Work Text:
The month that followed her mother’s death, Caitlyn showered with a gun.
It was not her rifle, of course. It was just a handgun, one usually tucked away in its holster, one that had been hidden away in some bottom drawer in her bedroom. A pistol. Sleek, shiny gray, polished and practical. Small and simple. Safety off.
She left it on the counter, cold metal against cool marble, nestled between her white towel and silky purple robe. Gray gun. Violent violet eyes. Blue smoke. Settling, shaking hands.
Safety off.
No one ever said a word. Caitlyn was grateful for small mercies.
Caitlyn was allowed to clean up when she woke after the war. A nurse with tired eyes and a taut line of a frown dropped off only three items: a bowl-shaped basin, a half-stale bar of soap, and a white washcloth.
“I’m sorry this is all I can do,” Vi whispered the first time, cross-legged on the edge of the hospital bed, with its flat pillows and white-starched sheets. She met Caitlyn’s singular bright blue eye, the other still hidden behind a bundle of bandage and gauze. There was something somber in her expression. Solemn. “I know you have a big, fancy shower back home, huh?”
She balanced the basin of slick, soapy water on her lap and the washcloth in her hand. Caitlyn watched from the other end of the bed, watched as Vi dipped the scrap of fabric into the warm water, letting it drip, drip, drip. She was propped up against the hard, creamy-white plastic headboard of the cramped, creaky hospital bed, bare from her breasts and down. A thin, dry towel was slung around her shoulders, but she still shivered slightly before Vi even touched her.
Her hair was pulled back into a messy knot at the nape of her neck, glossy with grit and grease, but she couldn’t bring herself to care. Dark, wispy strands still curled over and stuck to the sweaty skin of her temples. She wouldn’t be able to wash her hair, just her body, not able to get her ruined socket soggy.
Caitlyn’s body was a mottled mess of bandages and bruises, tangled lines of stitches and wires. She was only allowed a simple sponge bath. Yes, she yearned for home, for warm, warm water and her collection of scented soaps and shampoos and scrubs, and lush, luxurious lotions that Vi would later tease her for. But, for now, wiping away the crusted blood, the salt and the sweat, would be enough.
Caitlyn snorted. The motion tugged at her already tight throat. “It’s not that big.”
“Hmm.” Vi hummed thoughtfully. “Maybe.”
She leaned over and began to wash her shoulders and chest, wiping away dried blood and dirt and grit. She brushed carefully over violet bruises and tender skin, rubbed red and ruby. Caitlyn’s skin shifted and shook, shivering, breaking out in patches of prickling goose flesh. She moved onto her back next, Caitlyn straightening her spine as much as she was able, straining, as much as she could without pulling something in her side. The damp cloth swiped across the nape of her neck, between her shoulder blades, then down her arms, careful of the IV still connected at the indented index of her elbow and the tangle of wires twisted around her fingertips, measuring her pulse and pressure.
“I did this for you, you know,” Caitlyn said slowly. It came out rusty and raspy, her throat raw. Like clatter over the city’s cobblestones. Like salt and pepper in a sizzling pan. “When you were recovering.”
Vi raised an eyebrow, like she only had the energy to be half-interested. Caitlyn wouldn’t be surprised. She can see the dark circles under Vi’s eyes, the hazy, shadowed-shroud sheen within them. That guilt. That grief. They all had their own ghosts haunting them. Their own problems from the past to contend with.
But at least they weren’t alone. Not anymore.
“Oh,” Vi said now, voice as sharp as the edge of a dull, dull knife. “Yeah?”
It was not really a question, but Caitlyn answered it anyway.
“I couldn’t stand the thought of them touching you,” She admitted, looking down at her lap, where water droplets had dripped and dried, slightly staining the thin, translucent surface of the sheets, the same sheets she had subconsciously grabbed a fistful of, clenching and unclenching. “There were nurses, and the house staff, but I didn’t…” She shook her head. “I didn’t want them to see you like that. Unconscious.”
Vulnerable.
