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“Still driving yourself crazy?”
Caitlyn’s head snapped away from her evidence board, her furrowed gaze meeting her girlfriend’s. She forcefully shook out her stiffened limbs, suddenly realising how deep the ache went.
Vi set down a mug, the scent of bitter peppermint already doing wonders on Caitlyn’s overstimulated and strung-out mind.
“What time is it?” Caitlyn asked, pinching the bridge of her nose to stave off the impending stress headache.
“Just after one.”
Her one good eye widened, and a pit formed in the bottom of her stomach. Maybe it had been a mistake to invest in blackout curtains. “I… didn’t realise. I’m sorry for missing dinner. I hope you’ve eaten.”
Vi gave a wry smile that, on any other day, would have set off alarm bells.
“Don’t worry about me, cupcake. Right now, my focus is on getting you some rest.” Vi rested her hands on Caitlyn’s shoulders, and, despite her boots giving her already towering height some added oomph, she suddenly felt like a child being reprimanded for missing her curfew.
“I don’t feel sleepy. You can go to bed, I’ll be up in a little—oh…” Caitlyn’s eyelids fluttered shut as Vi dug the pad of her thumbs into a particularly stubborn knot, gently kneading it out.
“You were saying?” Vi’s voice dropped to a low whisper, her breath skimming over the small strip of revealed skin just above the hem of Caitlyn’s turtleneck.
“You are evil when you want to be.”
Vi chuckled, finally stepping away, leaving Caitlyn’s knees weak. She had to brace herself against her desk, her knuckles painfully scraping against the grain. At least she carried it off gracefully, she hoped.
“I’ll make you a deal,” her wonderful girlfriend mused. “You have the amount of time it takes for me to draw you a hot bath, with candles and those disgusting woodsy scented candles you like to stare at your murder board.”
“And then?” Caitlyn cocked an eyebrow.
“And then you come up to our bedroom, straight into our bathroom, with that fancy ass copper tub, and me in that tub, waiting to make you all mine.” Vi picked up Caitlyn’s trembling hand, pressing a tender kiss to the middle of her palm.
“Alright,” Caitlyn conceded, turning back to her board. She had roughly ten minutes then, and with her new sense of motivation, she was determined to make the most of it.
Caitlyn felt Vi’s warm palm spread across her waist, and she instinctively angled her cheek down to allow her girlfriend to press a quick kiss to her cheek as a temporary farewell. Her lips twitched up into a smile, but she held back, wanting to maintain some modicum of professionalism and focus.
However, Vi didn’t stop there.
She snaked her arms around Caitlyn, squeezed her waist and buried her face into the crook of Caitlyn’s neck, taking a moment to breathe in the smell of gunpowder and the mildly-scented fabric softener.
“I love you,” Vi murmured, soft and glowy under the orange lamps.
“I love you, too,” Caitlyn choked out in reply, already feeling like her chest was caving in on her. She stepped away, trying to pass it off as mere concentration on the case—anything to keep Vi unworried and unconcerned.
As soon as the door shut behind Vi, Caitlyn lost it. The ground seemed to crumple out from under her, and she landed on her knees, the shock of her landing only mitigated by the soft carpet underneath.
The sun was beating down on her. She could feel a trickle of blood soaking into her pants, her fingers wrapped around the hilt of the knife embedded deeply into her flesh.
“No,” she gasped to herself, ripping off her jacket as if throwing it to the side would take her away from here. As if it would allow her to escape.
She looked out at the vast skyline of Piltover. Her gaze was too fragmented, too panicked to find a route of escape. All she could see was smoke and blood and bodies. So many bodies scattered everywhere. Her mind flashed to petals scattered across Cassandra’s grave from the violet garden her mother had planted with so much care. The city her mother had worked for with just as much attention, if not more.
She let out a broken sob. Her head felt like it was about to explode. She snatched the pins out of the severe bun she had pulled it back into, strands of frizzed, wavy hair spattering across her wet face.
“I did appreciate your warmth.”
At the time, Caitlyn hadn’t even registered the words. Not truly. She hadn’t swallowed down the meaning of them, or the full force of the betrayal. Months of feeling guilty about inviting a junior officer into her bed had culminated in a brief but heartfelt apology to Maddie, just days before that last battle.
In the months that followed, Caitlyn regretted a lot of things.
The metal clang of the safety turning off. The ringing in her ears. The heat of the bullet as it flew towards the nape of her neck.
Caitlyn’s diaphragm seized. Her features contorted into an expression of hollow torment, not unlike, she imagined, the face she had made when Maddie fired that rifle.
The next thing she knew, a heavy weight fell onto her back, nearly knocking her to the ground. The tangy smell of copper filled her senses.
She looked down at her hands, and all she saw was blood. She had dug her newly trimmed nails too far into her skin, tiny rivulets of crimson liquid leaking from the crescent-shaped marks on her palms. It only reminded her of Maddie’s blood. Marking her, staining her, drowning her. A tortured cry ripped from her throat, and she distantly wondered if the reason why her mother had soundproofed the study was to hide away her own pain from her family, to hide away the suffering from Caitlyn.
When Caitlyn came to, she was on the ground, back pressed against her desk. She angled her head slightly to catch the clock, noting that it had been a little over seven minutes, which meant that she had less than three to compose herself and return to her girlfriend’s side. With a put-upon sigh, she grabbed the edge of the desk and shakily pulled herself to her feet.
The tea had become cold, but she forced herself to gulp it down anyway, its sharpness helping her clear the haze from her mind. She grimaced at the sweat that had built up under her arms. A bath with Vi sounded perfect right now.