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Vi fell to her knees, and it still wasn’t enough to stop Cait from climbing up that ladder. Back to topside and away from her.
People always seem to leave her for something better. Or at least bigger than her. Even death.
She hugs herself, feeling the rigid absence of a warm body in her arms. Never holding her, but at least allowing her to hold them. The tears tear themselves from her eyes, and Vi lets them go. They trail stubbornly down her cheeks, but she knew it was over the moment she’d felt Cait’s shoulder stiffen beneath her calloused hand. Cait had never stiffened under Vi’s touch before. Not when they were on opposite sides either, though Vi is now wondering if that had ever even stopped. She can’t even tell what sides there are anymore.
Grief reveals truth in a way that can never be undone. Peeling back skin to reveal degraded, bloodstained bone. Vi knows this better than anyone. But she thought… she’d thought…
It could’ve been different. It was Cait. She proved Vi wrong so many times. She could’ve–
Ah, but she didn’t, did she? Vi dressed up for her, put on the mask that would make her happiest. It did nothing. It always falls apart.
And Vi can’t even tell if the absent shape of love around her feels like Cait or…
No, she thinks, forcing her legs to work. She stands, drifting longingly over to the ladder. Cait was long gone.
But she couldn’t be thinking like that. She shouldn’t.
Because Vi would like to say she’d never seen that awful look before, but she wasn’t that lucky.
That look of hardened despair, forced into the eyes until it melds and becomes as true as the dark of the Lanes. Vi hasn’t seen it on Cait till now, hoped she never would and didn’t think she ever even could, but she knows too well when piercing blue eyes look at her like she failed them. Because she fucking had. Always. Always…
Oh god, was it her? Was Vi the one that drove people to this? This broken shell of themselves, unable to do anything other than lash out?
Maybe they learn it from her. Maybe she does nothing but break people.
Powder had thought she was the Jinx, so she became it.
She’s in your blood.
Funny, how Vi was the Jinx all along.
Vi scoffed, wrinkling her nose as she gazed at the rotting rungs that lead to the harsh light of the sun. Cait had gone to the light, even as she turned her back from it. That kind of hypocrisy was typical of topside leaders. Vi had thought Cait was different, but then, Cait had thought that of her.
She was being ridiculous right now. None of this fucking mattered. She had to finish what she started, make things right, Caitlyn or no Caitlyn.
She turns away from the light and the rust. Takes a step down the darkened tunnel, then another and another, until she suddenly finds herself running. Sprinting away, away from another break and towards the first. There’s still wet on her face, but it’s too dark in Zaun to be seen anyway. Vi learned long ago how to become anything within the shadows.
At least in the shadows, Vi can fix things the way she knows best. She curls her fist, hardening her face as she emerges into the cavern. Wrecked and empty. Pow– Jinx and the kid long gone.
It’s fine. Vi can focus on this. On what’s important.
She doesn’t know what she was expecting with this, anyway. The only thing that’s really happened with Cait is getting proven right.
Oil and water.
It’s fine, it doesn’t matter. Doesn’t have to mean anything. Vi can fix this. It’s fine. It’s fine. It’s fi