Those Thriving Hours

by VoltageStone

[ARCANE S1] Caitlyn found a gem amongst the Lanes, and Vi saw the embodiment of who she wanted all enforcers to be. A shard of raw diamond in the midst of coal; a small hope that harmony could exist. They found themselves, and it was easier than expected, how they fell into each other's arms. [Piltover's Finest; Mature Content; Minor Canon Divergence/Canon-Compliant; Three-Shot]

[12.12.21] - 22,056

Hope you enjoy!

:)

---

[THOSE THRIVING HOURS]
Enforcer, who descried

.

Caitlyn didn't know what to make of the Lanes, of Zaun, nor the new companion she just whisked out from Stillwater Hull. As she followed Vi's guiding hand, however, Caitlyn found that there was beauty down there too. In fragments. Clogged by the thick air. Stained in blood…

But it was there. She saw it in Vi herself.

---

Piltover.

It had always gleamed back at her from the window. The neat lanes of cobbled bricks. The towers of shimmering gold latched to sandstone. A beaming skyline. Of trade. Of promise…

And Caitlyn would overlook that skyline beside her mother. Every night. Every day. To dream. She'd listen to her mother's mindless chatter, pointing out each of the buildings and their purpose. Because ever building had one, and on top of that, they aimed to scrape the clouds. "That one, right beside the council, is for the sheriff…"

Interest budded for that tower especially.

Other times, it would be to detail all the council work that a kid would understand—if it wasn't classified, of course: "The Undercity has been granted the chance to live here if they needed to."

"Really…?"

"Of course, there's some hurdles set to weed out the…"

It was a nice, routine exchange. Caitlyn sat beside her mother by whichever window they chose. The one in her bedroom was a favorite.

That was…until the haze of fire caught her eye during an hour of late dusk. Its smoke billowed from a bridge, one of few that extended Piltover's leading stability towards Zaun. The one where that leading stability ended. It led the way from order to those strays… Regal hands tore her from the glass. "Caitlyn, I said it was time for bed," her mother had snapped.

If a tad indignant, Caitlyn ducked out of her grasp to watch the fumes of civil unrest. "But what's happening over there? I thought you said that those people in the Undercity agreed to what the council said."

"They did," Councillor Kiramman sighed, and the regal hand snapped back onto her daughter's shoulder, "but now they've decided it's not enough. That's what happens when the Undercity wants to be higher, Caitlyn. It's only natural."

Caitlyn frowned. "…and if they don't get it, they set fire to us?"

"Yes, Caitlyn. Now get to bed."

Finally, she relented to her mother's command. Caitlyn meandered towards her bed where she saw only a flicker of light on the wall that spoke of a blaze. She barely heard her mother's impromptu lecture for she promised herself one thing:

She wanted to keep her city safe—for nothing other than the horizon, the rich skyline across the city of progress.

ɵ ɵ ɵ

And as that dreamed soured into reality, it swiftly dawned on Caitlyn that absolutely none of this was what a child could've imagined, let alone what she was trained for as a young woman. As an enforcer. She was trained to guard, and…guard. Only some shooting. Merely light detective-work—though, thankfully, that was a natural gift of hers anyway. Both were, actually, hence why her mother was adamant to restrain her daughter to guarding duty where she wouldn't find herself stretched thin, doing the other enforcer obligations.

Obligations, which, included roaming the streets to keep an eye on the people of the Lanes—moreover, Zaun in its entirety. The people from down there. Below the likes of Piltover.

Yet here she was, defying her mother's protection as she listened to the whine of the cell door, and inside, as Inmate 516 watched in a quiet, profound awe. Caitlyn didn't know what to make of it. The inmate—well, former inmate—eyed her with a newfound curiosity; she didn't flinch to the sound of the cane any longer, and so slinked away the idea of what could be said. Jaw tight, Caitlyn rolled her shoulder and left her to follow.

And follow the inmate did. Numbly. It was visible, how a part of her was still back in her cell; every now-and-then, she'd check behind them to ensure that, yes, Caitlyn had just whisked her out. As if she merely clicked her heels together like some weird, enforced godmother. She'd then eagerly snatched the clothes that were offered—one that included a hood. And after that, by the time they stood at the tall double-doors that spoke freedom through the squeak of its hinges, the freed was the one leading the way.

Together, the inmate and enforcer made their way to a tram station. No words. Not a smidge of eye-contact. A palpable distance split between them, however. But the inmate didn't run off, though, not yet…

"Two, please," Caitlyn hummed. From behind the ticket register, a guard flicked his eyes between her, then Inmate 516 as she stared off the cliffside.

Grunted, he asked, "Parole?"

"Pardoned, actually," she murmured, plucking the tickets away. "She is assisting me in an investigation is all."

"Ah. Right."

She nodded once, then shied away from his badge. Same rank. Calloused conversation. Caitlyn turned to find that Inmate 516 had paced down the edge, and she presumed that each stride was in the name of independence. She pursed a gentle grimace that could've been a smile if it wasn't for the wince in her eyes. Caitlyn strolled towards the fresh tram that just docked—Perfect timing… she mused—and fiddled with the tickets in her hands.

As Caitlyn slowed to a halt behind a feeble, though too independent, old man, she said, "I heard the bathysphere has a nice view. That—" she turned towards Inmate 516— "could be a good way to get a lay of the land…"

The inmate twisted around and felt along her hood. "Too risky," she noted, unimpressed by the slips of paper in Caitlyn's grasp. She turned around.

Then.

Jumped.

Nothing exaggerated. Her body was loose. As if she had accidentally walked off the edge.

"Wha—" Caitlyn's gait stammered as she tripped over.

There Inmate 516 was, flipping and twirling and leaping with feline agility. Across the tops of buildings. Without care.

Tickets left abandoned to flutter from behind, Caitlyn hastily decided to follow. Ah. Yes. Yes, yes. Eyes rolled. She should've known that this would happen, regardless if the inmate was absolutely insane or not: like any dog from a shelter, the moment they stepped out, leash unbound, they'd be off, tearing down the way. Caitlyn watched as sudden freedom left Inmate 516 to blitz across the buildings without the anxiety of plummeting straight to the bottom. Caitlyn felt a nervous prickle down her neck before making the first leap down to the ironwork below. Speaking to the other inmate would've been easier, even with his jaw out-of-order.

Regardless, it was just made apparent that Caitlyn was quite mistaken:

No, the inmate was not pacing for the sake of her independence; instead, it was to find a spot of easy access for her enforced company.

…an enforced company subjected by Caitlyn herself, though it didn't matter.

Because the drop was far.

So far.

And she was so close to the edge.

Caitlyn swallowed. Dammit. She felt the burn of the concrete that rubbed against her chest—a firm though guiding hand that lent her down this far. Here's for hoping adrenaline does what I need it to. She eyed the flat roof down below, didn't question how far down it was, and jumped. She landed on her feet, sure, but thedamnroofwasnotslantedatallohforfuckssake.

