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It had been almost three weeks since Vi had seen Cailyn for the last time. She had walked away like nothing ever happened between them, as if all the feelings Vi had started building for her had been completely ignored, crushed into dust by Caitlyn and hit in the same way the girl had done to her with her sniper rifle.
Vi had started to wander the streets of Zaun, with barely any money to survive. Her mind ran to Caitlyn. Three shades of orange. Strawberries and violin notes. She had to find a way to stop it before it would have devoured her from the inside.
“Promise me you’ll never change” Vi had begged.
“I won't” Caitlyn’s voice still resonated in her thoughts.
And yet, she did. She had changed.
Vi took a sip as she was sitting on the ground with a bottle of whiskey, fangs and blue, she had spent almost all her money on, like every evening before a fight in the ring. It was the only thing that she still made her feel something. Black and red mixed together, the croak of a crow.
Jinx had changed. Pink blossoms and grape juice had become sandpaper.
Caitlyn had changed. Orange sun and strawberries, substituted by grey and a piano out of tune.
She wanted to change as well, but deep inside she couldn’t. So every night she wore a mask of dark makeup as intimidating as she could and searched for the bitter, raw coffee and purple comfort of knocking down opponent after opponent, man or beast.
The crowd started to bet on her, and the more people had started to cheer and scream for her, the more her rage had been fueled.
She stood up, slightly skidding to the side, but managed to stand up straight and get inside the room she had made a “house” out of. She glanced at the small empty bed, deep blue, salt on the tongue, the broken mirror, the first letter of her name, and with a sigh she stood in front of the sink and looked at herself, her face distorted by the cracks in the mirror she had broken with a punch.
"I can’t take this" A thought ran through her mind.
Caitlyn. Grey, no, orange. Alcohol mixed with cherry syrup.
A sudden urge to punch something, to destroy, to scream rose from within, but Vi just grabbed on the sink edge, looking down and gritting her teeth.
She raised her head again and started to smear black makeup on her eyes and cheeks.
“I’ll destroy you to pieces” She thought, not completely sure about who she was referring to. Her next opponent? Caitlyn’s grey and orange ghost that plagued her mind? …herself?
Caitlyn’s bright blue eyes suddenly appeared on the back of her eyelids as she blinked. Orange and sun, the 6th month of the year.
“Fuck” she growled, then stormed out of the room, slamming the door behind her and walking fast through the streets to the fighting arena, so close to her house she could have walked there completely drunk.
“I don’t care who it’ll be” she thought as she stopped in front of the entrance of the ring “I’ll beat you to death”. And she walked in. Salt sea in the lungs, she could touch the surface of the scarlet water.
The crowd exploded in screams and hauls. She frowned, her lips corned down in a rageful and disgusted expression. She never said a word, never stopped when someone pleaded to shake her hand or congratulate her. As the fight was over and the opponent bleeding on the ground she’d just raise her fist, the screams and cheers of the crowd being the only source for a little bit of endorphins, then she just walked away and collapsed somewhere as she got more drunk every passing night. Less orange as the days passed, more coffee bitter taste, the word ‘distorted’.
Vi’s vision was slightly blurry. Maybe she had drunk a little bit too much, but the alcohol actually fueled her even more. Her movements might have turned slower, but when she hit, she hit with a terrifying strength. It felt red and fizzy like a soda.
“And here is today’s opponent! Gy…” the same voice spread from the speakers. Vi didn’t even bother listening to the name. Whoever he would have been, she would have knocked him down.
Her eyes widened for a second, her brows furrowed, then she narrowed her eyes to an almost thin line to get a better focus on the… man in front of her. Brown, a feather falling on the ground.
The whole crowd lowered the cheers and screams for a few seconds as a man, double the size of Vi entered the pit.
His face was half engraved in metal, his body built like a double wardrobe equipped with arms that could crush down a wall. He grinned and showed off silver coloured teeth. His little but sharp eyes with almost black irises were locked on Vi who backed down a few steps. The crunch of dead leaves under her boots, the succeeding numbers 1,3,5,7.