“I made them clear the room,” Her voice shook too. She had never admitted this aloud to anyone, nonetheless to Vi. Maybe not even to herself. “Just like this, I cleaned you up. Dried you, dressed you.” She began to smile shakily. Vi’s lips quirked in the corner in response, a small smirk, a sprouting seed soaking up light from the sun. “I washed that horrid dye out of your hair.”
“Horrid?” Vi repeated, scrubbing at a sensitive spot just below her shoulder blade.
Caitlyn scrunched her nose. “Horrid,” she said again.
Vi laughed then, soft and sweet, a little bit of surprise surrender, and it sounded just like the piano in the parlor of the Manor, the keys she spent hours playing as a girl. It made Caitlyn feel all giggly and giddy, the way she did when she was six and her feet barely brushed the floor when bent over the bench. Caitlyn felt like she was humming. Singing.
Maybe it was all the drugs muddying her bloodstream, the painkillers and antibiotics, or maybe love was its own kind of drowsy, ditzy drug. Was this what it was like for Vi, she wondered. The pink-purple shine of Shimmer and puckered lips, brought back from the brink.
Was this what love felt like?
“Horrid,” Caitlyn murmured again, but she didn’t mean a word of it.
Vi hummed again and continued her work, occasionally pausing to push the rag back in the water, dipping and dampening it, before ringing it out some and swiping at her wet-slick skin again. Caitlyn could feel a drop of water drip down, down, catching in the center of her chest, the dented dip there.
Caitlyn gritted her teeth, and Vi was steady and slow as she followed the slanting slope of her shoulder, the crook of her clavicle, that little cradled dip in between her collarbones, the curve of her chest—
Caitlyn sucked in a breath, eye fluttering shut, as Vi deftly swiped over the peaked tip there, nipples hardened from the cold and, well, other sensitivities. But Caitlyn’s bones were battered and bruised, tired right down to the tendon, and she wasn’t sure if she would ever be turned on ever again.
“I…” It sputtered out of her, spurred and surprising. Startling. “I know I had no right to…”
To gaze upon you, she thought. But I guess I’ve always been greedy in that way.
“Cait,” Vi said, stopping. This time, it was sharp as a stone. As hard as a rock. And Caitlyn opened her eye to gaze upon her again, stormy gray-blue meeting clear cerulean. “I’m glad it was you.”
I’m glad that it’s you.
And Caitlyn thought of a battle fought ages ago, a war waged before this war. Of another girl with blue hair and the eyes that used to be the whole of the clear, blue sky.
It had to be you.
Caitlyn hung her head and let the water slide through already damp skin, sliding right down her spine. Soaking the sheets. Staining.
One week after the battle, they took a bath. Barely.
The tub was filled halfway with warm water, steaming like smoke over the hearthfire. But not too hot, her father had cautioned, bestowing a set of rules and regulations upon a poor Vi. It was a simple enough set: nothing strenuous that could stretch her stitches, she couldn’t be fully submerged under the water, and she couldn’t get the bandages still secured around the left side of her head wet at all.
That was why she had to sit in a bath rather than stand in a shower.
Caitlyn couldn’t use any scent or smells, any of her usual bath salts or scrubs, seeing it could irritate the wound in her side, and she couldn’t soak for long either. So, that left her with a half-filled bathtub, a bar of unscented soap, a fluffy white towel, so much more thick than the thin ones that the hospital supplied, and her silky robe left folded by the sink.
Vi helped her strip off the loose, comfortable loungewear she had been confined to, not allowed to wear anything too tight or itchy as the stab wound at her side healed. Vi helped her step over the edge of the steep white porcelain and settle into the water.
Usually, Caitlyn would curl into herself, spine curved, knees tucked into the crook of her chest, but she couldn’t. Not yet. So she wrapped her arms around her middle and lay her legs out long, flat in front of her and tried to cross her ankles. She failed and frowned, dipping under the water, flimsy feet brushing the far end of the tub, toes wriggling, breaking the surface of the water. Surfacing, unsurfacing. She stared at the little ripples it created as Vi pulled off her own clothes, discarded them in a heap on the floor, and stepped into the tub too, bare skin brushing bare skin as she sat herself right behind Caitlyn.