Jump! For fuck's sake, just jump, Caitlyn!

Through the woes of panic, she did just that and managed to snag a railing. Her arm scorched with impact, and once she weaseled her way down the platform below, she stared at the roof that had just lied to her. Another swallow. Ah. So these buildings would be deceiving. Caitlyn didn't know why they had to be. If only the air was fresher, and the sun bled down below, and—

If only Zaun was like Piltover. If only Zaun wasn't the Undercity.

A third swallow, thrice as sharp, and she found a ladder. Caitlyn slid down it, and then another one.

Okay. Okay. Good. She made it…a quarter of the way. Maybe. Caitlyn could check but— Nope. Nope… Still very far.

As she regained a breath, Caitlyn hissed, "You better not have left me like this on purpose."

Zaun seemed to have hated her; a reply, of sorts, was granted as she witnessed a smudge of Inmate 516 launch off of one building to another. How anybody could hurl their weight across the width of a street was beyond Caitlyn, though she was assured by the inmate's brief loyalty to continue.

So down along the ventilation she went, then hopped across another few walls with overhangs. Some more few walls, only this time actually, visibly slanted enough for her to slide. Other buildings caught her, and before she knew it, she was still quite far up, but far less far up than before, which was good because she did not like being far up like she thought she would, and that being so far down was a good thing actually because being far up was not good and quite terrifying—

At another breathing point (lodged between some balcony and electrical unit), Caitlyn held her head to ease the winded, run-on thought. "I'm almost there… Just this last one, surely…" she breathed. Caitlyn shimmied around the edge, found another makeshift slide, and with the soles of her boots and the heels of her hands, she didn't question length and just went. A gap. She instinctively clung onto an overhang. The momentum swung her backwards. She landed…

Oh.

Finally yes.

This was a street.

And it felt nice.

And her stomach was finally secure.

And…

Wait, was that the old man she'd passed by the tram? How long did it take her to (expertly, and on her feet) fall down every step of the way?!

Before she could contemplate that further, however, Caitlyn blindly caught the clothes thrown her way. She controlled her breath to gawk. "Welcome to the Lanes," the inmate hummed, wearing a chipper smile, hands folded in a new red jacket…?!

"You almost got me killed," she argued. It was intended as an hiss though slipped out more as a whine. Great.

Inmate 516 paused, her head tilted to the side, and she watched Caitlyn through an arched brow. "My little sister could do that when she was seven. All us fissure folk can," she reasoned, and after a swerved step around Caitlyn, there was an added, "Don't you want to blend in?"

Well yes, but… Caitlyn turned towards the source of a pitiful groan. There, a man, in the process of slipping into a dumpster as a defeated heap. She blinked.

First thing the insane did: lunge off a cliffside onto buildings, all to inevitably mug some people for a nice jacket and…whatever Caitlyn was holding. She eyed the wrinkled collar in her grasp. It wasn't bad. It was actually a fortunate assault, which unfortunately went against all of her good graces as an enforcer.

She scrambled to follow the inmate, and with a stern grip, she held her back by the shoulder of the red jacket. "Wait!" she hissed. "But…"

The inmate flicked Caitlyn's hand off the jacket. "…but?"

Caitlyn opened her mouth, only for her attention to dart across her cheek. VI. She blinked. A prison tattoo. But Inmate 516 wasn't— Well, Vi was the most proper title now, she supposed. A former inmate couldn't be bound by numbers, now could they? Not as they stood in their home town, far from their cell. Ergo, "Um…Vi? Is this…clean?"

Vi shrugged, both nonchalant to the question and irritated by mere presence of enforcement. "I don't know where they've been."

"But, like, with, um… Never mind. I'll try to blend in."

ɵ

Caitlyn was nervous as she stepped further down the alleyway, playing with the white sleeve of whatever her new-found…companion had managed to pluck off of another street rat (who had to have been wriggling out of that trash heap by this point). Well, a companion, or rather, an escort— No. Not even that. A temporary ally, more like…

A temporary ally, who, was plucking the most disturbing selection of meat off of a hooked rack. If she could call it as such. Even from across the wider girth of alleyway—or street, whichever—, Caitlyn caught the pungent smell of roadkill. Not the bucks she hunted during her rifleman's training, no, but instead whatever was hit and left to die.

As she neared the vigilante's side, Caitlyn realized that there were fish as well. Picked from the murky waters where she underestimated life's resilience. She wondered if the people down here were the same…

"You hungry there, Cupcake?" Her temporary ally—or, again, more appropriately, as stated on her file, Vi—wiped the grease off of her cheek. Caitlyn's brow rose, and with her entertained smile followed the inked VI tattoo.

Caitlyn swallowed. She thought that it had been numerals alike the grandfather clock sets at home, but no. An inked name-tag. Unless it's both, then how witty… She looked over her shoulder before ducking to Vi's level, her hood pulled down. "What are you doing?!"

"Bar-hopping," Vi answered.

Cross, with her brows strewn together, Caitlyn hissed, "And how is this getting information? We should be sitting down at a proper table and—" She paused and checked the bar-tender. He smiled widely, reeking, smelling and looking like fish.

Vi's bark of laughter snapped her nervous eye from the walking trout. "I didn't think it'd be this funny."

"W-What?" A strong hand found Caitlyn's bicep and sat her down a stool with a dismal thump!

Vi leaned close. "Watching you flop your way around these streets. You're really trying your best, huh?"

Caitlyn whacked her shoulder. "No need to be so condescending," she snapped.

"Condescending or accurate? What, you need a gas-mask down here too?"

The air had indeed been too heavy for her lungs. "What are you implying?" That I'd been raised too close to the clouds, perhaps…? Caitlyn narrowed her eyes. "I can breathe just fine."

"Right, right…" Vi hummed. She stripped another piece of meat off the rack, oozed by whatever thick pus coated it. And? She ate it. Happily. With as little manners imaginable. After her indulgence, however, Vi leaned close once again, and her dropped voice carried the sincerity that Caitlyn wanted in the first place: "This is how we get information, Cupcake. We don't do things over the table. It's either under or you throw it out the window." There wasn't any clarification of how literal that was. Perplexed, Caitlyn stilled her thoughts to mere observations. Her gaze followed Vi's own. Her napkin was folded over, and Vi read the drawn, incomprehensible lettering. Her lips tightened before she smiled. "Still think it's a good idea to ferment your shit sirloins in that oil, huh?"

The fish-man shrugged and chortled a few rasped bubbles.

Standing, Vi pocketed the napkin. "Going down the line," she chimed. Before Caitlyn could reasonably answer, the strong hand returned and clapped her shoulder. "Not going to wait for you if you want to eat that."