His body was almost armourless. Just thick veins showing on the biceps and travelling up to his jaw.
But Vi had no armour as well. She was dressed as always: the black leather jacket and pants, the gauzes around her knuckles up to her elbows. It was enough for her. This time it wouldn’t have been different.
“ The alcohol will numb the pain, after all” she thought, her mind was already at the bottom of the stairs where she used to sit and drink, cleaning up the blood off her clothes… trying to suppress her thoughts. Her plaguing orange and strawberry thoughts.
The bell tolled.
The man started to run, groaning through gritted teeth. Vi quickly slid to the left, avoiding his punch for a few inches and quickly hitting his right side right on the kidney as hard as she could.
The opponent groaned in pain, but quickly stood up on his feet again. Vi retreated, he launched forward another fist and she slid again. The crowd noise was as loud as always.
“Vi!” they screamed, but she didn’t even hear them. Her focus was on the skyscraper in front of her.
"You gotta get his face to your level" She quickly thought and skidded on the dusty ground to get her foot hooked to his right ankle so fast he didn’t even notice her. She landed on her left elbow, then turned her whole body to the right, the hooked boot unbalancing the man just enough for her to roll over and twist around as she straightened up again on her knees to retract her right arm.
The punch would have hit straight in the middle of his eyebrows. There would have been no way he wouldn’t have fainted if he had been human at all.
But for a bare second before striking her eyes went to the crowd. Cheering people, cups and fists raised and
blue.
Vi stroke too slowly. The opponent swung just enough for her punch to hit his cheek. He groaned in pain, then roared and attempted a side kick. Vi’s mind was in another place.
No. Orange, an ocean wave caressing the shore.
It couldn’t have been.
She concentrated on his only enemy again. Was he? Was she now fighting him or her mind?
"Concentrate" She focused on the opponent. The pain on his side seemed to have already faded because his posture was upright, his shoulders hunched over, ready to charge again.
Vi started to run towards him, her fists raised up to her face. She had just to decide which one to use to start to beat him to a pulp. As they were charging each other the crowd went ballistic. Vi had no chance to reach his face from the ground, so she stopped close enough and waited, waited for him to run against her left fist. White and suspended dust.
When he was close enough she levered on her knee and jumped up. She didn’t need to punch that hard. The man was charging her fast and strong enough that he would have met her fist with just his own force.
Vi felt her knuckles crash against something solid. Her ears were muffled, but when her boots touched the ground again, her body unbalanced and bending forward, she looked back at her opponent laying on the ground and landed on the palm of her hand.
With an almost bored smirk she looked up at the crowd. The people were screaming her name, throwing some coins in the pit, spilling drinks on each other for the chaos of the rave. She looked around, raised her right fist again, screaming at nothing.
blue.
No. Vi locked her gaze on a half hidden figure. Long dark blue tufts escaping a black hooded head and a body half covered by the person in front of it. Sunflowers blooming in the morning.
But the eyes. That cobalt blue she couldn't have forgotten in a lifetime.
We’ll make a new plan. We have to try.
We tried. Okay? It wasn’t enough. Topside and bottom. Oil and water.
That’s all there is.
Vi lost her focus, but she saw something in the expression of the people in front of her that made her brows quickly furrow. They almost went all silent for a moment.
All but one.
What about us?
Oil and water. Wasn’t meant to be.
“Vi!” that voice she knew so well stood up, screaming, among all the others. Not the distorted sound of a broken piano, but that of perfect gears locked and engraved. Orange shades against blue paint.
The girl quickly turned around to see… nothing. The arena was empty. The man laying on the ground disappeared into thin air.
Then she felt it. Something she had never felt before. Something that not even the adrenaline of the fight and the rage fueling her could have suppressed. A sharp, consuming, annihilating pain rose from her left side and spread through her body as some ribs broke. Dark green.
