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There is a certain kind of adjusting period required to live in the Kiramman estate and its maze of endless, pointless, unused rooms. Each dripping with casual opulence, and perfectly curated comfort, with fine couches and throw pillows and decorative rugs. All too nice for anyone to actually use and too stiff for anyone to actually want to. Or its massive floor to ceiling windows that let in the sun too early and the lights of the city too late, and the peering eyes of anyone who happens by them any time of day. Then there are the odd handfuls of staff running around, keeping an already clean house sparkling, and scaring the absolute shit out of Vi at least twice a week.
Still, in the face of all of that, the one thing Vi can’t seem to shrug off is the quiet. The way the tiniest sound feels like a gunshot, booming through the space and ringing in her ears long after it's over. Every time Vi’s spoon clinks against a dish or she clicks a door shut too loudly or – god forbid – drops something, she’ll stand there frozen, waiting, and doesn’t move again until the echoes fade back out into silence.
The shape of Vi’s life has taken many different forms through the years, hobbled together from whatever spare parts were lying around, and whether it was the chatter of her siblings or bar patrons or her fellow Stillwater low lives, she has always been surrounded by some kind of commotion.
It’s strange the kind of things you never notice until they’re gone.
It should be peaceful. And it is – it can be – sometimes. But there’s quiet, and then there’s whatever is happening here.
Vi can’t even put a finger on exactly what’s wrong, but it’s just not a space that’s easy to sink into. Maybe that’s why Caitlyn and her father sit so ramrod straight in chairs they’ve supposedly been sitting in for years.
It’s not like any part of this experience is agonizing or even unpleasant, there are far too many plush blankets and readily available snacks for something quite so interesting. It’s just not the way a home should be. Filled with people and messes and the constant ambient sounds that come paired with multiple people occupying the same space.
Vi cannot believe this is where she ended up, in a castle where everyone confuses the stifling for serenity. Fucking rich people.
Wait, is Vi rich people now?
Whatever. Rich or not, Vi has made a few meager strides in carving out some kind of space for herself in this weird, too-silent house. At least behind the closed door of Caitlyn’s room – their room – she’d want Vi to say. Where noise isn’t just allowed but encouraged and even the quiet is still filled with Caitlyn’s breathing or the gentle thump of her shoulder-checking doorways that were closer than she realized.
Sometimes, much to Caitlyn’s inexplicable joy, Vi will leave her jacket on the back of a chair, or a book she’s reading on her bedside table. Little traces of her presence that she knows will be waiting for her whenever she may want them. Caitlyn looked close to ascension at the sight of her hand wraps left out on the bathroom counter. Vi doesn’t really get it, but hey if a little clutter is all it takes to make her girl smile, then so be it.
Like all things involving Caitlyn it’s weird, but it’s nice, really.
Vi’s just living now. Objectively, it’s the easiest things have ever been. She’s got a girlfriend and a mansion, and all the time in the world to just be.
Though as it turns out, Vi doesn’t actually have any fucking idea how to do that.
Vi thought about what she would do if she ever got out of prison, but even her wildest fantasies mostly centered around the bare minimums of a private bathroom and finding her sister alive. (You win some, you lose some) She never even considered the possibility of more and somehow, once again, she’s now found herself completely surrounded by it.
And most of her attempts to properly adapt to more, often leave her feeling a bit like a child playing dress up. Falling on her ass after getting twisted up in a dress that’s too long and picking the wrong spoon while playing tea party – since apparently there’s a right one.
It’s so stupid. She’s done prison and prize fighting and watched the last remaining pieces of her family die right in front of her, again. That is hard, that’s supposed to be unbearable. But she did it, she survived it, it should be over.
She should be basking in it; lounging about, taking cat naps in front of those huge windows, not making Cait wake up alone every other day because Vi randomly can’t get comfortable on that stupidly soft bed.
Trying to relax may turn out to be the one thing that Vi can’t take.
She didn’t think it would be so difficult to adjust to normalcy, or to just exist as herself. She didn’t think she’d have to. She always bounces back, she’s Vi.
That’s what she had when she had absolutely nothing else. She put in on her fucking face to remind the world of the one thing nobody could take from her. But Vi was something that doesn’t exist anymore, someone to people who are long gone and a place that’s no longer hers.
As much as she may want to, she can’t be any of those things now and apparently wasn’t ever a damn thing beyond them. So, all she can do now is sift through her remains and see what can still be salvaged.
A brand new Vi, with hobbies and interests and free time. Where she can figure out who she actually is and what she wants outside of what she can do for other people. But it’s just been so long since her wanting something actually meant anything, she’s not sure she knows how.