Instantly, instinctively, Caitlyn softened. She stilled and sucked in a breath. She could feel Vi against her, the press of her pelvis, the toned bracket of her thighs, the curve of her chest. The ridges of her ribs. Slick skin against slick skin. Wet hair to warm breath. Vi leaned over and pressed a kiss to the slanted slope before her, the juncture right where her neck met her shoulder. She let out a long breath, breath lingering against the lobe of her ear.
Caitlyn’s eye sealed shut, eyelashes fluttering.
“Maybe next time, huh?” Vi hummed, breath hot, tickling the shell of her ear this time.
Caitlyn opened her eye and realized that Vi was looking up, chin tilting towards the shower on the other side of the large bathroom. Caitlyn squinted and could make out the gilded-gold of the faucet and the glinting glass of the large door over the ledge of the tub. A dull throb was forming behind her left temple, her sight shifting and stretching. Straining.
“Yeah,” she murmured, only managing that much. “Maybe.”
Vi shuffled closer, coming to wrap her arms around Caitlyn’s waist, carefully, cautiously, avoiding the tilt of her pelvis, the crest of her hips, and the taut-tightness there, the sewn-shut scar still lined with stitches and plastered with a pressed-on, plastic sheet of a bandage they would have to have changed after this. The herbal, pasty poultice they would have to apply again, and the pills Caitlyn would have to force down her throat.
Vi sighed and shifted, nosing against her shoulder, nuzzling at the nape of her neck. Warm skin. Not the cold muzzle of a rifle.
Caitlyn shivered all the same.
Vi shifted closer again and Caitlyn watched the rippled rivulets circle in the water.
Two weeks after the battle, after surgery on her side and eye socket, her stitches checked and cleared, taut and tightened, Caitlyn was finally able to shower.
After weeks of shivering sponge baths in slick sheets and scrubbing at her scalp over the sink, of sitting in a tub of lukewarm water barely up to her knees, Caitlyn was glad to be able to slip into the shower again, even if she had to be guided.
As usual, Vi was at her side the whole time, helping her strip off her clothes and step into the shower. To turn on the faucet and test the temperature. With Vi’s hands settled on her hips, she felt like a finicky, frolicking fawn, all long, lithe legs, too languid. Too lax. Too loose. Clumsy and uncoordinated. Confused.
A part of her loathed it. A part of her loved it. Loved Vi’s gaze on her, the wide, watercolor blue of her eyes, the splatter of freckles splayed against her cheeks and ridge of her nose. The slight flare of her nostrils. The furrow in between her eyebrows.
It had been a long, long time since she had been fussed over. Since she had been cared for. She tried to remember the last time. She vaguely recalled when she unexpectedly came down with a fever as a young girl.
Usually, a young Caitlyn had nannies and nursemaids to tend to her, private tutors and coaches to teach her. But her mother, who had an important Council meeting that day, stayed home and took care of her. She brought her tea in curvy-carved cups and biscuits on tiny porcelain plates, fussing over her and feeling her forehead, tsking her tongue and tucking the silky sheets closer to her chin. Kissing her cheek when she thought Caitlyn had drifted into a drowsy, dream-filled sleep.
A lump sealed itself in the back of her throat, no matter how many times she tried to swallow it away.
She stood still under the spray of water with Vi behind her, the steam clogging her nostrils and worsening the lodged lump in the tilt of her throat. A boulder in the crook of her chest. Her head was tilted to one side, avoiding soaking her left socket. She had finally been allowed to remove the tight, binding bandage, but wore a light, plain patch for protection, and personal preference.
Her eyelid was still stitched shut, sealed securely in neat, taut lines, puffy and pink. The scar going through was rough and crooked, jagged. It ran from the corner-crooked notch of her nose to the hard ridge of her browbone. The stitches were scheduled to be removed sometime next week, and the eye underneath would be dull and dismal. Damaged. Blank. Blind.