Vi fell on the ground. The man bleeding from the nose and mouth got on top of her quickly enough for her not to be able to roll on the side.
A punch hit her right cheek.
Another.
Another.
Vi couldn’t hear anymore. She couldn’t even perceive her own body anymore. Every thought, every memory, every feeling had disappeared. Everything apart from the B note of the piano.
“Maybe it’s the bliss of dying” She thought as through her left red blooded eye she saw another punch coming.
Suddenly everything went silent.
“So, that’s death? Why does it hurt so much?” V thought as she felt the weight of the opponent fading away, slowly. Then a thud came to her ringing ears. She turned her head as best as she could to see the man laying on the ground. A pool of blood was starting to form around his head like a cursed halo.
Something grabbed her from her bicep, dragging her through the arena as a ragdoll, a bleeding ragdoll, and the only things she could focus on were the bullet wound on the centre of the man’s forehead and the crowd booing, cursing and screaming nonsense to her ears. Too much green all at once, too much sugar.
Unfair? They were screaming.
Illegal?
What was happening? She tried to look up, but the blood streaming in her eyes was like a red velvet curtain, blinding almost everything but a hooded figure dressed in black.
“Get… get off me” she muttered. Did she speak out loud? She wasn’t sure, her mind was turning foggier by the second. The hooded figure lost the grip on her bicep, but quickly grabbed both her wrists and dragged her out of the pit.
The screams of the angry crowd were the last thing Vi heard before closing her eyes to unconsciousness.
“Hey, wake up” that voice. The first week of January.
“Wake up I said”
Vi tried to open her eyes, but the left one was stuck as if the eyelids had been glued.
“What… what do you want from me?” Vi tried to move, her body barely responding to the impulses the brain was sending. The articulations were so numb she barely managed to bend her left leg.
“Do you know a safe place?” the figure asked.
Cold. So cold.
“It can’t be you. Not you” Vi tried to follow a straight line of thinking, but only flashes and feelings that hurt more than a bullet filled her mind.
“I… I live… close” she managed to mutter. The iron-like taste of blood filled her mouth. It couldn't be orange, but it was.
“How close?” strawberry taste.
“I don’t even know where we are” Vi started to regain consciousness again. She could feel her legs again, her head had stopped weighing like a freighter, but the left eye was still stuck. Though the right one started to focus on the person in front of her.
Caitlyn. The very own Caitlyn Kiramman.
“Caitlyn… what the fuck are you doing here?” Vi gritted her teeth trying to ignore the waves of pain invading her body like an unwanted guest. Too much orange, too loud cello music.
“Saving you” Caitlyn answered “Can you stand up?”
“Leave me alone…” Vi’s thoughts were so confused she couldn’t focus on anything at all.
Why was Caitlyn there? Why did she allow the girl to distract her during the fight? It was her fault she was now in that state. Though… she was so glad to see those cobalt sharp blue eyes again. Like a phantom from an old tale she had lived a thousand lives before, Caitlyn had returned.
“It’s close. Help me up, damn” Vi murmured. Why was everything so purple-blue.
Caitlyn didn’t answer, but slid her arm below Vi’s right armpit and clutched on her left shoulder, helping the bleeding girl up on her feet. She didn’t ignore the grunts of pain coming from Vi, but she did her best not to make her injuries even worse.
As they silently walked to Vi’s room, her refuge, they were both lost in thoughts. Caitlyn was carefully scanning the surroundings, carrying Vi, who had started to walk on her own a little bit better.
“That’s it” Vi suddenly said as she pointed to a metallic staircase up to a wooden door. That place was just a low hum. The letters P and B.
“That’s it? ” Caitlyn asked.
“What did you expect? A castle c–?” Vi replied, feeling a pang in her heart.
Cupcake
No, she wouldn’t have called her that anymore. That Caitlyn had disappeared and that Vi had changed. As Vi struggled up the stairs Caitlyn opened the door to the small room. She briefly looked inside before her expression turned somber. She held a hand to Vi to help her up the last steps, but Vi waved her hand away and dragged herself inside the room, stumbling and collapsing on the mattress.
