Work Text:
It rains. Water sloshes around her knees. The sludge has long since seeped into her boots, a disgusting grey tinted with the rainbow sheen of what can only be oil. Vi is very careful to make sure her gauntlets don't dip into this really gross soup. She'll have to take all of it apart and re-grease everything to get any peace of mind.
She looks over. Caitlyn also has her rifle held up and out of the liquid they are crouched in. Caitlyn has her eye closed. Blood drips from her hairline. One of these things makes Vi a little more concerned than the other. But this isn't their first rodeo and it sure as hell isn't a great time to freak out. Another bullet flies overhead. It does not sound like Caitlyn's weapon, isn't the screech of a bird of a prey but the howl of something a little louder and more destructive. Sure enough, the projectile explodes in a fireball, fortunately far away enough that the shockwave only punches her and doesn't crush her bones.
She kind of wants to leap out and punch something. Can't quite help that feeling showing up, it's practically a basal instinct at this point. She fights the instinct because they've been at this long enough that she knows she should at least look at Caitlyn first.
Caitlyn, whose head is leant back against the crude structure that makes for some form of cover.
Vi opens her mouth just as Caitlyn's eye opens.
"Marry me," Caitlyn says.
"I'll punch them," Vi says, which is what she wanted to say both before and after she heard what Caitlyn said. Funny how that works.
Caitlyn's lips curl up into a smile. "I know."
Vi ducks at another long whistle. Caitlyn's hand goes to her own temple. The black of her glove comes back shiny. Their eyes meet.
"Yes," says Vi.
The smile grows. "Good." Caitlyn turns a little too quickly. She does not quite successfully hide the wince. Vi would really like to punch things now but she can see the question forming in Caitlyn's head and waits for it to emerge. "Steb?"
"Behind that block," Vi says, jerking her thumb somewhere over her shoulder. "Hopefully not too singed."
Caitlyn hums. Her eye flicks back and forth. Another fireball, this time to their left. "Maybe we don't need an officiant, then."
She holds out one hand, the other dangling what Vi recognizes as the leather strap of her ammunition case. Vi's eyes grow wide. She hadn't—of course she has. This is Caitlyn. Caitlyn who has probably read every single book that exists out there on handfasting, on Zaun marriage customs. It makes her feel a little weird on the inside to think she hadn't quite gotten around to asking Tobias whether there were inauspicious colors. Black? That's certainly what cousin three had said that one time. She looks down at her black undershirt, looks over at Caitlyn's black turtleneck.
Ah, fuck.
Caitlyn raises her eyebrows and Vi will not keep her waiting.
Vi's hand reaches up to Caitlyn's wrist, sticky with grime and blood and whatever the fuck is in this muck they are stuck in. Getting married in a swamp was not on her bingo card for today, or this month, or this whole lifetime, really, but there is nothing that could stop her.
Not even a fireball that lands a little close, has Caitlyn's grip tightening on her and pulling her closer, curling long limbs around her like they might shield her even as Vi wraps as much of herself as she can manage around Caitlyn. This is definitely something they need to talk about, but later. Later.
A breathless, soundless moment as she shakes her head to clear some of the ringing from her ears. Caitlyn winces similarly as they slowly disentangle. She shuffles their hands back into place, fumbling a little with draping the leather where it should go, one end fed to each other. Vi's thumb holds her end down, Caitlyn's other hand helping to tuck hers under her own digit.
Blue holds grey through the slow, simple tug, through the knot forming between them, through the fire and the rain. The situation is just as shitty, the world as she has known it just the same.
"Cool," says Vi with a light tug to the leather. "We're good?"
Caitlyn's eye holds hers for a moment before she lets it go, lets Vi tuck it and all of their love away into her pocket.
"Yes," she says with a smile. "I think we're going to be just fine, Mrs. Kiramman."
Vi preens at the way the syllables suffuse warm and perfect through her bones. "I've only been waiting for years. I thought you'd never, what is it that they say, put a ring on it?"
Caitlyn stares back at her, gobsmacked in what is definitely one of Vi's favorite Caitlyn facial expressions. Really? Vi wiggles her eyebrows in silent answer. Yes, really.
A quiet huff.
"Well, I never."
"So," Vi says, huddled up close to Caitlyn in the transport.
Everyone has fallen asleep now. Steb is making the most adorable little snoring-adjacent sounds. Mir's feet twitch every now and then, making the puddle of gross grey water spread.
A blue eye flicks over to her, the sky peeking out from the white cloud of the bandages wrapped around her head. A few too many, perhaps, but better safe than sorry, given Caitlyn's abject lack of self-preservation. Speaking of which…
"Mrs. Kiramman," Vi says, loving the way it sounds on her tongue. "How mad do you think your dad's going to be?"
The blue eye blinks a few times.
"Why would Father be displeased?"
Vi's head tilts. "We just got married." A light frown. "And we're both kind of in black. Not very auspicious."
Caitlyn's eye grows wide, yet another of Vi's favorite Caitlyn expressions. "Oh," she says. In that single syllable lives the softness of a wonder that Vi cannot wait to feed for the rest of her life.
She doesn't say any of that, just leans her head on Caitlyn's shoulder and plays with her fingers.
"Well," Caitlyn says after a good few heartbeats. "I suppose he will simply have to deal with it."