Vi awoke with a gasp, sitting bolt upright in her bed.
Behind her, another series of flashes from the window signaled further thunder to come, the previous peal still rattling her room. She wiped her brow, taking deep breaths as the next crack of thunder arrived, this one louder than the last, violently shaking the glass in its pane.
She was never particularly afraid of lightning, but in her dream the source of the sound wasn't a storm, but rather a monster at her door, pounding viciously until it flew from its hinges. Then, as she lay paralyzed, it just stood there, a shadow in the door, waiting to pounce, its-
All at once, another strobe of light burst in from the window, illuminating a large figure standing in Vi's suddenly open door.
She threw off her covers in an instant, ready to jump to her feet and fight, when the figure spoke with a trembling, feminine voice, "V…Vi?"
Vi squinted into the darkness, a second flash revealing that it was Caitlyn standing there in her pajamas, clutching a huge, oversized pillow to her chest. With a deep sigh of relief, Vi collapsed back onto her bed, resting her shoulders against the wall behind it.
"Yes, Caitlyn, is everything all right?" She sat up straight in her bed again, various scenarios running through her head as she reached out instinctively for her massive gauntlets leaning against the nightstand, "Wait, is everything alright? Is there an intruder?"
"N-no, it's, everything is fine, I mean. It's just…" Caitlyn trailed off for a moment as Vi began to relax again, before an explosive roar of thunder shook the house to its foundations. Yelping, Caitlyn jumped across the room as if the floor were lava, tucking herself under the covers beside the still seated Vi.
Vi looked down at the shivering form curled up and hidden by blankets beside her, seeming to consist of more pillow than person. She poked playfully at the bit of exposed arm wrapped around the pillow – a pillow that, upon seeing it closer, appeared even larger than her.
"I never took you for being afraid of a little lighting." Vi teased, aiming at Caitlyn's shoulder as she squirmed to avoid further poking.
"You call this a little lightning?" she cried out, her voice muffled but still urgent from behind the pillow. As if on cue, the next peal of thunder arrived, less violent than the last but still enough to make Vi flinch, and more than enough to make the hermit-pillow-crab curl up deeper into its pillow-shell.
Nodding her head in concession, Vi reassuringly patted her newly encountered pillow-friend from the edge of the bed where she sat, "Yeah, I guess you're right. It could be a void storm from the Rift or something. It should pass over by morning, either way."
After a long pause without any objections from the storm roiling outside, Vi nudged the blanketed lump that was currently taking up the majority of her bed, "Um, so, are you good to go back to your room, or…?"
The lump responded with a quick series of shimmies, which Vi assumed was its way of shaking its head "no." The fact that it seemed in no hurry to move out of her bed further convinced her that she was already relatively fluent in lump-ish.
"Well…alright, I guess, but…" Vi began, rubbing her eyes, "I mean, I usually sleep against the wall, but not right against it, so I'm going to need at least a little more room here."
Caitlyn responded by scooching over all of three inches. Toward the side of the bed that Vi wanted to sleep on. Apparently, she had lost her sense of direction when she first curled up.
"Oookay, don't say I didn't warn you," Vi said as she stood up, sliding her arms under Caitlyn's bundled form and lifting it easily off the bed, depositing it unceremoniously on the side farthest from the wall.
Caitlyn bounced a few times, giggling as Vi sighed and climbed laboriously over her to get to her side of the bed next to the wall. After finally getting situated and finding her own pillow, Vi rolled away from the wall to face Caitlyn and blinked slowly.
"Really?"
Although she had indeed moved to the correct side of the bed, Caitlyn had claimed almost the entire blanket, graciously leaving nearly an entire scarf's worth for Vi to use.
Vi reached out and tugged at the blanket, drawing murmurs of protest from behind the giant pillow wall. After several attempts, she finally gave up, deciding that a towel-sized share of blanket was better than what she started with, and that she should just cut her losses.
Rolling back over to face the wall with what small covering she had, Vi settled in to sleep.
Or so she tried, at least. From behind her, Caitlyn could hardly go five minutes without tossing and turning, or muttering something in her sleep, or tossing and turning while muttering something in her sleep, which incidentally had become Vi's favorite.
Eventually, after taking a few deep breaths to calm her mounting irritation, Vi rolled over to face Caitlyn, and pulled back at once with a start. At some point in the night, it seemed Caitlyn had lost her pillow off the edge of the bed, and Vi was understandably startled to turn over and find herself mere inches from Caitlyn's face, rather than an overstuffed downy cushion.
Realizing that this was likely the source of Caitlyn's restlessness, Vi craned her neck to make out in the dark where it had fallen, and after a few moments found it lying on the floor just beside the bed, nearly within reach.
Propping herself up slightly on her elbow, Vi leaned carefully over Caitlyn's sleeping form, moving as slowly as possible and stretching her arm in an arc to grab the pillow without accidentally waking her.