“Get away” Vi murmured, her cheek pressed against the hard surface of the mattress that was now even more stained in blood. Fucking orange. Fucking strawberry.
“Vi… I can’t” Caitlyn answered in a firm tone.
“You already did. What's stopping you now?” Vi furrowed as she spoke against the mattress, her head hurting like if a drillbit was pressing against her right temple.
Caitlyn opened her mouth to speak, but the words died in her throat. She had left Vi after wounding her. She had no right to demand that she would have forgotten her so easily.
“Vi… Why?” Caitlyn asked in a worried low voice, looking around the room. She saw the broken mirror splattered in blood and some shatters of glass in the sink.
“Why what?” Vi retorted in an exasperated tone.
Caitlyn took a moment to stare at the girl lying arms spread on the mattress. She was so different from what she remembered.
“Why are you living like this? What is all of this mess?” Caitlyn waved her arms around “Why are there empty bottles everywhere?”
She received no response. Vi was not moving an inch. The only sign indicating that she was still alive was her chest expanding a little as she breathed.
“Vi” Caitlyn called out again.
This time the girl turned her torso just enough, enduring the pain to try to look at Caitlyn, but she felt such a strong sharp pang on her ribs that her breathing became suddenly hitched and she fell back down on the mattress. Green. Dark green and odd numbers.
Caitlyn spontaneously took a step forward. The room was so small that she could have crossed it in just three steps, but she stopped on her feet as she felt something cracking below her boot. The remains of an empty glass bottle which liquid had stained the floor. Caitlyn pondered for a moment, then heard a groan coming from the girl she once knew so well lying face down.
“Vi. You’re hurt” Caitlyn murmured as she approached the other. Flickering lights through the fingers.
“Leave it. You hear me?” Vi replied, clutching her side with her hand.
“I… I can’t. Not this time” Caitlyn’s gaze turned softer at the memory. She had been feeling guilty since, but she had no way to rewind time, no matter how many sleepless nights she had spent thinking about the mistake she had made.
“Just… pass me the bottle” Vi replied, her eyes closed. She needed some blue.
“You can’t keep drinking. You… you almost died tonight” Caitlyn didn’t dare get any closer.
Vi sighed deeply. She rubbed her temples, her eyes squeezed.
Promise me you’ll never change.
The sound of jingling keys.
“Caitlyn, what do you want from me now?” Vi’s voice was strangled “Just tell me, because I’m going crazy”
Caitlyn’s eyes widened a little, the little light in the room was just enough to make her watery eyes shine, but Vi couldn’t see that. Her face was still buried in the mattress.
“I just want to make sure nothing in your body is irreparably damaged” Caitlyn didn’t really know how to respond. She just let out the first thought that came to her mind, just to realise it sounded really stupid.
Vi sighed again. She slowly rolled over ignoring the pain to look at the girl in the eyes. But when she met her gaze all the hateful words she had been thinking about, all the insults she wanted to scream at her, all the memories that kept her going for weeks fueling her rage… were gone.
“Thanks. I’m okay” she just said in a low voice. Strawberry taste, that’s what it was.
“I can see that. You never give up, do you?” Caitlyn answered, though she wasn’t speaking with irony.
“I guess I don’t…” Vi stood up on her palms, almost sitting up. “Why does it always have to be so damn strawberry-orange?"
“I shouldn’t have left you” Caitlyn finally admitted.
Vi thought about the blue haired girl leaving her in the bottom of the rocky pit. The cracks of a dying fire. She gritted her teeth before looking straight in Caitlyn’s eyes.
“That’s right. But you did” she spat out.
“I… I searched for you” Caitlyn stared at the girl in front of her, scanning her face, her body. Everything had almost completely changed.
“Well, you found me. Happy?” Vi recoiled, her pale blue gaze still locked with Caitlyn’s until the other one couldn’t handle it anymore. Caitlyn turned her head and looked around.