Caitlyn suggested, one night – when they had ventured out to the pantry, tiptoeing through that stiff silence, and agonized for half an hour about a midnight snack – that maybe Vi should take a different approach to her indulgences. That she should focus less on finding what she does like and more on avoiding what she knows she doesn’t.
It was a good idea, brilliant, really, in that special way Cait can just be about things sometimes. Spitting out these clever, discerning observations that leave Vi reeling, under the guise of simply being honest. Then turn around and not know how to use the toaster that’s been in her house her whole life.
Though, it didn’t help with their current predicament, and they just ended up snacking on a little bit of everything, Vi still took the advice to heart.
It didn’t change much, really, since along with a barometer for liking things, Vi seems to have also lost the ability to meaningfully perceive what she doesn’t. Even the miserable silence seems pretty trivial comparatively.
But if Vi still knows anything about herself, one single, tangible thing, it’s that she can’t stand doing nothing. That’s when she can’t ignore just how much the more is, and she feels too small and too big all at once and the silence lurking in every room threatens to swallow her whole.
It’s trial and error mostly, finding ways to occupy herself so the quiet can’t find her.
Long agitating shopping trips, sifting through Caitlyn’s personal library trying to find something that doesn’t bore her to death or make her blush up to her hairline, helping Tobias with cleaning out the old workshops and listening to him ramble about tool maintenance, or most recently, playing with her shiny new makeup selection, coloring herself in with her favorite shade of blue and smearing black into it so she wouldn’t feel quite so stupid.
Her only real victory thus far is successfully elbowing her way into Caitlyn’s efforts to weed out judicial corruption from the routes.
Literally, Vi got up in Caitlyn’s space and refused to get out until she said Vi could help. Although she didn’t think it would involve so much paperwork, or another conspiracy board, it’s still been fun, sort of. But, if nothing else, Vi has something to do, and she knows she likes that, getting to do it with Cait is just a bonus.
There are other things she’s learned over the past few months too, new things. Things about herself she likely never would have known if things had been different. If they had played out like they should’ve.
It turns out Vi likes coffee with too much cream, and big breakfasts she can barely finish. She likes silk pajamas with lace on the edges that make a nice swish swish when she walks. And she likes helping Caitlyn peel through stacks of old paperwork that she still insists she doesn’t need. And Vi loves hearing Cait laugh, any time really, but especially when they should be focusing on those files. When a giggle sneaks past that stiff upper lip and turns into an undignified squawk. Take everything else from her as long as she can keep that sound.
But she doesn’t actually have to choose, Vi can have all of these things, whenever she wants.
Big picture, things aren’t great, they’re barely approaching good, but for the first time in such a long time Vi thinks she might be getting there. Because today the coffee tastes like hazelnut, her pajamas are pink, her breakfast is mostly sugar, and she has an afternoon of manual labor with the man who can tell her baby Cait stories in her near future.
It’s a good morning, so good she’s almost not thinking about the big, gaping quiet.
Vi can hear the familiar clunk of Caitlyn’s boots in the hall that leads to the dining room and the sound fills her with such an intense flood of relief she sort of feels like she’ll start crying if she acknowledges it. So, she won’t.
Vi stuffs her face with a hearty bite of her cinnamon-apple pastry thing, so it doesn’t seem like she’s just been sitting there waiting for Caitlyn, even though she genuinely wasn’t.
Caitlyn enters the dining room a few clunks later. Vi keeps her head down, attention focused at shoving a bite of her mixed fruits in her already half-full mouth, casually ignoring her approach.
The sound of the heels slow. Caitlyn runs the knuckle of her forefinger along Vi’s jaw, as she walks up beside her chair, turning Vi’s head to look up.
“Morning, Violet.” She says, thumb rubbing adoringly on Vi’s cheek. Caitlyn’s all business today, it seems, in her vest and tie, and high ponytail.
Vi has this thought an easy dozen times each day, it’s not interesting, it’s not eloquent, but Caitlyn is truly so pretty. With that deep blue eyepatch strapped tight across the sharp angles of her face. A severity only tempered by the sleep still lingering around the edges of her good eye and that sweet gap-toothed grin.
Vi could stare at her all day if Caitlyn would let her.
Tragically, Caitlyn is always in motion these days and stepping out of reach as quickly as she came into it, walking towards the kitchen housing her precious caffeine. She lets the tips of her fingers linger on Vi’s jaw to guide her head to follow. Like she wouldn’t be doing that anyway.
