.
It gets worse.
Isn’t that part of the saying though? It gets worse before it gets better?
She wonders how much worse it’ll get before she finally sees better - wonders if she’ll ever see it at all.
She’s slugged in the jaw by a woman with dark hair cropped at her shoulders, and she blinks, and Caitlyn is staring at her with a loathsome expression that makes her falter. Her opponent deals the last blow. She loses that fight.
She sees the glint of metal like that of a familiar rifle leading into an alleyway, follows it like a dog on a lead. Ends up nearly tripping over an addict who tries to get the upper hand on her - she blinks and he’s out cold at her feet. She sees blood across her knuckles and shakes out her fist, wipes it off on the guy's clothes and moves on.
She dances in another random club with a stranger who twists, and suddenly it’s Caitlyn leaning in close, and Vi is almost a fool enough to lean in herself. She blinks. Slams her fist into the chest of the guy who’d been an inch too close to her, and leaves the place before she can get kicked out. She hates herself a bit more for how much a part of her wished she could’ve fallen for that a second longer. Buries the thought like it’s a body wearing her own face, tries not to choke on the dirt as it clogs her throat.
She sees her everywhere, and it gets worse. She sees her, and Jinx, and Powder, and every once in a while she sees Vander, his expression warm, his eyes shadowed by something she can’t place.
She sees Mylo and Claggor running by, blinks, and it’s two kids she’s never seen before. At one point, she wonders if the Ekko she saw at the edge of her vision was another hallucination, or the real deal this time around. It was impossible to tell - eventually, she just started chalking every single familiar looking person up to be a hallucination. Tried her damn best to ignore them.
That only worked half the time.
She convinced herself that half the time was better than nothing.
→
At some point in this shitty existence, she had managed to scrape together enough cogs to buy herself an equally shitty apartment. Constantly clogged pipes, neighbors with no sense of shutting the fuck up, and a mattress as her only piece of furniture. It was absolute crap, but after a while, it became what her foggy mind could consider a home. More or less.
It was enough.
It was enough, because there was nothing else for her. Nowhere else to go. No one else to crawl to. It was shit, but it was hers.
And it was enough, ‘til they started infiltrating the apartment too.
Jinx, sat criss-cross on her bed, monstrously pink eyes staring her down in the dark after a long day. Flip of a switch, and she was banished under the flickering light of a dying bulb.
Vander, his silhouette outlined by shadows that never made any sense - blocky, broad shoulders, those large hands that had once tended to her wounds in her youth, that little rag he’d always had draped over a shoulder. It was him, unmistakably, and there came a point where even the shadow of him was too much for her; she didn’t bother turning on the light while she was there.
(Then again, she was hardly ever there.)
Caitlyn showed herself less frequently in the confines of the apartment, as if her Piltie shoes were too good to grace the creaking, rotting floorboards of Vi’s - home ? (Caitlyn wouldn’t really think like that, would she? Hard to tell.)
When she did show up, it always seemed like so much more of a mockery. Vi always knew it was fake. She wasn’t fooled by her own hallucinations anymore. But there were many times when she wanted to be. When she wanted to sink into that phantom touch and weep, like a child, despite how undeserving she was of it. She had no time, no space, no will to weep or cry.
There was no room for it within her, anymore.
But still, sometimes she wished she could. Sometimes, when the ghost of Caitlyn’s smile flickered before her eyes, when the featherlight caress of her imagined touch melted the chill along Vi’s skin, sometimes she wished she were able to see the woman again, if only to let go of what she couldn’t while alone.
She had never opened the closet housing her skeletons until that day on Caitlyn’s bed, laying there with her like the world had been perfect. (Maybe it had been, just for that moment - just for them.) Now, with only flashes of Caitlyn there to taunt her, she wished she could open it up again and finally lay those skeletons to rest.
She couldn’t.
But wish, she did.
→
The last time she hallucinates Caitlyn, its’ so real that she’s strung along like a puppet. It’s so real that it aches. It’s so real that she can’t even bring herself to the thought of it being fake, all over again.
She wonders if she could even handle it being fake this time around.
Doesn’t think so - blocks out the doubts harshly.
It’s not a convincing hallucination by any means; not with how Caitlyn’s hands lightly drag along Vi’s scalp, not with how phantom lips soothe at injuries new and old. It’s unrealistic, considering their last encounter and how it had ended - but that doesn’t mean Vi craves it any less.
Beaten, bruised - both descriptors that applied to her more time than they didn’t, as of late - she hunched amongst garbage and stink, nursing her wounds from her last fight. She’d won, but it hadn’t felt like a victory. She’d kept glimpsing echoes of Caitlyn in the crowds, at the edges of her vision - and now this, another version of her with gentle eyes and that charming gap between her teeth as she smiled down at Vi. Tender hands that spread warmth through Vi’s battered limbs. And her voice - soft, so soft Vi almost couldn’t hear her.
She strained to listen, though. Fought to keep awake just to hear the hallucination whisper sweet nothings to her, interspersed with kind murmurs of her name.
“ Vi ,” she would croon, and her thumb would brush over the rise of Vi’s cheek.
“ Vi ,” and her lips would linger at the crown of her head, and she could imagine breaths puffing against her skin.
“ Vi ,” and there was a shiver running down her spine, pleasant in it’s chill, reassuring in it’s presence.
“ ...Violet ,” and her eyes opened.
And she was slumped against a wall, buried amongst garbage and rot.
And she was alone.