“Why were you there, anyway?” Vi asked. She asked herself what was Caitlyn doing at the arena. She could think of a few reasons, in her heart she believed she was right, but her mind, fogged and exhausted, tried to suppress that feeling. She needed some blue.
“I was there because…” Caitlyn tried to look at Vi, but she had almost no courage to stare back at her piercing gaze.
“I was searching for you” she finally admitted, giving just a glance at Vi’s face. She had to see her reaction, but Vi simply looked at her as if she had said nothing.
“Did you hear me?” Caitlyn asked, confused and slightly angry.
“I did” Vi answered, straightening up enough to sit on the bed. She had grown accustomed to the pain piercing her right side and the dried blood that still kept her left eye shut.
“And… you don’t… you can’t believe it?” Caitlyn slowly turned her head again, meeting Vi’s gaze. Cobalt stones against thick ice.
Vi fell silent once more although she didn’t stop staring at the girl in front of her. A memory resurfaced from deep inside her heart, a night she had almost forgotten. A purple-grey memory and the taste of iron.
Do yourself a favour, Cupcake. Go back to that big, shiny house of yours and just… forget about me, okay?
She had walked away under the rain, leaving Caitlyn as if she meant nothing. That moment was so close to the number 2, but not there completely, it was fading into 5. Vi felt something inside. Regret? She couldn’t really define what that was, but in some way she knew they had both messed up, in one way or another. And yet, Caitlyn was there now, it wasn’t a ghost watching in the mirror behind her. She was real, in front of her.
“Sit down… come on” Vi murmured.
Caitlyn looked around for a chair, but found none. She gave Vi a puzzled look and the other just glanced at the floor. Caitlyn sighed and brushed away some empty cans before sitting down in front of Vi.
“I don’t know what to tell you, cupcake” Vi scratched her neck, her head still hurt, but at least her ears had stopped ringing “Things have changed” You’re not so orange anymore… yet you still are.
“I… I noticed” Caitlyn looked up at the girl. So different. So distant.
“I gotta clean this shit out of my face” Vi tried to not let the conversation die, but what could she have said? She tried to stand up, but grunted through gritted teeth in the process. Caitlyn immediately stood up, as fast as a rabbit being chased by a fox.
“I’ll take care of it” the girl said, looking around for something, anything useful.
Vi rolled her eyes, but as Caitlyn stumbled upon empty bottles and clothes scattered around in a frenzy, her expression turned softer. The smell of pine trees.
“I’ll use this shirt” Caitlyn said picking up a blood-stained shirt from the ground “It’s messed up already”. She walked to the sink, passing next to the punching bag Vi had hanged on the ceiling and noticing how torn and ripped it was. She shrugged her shoulders and damped the shirt under the water.
When she turned around, Vi was standing up, although a little bit crooked to the side. Caitlyn’s lips parted a bit. Her eyebrows raised for a brief moment before she could recollect herself and walk towards Vi.
“You really don’t have to, cupcake” Vi said with half a smile as Caitlyn approached her face with a hem of the damp shirt. The other didn’t answer. She carefully pressed the shirt on Vi’s eye, cleaning away the dried blood and making her flinch a few times. Cotton white, cello music.
With every soft brushing the almost black blood went off, sticking to the fabric. Vi felt like they had removed glue from her eye and slowly opened it. It hurt her temple where the punch had hit, but with the eyelid half opened, she stared at Caitlyn right in front of her. Right as she remembered her. So orange. The perfect shape of a ripe strawberry.
Vi glanced behind the girl and saw her own reflection on the shattered mirror hanging on the wall. The black makeup had mixed with blood and bruises now purple and blue. She looked horrible.
“Damn” she muttered as she walked next to a confused and surprised Caitlyn and stopped in front of the sink “I’m sorry you had to witness that. You know, I usually win” Usually it’s all so like a loud waterfall.