Vi gives herself a half second to just stare before giving Caitlyn a returning, playful, “Morning, princess.”
Vi takes another bite of fruit, awaiting the performed annoyance; a huff, a tongue-click, an eyeroll, perhaps. Only to watch Caitlyn pause in her stride and half turn back to face her on the heel of her boot.
Caitlyn looks at her, earnest confusion pinching her eyebrows inward as she quickly glances down at herself.
“What?” She asks.
Vi also looks at her and echoes, “What?” Her mouth still half full of blueberries and banana.
“What is it?” Caitlyn clarifies without actually clarifying anything.
Vi blinks back at her and finally takes a moment to swallow. “What’s what?”
“What’s wrong?” Caitlyn says, giving special emphasis to the second word, as if it’s doing anything but making her accent extra posh, rounding out the vowels far more than anyone needs. It’s the sort of thing Vi would normally mock, but one problem at a time.
“Nothing.” Vi says, amused, but also giving herself this time, a quick once over, hopefully to find whatever they're both clearly missing. “What’s wrong with you?”
Caitlyn huffs, crossing her arms over her chest, in that tight, tense way that she does. “I don’t know, that’s why I’m asking.”
The vagueness of that response needles at something impatient in Vi’s chest, her own confusion tips closer to something panicky, the thing always looking for a fight or an exit, flaring up like an old wound.
“Well how should I know?” Vi responds, aiming for light and humorous, landing squarely in the realm of defensive.
Try as she might, peacekeeping has never been one of Vi’s better skills. It's not an issue of willingness, more than it is just not knowing when to quit. Vi just can’t seem to tell when she’s reaching the end of her rope until she’s already made it. Calmly negotiating one moment and going for the knock-out in the same breath. It sometimes feels like she attracts violence, like the heat of it seeps from her and that she pulls it out of people with her mere presence, like sweat.
And as much as Vi may love getting sweaty with Caitlyn, she doesn't want this interaction to pick up heat, proverbial or otherwise.
Call her a coward, but Vi cannot stand when they fight, in part due to the overwhelming fear that this fight will be the fight. The one that proves once and for all that they actually are too different, and they can’t be compatible outside of a crisis. They’ve only actually fought less than a handful of times, but each one left them both agitated and teary in ways they couldn’t seem to shrug all the way off for days.
Just the thought is making the prospect of ditching this conversation and her breakfast to go brood out in the gardens until Caitlyn leaves, very tempting. It’s never too quiet out there with all those stupid wind chimes.
The only thing keeping Vi in her seat right now, bizarrely, is Cait herself. Whatever Caitlyn is doing, it isn't intentionally malicious.
As sharp as Cait’s teeth may be, she doesn’t actually like to bite, she just likes to snarl, like a wounded animal lashing out, trying to keep anyone from seeing where the hurt is.
The trick is caution but not fear.
Vi watches Caitlyn for any of her tells, and notes a gloveless hand squeezing her bicep, frustration practically oozing out of her. Which could mean anything, really.
“You’re the one that called me princess.” Caitlyn informs her, there’s no hostility to it, but there is an accusation. Of some kind.
…What?
Completely without her meaning to, Vi’s mouth falls open and an exasperated laugh tumbles right out of it. She leans back in her chair and says, almost genuinely, as she gestures between them. “Is this what a stroke is?”
Caitlyn sends her a deeply unimpressed look. A move she has down to an artform, truly. Losing an eye has done nothing to cut away at the physical force her stare seems to generate. To make matters worse, Cait’s crossed arms squeeze tighter then, pushing her breasts up. It is another familiar and deadly move, one Vi still isn’t sure is intentional or not. But like, probably not.
“Don’t look at me like that, you fucking started it.” Vi says, deciding she’s done looking at Caitlyn actually, and focuses on reaching for her coffee before she embarrasses herself.
And then nearly fucking drops the cup all over the table when Caitlyn finally untangles her arms and points at Vi with an enthusiasm rarely scene beyond the reach of a board covered in red string. “See, there, I started it. So just tell me how.”
“What?” Vi says, like somehow this time it’s going to make everything clear.
“What?” Caitlyn says again, similarly lost to the madness and looking more agitated than ever.
Honestly screw Caitlyn’s new, very subtle, obsession with “lilac” decor, they should just go for white. Prepare themselves now for the scenery in the padded cell they’ll be sharing.
Vi lets out a panicked not-quite-laugh and puts her cup back down before she shatters it against her palm, again. As expensive as these cups are, you’d think they would be a little more sturdy. Vi leans her elbow against the table once the cup is safe and rubs her jaw with her palm, trying to think.
