Work Text:
When Vi gets home the manor is quiet. Most of the staff has cleared out, but there's a covered dish set out in the small dining room along with a note from Caitlyn's cook labeling this meal as Vi's. Tipping back the ceramic cover over the plate so she can peek inside, Vi finds a bowl piled high with saucy noodles and seared meats, steam and the scent of garlic wafting up to set her mouth watering instinctually. It's a classed-up version of the type of hot-and-filling street food she misses most when she's staying with Cait, this far away from Zaun.
It doesn't hit the same as the cheaper, greasier version Vi grew up with, but she appreciates it for what it is: another one of the small, meaningful gestures Caitlyn has made, one in a thousand tiny adjustments she's made to her life so that Vi can feel more comfortable, more like she fits.
Like the way the household staff clears out earlier these days, because Vi never knew quite how to relax in a home where other people were still buzzing about, working, while she had to just... What? Ignore them?
Vi hadn't asked, but Caitlyn had picked up on the way Vi couldn't quite mask her tension when a random person rolled up out of nowhere to attend them.
Caitlyn's pretty good at that - at noticing things about Vi, at trying to anticipate her needs, give her what she doesn't or can't ask for. She's good at reading Vi.
But Vi's pretty good at this herself, honestly. She might not be as freakishly analytical as Caitlyn, but she's observant, intuitive. In the year and change they've been together since the end of the war, she's learned Caitlyn's habits, her rhythms and patterns, inside out, like a song playing in her head, a tune she could hum in her sleep.
The light in her office window Vi could see from her approach means Caitlyn is in for the night, but probably still working. The spread on the table is half ploy, half apology - she's counting on Vi being tired enough and hungry enough to do what comes easy: sit down at the table, tuck into her favorite meal, get herself nice and full and sleepy - primed to accept Cait's earnestly regretful brush-off when Vi seeks her out after dinner, ready to head off to bed early on her own with a goodnight kiss and a promise to make it up to her tomorrow.
Subtle enough. Tactfully manipulative the way Caitlyn sometimes is, but not nefarious.
Doesn't mean it's gonna work though.
Cait's warmed up to Zaunite cuisine since they've been together, but it's never really her first choice. And when she's overworked and stressed, her stomach's way too delicate to handle a meal like this anyway. She must have skipped her own dinner.
Tried to, anyway.
Vi's whole body feels heavy from exhaustion and her stomach grumbles longingly when she settles the lid back over her bowl of noodles, having indulged in only a single, desperate mouthful before she drifts back to the kitchen.
There's no need to get elaborate - Vi knows well enough by now that Caitlyn's not going to enjoy a meal tonight. What she mostly needs is the calories. What she mostly needs is someone not on her payroll who can't be dismissed with that cordial but tense shake of her head that's polite rich person for stop wasting my fucking time already. What she mostly needs is someone who can take care of her when she's in one of these moods, hell-bent on stiff-upper-lipping her way into an ulcer and a stress migraine and a gnawing, empty stomach.
It's a simple dish, the kind of thing Vi threw together for herself and her siblings whenever she could scrape together the necessary ingredients. The Kiramman kitchen is always stocked full so she doesn't have to get as creative as she did when she was 14 - chicken from the night before, a chopped up head of broccoli with onions and garlic. Vi sautees it all in a pan, serves it over some rice from earlier in the day, takes a bite to make sure Cait will be able to handle it.
A little bland for Vi's tastes, but probably exactly what Caitlyn needs tonight.
She grabs a few beers out of the cooler too, holding the bottles by the necks and careful not to let the glass clank together too harshly. With her palm spread wide to cup her own bowl of noodles in one hand and Caitlyn's plate braced along her forearm, she carefully ascends the stairs, feet aching from a long day of tramping around in Zaun running errands for the Firelights but steady and sure as she treads the familiar route to the office.
It wouldn't do to ambush her - Caitlyn will be feeling frustrated and guilty anyway, for bringing so much work home on a night they were supposed to spend together and Vi's not looking to send her into a sulk or pick a fight. She sets the food down on a slim running table in the hall and slips into the study empty-handed.
Caitlyn's hunched over her desk, head hanging low, fountain pen poised between her elegant fingers as she squints down at the pages spread in front of her. At the sound of Vi's entrance she raises her head and Vi watches a wince flash across her face as the motion stretches her neck.
"Hello, darling," Caitlyn says tiredly, shooting Vi a cautious smile as she swivels her chair enough to address her.
"Hey," Vi says, stepping in close, leaning in to kiss her. It's nice, getting to be the one who bends down for this, nicer still to cup the back of Caitlyn's neck, to knead gently until she feels Caitlyn sigh into her mouth, tension flowing out of body as good as if Vi had pulled the stopper on a drain and flushed it all out of her system.