As she left, Caitlyn grimaced the most polite smile she could muster to the fish-man and, like a lost puppy, tail tucked between its legs, she trotted after Vi. With every step, she felt the eyes of the damned peer at her. From above within uneven windowsills. From beside her as she narrowly avoided bumping into the shoulders—the same that Vi didn't care for. From at her feet of those so low that all those eyes could do was grovel.

Caitlyn pulled the hood tighter. "I don't understand… Does the sun not shine down here?" No answer came, of course. She didn't expect this stranger to keep a keen eye on her—never mind listen. So, in silence, they swerved around a cluster of houses before wedging themselves through an open gap. A short-cut of sorts. Towards that wretched stench of Undercity-food. Caitlyn watched her for a moment, catching a sliver of admiration: even with a body made for fighting—up close and as personal as could be—, Vi was still nimble. Still light on her feet. Still a stray cat accustomed to slinking when it came down to it.

She followed close behind with ease. Rather than a sturdy height, Caitlyn had her narrow angles, after all…

"I'm not kidding, though, when I say you're trying your best down here… Doing better than I thought you would," Vi said as she shuffled between the narrow passageway. "Doubt any other enforcer would take off their stupid masks and helmet for this."

"A-Ah… Thank-you, I guess," Caitlyn coughed.

Vi gave a firm nod, then looked over her shoulder. "And no, it doesn't." Puzzlement twitched across Caitlyn. The intensity of those steel eyes of the vigilante's crackled, and like any fire, they warmed Caitlyn on the spot. "That's why we make our own light."

ɵ

"Okay, actually, I did lie a little bit at the start there…"

Caitlyn whirled around upon realizing she damn-near left Vi behind. "What do you…mean…?" Her eyes navigated their way up to the illuminated, fish-net leg hung on the wall. Just below it, a staircase that lead down to a simple door in the wall with a lantern fixed beside it. Her gulp was audible.

Vi snickered, having already made the first step down, and clarified, "We can get stuff over the table, sometimes. The thing you want, right? Proper and shit."

"This is…what you call proper…?" Caitlyn asked (squeaked).

"Come on, Cupcake. You'll like it, I promise." A couple knocks on the door, a few seconds to wait, and then a caged square slid open. As a green eye peered out, Vi only leaned in to nod, and then Caitlyn to shrink and turn away. The man behind the door grunted, shut the square, and unlatched the lock. Nonchalant, Vi remarked, "The one place where all the secrets are spilled…" And just like that, she strolled her way into the br— Into the brothel.

It wasn't that Caitlyn was a prude. She wasn't, even if her parents didn't want to acknowledge it. Caitlyn was still a bit reckless herself, after all.

…but being a not-prude didn't equate to the confident strides that Vi sported all the way through, unbothered by the couple in one room smoking, and then the bubble-fest in the other— Are those tentacles in the tub…?!

Caitlyn lingered only out of blind-sided curiosity. Something was slithering, though she wasn't going to stay for long to find out for sure. Curiosity hastily extinguished, she trotted behind Vi, thankful for her hood, and hissed, a nervous hand pointed to emphasize, "H-How…exactly…do you propose we go about this?"

Vi slowed to a halt, and tilted around with her hands in her pockets. She shrugged, not at all concerned over the little man humming to himself in all-leather, and said, "Let 'em think you work here."

That took a split second to register. Once it did, however: "Excuse me?!" Hotly, Caitlyn then added, "I will not."

Turned all the way around, Vi asked, "Do you know what your problem is?"

Eyes rolled. A brow arched. "Please, tell me."

"You expect everyone to give you what you want," Vi told her, and with the tone that branded her words, Caitlyn could've sworn that it was genuine advice. She began to circle her. "If you really want people to talk to you, you have to have them think you have what they want."

…actually, wait, that might've been genuine advice. Caitlyn frowned. "A-And what do I have…?"

Her head followed Vi's prowl. Steel eyes glazed her body, and once Caitlyn twisted around to get a better look—to confirm she wasn't hallucinating from the smoking and probable-tentacles—, Vi swept forward, almost nose-to-nose, and said, "You're hot, Cupcake."

Startled outright, Caitlyn backed herself right against the wall.

Strong hands followed, planting themselves right over her shoulders. She snapped her jaw shut as Vi closed in. "So what'll it be, man or woman?"

"U-Um…" Woman, of course. She knew that. It had been a known thing for a long while. But because the answer was woman, and Vi was a woman, and a woman was right against her and—

Actually, what was the question?

Was Vi going to kiss her? Wait no, that didn't seem right. The intensity of steel may have been eye-fucking her on the spot, but that… Tentacles?! Smoking tentacles?! And bubbles?!

…safe to say, Caitlyn was a deer caught in headlights. She was on duty, even if out of her uniform. This wasn't— Why were they in a brothel?!

And where did this man come from?! Did Vi just pluck him out of the ether?!

"—tilda, but you can call her whatever you want…"

Huh? Matil— She jolted. "Y-Yes, Matilda," Caitlyn said, and her head swung awkwardly. "My…parents named me Matilda…" She eyed Vi for any semblance of help, only to be left to…babble nonsense for any guise of reason. Caitlyn cringed as he—Pip, was it?—lingered, and despite the thought of Vi back there, with her, except far more intimate, she completely and utterly failed in translating any sort of interest. With that stupid mask on his face, and that Pill wasn't…well, her type… She just. Panicked. Kind of. A little bit.

Her panic was enough to confuse them both, actually. The man (…Pop? No. Pin?) questioned how anybody could be so socially inept, even down here, while Caitlyn questioned why she thought thinking of Vi would be a good idea. It still seemed like a good idea. She certainly wasn't babbling like a maniac whilst stuck between a rock of muscle and a hard place then. But with Pub? …Plib? Well, for one, Caitlyn couldn't scrounge for any semblance of his name.

When her confused rambling subsided, he coughed as Caitlyn shied her stare away.

And…

Oh hello.

Pit and Caitlyn watched a woman stroll out a room further down, her eyes sharp from underneath a masquerade mask, and her body…

Caitlyn just about doubled-over once her hands slithered up her forearm, and so, instinctively, Caitlyn followed. "You don't seem to make good company," the woman nodded towards Pick who muffled his confusion. Not that either cared. Caitlyn was being guided, and the room was blue, and the woman—charisma abound—was telling her to get comfortable, and the hood was slipped off obediently, and a hand rested along her thigh, and… And…

Ah. Now it was so much easier to conjure her interest. To follow the advice given to her.

Still, Vi lingered, more so than that advice. Along the edge of her thoughts, she saw the cut lip and intense steel of her eyes.

As if she never left Caitlyn to babble (and fail) utter nonsense.

ɵ ɵ ɵ

She shut the door with a prolonged grimace, and once the lock slid in place—near-silent—, she began to creep down the hall, following the line of shadows. Her eyes followed the staircase banister, ensuring that, no, her parents weren't awake, and, yes, her path to her bedroom was clear. Each stride was painful. Not only was her leg torn down to her mid-calf, the need to keep her damn rifle silent was agonizing—and it would've been so on its own anyway. But…Caitlyn was doing it. She wasn't leaving a trail of blood (she triple-checked), nor was the rifle slung over her shoulder too much of a burden. Which was fortunate. Even though it was a hunk of metal, she felt that it, too, didn't want to be caught. Not tonight, anyway.