This is getting ridiculous, they are just talking in circles, and if the misunderstanding keeps looping it’s only a matter of time before Caitlyn will get frustrated and storm off for both of them. And then Vi will never learn what the fuck her problem is, or why Caitlyn would choose to pick a verbal fight about it, and definitely not why she’s stubbornly demanding to be in the wrong.
Obviously, she needs to find a different approach.
Vi takes a breath and looks back at Caitlyn with as much tender patience as she can muster, which isn’t really a challenge when it comes to her. “Cait, I’m sorry, but I’m gonna need you to slowly walk me through where that head of yours is at.”
Normally, Vi would have thrown in a “cupcake” to really sweeten the deal – pun intended – but considering the landmine that was lurking beneath “princess,” best not tempt fate.
Caitlyn just stands there, brows still pinched in thought, eye searching Vi for god knows what.
Most people would cow under the intensity of that stare, Vi’s seen in, hell Vi’s done it. Often too, and usually during sex. When Cait’s got her right on the edge, saying all those horribly mean things about how sweet Vi is and how pretty she looks, bright blue piercing right through Vi’s racing heart. All Vi can do in those moments is hide in Caitlyn’s shoulder or the pillows and whimper and cry until she falls apart.
It’s only in the quiet moments after, when Vi’s too tired to be something as pointless as shy, and Caitlyn’s too giggly to be properly intimidating, can Vi look her in the eye again.
“Come on, sit.” Vi says, nodding to the seat next to her. “Talk to me.”
Caitlyn’s shoulders lose the tiniest bit of their tension, but she still hesitates, likely for that tender pride of hers, but does eventually move to sit, just not on the chair. She takes a seat, primely, in the open space next to Vi’s plate. Adding her ass to the list of things that seem inappropriate to put on this ridiculously ornate table.
Really though, it’s a move Vi should have seen coming. Cait gets twitchy whenever she can’t get in her daily fill of looming.
Caitlyn’s legs follow her arms in crossing now, gaze sharp and assessing as she stares down at Vi, still not speaking.
They regard each other. Vi tilts her head to the side and grins.
Caitlyn huffs before she speaks, voice stiff. “You called me princess.”
“I did.” Vi replies, easily, putting a hand on Caitlyn’s knee. Because she likes that knee, and she loves the person it’s attached to, even when she’s picking a fight for no goddamn reason.
Caitlyn sits up the tiniest bit straighter as she begins to speak. “Princess, the word, refers to a woman of noble birth who holds a very specific position in a royal line. But it is commonly used outside of that context as a form of mocking, implying that someone, frequently a young woman is–” Caitlyn pauses like she’s thinking, and then lists each item out on her fingers. “Prissy, spoiled, arrogant – the list goes on.”
Okay, Vi thinks she may have just found the hurt. An old one, a small one, unsuspecting and unnoticed until it’s strained.
“Cait, I didn’t–” Vi tries, but she is quickly interrupted.
“I hope you don’t think you are so clever as to be the first person to call me princess.”
“But–”
Caitlyn, generously, holds up a hand before she interrupts her this time. “I am well aware that when you call me that, it’s entirely playful. I’m not so daft as to think you’d ever say something to hurt my feelings on purpose. It just – it caught me off guard, I suppose.”
Her tone is perfectly matter of fact, and Vi is struggling to tell if she’s putting on an act or not.
“I use pet names like half the time I address you.” Vi tells her softly, uncertainty seeping into her words. She rolls her shoulder back as the feeling settles uncomfortably in her skin.
Vi’s loved giving people nicknames for as long as she could speak. The natural affection, the familiarity in them just appeals to her instinct to care. She’s pretty sure she didn’t call Powder by her full name more than once for at least a year after she was born, always ‘baby’ or ‘pow pow.’ And Vi started pulling out the sugary epithets on Caitlyn long before she had any good reason to be so sweet on her.
“Yes, but it’s almost never princess, I must have done something to prompt you to use it. So..?” Some more of Caitlyn’s stiffness melts away when she asks, leaning forward on the hand she has gripping the edge of the table.
Alright, yeah decent points were brought up there. Some of which they will definitely be circling back to later. But none of them were anywhere near as bad as Vi was starting to worry. So for now, Caitlyn is halfway right, actually. Vi was inspired by something specific to use that name just then, just not in the way she’s thinking.
Vi takes in Caitlyn, once more, not because she needs to, she’s already an expert on the subject, but it never hurts to be too informed.