“Why?” Caitlyn asked. Hers wasn’t even a real question. And she would have known the answer anyway, so she wasn’t surprised by the fact that Vi completely ignored her and was now washing her face and hands.
When she turned around just a little bit of black still stained her face and a red gash on her forehead restarted to bleed scarlett thick liquid.
“Vi, you need–” she spoke, but the other cut her off.
“I know how to patch myself up” Vi said, walking to a pile of random objects and picking up a piece of gauze. She grabbed an end of it and ripped a piece off with a bite, then she just pressed it on her forehead.
“I know you don’t need me anymore, Vi” Caitlyn had nothing more to say. That was a final goodbye.
“I don’t” Vi replied, but as soon as she spoke she saw something in Caitlyn’s eyes disappear, a glint that was there just a second ago. And she regretted opening her mouth, again. The slightly bitter taste of green tea.
“I mean” she quickly grabbed Caitlyn’s wrist. The other looked up at her, gasping for a second.
“I mean, I thought I didn’t” Vi looked away, she had hated Caitlyn for how she had abandoned her, but she also remembered when she had seen Powder killing Silco, becoming completely… Jinx and killed her mother. Caitlyn had run to her in tears, she was her only comfort place. Caitlyn had offered her a place in the enforcers. She hadn’t left her on her own.
“I thought that drinking and fighting would have deleted all I had inside” that was more of confession to herself than a statement “But it only fueled more rage, consumed me” So much yellow, too much yellow.
Caitlyn took a step forward. Vi raised her gaze although her head was lowered, to meet the other’s eyes.
“You’re not gone, Vi. I can still see the girl I knew, behind that mask” Caitlyn rubbed away the remnants of black stains from Vi’s face. The sound of a sweet high pitched violin note.
“You mean the girl you left?” Vi replied dryly though Caitlyn’s touch was so comforting.
“I made a mistake. I made so many” her voice was shaky “But… I had a clear shot on Jinx and you stopped me”
“There was a child hooked to her!” Vi angrily replied.
“And she was about to shoot you!” Caitlyn raised her voice, her accent more marked. It made Vi a little uncomfortable, she had always found it cute. Her accent was a tingling on her fingertips.
“A child would have never shot, and you had disarmed her anyways” Vi recoiled, staring at Caitlyn “I had to hold your damn rifle down”
Caitlyn lowered her head, a tuft of hair fell on her face, escaping the bun she had on the back.
“I know, Vi” Caitlyn bit her lip “And I'm sorry”
Vi didn't expect those words. She had imagined them a million times, hoping to have Caitlyn back as they once were. So naive and with no other one to count on but themselves. Her shoulders, so tense just a few moments before, relaxed a little. Caitlyn noticed. She raised her gaze, but not her head.
Vi's eyes had a thin layer of tears that made them sparkle, illuminated partially by the dim light, sharpening her features.
“She changed so much, yet she seems to be the same.” Vi thought. Orange-strawberry. The first week of January.
“Are you still leading the troop? Tracking down Pow… Jinx?” Vi asked, her voice a little cracked, hopeful, yet resigned.
“No…” Caitlyn admitted. She had given up on her leader position, such an important task she had promised herself to accomplish just to search for Vi.
“I've been looking for you in the past two weeks” she finished, her last straw of voice escaping her lips in a whisper.
Vi didn't know how to react. She couldn't forget, but she could forgive. And she decided for the latter. The word ‘forgive’ tasted like rose tea.
“Listen, you've changed. I changed” Vi slowly brushed her fingers against Caitlyn's hand “But it doesn't mean it has to end. What I've said… oil and water…” she took a short breath “They can't be mixed but they still can exist in the same… bowl” she thought about her metaphor, it sounded stupid to her ears.
“Does it mean…” Caitlyn didn't finish her sentence because Vi was already hugging her tightly, her face buried in her neck. Caitlyn could smell the blood and alcohol, but also something else. Something only Vi’s. It felt like the first time and the last time at the same moment. She thought she had forgotten how it felt being in Vi’s arms, but she hadn’t.