As Caitlyn reached the staircase, she swallowed to calm what adrenaline was still pulsing behind her ears. The first step was made. Then the second. Then the thir—

The elongated creak startled her. Caitlyn audibly hissed, and her knuckles grew white as her nails dug into the handrail.

She forgot about that damn step. The one where she'd accidentally dropped the very rifle on her back onto—collapsed-stock first—several years ago, splitting the wood. The very wood which sat underneath her boot-heel in that moment. Caitlyn felt it, how much it sagged underneath her weight. It made the creak that much worse, didn't it? She wasn't the robust sort (quite gangly and awkward, to be honest), though a nineteen-something year-old was certainly quite heavier than thirteen-something, especially after marksman training…

Lamplight flicked to life behind her. Caitlyn's eyes grew wide, and slowly, as her panicked marathon of thoughts began to dart away, she tilted her attention over her shoulder. And she relaxed. It was only her father with a quiet smile.

…until she realized that he wasn't the one who turned on the lamp. Her eyes switched to her mother, and every bone in her body shivered.

"Caitlyn…"

Horror swallowed, she managed a small, "Y-Yeah…?"

All the councillor had to do was snap a finger to a couch cushion. Caitlyn scowled, and with every hobble towards her designated lecturing-point, she felt her mother's sharp glare impale her at the shoulder, then down to her fresh wound. Once she plopped herself down (there wasn't any graceful way given her leg), Caitlyn watched Councillor Kiramman obediently.

"What have you been doing at this hour, Caitlyn?!"

…many a things. "Um, well…practicing…?" She smiled awkwardly.

"Alone?"

A tentative swallow. "N-No, not exactly. I had a…friend with me." She paused to rub her hands. "Nothing happened."

That last note made it clear that something, indeed, happened. Her mother narrowed her eyes with folded arms. "Caitlyn?"

"…hmm?"

"Did you—" Councillor Kiramman couldn't finish. She had stopped herself.

Caitlyn grimaced. There weren't many things that had her mother halt her words dead on their tracks. One of which was Undercity "customs," or whatever equivalent. And two… Her dad coughed and asked, "Did you meet someone and had sex, Caitlyn?"

Ah.

Yes. And two, anything of that nature. Mr. Kiramman was the only one of the two more open about it, and even then, he spoke of it with care.

Nevertheless, the answer?

Kind of. Not really. It was more of…intense foreplay. Maybe. Also kind of. Everything stayed on. She wasn't saying any of this out loud. Caitlyn was struck dumb in silence. They both thought she did. She wasn't helping her case. Dammit. "U-Um…no. Not… No, I didn't…" She blinked and swallowed. "No, we didn't."

Neither looked convinced. Sure, her dad would give her the benefit of the doubt—as always—, though her mother…was fuming. "I swear, Caitlyn, if that Jayce got you pr—"

Caitlyn recoiled outright. "What?!" she snapped. "No! Jayce is a friend!" …was what she intended to admit.

But no. Instead, as she recoiled, Caitlyn spat out, "What?! No! Like I'd ever let a cock inside me!"

…oh. Oh no. That wasn't how the conversation was meant to play out.

Horrified, Caitlyn shrank into her cushion as her dad wheezed a laugh from beside her, leaving Councillor Kiramman aghast. In-between chuckles, he said, "I told you, honey… She was trying to impress that one tutor from school."

Petrified now, Caitlyn hid herself from her mother's twitched eye with a raised hand. How on that damn earth her father knew that was what she was doing, she would never know…

"Caitlyn! Do not tell me you were involved with that graduate from the college tonight!" she snapped. "Do you realize how much older she is than you?!"

"She's only a handful of years!" Caitlyn argued (squeaked). "And we've known each other for a bit! It's fine! And we didn't have sex! Mum, please!"

"Y— Tobias, would you quit laughing?!"

Her dad was simply beside himself. He'd devolved into giggling into his palms, face completely covered. Once Mr. Kiramman lifted his head, he laughed, "I'm sorry dear, but honestly, I think it was about time Caitlyn did something on her own. She's always been so good about rules, you can't blame…her…right…?" His words trailed off at the end of the councillor's glare. Even so, he patted Caitlyn's sore knee and muttered, "Shall I remind you of the weekend where—?"

"Enough… Enough…" her mother sighed, and as she leaned into her hand, Caitlyn realized that there was, indeed, a humored shrapnel in her eyes. Councillor Kiramman arched a brow and pointedly asked, "Did you walk her home at least, Caitlyn?"

A brisk, grateful nod.

Another extended sigh. "For heaven's sake, child, the one time you slip out in the middle of the night it's with that blasted gun of yours."

Caitlyn grimaced, and she offered, "W-Well, at least it wasn't with the pistol as well…?" To her surprise, that remark granted her a hummed laugh—the most her mother would offer. Was she— Was she really going to get away with this?

"Yes, I suppose." Good lord, she was.

Her father, with another pat on Caitlyn's knee, said, "I'll dig up that kit, then. See what you got yourself into…"

"Thanks," she mumbled. Caitlyn glanced at her mother's reserved scowl. Ah. So this wasn't the end of it. The exchange with her tutor wasn't the issue. As a mirror, Caitlyn's wince hardened into a scowl of her own.

"What is it that you did, Caitlyn?"

A careless shrug. "Just grazed it on a log. That's it."

Her mother's brow arched. "That's it? A log did all that?" All Caitlyn could muster was a nod. To verbally answer would be to waste the energy she needed to listen to the councillor's lecture. "Caitlyn, do you understand what any reckless behavior of yours says about the council?! One time is plenty, but the moment you do any more, it will have us look unworthy of our position for the rest of our people!"

"No," Caitlyn scoffed, "I highly doubt that 'our people' would confuse me seeing my tutor with you."

"Of course not." Councillor Kiramman bristled. "But they'd confuse your relations with a woman older than you—"

"She is only twenty-four, Mum!"

"—with my negligence as a parent—!"

"And we've known each other for six—"

"Caitlyn, my word, do you hear yourself trying to explain away your activities tonight?!"

Her frustration was swallowed, and Caitlyn sunk deeper into the cushions. It was all-too familiar, how her body molded to the indentation of all her previous lectures. She gnawed her cheek if only to maintain any sense of composure. Composure, which, was easy to fracture: "You and that enforcer business…"

Snapped to attention, she wielded her irritation and retorted, "What is that supposed to mean?! Did you turn on that lamp just to hound me on my career choice again?!"

Councillor Kiramman stood upright, and Caitlyn stood to match. "The fact of the matter is you aren't built to do this!"