On paper, Caitlyn certainly fits some aspects of the stereotype she’s talking about. She is objectively a rich, young woman. But she’s also regal, and beautiful, and refined – a tad arrogant and even spoiled at the worst of times – sure. But she’s not prissy, or delicate, or helpless.
And look, no one thinks Caitlyn is more gorgeous than Vi does. But, in her humble opinion, mentioning Caitlyn’s beauty, let alone her goddamn bank account, before her brain or her tenacity or her big stupid heart, is frankly insulting. The very notion of boiling this force of a woman down to some bratty princess is fucking laughable.
And that's what Vi's been doing, laughing, at the sheer absurdity at calling the towering, gun-toting, terrifying Commander Kiramman ‘princess’ and getting away with it. But there is no such humor in Caitlyn’s eye.
“Ah.” Vi says eventually and rubs Caitlyn’s knee with the hand she’s had resting on it, to hopefully soften the blow of her words. “I see the problem.”
“Oh, do you?” Caitlyn says skeptically, one perfect eyebrow ticking up.
“Mmm, I have wildly overestimated your ability to comprehend irony.”
Caitlyn scoffs. “I know what irony is, Violet.”
“I have no doubt you do, but being able to rattle off a word-perfect definition and being able to recognize something situationally are two very different skills.” Vi says, still petting her knee. “A skill I have watched you not have.”
Maybe Vi could have phrased that a little better, because Caitlyn visibly ruffles and cruelly knocks Vi’s hand off of her. “This has nothing to do with my awareness, and everything to do with you being wrong.”
Vi is fighting for her life trying to keep the stupidly smitten feeling in her chest from spreading across her face. She clenches her hands into tight fists in her lap, so she won’t just pull Caitlyn onto her arms and squeeze her till they both pass out.
Vi has changed her mind, the actual worst part about their spats, hands down, is that she can’t love on Cait in the middle of them without seeming like she’s not taking it seriously. But Vi is a multitasker by nature.
“Babe,” Vi says, pushing her luck with a more neutral pet name, because she has to do something with all the affection building up inside her before it starts leaking out of her eyes. “Me calling you ‘princess’ isn't just ironic, it's bordering on hypocritical.”
“Are you sure you know what hypocritical means?” Caitlyn asks, her words absolutely dripping with unintended condescension.
Most people wouldn’t catch that, but Vi knows Cait well enough to realize that she is just annoyed rather than actually making a dig at Vi’s intelligence. So, she’ll refrain from teasing her about it. For now, at least.
“Yeah, why do you ask?” Vi says, dragging her tongue along her teeth to hide her desperately amused smile.
“You’re hardly a princess, yourself.” Caitlyn gestures to Vi’s general person with the motion of her eye. She could be referencing her prison tattoos, or her side shave or the cheap jewelry in her face, all would be equally fair.
“Agreed, but that’s never stopped you from treating me like one.”
“When have I ever–?”
“You saying you don’t remember how we met?” Vi teases, smiling up at her.
Both Caitlyn’s brows are raised now, a powerful combination. “You mean when I found you punching a concrete wall?”
“The very same.” Vi says a little wistfully. “But you’re leaving out your daring rescue.”
It’s still such a surreal memory, the time she turned around fully expecting some sneering guard to beat her down for breathing too loud, only to see all her fantasies and nightmares collided, and staring right back at her with pretty blue eyes.
“Are you referring to when I poorly forged documents knowing full well I wouldn’t face consequences for it and dragged you out of prison to help me bust a criminal organization solely because you hospitalized my only witness.” Caitlyn asks, seeming genuinely baffled that Vi would bring this day up at all. “Forgive me, but I’m failing to see the daring or the rescue.”
“Okay well, while you were busy self-effacing, I heard, springing the princess from the tower, and away from her inevitable doom.” Vi says, her tone going extra soft without her meaning to.
The wording of that is a smidge idyllic, humorous even, but the sentiment is very real. If Caitlyn hadn't come along, Vi would have died in there, plain and simple. Might have been sooner, might have been later, but there's only so many times she could get the shit kicked out of her like that before she just stopped getting back up.
Vi tests the waters by grazing her knuckles against the small patch of exposed skin above Caitlyn’s ankle as she speaks. “Like my own knight in shining armor.”
Caitlyn doesn’t push her hand away, but she also doesn’t outwardly acknowledge the touch, zeroed in on her pointless task of being contrarian. “If you mean an ex-enforcer in an impractical and frilly skirt, then I guess you have a point.”
Vi rolls her eyes. “You're getting way too caught up in aesthetics here, I'm talking action.”