(She should’ve known better.)
→
“Vi?”
She stirs. Her body aches something horrid, but it’s familiar. Memories flicker through her mind, and another fight is recalled distantly. She’d won. It hadn’t felt like a victory, no, she remembers collecting her reward, and then bumping shoulders and shoving past eager crowds awaiting the next fight. Remembers collapsing in an alley - glances around, and realizes she’d never left it.
Footsteps sound close by, but she dismisses them up until they pause just a bit away.
She looks up.
“You… Again,” she grumbles it, admittedly, throat aching, voice a rasp. She’s been screaming a whole lot lately. Refuses to cry; figures screamin’s the best way to let everything else out when she isn’t driving her emotions into an opponent’s face with her fist.
She ignores the person who looks like Caitlyn, ignores what she knows by now is just another trick. She still vividly recalls the hallucination of the night before, still knows she won’t be seeing the real deal until she’s dead, probably. And that’s only if she’s lucky, she’s sure.
But then, there it comes again; “ Vi ?” And the figure kneels next to her, and there’s a hand lightly brushing against her arm - she jerks away from the touch and she knows damn well she imagines the noise that she hears. It sounds almost pained, in a way, but she doesn’t think on it.
There’s a pause, in which the presence next to her shuffles away slightly. She releases a breath, her tensed shoulders loosening - she hadn’t even realized her body had been so stiff.
She hears a faint murmuring, a conversation just far enough away that she can’t make out the words. Not that she tries to, anyway. Footsteps start up, then fade, and she doesn’t bother looking around to confirm what she’s hearing. Just stares dead ahead, wondering if it’s over already.
But it isn’t.
(For once, she expected it. She’s getting better at this.)
The presence returns, and someone shifts slightly into her line of sight. They’re still wearing Caitlyn’s face, and it seems her ragged emotions have finally twisted the scene of her own delusions; this Caitlyn almost looks concerned.
They open their mouth to speak, but Vi cuts them off with a sneered, “Y’know… Never gave ya’ permission to call me that.”
Perfect brows furrow in confusion, and Vi remembers how Caitlyn’s frustration had always been so evident on her expression. She chuckled at the memory.
“Your… Name?” Caitlyn asks, and Vi shakes her head. Then pauses, nods it a little - winces as a ray of light from somewhere beyond the alley hits her and makes her squint. Caitlyn picks up on it, shifts until her form is blocking the light, and Vi’s expression eases.
“You know what you called me. Last night,” she corrects, feeling just the slightest bit petty, and the slightest bit ridiculous. She didn’t talk to the hallucinations frequently or anything, but sometimes it got the better of her - she didn’t really talk to anyone else these days. Had to let it out some way or another, and she was already pretty sure she counted as crazy. No point in trying to act like she wasn’t.
Caitlyn’s face creases more, and she shakes her head. “Are you concussed?” Her tone makes Vi laugh again, a little louder, a little longer. Caitlyn only looks more concerned.
“I heard you’d been fighting, but…” She cuts herself off after a moment, eyes flicking up to scan Vi’s face. Her hand reaches up, and Vi feels the padding of a glove as it lightly traces the cut across her tattoo. She holds out for a few moments, before she gives in to her own anger, her own irritation at her delusions and broken mind, and slaps Caitlyn’s hand away. The illusion only frowns at her.
“Vi,” she tries, and Vi listens despite it all, “I’m not… I’m here.” Her tone is gentle, murmured like a secret, and it’s only then Vi realizes just how close they are.
It doesn’t matter; she shakes her head. She’s heard this tale before.
“You’re not. We both know y’re not.”
Caitlyn bites at her lower lip, and Vi can’t help the way her eyes gravitate to her lips to observe the motion. Can’t help what she craves. Her mind has proven that to her well enough.
“Vi, I’m not lying to you. I’m - it’s me , Caitlyn,” the woman persists, and Vi is suddenly uncertain of if her hallucinations have ever sounded so strained. So desperate to be trusted. So close to tears that she could hear it, and see the line of liquid on Caitlyn’s lower lids. She shudders, slipping down further where she hunches, and Caitlyn lowers with her. It’s a cautious movement, something so delicate, and Vi is beginning to connect everything.
“Oh, Vi,” Caitlyn says, and she sounds so distraught that somehow, that’s what makes everything finally click.
She’d never hallucinated Caitlyn as upset. Happy, sure - angry, of course. But never upset. Especially not for her. It had always been love in the words spilled from Caitlyn’s lips, blame and resentment in her eyes. Always what Vi craved, or what Vi deserved. This sight aligned with neither, fulfilled neither.
And so, through the haze that had clouded her for so long, she uttered, “Caitlyn?”
Caitlyn’s breath seemed to hitch, and her eyes still watered, and Vi felt concern welling within her. But Caitlyn did not cry before her. Arms raising slightly, she stared at Vi with so many emotions within her eyes that Vi could not decipher them all. But she could read one thing - and it was, in this moment, the one thing that mattered.
As arms encircled her shoulders, Vi let herself pitch forward into Caitlyn’s secure hold. She tried to no avail to convince herself she was not relieved beyond words when Caitlyn’s body remained solid beneath her weight, warm and real as the woman held her.
She trembled slightly in Caitlyn’s hold, and could not put into words how good it felt when hands that did not fade away soothed her. And Caitlyn’s gentle murmuring took ahold of her, and for this one moment, there was nothing but them. For a moment, everything was perfect.
And that was all that mattered.