"Wut?!" Caitlyn snapped, her tone pulled straight from her gut. "Then what am I built for?! Desk work?!"

"The Undercity would eat you alive, Caitlyn," her mother continued, blatantly ignoring her daughter's aggravation. "It's not a safe place for anyone—even our enforcers. Those strays won't stop at nothing to get what they want." Caitlyn winced as she leaned into her sore leg, and glared sapphire narrowed—as if her damn leg proved every point of hers. "And all they want is violence. The satisfaction that they can get to you."

Even so, Caitlyn remained on her feet. She didn't give way to her leg, nor the blood that beaded into her pant's fabric. "If it's not safe for anyone then it gives me all the more reason to do something!" She swiped air. "How am I so different?! Because I come from posh money?! Why is it that I can't protect Piltover and everyone else can?!"

"Because. I'm. Worried, Caitlyn," her mother snapped, voice caught. Caitlyn's argument staggered. "I will support you, forever and always, as your mother. But as your mother, I also worry…" The woman, a pillar of dignified strength, collapsed into her seat. As she massaged her temple, Councillor Kiramman expressed, "Caitlyn, you're my only child. And I know you aren't like me. I know you want nothing else to be there, in action for our city's sake.

"But, Caitlyn, my dear, those strays can be vile. They are caught in a cycle of perpetual violence. So many of them have claimed our enforcers, and I… I don't want to see that with you." She lifted her head. "So please. Please just— Just consider that."

Caitlyn opened her mouth to argue more—pick up where it staggered off. However, her attention instead slunk to the chime of first-aid equipment, and then her father's gentle grin. She slumped into the couch with a quiet, reserved nod. The room bathed in nothing over than those chimes. And as Mr. Kiramman tended to his daughter's wounds with careful hands, the kind of care she wished her mother would spare from time-to-time, Caitlyn ruminated in the silence. Silence, and the words that grated every last nerve of hers.

"The Undercity would eat you alive, Caitlyn. It's not a safe place for anyone—even our enforcers.

"Those strays won't stop at nothing to get what they want.

"And all they want is violence. The satisfaction that they can get to you."

ɵ ɵ ɵ

"It's alright… Despite it all, I can tell…"

Blood fumed violet, and Caitlyn saw it pulse from underneath their skin.

It stung, knowing how right her mother was—more than Councillor Kiramman herself would've realized. At least to a degree. With every step, the lost weight of her rifle left her feeling too vulnerable for her liking; her duty, her strength, it had been hanged underneath the gallows of civil unrest as she traded it for a drug. For shimmer. With every step, in the back of her mind's eye, the light of her torch burned the shadows that they left behind, and so too those that were struck down by standing shrapnel. People. God forsaken people that Piltover—

She hissed as Vi seized a few steps, and once Caitlyn realized what drug laced her groan of pain, her hands snagged the back of the red jacket. There were still remnants of it, gleaming in those steel eyes… "Come on, they're behind us," she said, winced.

"I-I…need a minute…" Vi panted in turn.

Caitlyn shouldered her weight, and together, they continued to stagger along the uneven trellis-turned-bridge. "Is it…your side…?" A slow, gradual head-shake. Caitlyn swallowed. Again, she saw those intense, steel eyes shimmer— No.She saw shimmer in those intense, steel eyes. Near-silent, as if it were sinful, she asked, "Is it…the vial I gave you…?"

Vi grimaced the best smile she could manage. Lopsided, painful—it wasn't a good one.

"You have a good heart…"

"It's alright, Cupcake… I just…need a minute…"

Instead of a rifle, every step was sunken by Vi's exhaustion. And Caitlyn bore it. Every single ounce, she did. Because even if her strength was hanged, her service wasn't. Her loyalty would never…

And, for a moment, she asked why anybody would want that. To tear apart their bodies for power.

Until she realized.

"You top-siders always find a way to screw us…"

That violet? That shimmer? It strengthened the damned; it healed the wounded.

Vi gasped a breath, and it wrenched Caitlyn from her spell of coagulated thought. She swerved around the huddled drunk, blacked-out with a drink in their hand. "I'm sorry," she breathed. "I didn't see—"

"Neither did I," Vi hissed.

They reeked of desperation. Willing to spend their body for that drop of strength.

A drop that evaporated quickly, leaving them a brittle shell.

Caitlyn kept an eye out for any shelter—anything that would hide them both away. For a short moment. For a quick minute. It didn't matter. But every-other-corner coaxed blisters of doubt to rupture. Piltover. Her city. That of promise. But— But down here. Down here where the air was heavy with sorrow… Before Vi, she wouldn't have ever known. The Undercity would've truly eaten her alive. She knew nothing. She knew noth— She knew absolutely nothing, but she could've taken a page from Vi's book and slipped her way across the bridge. Down the depths of the Undercity as Vi scaled the fine, sandstone bricks of the towering landscape Caitlyn knew and…loved. Once loved. She might've still, though as the weight of Vi's body lagged her strides, it was clear that her admiration was that of her childhood. Pure nostalgia, sinking to the bottom. Underneath the film of reality that pooled at the council's feet.

"We're almost there, right…?" Caitlyn murmured, if only to keep her thoughts at bay.

Vi sagged a heavy nod, and then rasped, "Just…along here. Somewhere. I think… I think we lost them…"

In her eyes, amongst the last sprout of shimmer, Caitlyn read a violet hue—speared by hot white. The only glow that illuminated the wretched at the bottom of everything. The blaring eye that had leered across her shoulders, seething at the sight of a top-sider. The old friend that welcomed Vi back to her own childhood… A childhood pinned to the depths of her city. A childhood of scaling the fine, sandstone bricks of the towering landscape. The one that Caitlyn knew and once admired. But it was like a rotten cake. The icing layered on the surface was delectable, but just underneath, just past that bridge…

…a cupcake?

She jolted, and her eyes met Vi's intensity. "I-I'm sorry, my mind keeps wandering."

"It's fine. Here's good."

"Oh." Caitlyn looked over her shoulder. How'd I manage to cross all that without knowing it? What have I been doing? Where—? In unison, they both eased themselves onto the empty hull of a pipe, legs dangling as their eyes darted to their respective laps—Caitlyn, for she still felt those thoughts of hers swarm; Vi, for she still meant to ease her quivered energy. The former lifted her head. Her eyes swept the landscape, and for the first time, she found the Undercity nothing short of an odd vista.

Even at the base of the world, it surged with green. The distant lights beckoned for her eyes, and she followed their hues as they melded within the billows of smoke and condensation. It was a city of imperfection. Made of asymmetry. Structures, stacked and shunted together. Roads bridged across its layers. It wasn't anything like Piltover. It didn't stand in the name of regality, nor class.