Speaking of, Vi drags her finger along Caitlyn’s calf, sneaking up under her pant leg, as she continues her point. “Like when you saved me again that night. I was seconds from getting my face shredded, and there you were, popping out of the shadows with a rifle on your shoulder, to save the young maiden from the fearsome beast.”
Caitlyn clicks her tongue. “Sevika may be fearsome but she's hardly a beast.”
At this point, she has got to be doing that on purpose.
“Again, not the point.” Vi tells her. And Vi isn’t going to say this out loud, she will not be distracted, but Sevika and Caitlyn can pretend to be as diplomatic as they please but Vi will continue to call her whatever the fuck she likes.
Vi grins up at her, squeezing the back of Cait’s knee with her other hand. “What about when you half carried me through the back alleys of Zaun? Then gave up your gun to heal me, and then tried to give yourself up to the firelights to save me–”
“We weren't in any actual danger.” Caitlyn mumbles.
“Yeah, but you didn't know that.” Vi says, delightfully smug. “And you also didn't know that I still wanted you when you started a war for me trying to help save my dad.”
Caitlyn’s whole face scrunches up in a truly inscrutable emotion and her words come out completely devoid of tone. “That war was an inevitability; my betrayal was simply the catalyst for it happening right then.”
Vi silently huffs at how Caitlyn has once again cleverly ignored the real point of that statement.
Vi’s hands are at Caitlyn's thigh now, it’s still crossed over the other, but that’s no matter. “You buy me anything I want, or anything you think I may like.” Vi says, voice dipping low and soft.
“That’s because you didn’t have anything.” Caitlyn’s words are similarly quiet now and her gaze is a bit shy, but she hasn’t looked away, she never does. “It was an entirely practical concern.”
“You open doors for me.”
“Well maybe if you walked a little faster–”
“You fuck me.” Vi cuts Caitlyn off and squeezes her leg with both hands.
While that is objectively true, it’s hardly an exclusive arrangement for them. Vi mostly just says it to get under her skin, poke at that Piltie propriety, knock her off of that high ground she loves so much, maybe finally get her to fucking listen.
Caitlyn pauses, looking momentarily stunned that Vi would bring this up here, before her eye narrows and she says, “I see someone has been making good use of my personal library.”
Oh, she has certainly been trying. Vi’s never thought herself a prude, but Caitlyn always finds new ways to surprise her. She still hasn’t been able to unsee some of the images hidden inside “Duchess of Pleasure.” Though, with a title like that, Vi doesn’t know what else she was expecting.
“You didn't say anything was off limits.” Vi shrugs, face tingling with heat. Which is ridiculous, it’s not like she’s the one that has curated such a collection of fairytale filth, and yet.
Caitlyn looks at her so sweetly, putting a gentle hand on the one Vi has on the side of her thigh. “Nothing is off limits darling, what's mine is yours.”
“See this!” Vi says, falling back in her seat and instantly losing the closeness she’s been working so hard to establish, waving her arms emphatically between them. “This is what I'm talking about.”
Caitlyn leans back herself, crossing her arms back over her chest. Whoops. “Sharing and sex are hardly the height of chivalry. I promise you my intentions with the latter are far from selfless.”
Yeah, Vi has been under no illusions about why Caitlyn almost always has her on her knees.
“That's again not what I'm talking about.” Vi says, pointing at her. “It's not that you fuck me, it’s how.”
“How do I–?” Caitlyn bats her hand away. “I don’t think it’s any different than how you do it.”
“I mean, sure, not in the motions. But it’s the energy, you just have more…” Vi gestures, vaguely. “Finesse about it.”
“Well, that’s just because I have more practice.” Caitlyn says dismissively.
Vi puts an elbow on Caitlyn’s knee and leans on her palm, considering. “Sure, that’s part of it, but I think most of it comes down to temperament.”
And patience, Caitlyn has a level of self-restraint Vi could only ever aspire to.
Caitlyn hums and runs her fingers through the longer half of Vi’s hair. “Maybe, but my methodical approach and your rushed desperation is proving my point more than yours, don’t you think.”
Vi shakes her head. “Not really, ‘cause you're all about giving me what I want in the way that you know will leave me the most satisfied, while I just want you to sit on my face. So even when the goal is getting you off, I'm still getting what I want.”
It’s a bit more complex than that, obviously Caitlyn’s pleasure is plenty satisfying in its own right. But there is something about being responsible for it, getting to feel it, to taste it. Vi definitely knows she likes that.