As she was just about to reach it, Vi noticed that Caitlyn had begun muttering quietly, and listlessly groping around on the bed, clearly searching for the purloined pillow.
"Ohhnonono" Vi whispered in rapidly mounting dread, making one last quick push to grab the pillow before it was too late. Finally, she felt its edge, and closed her hand around it, immediately surprised at how heavy it was as she hefted it back up from the awkward position she found herself in.
Just as she was about to pull it back over onto the bed, Vi froze as if turned to stone. Caitlyn, having at last located her "pillow," began wrapping her arms tightly around it and nuzzling in to return to sleep.
Vi's face turned beet-red, her mouth open and eyebrows knit in wordless embarrassment-turned-fury. She hardly even noticed as the muscles in her forearm drew taut like steel cables under her skin, closing her hand around the pillow in a vice-grip and tearing a hole in the top of it, leaving her with a fistful of feathers as it fell back to the floor in a flurry of down.
Laying back down, Vi pulled her arms back to grab Caitlyn's shoulders and push her away, but paused just short and took a moment to turn her head and listen. For the first time that night, Vi thought she could make out what Caitlyn was mumbling in her sleep - it sounded almost like she was talking to someone in her dream.
"Vi…I'm s…" Caitlyn shifted slightly, speaking softly between every few breaths, her face pressed gently to Vi's chest.
"…that you…think I'm…annoying…"
Vi frowned, unsure of what to make of the words, but not liking the message that was beginning to form. She noticed her heart beginning to race as she waited anxiously, listening intently for each new utterance.
"I know…you think…I'm…clingy…but…"
Vi closed her eyes tight, feeling her heart sink into her chest, unsure of whether to wake her up or keep listening.
"Please…don't go…don't…leave me…"
In a single motion Vi wrapped her arms around Caitlyn, pulling her closer into her embrace and cradling her head lovingly against her chest. Blinking away tears, she kissed her forehead, and in a wavering, near-sobbing voice, whispered something so quietly that not even Caitlyn could have heard it.
Vi held her there for what felt like an eternity, with her slowly dampening pillow as the only hourglass to assure her that time was indeed still passing.
As if woken from a bad dream, Vi turned her head, hearing a voice that was clearly much more aware, more conscious than before.
"V…Vi?" Caitlyn stirred slightly, pulling away and turning her head up a bit to regain her bearings.
Still overwhelmed with emotion, Vi just stared down blankly, unable to fully process the scene.
"Um…Vi…why are you…why are we…"
Hearing Caitlyn's normal voice snapped her back to reality instantaneously, and she looked around the room in a frenzy, "Uhh…your pillow! That's it! I was just grabbing the pillow that you dropped!" Vi yelled in a needlessly loud voice, her face crimson as she leaned over the bed in desperation, reaching for the pillow by stretching over Caitlyn as she had before, over-exaggerating the motion to explain away why she was in her arms.
As she lifted it up, feathers began pouring out of it like a waterfall, causing Vi to fly back into emergency-explanation mode as she dropped it back to the floor.
Caitlyn rubbed her eyes with her fists, first yawning and then frowning slightly as she spoke in a hazy tone, "Vi? Did you find it yet?"
In a moment of inspiration, Vi reached under her own head, producing her pillow and shoving it into Caitlyn's arms, "Ah, right, I just remembered! You actually dropped your pillow a long time ago, so I gave you mine! I must have just accidentally taken it back! My mistake!" She forced a nervous chuckle, which only made Caitlyn more confused as she nuzzled into her new pillow, as Vi almost never chuckled in the first place, nervous or otherwise.
"Mmm…okay…" Caitlyn agreed, too tired to think on it any further.
Vi let out a sigh of relief, laying her head back down and hitting the bed a little harder than expected from misjudging the distance without a pillow there.
"Mmm…Vi…hang on…"
Vi froze as if caught with her hand in the cookie jar.
"Are you…sure this is the same one? Your other pillow was…so much comfier…" Caitlyn complained, snuggling it extra-hard, just to be sure.
Taking a few moments to process this new development, Vi considered the viability of a plan that involved just jumping from the window and never looking back. Simple and effective, she concluded: that was the best kind of plan.
Luckily, she managed to devise a plan B in the nick of time, once again reaching over Caitlyn for the pillow on the floor as she spoke apologetically, "Ah right, sorry, I think I took back my pillow, and then gave you back yours, then you must have dropped it again! Definitely my mistake, here you go!" Vi carefully handed her the pillow so that the hole she had torn in it faced downward, away from her face.
Embracing her new pillow, Caitlyn appraised it in muffled tones, "Okay…this one's better."
Now completely exhausted, Vi nodded and rolled back over to face the wall, replying weakly, "That's great, Caitlyn. Goodnight." A few muffled syllables from behind her signaled the lump-ish words for "sweet dreams."