As she caught Vi's profile, the swept red of her hair, Caitlyn realized through the ink of her arms that, like the gears of a clock, the Undercity operated without care of facades. It needed those gears however and wherever they pleased. It didn't have the wealth to cover its fluctuating angles. Its imperfections, they were bare. A long-since split lip. A cut brow. Piercings that spoke to the only riches they had—so few and far between… And, from watching her, it clicked: the fissure folk could scale buildings because the city was built for it. To those who couldn't—the top-siders—, it was cruel. To those who could—of the Lanes or otherwise—, it was home. It felt like she had just uncovered a fragment of Zaun, one that spoke of exhilarated, reckless adventure…

Caitlyn noticed, too, the loss of color in Vi's complexion. So, softly, Caitlyn asked, "Do you feel alright?"

Vi perked, then nodded wearily. "Yeah, I'm fine. I think the shimmer just caught up to me," she murmured. "Promised that I'd steer clear of it. I've seen what it does to people and…" With Caitlyn's light grimace, she paused to say, "Not that I'm complaining that you got your hands on it. My side doesn't hurt like a bitch."

The grimace warped into a small awkward grin. "Well if you didn't run off the edge there and jumped your way down, it probably wouldn't have been so bad." Vi cocked a brow, and the corner of her mouth followed. Though, Caitlyn frowned. "But, I'm not surprised… I'd imagine you saw a lot of them come and go from that prison."

"Yeah, Stillwater…"

Caitlyn tore herself away, if only to rein-in the jolt of her chest. Still, it tried to stampede under the guise of curiosity; she relented: "What were you in there for?"

The half-grin Vi eased was bitter, and as she rubbed her eyes—to wear away the shimmer—, she said, "It's complicated. Why ask?"

"It wasn't on your record."

"Huh." Vi paused, and through her hair, she eyed Caitlyn with a shifted brow. "How'd you know my name?"

Caitlyn opened her mouth only to freeze. …Vi never did tell her, now did she? That wasn't ever something established outright—nothing through formalities. She blinked, almost sheepish, and felt her cheeks warm. Nevertheless, her eyes flicked over, and she hummed, "The hair," with a small nod. Vi tilted her head, and Caitlyn shook hers. "I'm joking. It was scrawled towards the top of the page…" Underneath the metal clip of paperwork. A small act of erasing that number, 516. She had almost missed it if it weren't for her habit of scattering every piece of evidence imaginable on whatever surface—table, floor, wall, all three at once. Caitlyn rubbed her knuckles in thought. "Did you write that?"

Shrugged, Vi proudly muttered, "Asshole never fuckin' noticed with that clipboard. Did it before I inked my cheek." Another pause, however, and Vi continued to watch her. Her voice was soft—the most vulnerable Caitlyn had heard it yet: "You're the first who's found it."

"Really…?" Caitlyn breathed, almost croaked. If that were true, then…

"Yeah. I may beat the shit out of people but I don't lie."

Caitlyn swallowed. No name…? Only— Only the inmate? Was that…all there was for you?

She wanted to claim the wrapped, calloused hand closest to her. To hold it as she murmured the only apologies she could give. But what could Caitlyn say? As an enforcer? As one of the many pillars that caged those like Vi alongside those who, without argument, deserved to never see the light of day, how could she? She couldn't. She didn't have the grounds.

Regardless, Vi shrugged again and rubbed her jacket's sleeve, her eyes out across her city. "I, um… Well, it's complicated, but…I was trying to turn myself in at first, actually."

Vi will never be one of those people… Without argument, she simply wasn't.

Caitlyn cocked her head to the side. It was yet another fragment of Zaun. A sense of self-sacrifice that was Piltover's scarcity. Or, at least, this particular breed of sacrifice. Raw though genuine. Persistent despite being at the bottom of the barrel. A fragment that radiated off of Vi herself. "Turning yourself in for what…?"

Vi shrugged one shoulder and leaned into it. "Sacked this one place. Some inventor or whatever." She paused, then added, "The enforcers wanted someone to toss away at Stillwater for blowing up a building. I tried fighting but…" There was another shrug as clarity dawned Caitlyn. "It was easier that way. They were on our asses, so turning myself in was just easier. But… Everything— Everything went to shit after that."

"It was you…" Vi pulled herself out of the landscape and eyed Caitlyn, stunned. As was Caitlyn, who shook her head. "I— I mean, that was you, wasn't it?"

"Well…yeah?" she breathed. "We don't know what happened. Just got a tip and raided the place for anything of value, but something just—" Her brows twisted together. "What's with the look, Cupcake? Spiked with something I don't know about?"

"Wh— No, no." Caitlyn hummed a laugh that crackled into more volume—more than she expected. "No, it's just that I… You didn't have any reason for arrest on your record but…I was there too. On the other side of the wall."

Vi blinked. "…you were?"

"Y-Yes." She couldn't help the light chuckles that continued to scatter. "I'm a good friend of that inventor. He's one of the councillor's now—Jayce." Another few hummed laughs, and Caitlyn met Vi's widening eyes. "And…to think that was the day I decided to become an enforcer."

Dumbstruck, Vi gaped before she uttered, "What…?" A light smile cracked. "Shit… What a small world."

"Seems so."

How strange it was, laughing at the face of crime. Sure, it was probably something instilled into Vi by this point—to the point of habit—, but as an enforcer… Caitlyn allowed the laughter to run its course. It had to have been a sick instinct, one that uncoiled the tension that was intrenched across her shoulders. Said tension remained, though rather than the weight of an anvil, it felt like a mere hammer and nail.

Once silence stretched into fruition, Vi looked at her hands as they laced together. "Everything fell apart after that, though… A-And I got caught anyway. Drugged from behind and…" A slow, reluctant shrug.

Drugged…? Caitlyn frowned, and her hands mirrored Vi's. "I'm…sorry, Vi," she breathed. Her eyes layered across the cityscape—the one at her feet, then the bridge, then the heights of Piltover. Ingrained, she saw the shadows of every street. The realities that plagued Zaun, up to the surface, and then the class of her home. Enforcers that patrolled what they cared about, leaving the shadows here as dark as ever. "I've…begun to understand why your people feel backed into a corner."

Cynicism twisted across Vi's face, and her eyes didn't leave the street below. "Because we are?"

"Neglected, I think," Caitlyn murmured. "You know…, they never did tell me the specifics of the Lanes. Only the summarized history."

"From Piltover's perspective…?"

"Naturally." She paused. "But…I think I'm starting to understand the other side of things." Albeit in fragments, all found within Vi herself. "And…"

Vi kept her eye on Caitlyn. "And…?"

She opened her mouth, yet not a word managed to brew. Caitlyn frowned, and she grazed the edge of her knuckle against her forearm. "It's complicated, I guess." Blood that ignited. Eyes which seized. Caitlyn, holding either side of her jaw as violet burned through steel… And how easy it was to reign Vi back in. Keep her grounded despite the drugged-induced ache. Slowly, Caitlyn murmured, "All those people down there, begging for shimmer with nothing left. That I don't think I'll ever quite understand."