Caitlyn stares at her, silently, but her fingers keep moving as she thinks of some kind of response. Vi feels quite certain she’s nearing her victory. Why she didn’t just start with this point she can’t say.
“Be that as it may, if we have to sit here this long squabbling over semantics and months old details, maybe we’re both wrong.”
Taking them both out, not a bad approach. But it’s not going to work.
Vi drops her head off her palm to lay the side of her face into the spot above Caitlyn’s knee and nudges her with her nose. “Cait, just look at us, which one of us is in a suit off to verbally abuse some old council crones into accepting your budget proposal, and which one of us is lounging in pretty pastel jammies eating pastries?”
“Now who's too caught up on aesthetics?”
Vi stops her nuzzling to catch Caitlyn’s eye again. “Cait, I know you know what I'm talking about. Why deny it?”
Caitlyn’s hand pauses and her lips purse. Vi waits, patiently, staring up at her in open adoration.
“It doesn't–? I just– You mean really don't mind?” Caitlyn asks, pulling her hand out of Vi’s hair to hold the other in her lap.
“Mind what?” Vi answers, genuinely puzzled.
“All of...” Caitlyn motions around the space, and then to Vi’s clothes, and to herself. “...this. It’s not too much?”
Some of this is starting to make sense now, the real source of the hurt finally starting to take shape. Vi gets where the anxiety is coming from, really, she does. Vi is terrified of the day that her constant neediness stops being cute and starts being suffocating, and Cait finally pushes her away. It’s weirdly comforting to know that Caitlyn fears her own line between helpful and overbearing. Vi’s misery has been fiending for company lately.
Caitlyn doesn’t need to worry though, Vi may not have the faintest fucking idea what to do with life’s finer things, but never for a second has Caitlyn not made her feel like she's worthy of every last one.
Those long ass shopping trips are entirely at Caitlyn’s behest, smelling every last bottle of shampoo and perfume and lotion, to find which one Vi likes the absolute best. Or the fitting rooms – god, the fitting rooms – she felt less ogled-at down in the pit, but it did feel pretty good to see Caitlyn visibly swooning at basically every outfit. Still, she only bought the clothes that got Vi to crack a smile.
“Cupcake, it’s sweet how much you want to spoil me. And it’s not like you try to shove me into things I don’t want. It’s…new, but–” Vi gives Caitlyn’s knee a playful nudge. “I don’t know, I kinda like being your princess.”
Caitlyn nods, a little too seriously, taking Vi’s hand in hers, running her thumb along scared knuckles. “So, you were teasing me? Just not in the way I thought.”
Vi huffs a small laugh. “Yeah, pretty much, for some reason I figured it would land better than calling you commander. Lesson learned, I guess.”
Judging how Caitlyn will react to something is a similar kind of guess-work to Vi’s whole “liking things” situation. Especially when it comes to references to their parting and separation; when to push, when to back off, when to be tender, or when to joke. Vi gets it wrong about half the time.
“And you really don't think I'm an annoying, entitled princess?” Caitlyn asks, making no acknowledgement of the commander comment in either direction. Like Vi said, guess-work.
“You don’t annoy me.” Vi tells her frowning.
Caitlyn’s thumb stops moving, and she just stares at Vi for a few beats, looking completely incredulous. “I’ve never annoyed you?”
Vi’s face scrunches up, offended, she does not appreciate Caitlyn’s emphasis there. “So, along with irony, should I add me being in love with you to the list of things you don’t understand?”
“You can be in love with me and still find me irritating.” Caitlyn says, since she’s tragically lost her mind.
“I disrespectfully disagree.” Vi tells her, squeezing Caitlyn’s hand, because, again, she adores every piece of this woman, and will not stand for statements to the contrary.
“Look Cait, sometimes you do things that are annoying–”
Caitlyn seems quite satisfied with Vi’s admission, but she holds up a finger before that pretty face gets too smug. “Like, giving yourself headaches from straining your eye trying to read all those files by yourself, and forgetting to eat all day, or working so late you fall asleep at your desk, and never telling me that something is wrong when somethings wrong.”
“But that isn’t the same thing as being annoying.” Vi let's go of Caitlyn’s hand to grip onto her knee and nudge her crossed legs to part, so Vi can grip her properly and pull her to the edge of the table, her feet come to rest in the spaces between and beside Vi’s thigh. “And you, Caitlyn Kiramman, do not annoy me.”
Caitlyn just stares at her again. Her face would look totally flat to those who never care to look closer. But Vi can see confusion, clear as day, shifting slowly to wonder, her eye wide and sparkling. After a long moment she says, “No?”
“Not at all.”