Vi had nearly gotten back to sleep when once again, as if on a timer, Caitlyn began rustling behind her. Growling quietly under her breath, Vi considered her original plan again, this time if only to go somewhere else and get some sleep.
After several moments of uninterrupted fumbling from behind her, Vi finally turned her head around, feeling as if she were about to snap as she realized that Caitlyn had apparently been repeatedly flipping the pillow over.
Peeking up over the edge of the pillow, Caitlyn protested softly, "No…Vi, I don't think this was the pillow I had either. I tried every side, just to be sure."
Vi blinked, mentally calculating the distance from where she lay to the window.
Caitlyn continued, still only her eyes and the top of her nose visible, "It was super soft and comfy, and when I held onto it I felt so safe and warm an-"
She wrinkled her nose, interrupted by a few feathers puffing out of the pillow and tickling her face. "…Vi, why is this pillow leaking feathers?"
Vi blushed, recalling the earlier events of the night in a flash, and began yelling at her from bottled frustration and embarrassment, "You'll be the one leaking feathers soon if you don't shut up and go back to sleep!"
Wincing and gritting her teeth, Vi immediately regretted her sudden outburst. She turned over to face the wall, curling up into a ball and wrapping her arms around her chest, still feeling traces of Caitlyn's warmth there.
After a long pause, she noticed that it seemed unusually quiet behind her. Rolling over, all she could see was a giant pillow with Caitlyn's arms wrapped around it, feathers wafting out of it in flurries as her shoulders shook, the occasional sniffle escaping from the other side.
Vi reached out and pulled the pillow slightly down through her arms, revealing Caitlyn's face, wet with tears.
She turned away, furious at herself for making her cry, "Caitlyn, I-"
"-No…no, I understand…" Caitlyn interrupted from behind the pillow where she had once again hidden her face, her voice cracking as she spoke in a quiet whimper, "…I know I'm…really clingy…and you think I'm…annoying…but…"
Fighting off tears, Vi shook her head violently, not wanting to hear the words she had already endured once that night for a second time, and pulled down again on the bottom of the pillow.
Caitlyn instinctively made a motion to shrink away from Vi, holding on tightly to the pillow and trying to hide her face behind it again.
Vi growled softly, her heart clenched tightly in her throat, fighting off tears with raw frustration as she gripped the bottom of the pillow with her all of her strength.
Tugging it away, she tore a new hole in the pillow, and it fell once again to the side of the bed under a shower of feathers. Deprived of her pillow, Caitlyn quickly started to roll over to hide her face, but Vi was faster, grabbing her shoulders and pulling her back into her arms.
"I don't…I don't think any of that stuff, okay? And if you say it again I'm gonna be really mad!"
Vi huffed and shook her head, struggling to think clearly as Caitlyn trembled in her arms, "That's not what I mean…I…well, I know I have a short temper…and I'm trying to change, for…that is, so that…"
Shaking her head harder, Vi felt her frustration building as she was still unable to find all the right words, "Ugh, I hate all this mushy stuff!"
For the first time in a while, Vi felt her heart start to relax as she heard a soft giggle coming from Caitlyn, who had started to squeeze her just a little bit harder.
As her last-ditch attempt, Vi took a deep breath and closed her eyes, and without overthinking anything tried to speak as quickly as possible, "I just really want to be with you, okay?"
Caitlyn leaned back and looked up, her eyes gleaming at the simple phrase as if Vi had composed her an entire love sonnet.
"Vi…"
Breaking eye contact and turning away, Vi took her own turn at hiding as she pressed her face into her pillow, feeling her cheeks warming up from embarrassment.
Caitlyn giggled at the display, turning up the temperature further on Vi's cheeks, "...me too, Vi. And…don't worry about the other stuff, okay?"
Vi let out an inquisitive grunt from her pillow. "Hm?"
Idly playing with Vi's hair, Caitlyn continued, "I mean…I like you just like this, so…don't change…I like my impatient, grumpy Vi just as she is."
Vi turned and furrowed her brow, opening her mouth as if to speak, and managed to form the first word, "My...?" before it was stolen away and replaced with a low growl as Caitlyn snuck in a tiny kiss on her exposed collarbone, before fleeing back to the safety of her soft chest.
Before Vi could make any further objections, Caitlyn paused, pulling her face away before pressing it back against Vi's chest.
"Wait…" Caitlyn said hesitantly, pulling her face away from Vi's chest again and then putting it back and thoroughly nuzzling it, before repeating the process twice more.
"Um…Caitlyn?" Vi inquired, her face quickly growing redder still.
"Vi, this may sound weird, but…well, this feels a lot like your pillow from befo-"
Caitlyn spent the rest of the night pouting from her side of the bed, holding a pillow leaking feathers from both ends as Vi snored loudly with her back to her.
FIN