"Why they can't climb out?" As she nodded, Vi exhaled a slow breath of her own. "Yeah, I… I don't know if I do either," she admitted. "I've always been able to pick myself back up."

Yet another fragment… The Undercity truly was that for miners. No. Gems. "I can tell." Gems like Vi, unearthed wherever least expected.

Vi chuckled to herself, then added, "And punched things."

Caitlyn hummed her laugh. "Does it make you feel strong?" Like her rifle, was that where Vi kept her strength? Along every ridge of knuckle? Charged by surged adrenaline rather than gunpowder?

This chuckle was bitter if not sardonic. As if on instinct, Vi flexed her hands, and her eyes grafted themselves to every splotch of dried blood. "I've given up trying to feel strong. I just have to be," she answered, her tone almost barreled into a growl. "If I can't make my point with my hands alone, then…what good am I going to do?"

"You can use your words," Caitlyn offered, slipping Vi her own advice—in her own way.

Vi opened an arm and raised it outwards. Tired. Beaten. Yet, done so pointedly. "Look around. This shithole," she said, "became this because we tried talking." Her arm slumped back to her side, and though the violet of shimmer had finally drained away—leaving a mere, faint haze—, Vi looked as exhausted as ever. "Which can you ignore? Someone's voice in the room or a one of these—" a bandaged fist was raised— "to the jaw?"

Caitlyn hesitated, and as she followed the lines of frayed bandages, she grimaced. "…that isn't fairly put. Of course it would be easier to ignore a mere voice compared to that."

"Exactly, Cupcake. And the shits up there know it." The same hand massaged the back of her neck. "They ignore us when we're crying for help, and the moment we try to snap their attention, they send down enforcers…

"It's always been like that. If I'm not strong enough to get their attention and keep it there, what's the point?"

"The point is violence doesn't lead to anything," Caitlyn murmured with an added, "At the end of it."

"It's not supposed to lead to anything. You think I want to destroy my knuckles on someone's jaw? Because I don't. Not really. I've just…gotten used to it, and…" Fatigued, Vi rolled another shrug. It was yet again bitter, her voice, though as her ingrained truth wore away the edge of her words, Caitlyn couldn't help but think of it as brittle: "Kicking someone's ass gets their attention when they don't want to hear it in the first place."

A message. That was all Vi wanted to get across, wasn't it? With each knuckle to contact… Listen to me. Though as Caitlyn watched her again, she suspected there had to have been more. Far more to each knuckle and fist. I'm not a number. Fuck your wall.

"Who the hell are you…?!"

A Kiramman. An enforcer. But, even then, Caitlyn didn't rightly know. A Kiramman without eyes on a council's seat. An enforcer without orders to adhere to. Yet, sat in that pipe, away from danger, beside this woman, she felt like a puzzle piece finally in place. A blacksmith, sealing the parts of steel she found together. However, she knew not what the rest of the puzzle was; she knew not of how that steel would shape into—a mere ally, a close friend, an intimate…

Caitlyn stopped herself, and her eyes flicked away from Vi's cut lip, though when she moved to grace her hand away, she realized that, through the silence, she'd managed to find the bandaged hand after all. She didn't pull it away, not once it dawned on her that Vi had been watching their hands weld together. Lithe fingers around a hardened palm; a calloused thumb smoothed across the flat of skin.

"It's company you want?" Caitlyn whispered, if only to know what Vi was—a mere shield, a close knife, or an intimate chest-piece…

"I want my family back, and all there's left is Powder." Vi frowned, and intense steel iced with recognition. She hadn't realized how close they got either. But she didn't pull away. Instead, croaked, she breathed, "I-I… I think. I fucking hope so."

"Families can be found, and grown, over time." Another offering. Another acknowledgement. "I think…all of you down here know that."

Vi twitched her brows with her nod, and her lips were pulled into another grimace—a cousin to the one Caitlyn found after the brothel. And that moment seemed to have struck Vi as well. Even if her side was no longer a mauled wound, her eyes were stitched to Caitlyn's pack. "Where is your rifle?"

"I…um." Despite more or less anticipating it, Caitlyn didn't expect the tone that plagued the question. Vi sounded surprised. …too surprised for her liking. "I traded it. For your wound," she murmured, and as the shock continued to spread, Caitlyn assured, "I have another one—a spare—back at my manor."

A drawn, slow breath: "Ah." Vi snapped out of her stupor to glance behind her. Caitlyn followed, and she found carved numbers and arrows down its hull. "Let's keep moving," Vi grunted, and she twisted around. Palms met the metal beneath her, and with her dexterity, she crawled forward without so much a whisper. Even so, Caitlyn saw through the stability; whether it was her hoarse swallow or how her complexion wasn't quite how it was before, she knew that the shimmer wasn't yet done.

"Vi?"

"I'm fine. I just needed a breath or two, and we've sat here for long enough. Come on." Caitlyn's hesitance held Vi still. As Vi looked over her shoulder, there wasn't an ounce of violet left. "It goes down to the Lanes. I've used this a couple of times—it's fine."

Caitlyn nodded through her uncertainty, and once Vi pushed off, she counted a handful of seconds before slipping her way down. The pipe lead straight into a street as Vi said it would, and, unsurprisingly, the first thing Vi did was run straight into a sleek suit. Caitlyn's momentum wasn't much better. As Vi shoved both the man and his words away, the momentum carried her through pranced strides. Her hand grazed the red jacket. Vi didn't move with her. "What is it…?" Caitlyn molded her hand on her partner's shoulder—not temporary ally, partner. "V-Vi?"

"Powder…" was breathed, and her eyes followed the whisper.

Blue.

Smoldering from the peak of a distant tower.

And she could almost hear it, the siren of a sister's beacon.

Just as well, however, Caitlyn heard the commotion behind her. More drunken bastards, not Silco's damned goons. It was enough to respawn her urgency, and with her molded hand, then another pressed along her forearm, she tugged Vi away. And all she heard was Vi's quiet whisper—tied to the stammered heartbeat of a paired siren:

"P-Powder…"

ɵ ɵ ɵ

"You are the next generation to protect Piltover! From outside city-states, from itself, from the Undercity!"

She stood rigid. Her uniform pressed with obedience. Her officer's cap lined by duty. To guard. To protect. To fight. To serve.

"You are the line of defense! You are the only thing in the way of anarchy!"

Side-by-side, she stood with her comrades. Eyes out and forward. Unmoving. Expressions of stone.

However, every-so-often, her eyes would follow the hard clicks of heels as the commanding officer marched down the line. Out of innocence, really. Of the curious sort.

"You're here for Piltover's security! Serve it well! Keep this city alive!"

And Caitlyn hung to every word.

It was her purpose, after all…

ɵ ɵ ɵ

But as she trailed behind Vi's unbound desperation for her sister, Caitlyn doubted those words. Every single one of them, she did.

