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"If you've harmed a single hair on his head, I will hunt you down. If you've hurt him, you will never know rest for the remainder of your days. I will find you, and I will sink your body to the bottom of the River Pilt. I will grind your bones to dust and feed you to the fishes." The words are cold and clipped and extremely familiar. "If it's me you want, you bastard, it should be me you're after."
Vi exchanges a glance with her uh, hostage, who looks like he's about to break into a teary laugh. In any other situation that would actually be really reassuring, but right now? Right now she has to admit that she's equal parts impressed, amused, intimidated and uh, maybe a little turned on.
Safe to say, this is not how she thought this would go down.
It started with an innocuous glance at some accounts.
Vi can't help it. She's a curious one and Caitlyn's never really cared for secrets. There are things they don't talk about because they're not important. The first few lines on the ledger, for example, things like shoe polish and shears for the garden, the yearly shipment of pu erh that has been reduced since Caitlyn is now the only one who really appreciates it.
There are other things they don't really mention because they are important, but also because there is nothing to say about them yet. Vi knows what the numerous private investigators that Caitlyn keeps on payroll are doing. Doesn't really take a genius to figure that out and she well, she doesn't really want to talk about it yet. Caitlyn knows she knows. She thinks Caitlyn knows she knows. Either way it's kind of stupidly sweet and Vi doesn't have the words in her for them, for what they mean.
And then there are things that Caitlyn prefers to not acknowledge.
Vi's finger draws a horizontal line over a mention of a housekeeping salary only a week after a property purchase in a city she's certain the Kirammans already own an estate in. She knows this because she'd asked for a list of major properties maybe a month ago, when she'd been trying to help in the early days when Caitlyn hadn't been allowed to read anything for more than fifteen minutes. (An extensive list of all properties had only gotten her a shrug and a 'I'd have to get back to you on that'.)
It is curious, very curious, but she doesn't bring it up even though the ledger which sits on Caitlyn's desk has clearly been approved. She knows now, at least, how not to talk about it, knows what not to say. She—Vi looks at her hands, looks around her at this so large room, at the space that she inhabits, at what they have that they've never really put to words. It is difficult to put into words what this is, that she goes to work but comes home, that she steps out but she returns, that her heart rests in the other half of this bed and that she would do anything, anything, to make Caitlyn happy. And she could do something about it. She can. She knows part of this is falling back into old habits, into the fantasies of 'Would it be so bad to want?', knows that there is an air of presumptuousness to her thoughts, but knows, deep inside her bones, that she can do it this time. That it isn't a wrong choice.
She also knows that Caitlyn must know, knows that since Caitlyn does know and will not ask, that she has to work on the other party.
Vi looks at the bathroom door, listens to the sounds of a shower, and has a series of Very Good Ideas.
She's good at this sort of thing, if Vi says so herself. It's nice, in some way, to know that she hasn't entirely lost her touch. It's reassuring to discover that after everything she's still well, got bits of the kid from before underneath all the muscle and the height. It hadn't been easy—she'd had to dig deep for a good excuse to take time off of work, to swap thet tickets, to show up unannounced, had to dig deeper still for some good guilting into conversation, and then persist over the course of several very frustrating days (she's starting to understand where Caitlyn's stubbornness may have been born) even further to get him to move.
But they're here now, in a small apartment on the outskirts of Piltover, near enough to the docks that Vi can afford the rent on her salary (to avoid the scrutiny of The Ledger), far enough that Caitlyn won't stumble upon it by accident on the occasional run that she does in the mornings.
"You really should stop lingering outside," her companion for the hour says. "The neighbors will gossip."
Vi raises her eyebrows but steps in through the open door anyway. "Don't they gossip enough already?"
"They do," he says. "But I find it rather less productive to encourage it. Feed them enough and they'll make strange rumors. I'd hate—" his expression twists uncomfortably "—to cause the two of you trouble."
Vi shrugs.
"You know she doesn't care much of what others think about her."
His hands pause in the making of tea. He grows quiet for a moment. Then he turns. There's a soft, gentle smile, resigned in a way that Vi's not yet quite found how to fix.
"I suppose you're right," he says.
This is a silly concern, Caitlyn thinks, and she does not have the time to properly dig into it given how busy she is (granted the bustle is largely of her own making), but there is a high probability that Vi has taken a lover. There are grey areas, for sure, uncertainties. It would be unwise to jump to conclusions but there are several facts that string together just that little bit too conveniently.
It started after Vi returned from her trip to Demacia.