Vi is getting the impression that this hurt she pressed on, with her princess comment, of being underestimated or condescended to, is less an ache from an old wound, and more a wound that never got a chance to heal. Like a splinter embedded deep in her flesh that she can't get out. Something she didn’t even know was there until Vi started applying pressure.
“And, for the record, if you ever are being particularly obnoxious, I wouldn’t call you some passive aggressive pet name about it, I would just fucking tell you. Alright?” Vi doesn’t let her gaze move from Caitlyn’s for a second, she needs to get this, to know that Vi means it.
“Alright.” Caitlyn agrees softly, a small smile spreading across her face.
Vi mirrors the expression easily and scooches forwards on her seat. “Good, now kiss me.”
“Vi.” Caitlyn rolls her eyes and straightens up out of Vi’s reach.
“Just a quick one.” Vi reasons, and she tries to pull her back. She’s been so good and so patient, and frankly they both deserve a kiss.
“It's never quick, and it definitely won't stop at one.” Caitlyn says, gently knocking Vi’s hands away from her.
“I'll be good, promise.”
“You might.”
Vi whines, openly, because Caitlyn is being mean and she should know it. That's what communication is right? “You can't just say that and not kiss me.”
“I can and I will.”
They stare at each other for a few beats, Vi pleading, Caitlyn unrelenting and clearly unhappy about it.
Vi scoffs and removes her hand from Caitlyn’s leg, to rest her elbows on the table. She notices her long abandoned breakfast and picks up her fork to poke at her pastry dejectedly.
So much for the princess treatment.
Admittedly, their good-morning and goodbye-kisses, respectively, have had a history of getting out of hand. Caitlyn implemented a ‘no kisses when we have somewhere to be’ policy. Vi can understand the logic in that, and begrudgingly accept it even, but she would consider this an extenuating circumstance.
Caitlyn sighs and grabs Vi's chin between her thumb and foreigner to tilt her head back to face her. “Don’t pout, I shouldn't be too long, Ekko and I just have to go over numbers for the next meeting. Oh, and I promised to get him some of those muffins he likes afterward. And god, then I have to go down to the precinct. Can you believe they found another stack of old half-blank evidence files? And without the actual evidence, because why would there be something like that?” Caitlyn cuts off her little tirade with a long sigh and shakes her head.
“Anyway, I'll probably be back sometime late this afternoon. Then I'm all yours.”
Vi makes a slight wincing face.
Caitlyn’s head tilts as she takes in that less than enthusiastic reaction, thumb still stroking along Vi’s jaw. “But you won't be mine?”
“I'm supposed to be helping your dad later today.” Vi tells her apologetically. Pitifully even, eyes big and round with the kind of sadness that could really use a kiss.
Caitlyn hums thoughtfully. “Tonight then? If you aren't too worn out.”
The innuendo is about as subtle as the rest of Caitlyn generally is. It makes Vi smile despite the cruelty of still being denied.
“Yeah, whatever you want.”
“Me? Haven't we just established that my priority is whatever you want?” Caitlyn asks, leaning forward, her weight shifting to her feet on Vi’s chair.
“And yet you won't kiss me.”
“All in good time.”
“No time like the present.” Vi tells her, scooching towards Cait again, itching to close that last bit of space between them.
Caitlyn stops her movements with the hand on her face.
“I want what you want. Even when you don't always know what that is. Alright?” Caitlyn says, pinching Vi’s cheek between her fingers, while throwing her own phrasing back in her face. Mean.
Vi may despise fighting with Caitlyn but she loves playing with her, even when she’s losing, maybe especially then, because that means Cait is winning, and Vi gets to see her all shiny and pleased.
“Yeah, alright.” Vi says, softly, dutifully, and muffled from the squishing.
“Good.” Caitlyn steps down onto the floor and raises back to her full height. She grabs one of Vi's hands then, raises it to her lips and gently kisses her knuckles. “Until tonight then, princess.”
She drops the hand as steps away. It falls limply at Vi’s side as she stares after Caitlyn.
“Yeah.” Vi says dopily, suddenly completely out of breath. “That's um, that's more like it.”
Caitlyn laughs at Vi’s stupid, besotted response, and turns back to send her one last grin. She’s already almost at the door thanks to those needlessly long legs, and nearly runs right into the frame in the process.
Princess.
The word is still ringing in Vi’s ears, long after Caitlyn has turned the corner out of sight and her perfect giggle is replaced with familiar, messy clanking.
Vi is smiling into her cup, even though her coffee has long gone cold.
Yeah, Vi definitely likes that.