Right now, she was making sure to wash and carefully dry the seal of the scar, then apply the minty-mineral salve to the seam of the stitches. Wear her patch during the day and let the wound breathe at night. Avoid direct light and avoid scratching and squinting, straining—
So she couldn’t do shit. Could barely read a line in a letter from the correspondence tray brought daily by the courier or sign her name without keeling over, pain and pressure exploding behind the socket, building and buzzing against her temple, recoiling like her rifle.
But all that could be forgotten with Vi here, against her, slick skin to slick skin. Sore muscles seeped and soaked, sucking in the warmth. Tired tendons and flesh kneaded and rubbed. Warm breath on the back of her neck. Fingertips running through her hair, massaging coconut-lavender shampoo into her scalp skillfully. Softly. Calloused palms anchored at her hip, thumb rubbing soothing circles at the flared protrusion of the bone there. Scar-skinned knuckles brushing the bare skin of her back, following the curved ridges of her spine, washcloth damp and smelling like milk and honey. A huffing hum in the hitch of her throat.
“Good?” Vi would ask, breath brushing past her ear. Are you good?
“Fine.”
Caitlyn closed her eye and wondered if the wetness on her cheeks was water or tears, tasting the salt on her bottom lip as she bit into it hard enough to draw blood.
The pistol sat on top of the sideboard, tucked between bundles of new eyepatches and a bottle of her mother’s old, faint-floral perfume. Vi has eyed it, but she doesn’t say a word.
Caitlyn wouldn’t be sure how to answer.
Four weeks after the battle, Caitlyn stepped into the shower alone.
It was night, dark outside by now. Vi had left for Zaun early in the morning, deep in recovery and reconstruction work, leaving Caitlyn to wake to an empty bed. Caitlyn had spent all day in the study, trying to make sense of her bleary vision and blurry words upon the page. She couldn’t concentrate. Couldn’t control where her eye went on the page. She tried and failed. Tried and fell. She sipped minty tea, saucer shaking in her clumsy, sweaty palms, and nibbled on gulped bites of dry biscuits. Soon enough, the tea went cold and the biscuits went hard and stale.
After hours of a piercing ache behind her remaining eyeball and itching between her seams of stitches, she had left her desk, dark ink drying on her fingertips. She had returned to the bedroom and stripped off her sweater and sweatpants, standing in front of her wardrobe for a long moment, blinking, before making her way over to the bathroom.
She stared at the bathtub for a long moment before she looked over at the shower and made her decision. She adjusted the dial and pulled at the golden lever, starting the warm water. Caitlyn came to stand under the spray, staring at the white marbled tile in front of her, already coated with condensation. Watching the water drip down it.
The steam rose quickly, the air hot and humid. The steam curled upwards in spires, in ribboned rivulets, as thick as smoke, fogging up the glass panes of the shower door. The mirror—
She couldn’t see. She couldn’t see.
Caitlyn sucked in a breath, back brushing the wall as she crept to the corner of the shower, catching her breath. Blood roared in her ears, louder than the wild roar of the water. The wall was cold behind her. She shivered, shaking—
Hair plastered to the nape of her neck, strands stuck to the side of her face. Chin dipped to her chest, water catching in the cradle of her collarbone. Over the curve of her chest, the slope of her shoulder, the curve of her lower back. Down, down. She was dripping. Down her legs. Down the drain. Drip, drip, drip…
She was wet. Wet. Her bones were wet—
The glass glinted, still smogged and streaky. Smudged. Shiny. The gold detailing caught the low light as it swung open and in. The hinges cracked and creaked, crying out.
(Piercing purple-pink eyes. A preening, purring voice. A creaking cackle. A prick of pain at the base of her skull, blossoming like a bloom. Like blood—)
Her head tipped backwards, painfully meeting the edge of the tiled wall. A thudding thunk echoed evenly around the small, snug space, radiating around her knocked skull. Her head rang. Sang.