The new apartment by the docks that Vi happens to be paying for out of her own pocket. The consistent afternoon break that Vi takes alone every Thursday. The wistful look Vi has on her face when she comes back, a sprout basked in the morning sun, a glow that yearns for more. It is a good look on her and it makes Caitlyn a little sour on the inside that she herself seems somewhat unable to inspire such emotions.
It is selfish to have such thoughts, she knows, selfish because Vi is happy even if she is worried. She is worried. She is worried not because this makes things impossible, but because it makes things messy and when things get messy— Well, that's certainly not a productive train of thought.
She thinks she should speak on it but Vi still smiles at her with that same smile, still looks at her with that same warmth, still takes Caitlyn's hands in hers on the days now growing chilly with each moonrise. Vi still wakes in her bed and laughs with her in the bathroom, still cuddles her to sleep, still keeps her waiting in the mornings before they head to the station together.
There is nothing more that she could want. There is nothing more that she should want.
He had, very rightfully, not looked happy to see her when she showed up unannounced that one night three months ago. But honestly, Vi had been hoping for a far better impression than what she had given him, so that kind of tracked.
She hadn't counted on it fucking pouring. She knows why people use the word 'pour' for rain now. She thought she'd seen rain coming down at Stillwater, thought she'd known rain growing up in Zaun when the water would come rushing down, had still not been prepared for the heavens to fucking open up.
So when she stands at the doorstep of a very modest house (by all standards, not just Kiramman) under the light of the waning moon drenched and more than a little bedraggled because it should have been the afternoon and not night, it really isn't a ploy. She really is wet all the way to her bones and three flavors of miserable.
"Vi?"
"Good evening, sir," she says. She sneezes.
He frowns and looks around her.
"Uhm," says Vi. "It's just me."
Tobias Kiramman looks very, very confused. Fair.
"Can I come in?" Vi tries to look as nonthreatening as she can manage, which she supposes isn't really that difficult considering she's fucking drenched and all of her hair is flattened to her scalp. Never mind industrial strength gel, not even superglue could have held those spikes in place under this deluge.
"You don't have an umbrella," he says. Then he shakes his head. There's a small frown. "Of course, come in."
Vi gingerly steps through the doorway behind him, doing her best to not get him wet. His floor? That's a lost cause.
"Vi," says Tobias Kiramman with a deeper frown. "Has something happened to Caitlyn?"
She does not help his impression of her by sneezing into her elbow at this exact moment. In hindsight, it's a miracle he hadn't thrown her out on her butt.
Vi still gets back to the station with that soft, wistful look on her face. Vi's eyes still light up when they see her.
It feels like it should be enough.
Tobias Kiramman hums as she speaks, makes tea with a calm, controlled deliberation, so many steps that Caitlyn and her never bother with at home, warming the teapot, warming the tea cups, rinsing the leaves before the brews even begin. He's easy to talk to about the happenings and going-ons of this small slice of town. He has a favorite bakery, a spot from which he likes the sunset, and has sworn the local noodle place to secrecy since Caitlyn still visits once a month.
He doesn't talk about her but there is a wistful look in his eyes and in this, Vi thinks those two are very, very similar.
Speaking of, Caitlyn has been a little different lately. Busy, as she always is—Vi doesn't quite know how new work keeps popping up but pop up it does, be it estate maintenance on the weekends, Sheriff work on the weekdays, emergency calls that definitely aren't emergency calls (cos nothing was blown up or on fire) in the evenings. But in between the busyness of it all Vi feels like she's starting to notice Caitlyn's eye lingering on her..
She can't quite put a finger on it; it is different but it isn't uncomfortable. More than anything, Caitlyn doesn't say anything about all of this even though there's no way she hasn't noticed anything. But she doesn't speak so Vi doesn't. The less she says, after all, the less likely she is to end up spilling the beans and these, she is very sure, are not beans she should spill quite yet.
Her fingers touch bare wood.
Caitlyn blinks a few times at the empty tray on her desk. Has a miracle happened? Is she truly out of paperwork for today? She looks up from this last permit for reconstruction—they haven't yet figured out what to do with the Hexgates but it would be counterproductive and damaging for morale to have them demolished, so that section of repairwork can be punted until after the Snowdown festivities have settled. She could get started on some of the proposals… Those are with the Council and it would be presumptuous to amend them ahead of time, even though she knows what House Hoskel is likely to complain about.
Is there truly nothing else? No building has collapsed, no one's been apprehended?
She looks up.
Half of the office is out, likely on patrol or, enjoying their days off, as they should be, given the season. She knows Steb isn't in. Vi isn't either but this is hardly surprising, given that it is Thursday and this is the hour that she takes off every week to— To what? Head down to that little apartment by the docks? Cavort about with her secret lover? Surely an hour every week is insufficient?