Caitlyn suddenly wrapped her arms around the girl, gripping on the fabric of her bandaged torso.
Vi widened her eyes at the feeling. So many 9 numbers. A part of her wanted to pull back, to forget, to return to her comfortable blue. But Caitlyn’s hair smelled like sunflowers and wind. She couldn’t let go.
“It means…” Vi spoke with her mouth almost against Caitlyn’s neck “That you can’t change it” she exhaled. The pain on the ribs so green was almost bearable in Caitlyn’s arms. She would have suffered through it not to let her go.
“I can’t change… what?” Caitlyn asked, her grip on Vi’s clothes loosening to shift into a soft hug, but the other was still gripping on her as if she was the single buoy in the middle of the ocean.
“You can’t change how orange you are. How strawberry taste you are. You can’t change how much I missed you, Cait” Vi spoke softly, quietly as if she was telling her a secret. For her, it was like that. A secret she had kept for herself for too long until it started to hurt.
It hurt every night when she had woken up after dreaming about Caitlyn so many times, her thoughts blurry, the need to hit the punching bag until her arms hurt and the exhaustion took over again. Fists hitting something, the salt water in the lungs.
Caitlyn widened her eyes a little, she detached from Vi to look at her. Her eyes, almost purple eyebags, her probably now broken nose, the way her hair fell on her face. Everything about her was as perfect as she remembered.
Vi was looking at the ground, maybe only now noticing the mess and how she had been living in the past weeks. So much blue and fangs sinking into the flesh.
“Cait… you’d better be going” she muttered, her tone low contrasting her pounding heart. She couldn’t have her back, they had changed too much. It was impossible to return back to where they had left off. Everything was now so G note of a piano .
“Going? Where?” Caitlyn looked confused for a second… before realising that the Vi she had in front of her was the same one she had left bleeding in the bottom of a pit… after she had hit her.
“Wherever you want… just far from here” Far tasted like ink, staining the tongue and choking the throat.
Caitlyn didn’t reply. She saw the irreparable crack. She glanced at the mirror. The punch probably had been thrown as the other was thinking about her. Should have she asked? No, it would have been futile by now.
“Vi, I–” Her name pronounced in that accent, a little tingling on the tip of the fingers.
“Cait. No” Vi cut her off. She couldn’t stand it. Not after so much time holding regret and vengeance. She just couldn’t forget. Yet she was unable to shove her out. Vi wanted her to leave on her own, to abandon her again although fulfilling her request, just to have an excuse to keep destroying herself.
“I will not” Caitlyn stood firm, reaching for Vi’s hands, shoulders, face, whatever she could touch and feel under the palms of her hands. And Vi didn’t retreat. Caitlyn grabbed the other’s shoulder.
And kissed her. A kiss so deep and desperate, her lips just begging for Vi’s comfort, forgiveness, help.
The feeble moans felt so much autumn, when the wind is cold, but the sun still warm.
Vi couldn’t handle it. Her mind was clear, her body still in pain and yet… Caitlyn’s lips felt like a deserted island where just the two of them could reach. Unexplored and wild. The orange so bright she had almost forgotten. Vi gripped on Caitlyn’s hips, pulling her closer, whispering nonsense against her lips, parting them and allowing the other to caress the tip of her tongue with her own.
Caitlyn arched her back, pressing against Vi’s body. Needy for closeness, warmth, something she had never had with anyone else. She had to be the perfect daughter, the perfect sniper, the perfect detective, the perfect hunter, the perfect soldier.
But with Vi she could be just Caitlyn. Vi broke the kiss, resulting in a little gasp coming from Caitlyn. Had she crossed a forbidden line? A red line drawn in front of a prison cell? Vi, instead, rested her forehead against Caitlyn’s. Her breathing was ragged, her eyes closed, her lips parted in a smirk… no, a smile.
“Oil and water, huh?… You still need both to make a cupcake” Vi raised her pale blue irises locking them with Caitlyn’s cobalt ones.