When they part, Caitlyn leans back into Vi's grip, eye fluttering shut as she hums, "Thank you, love. That feels good."
Pride swells up in Vi, warm and buoyant. She can't help pressing another quick, pleased kiss to Caitlyn's face, over the scar on her brow.
"Did you enjoy your dinner?" Caitlyn asks at length, gently pulling away from Vi's hands and sitting up straight in her chair. The way the seat swivels slightly betrays how badly she's itching to turn back to her reports.
"Did you?" Vi challenges, eyebrow raised.
Caitlyn, to her credit, doesn't try to lie. Her gaze flickers guiltily towards a half-drunk mug of milky tea on the edge of her desk, long-cooled, and a small plate of those awful, dry little cookies she loves. "I wasn't feeling particularly hungry after my lunch at work. Decided on just a snack tonight."
Vi casts a dubious look at the paltry excuse for a snack. "Yeah, right. That's not gonna cut it tonight, Cupcake, you know that, right? You need some real food, not tea and those little," Vi reaches out, taps one of the brittle little cookies against the lip of the plate until it cracks in half, "intestine biscuits or whatever."
A look of naked, unaffected disgust ripples across Caitlyn's features as she swats Vi's hand away from her plate and picks up the bigger piece of the broken cookie. "Digestive biscuits," she corrects, nibbling on it defiantly. "Digestive biscuits, Vi. And they go very nicely with tea."
"Still not a meal," Vi points out, reluctantly parting her lips when Caitlyn presses the remainder of her cookie to Vi's mouth. Barely sweet, barely salty - mostly dry. Not something she can imagine gobbling up the way Caitlyn does, but certainly she’s had worse.
And so Vi dutifully chews and swallows. A gesture of goodwill. Gotta give to get, right?
"See?" Caitlyn smiles. "Not so bad, hmm?"
Vi shrugs, "Sure. You can have as many as you want after."
"After what?" Caitlyn asks, suspicion setting in as she leans back in her chair again, eyeing Vi cautiously.
"After you eat an actual meal," Vi says. Caitlyn opens her mouth to protest and Vi interrupts her again, "Yeah, you're not hungry, I know, I know."
Vi backs out of the room before Caitlyn can make some other excuse, ducking back into the hall to retrieve the food and beer she'd left outside.
"Eat this for me anyway," Vi proposes. "And then I'll set a timer and you can spend another hour up here wrapping things up while I pretend I'm not falling asleep in the other chair. And then we'll go to bed."
Vi's prepared to keep going - to needle and cajole a little longer until Caitlyn gives in. She's not looking forward to it, but she's prepared to do it.
So it's a relief when Caitlyn instead asks, cheekily, "And what exactly do I get out of this arrangement?"
"What, a hot meal and the pleasure of my company not enough for you, Sheriff?" Vi challenges, the pleasure of their teasing, the satisfaction of getting Caitlyn to do what Vi wanted, the sunbeam-warm flush of pride at taking good care of her all rushing through Vi at once.
"I'm terribly greedy, my love, what can I say?" Caitlyn's voice is low and velvet, full of promise Vi's not sure either of their bodies are gonna be able to keep after the long day they've both had. But it's fun to play along.
"Spoiled more like," Vi tosses back as Caitlyn stretches out a hand to accept the plate Vi offers.
"That too. You see to that, don't you, Violet? Taking such good care of me," Caitlyn agrees, and Vi feels herself flush again with pride. And, okay, yeah, it turns her on a little too - she's not made of stone. Before she can get too distracted in the feeling, Caitlyn speaks again, just as softly, but with a familiar hint of demand creeping into the edges of her voice, "Stop dodging the question."
Vi rolls her eyes and drags the chair across the room closer to Caitlyn, angling it so they can face each other. Caitlyn eats with her plate perched on the corner of her desk, knees pressed together and turned slightly sideways. Vi hunches over with her own still-warm bowl in her hands and eats one-handed.
"Well," she offers through a mouthful of noodles, "what do you want?"
Caitlyn frowns at Vi's poor display of table manners but manages not to throw off their back and forth with a digression to etiquette that would only end with Vi making fun of her for the number of forks she can name anyway. "Never start a negotiation by asking what the other party wants, Vi, darling. It starts you at a disadvantage. Someone could exploit that."
"That doesn't sound too bad," Vi grins, tossing in a wink and nodding at Caitlyn's already half-cleared plate. "You did what I wanted. Think you've earned the right to exploit me a little for your troubles."
Caitlyn laughs, bright and clear, looking half-surprised to hear a sound so lively erupt from her own throat at an hour this late. "Well," she says, taking another, more enthusiastic bite of the meal Vi had made her, angling herself further towards Vi, extending one long leg so she can drag the sole of her stockinged foot up Vi's calf, "I suppose that's settled, then."