She sighs.
Caitlyn is a bit of a coward, after all, because she has known about this secret for a good month now and she has said nothing. It is a little of a chicken and an egg problem. Vi knows she is too sharp to not know. She knows. And yet neither of them have said anything about it.
She should.
Should she? She should. There should not be secrets between them, certainly not of this shape or size. If she is unhappy, the voice in her head that sounds a lot like Mother says, then she must act or suffer the consequences. Well, perhaps she enjoys suffering the consequences. She is, after all, very good at suffering.
Then the courier comes.
The sun is starting to set—not quite yet because it doesn't set so early in this part of Runeterra. Vi has heard that in parts of the Freljord the sun sets for the whole winter and doesn't come back up in spring. She thinks she might go a little bonkers if she lived there but perhaps warm fires, warm smiles, and a warm blue eye can keep the spark going.
She sips a rather pleasant tea in a sitting room about one tenth the size of the one she has at home as the sun's rays slant through the windows.
"I think," Tobias says, "I'd like to speak with her, if she'll have me."
His smile is a little soft, a little wry.
In a rather morbid way she welcomes this interruption, Caitlyn thinks, as she straps a handgun to her thigh and makes sure she has enough ammunition on her person for her purposes. Every movement, every buckle, every strap as she dons the armor she has not touched since that day months ago, it all stokes the fire in her and sends it roaring to the heavens. She had already been frustrated, for other reasons, and now she can be properly furious, can take it out on the fools that dare cross her.
This is a bad idea and she knows it is a bad idea but she is sick and tired of not doing anything and, above all, there is no one here who would dare to stop her when she is in a mood like this one.
The newest recruit looks appropriately terrified as she stalks out of her office but Krowe takes one look at her, at the rifle slung across her back, and is shot right out of their seat.
"Sheriff? Is something the matter?"
Caitlyn does not have any grace in her bones in this moment, doubly so because she has the latest assessments on her desk still fresh from last week's trials and she knows that Krowe cannot shoot to save anyone's lives, least of all, hers.
"Nothing I require your assistance with," she says. "I will be back shortly." A pause. "Don't wait on my account."
"If I may," Tobias says mildly though it is clear from the pacing that he is nervous.
Vi looks at him. "Of course," she says.
"You said you sent Caitlyn an anonymous letter," he continues. "One that she would not suspect was from either of us."
Vi nods.
"Bought some of that fancy paper from the shop you get the custom stationery from—different weight of course, and I did like that movie thing. We watched one last week."
Tobias nods rather encouragingly.
"Oh, you know," she says. "Like the whole cutting letters out from different publications thing to make a message."
He freezes for just a moment before his lips twitch into a smile that is quite unlike any of Caitlyn's.
"And pray tell," he says, "what exactly did this message say?"
"Come alone. We have something precious to you."
He winces. There's a pause as he considers his next words. "Does that not seem a little presumptuous to you?"
Vi shrugs. "A little. But if I've learnt anything with Caitlyn it's that sometimes she won't ask for what she wants." She grins. "And sometimes you gotta really push her."
"How'd you figure it out, Cait?"
"Vi?" Gone is the cool, gone is the calm. The panic in Caitlyn's voice rises like the tide and caution, apparently, is thrown away in the wind as footsteps ring out, rounding the corner. "It's you? I thought they—"
"Hey," Vi says to the shocked look on her lover's face. "Whoa, you looked like you're dressed for war."
The mouth of Caitlyn's rifle lowers to the floor. "Vi?" Her eyes grow wide. "Father?"
A blue eye flicks between the two of them. Back and forth and back and forth. In the silence Vi can almost hear the gears turning, can see pieces clicking into place—she doesn't know what those pieces are, only that they exist, that they are here, that they—
"This is the secret you've been keeping?" Caitlyn's lip wobbles. "The apartment by the docks? Father? I thought—the house in Ionia—"
Vi looks at Tobias. He shrugs.
"I told you," he says. "If you keep hanging about outside, the neighbors will gossip. And she'll know."
"I didn't think—"
"The note too? From that movie we watched on Friday?"
Vi nods.
Caitlyn puts her rifle away, her expression cooling far faster than Vi would like it to even as she surveys the empty warehouse. "So there's no threat. No one's been kidnapped."
"No," says Vi. "Uhm, I know it might be a little late for this, but surprise?"
"Surprise," says Caitlyn flatly.
Vi shrugs. "I know you don't really like surprises."
A sigh. "Look," Caitlyn says, a hand on her brow. "Couldn't there have been better ways to word the message? If you wanted me here, could you not have asked?"