“Cait.”
Caitlyn’s head snapped back up, throat hitching like a wire wound too wild. A coil circled too tight. A snake stuck in a snare.
Arms wrapped around her from behind, looped loosely around her waist, pulling her in. Tugging her close, corralling her in. Covering her. Clothes sticking to slick skin. Slick skin to slick skin. Breath coming fast and quick from behind her. Fingertips in her hair, palms at her hips, knuckles brushing the arch of her bare back.
“Cait.”
Vi.
Vi.
Vi was here, still dressed, standing under the spray of water, pressed between Caitlyn and the slick, shiny wall of the shower. The water was still warm and wet. Everything was wet—
“Cait,” Vi said into her ear. “Breathe.”
Caitlyn gasped. Her lungs squeezed and sputtered, nipping like nettles, ribs rattling. Her vision was blurry and black at the edges. She coughed and closed her mouth and cleared her throat.
“Breathe.”
She swallowed. She opened her mouth. Breathed in.
Behind her, Vi breathed out.
“You’re okay,” Vi was whispering now. “I’ve got you.”
Caitlyn was worried and weary. Sore and spent. She leaned against the wall, neck craned and forehead pressed to the cold tile, as Vi reached over her shoulder and turned off the water. She kept her face there when Vi slung the towel over her shoulder, sliding it over slick skin, soft bristles brushing bare skin, exposed expanses—
She sank her top teeth into her bottom lip. Tasted iron and salt on the tip of her tongue.
“She took me,” Caitlyn murmured that night, muffled by her pillow. She hadn’t admitted it out loud before. Not to Vi, still grieving and guilt-stricken. “Straight from the shower. The steam… It was all smoggy and hard to see, and my…”
My eye. She wanted to scream. To strangle herself. I can’t see.
The silky sheets shuffled and shivered at her side, shifting. Spreading. The mattress moved, dipping in the middle. The room was dark, and Vi’s eyes were wide, pupils shaky, tiny pinpoints, and Caitlyn circle-centered like a bullseye at the shooting range, following, focusing. Fixating.
And, oh, Vi hadn’t known that, had she? She had known Caitlyn had been taken in the few hours they had been separated, after that ill-fated audience with the Council and that fight out in the rain. She knew Caitlyn still had wet hair when she had been wheeled out, hastily dressed back up in Enforcer blues in between smears of paints—purples, pinks, and powder blues. Had been there to drag her back Topside and listen to Caitlyn’s cries as she scrubbed it away, soapy water swirling down a golden drain.
“It was quick,” Caitlyn muttered now, as if that would make it better. “I got hit in the back of the head.” A painful swallow. “I just remember her…”
Her.
A shadow in a dark corner. Glowing eyes. The shine of Shimmer. Smoking steam. Crude streaks across a foggy mirror. Silent screams. Words dying on the tip of her tongue. The back of her throat. Piercing pain. The burning fervor of fire.
Then it all crumbled and it tasted like ash.
“I just can’t,” she managed now. “Be alone.”
Vi curled against her, creaking bones brushing, and Caitlyn braced, breathing in. Their legs twisted and tangled like roots in the earth, like a grove of trees, the far-reaching frays of the longan fruit tree, sticky soapberries in the swelling, sweltering summer vacations of her youth. She can smell it. Smell Vi’s skin, like salt and sweat and the sandalwood soap she preferred. Knobby knees knocked like hard, dark wood of an ancient, anchored trunk. Calves collided and thighs touched. They were a mass of touching, tangible things, moving as one. Breathing as one. Bearing the same fruit, both dark and delicious. Sinful and sweet.
Vi breathed out, stuttering and shaky, sticky against the sweaty skin of Caitlyn’s neck. “Cait,” she rasped, throat tight. “You’re not alone anymore.”
Caitlyn breathed in.
Caitlyn put the pistol away. Back in its holster, back into the bottom drawer of her dresser.
No monster was going to get her. She knew that now.