"That's what I said," Tobias says, rather unhelpfully.
Et tu, Toby, Vi grinds out in her head but she keeps her mouth shut and looks pointedly between father and daughter.
"Caitlyn," Tobias says quietly. "Since you're here, may I have a moment of your time?"
Caitlyn's jaw is clenched. Her eye is just about to glaze over but behind the sapphire glass Vi can see the ocean dying to break free so she slips from the room.
"What did you want my time for?"
In those words she can taste the edge of the way Mother's used to cut in her frustration. She can't help it. She hadn't thought this through. She'd thought she'd see him again, that she'd have to break him out from whoever it was that dared threaten her with him, but she hadn't thought about what she'd say to him.
The last she'd seen of him was when he'd left for Ionia before the battle, a suitcase she'd had packed for him by the housekeeper since he'd not been in any state to himself, a cowed back and a stooped figure. She hadn't even seen him onto the airship, hadn't thought she could bear those empty eyes avoiding hers.
And then she survived and he stayed. Stayed there, bought a house to live in, hired a housekeeper for himself, lived, by all accounts, modestly but far away.
It's been months. Months since everything settled, since the last trailing estate management tasks were fully transferred to her, the roses in the garden replanted, the tea reordered.
He stayed there. He hadn't returned. Hadn't sent letters. Hadn't said anything.
And now.
Now he is here and sure, the circumstances could be different and maybe it could have been orchestrated differently (she certainly has things to talk to Vi about) but he is here and he wants, of all things, some of her time.
She doesn't know how she feels about it. She doesn't—
"I'm sorry," he says.
A lump forms instantly in her throat. She forces it down, holds her shoulders terribly still, arms crossed, hands balled into fists. There are words that leap to her tongue that she chokes down too, expectations that are bubbling up, false hopes that she's never been able to squash.
"I'm so sorry, Caity."
He looks at her, beard all white now, trimmed shorter than she can remember it having ever been. His hands are pressed together but it is his eyes, warm and sorrowful that look back at her. They look at her like he has looked at her most of her life, a familiarity she has craved desperately over so many nights, for so many weeks, all those long months ago.
Part of her is furious at the timing.
Part of her is so terribly, impossibly happy.
"You—" his smile is small "—You might not need your old man anymore, and that's quite alright. I simply—"
"I think I've had enough of you thinking you know what I want," Caitlyn says, more than well aware that the words aren't coming out at all like she wants them to.
"Of course," his smile grows a little rueful. "I'm sorry."
"I don't know what you want," she says as she retreats, as she chokes on the fluff that fills her mouth and has her tongue leaden. "I don't know why you're here."
"I wanted to see you again. To see how you are." The look in his eyes is a little sorrowful now and she can see the way his gaze trails over every new scar, how it lingers on her eyepatch. "They hurt you quite terribly." His voice falls. "I hurt you quite terribly." A pause. "I don't know what you want, but I want to."
She swallows, lets the air sit in her lungs, holds it in like she'd once been taught to do as a young child.
"I don't either," she says. "But we can figure that out."
Vi is sitting on a wall by the water when Tobias comes out. There's a slight smile on his face, a lightness to his step. He claps her on the shoulder but he doesn't say anything dlze as he walks away in the direction of his apartment.
More footsteps and there Caitlyn is, in her fully armed glory, armor strapped to her chest, weapons at her sides, enough ammunition to take out a small army.
"Sorry," Vi says.
That blue eye tracks hers.
"Maybe not a ransom note," Caitlyn says after a moment with the tinge of a smile. "I think I startled Krowe on my way out of the station."
Vi chuckles. "Maybe not."
"You went to Ionia," Caitlyn says, hand reaching for hers, twining with her fingers. "That week that you took off. You weren't—" she shakes her head "—I thought you were in Demacia after I gave you the lead."
Vi fiddles with their joined hands. "I changed the tickets." She squeezes.
Caitlyn nods and sits down next to her, head resting on her shoulder. The sun hangs low on the water, not quite setting but on its way.
"I thought you'd taken a lover."
Vi jerks away.
"What?"
Caitlyn's eye opens. "A lover," she says. "Apartment far away on your dime, mysterious meetings you wouldn't mention. It's not uncommon."
"You thought I'd—" Vi blinks a few times. "It was just Tobias."
"I know."
Caitlyn's gaze doesn't waver. She doesn't look away. She also doesn't say anything else, doesn't interject, doesn't interrupt, simply waits and holds like she has done for as long as she has known. It is equal parts thoughtful and frustrating.
"We should talk," Vi says. "We should have talked."
"We should," says Caitlyn. "And we will."