Because, the Undercity, it was hers to protect. If not for its quiet beauty that resonated in its intricate landscape, for the fragments of character she found in its people. In Vi, especially…

Yet, even still, she could barely keep up. Vi galloped across rooftops, flown between the gaps, all with her eyes strained on blue. The smoke that reached for the sun, surpassing the light that those of the Undercity lit themselves. And Caitlyn was left behind to scramble. Still the enforcer that didn't belong there. Still the topsider that fell away from her comfortable nest, down to a dark underbelly. The ones for strays—though she had to fleetingly wonder, what did her mother say to Caitlyn's empty room upon realizing what she'd done? How her very own daughter went astray.

Caitlyn barely had the momentum to catch the final rooftop by its shingles. It was her long proportions that saved her: any shorter arms would've left her nails scraping the metal; any shrunken legs would've had her flailing. She heaved herself up, heart pulsing up her throat and into her ears. There. Just over there. Up a stairwell. At the height of that tower. Vi. Vi and someone else. Wrapped in a tight hug.

She found her. Caitlyn crept forward with what energy remained. Relief swept through, and it lagged all sense of unease—

By the middle step Caitlyn saw the stare, the one that meandered from over Vi's shoulder, sharpen onto her. Every pore of her body went frigid. The alarm bells, they screamed at Caitlyn to pull out the rifle she didn't have. The woman—Vi's sister—lurched out of their welcomed embrace to immediately wield the artillery slung over her shoulder. Her eyes narrowed, and she nodded to Vi in a quiet voice, "Who's she?!"

Caitlyn flared her nostrils, and she couldn't move. "Who are you?" Her hand wouldn't even reach out to the handrail. Ammonia. That was all she could inhale. Ammonia, followed by the hull of metal that clattered at her feet. Though an echo, a ghost, she heard it all the same. And that ammonia, it had long-since stitched itself to memory.

The panic in Vi's tone grounded her: "Hey, she's a friend…" she assured, her eyes kept on Powder.

No. Not Powder.

Caitlyn watched as her cracked-blue eyes widened. "Sevika wasn't lying…?! You're with an enforcer?!"

"You're sister is…Jinx," Caitlyn hissed, every ounce of her body prepared to recoil away—from Vi, from ammonia, from Jinx.

"Caitlyn—" her chest seized her eyes over— "just listen," Vi eased, arms held out between the two. Steel locked with Caitlyn's sapphire, and she pleaded, "W-We can work this out."

Though it was Jinx that demanded every fiber of Caitlyn's instinct. "This is a trick. You're playing me!" Her intuition wouldn't budge. Caitlyn heard it in her voice, that graveled thrum. It wasn't anything like Vi's velveted honey. Unhinged. Venomous. "Shut up!" Like it was nothing, Jinx jolted the heavy artillery in her hands. Her eyes and mouth ruptured with the violence that would surely follow. "I'm in no mood!"

Caitlyn hesitated, however, and murmured, "…we didn't say anything—"

"I wasn't talking to you!" Jinx snarled, and every twitch of her sneer was laced with vexation.

"Powder, it's okay…" Vi breathed.

"Stop calling me that. It's Jinx now," was the only answer. Crackled. Disorientated. Through the static of a broken wreck of cogs and gears. "Powder fell down a well."

"You're not a jinx— God I should've nev—"

"Stop talking to me like I'm a child!" The triple-barrel of the gun rattled to life, jostled right to Vi's jugular. And at the mere sight of it, Caitlyn wanted nothing more than to hurl her weight and throttle Jinx's neck until there wasn't anything left. But she couldn't. Not as she saw through crackled disorientation: rabid; Jinx was rabid. She would bite off Vi's head if she could. Jinx cackled a hoarse laugh and growled, "Was that why you came? For this stupid stone?!"

The stone.

Right at their feet.

"No, I don't even know what that is."

"You're a class-act, sister…" Jinx continued, and with every word, her insanity grew from within the static. "Sister, thought I missed her—but you wouldn't miss her…"

"Powder! I'm here for you! Only you!" With the strength that Caitlyn didn't have—the one to break through her frozen terror—, Vi shoved the barrels away and snapped, "You can fire that thing if you want but I'm not going anywhere—" She reached out for her rabid sister. "I'm not abandoning you…again…"

Jinx wrenched herself away, visibly scorched by the mere graze of skin. "Everyone shut up! I need to think…" she rasped, curled into herself. Her hands were plastered on either side of her head to fix whatever stability she had left to it. But, she jerked once again. Her eyes blitzed erratically, and she grappled both hands back to the heavy artillery. "Do you hear that?!"

No. Or, at least, that was her knee-jerk thought. But the pipes rattled high above them. Caitlyn tensed. There was something. Or, someone.

A masked man hovered out overtop a glowing board. And then another. And another… It didn't take long to hear the charge of heavy artillery, nor those boards as they tore through the air. Through the disorientation, however, Caitlyn saw it. The gemstone. Rolling its way off the platform.

Without her rifle, knowing she didn't have the fists of a stray, Caitlyn dove forward through the chaos to catch it. Bullets peppered around her, and the fans of the boards whirled. But she had it. In her hand, she had—

Caitlyn darted away for cover. She nearly popped her shoulder out of its socket once her weight hurled itself into a boxed corner. Her fist balled, and she spared a careful, narrowed sapphire towards the sudden burst of warfare: there was Vi with hands of a bear and the dexterity of a lioness; there was Jinx with wild eyes and a smile to match, her body primed with the fluidity of a viper. It was then. In that moment. Where she understood. Caitlyn knew that she had found the culprit without needing that man. All she ever needed was Vi to find Jinx, and whatever remnants of Powder there was left. She understood, though… She understood what Jinx was. She read it in her eyes. So fractured. So lost. Even with the monstrous artillery strapped over her shoulder, there was nothing more than a girl rife with insanity.

Jinx—Powder—was at the brink of it.

Vi was stable. She was a rock that was able to stand the test of time within Stillwater, though with cracks that cut deep.

But Powder—evermore jinxed by her own nature… Caitlyn understood that it was too late for a mere cell. Much too late. There would have to be other things. More drastic measures. The security of a sister to keep her earthbound. Or… Caitlyn winced. Or the enforcement of hundreds.

Caitlyn ducked away from another stray bullet.

She darted around the boxes—the only , her eyes strayed to her culprit. The one with the machine gun. The one with a wicked gleam in her eye. The one—

ɵ

Ammonia was a smell that clung like nothing else. Her nostrils flared before she realized what she was looking at:

A jinx's mark. One that scorched the wall. As a warning. As a promise.

Right…before…

Caitlyn barely had the thought to tear her way into the tent. To snatch at least one life out of the way of malicious intent.

She was flung backwards—as if she was just a mere ragdoll. The ammonia clung. Smoke clogged. Fire hazed. But from afar, she saw her… The jinx that warned, that promised…

The one with the machine gun. The one with a wicked gleam in her eye. The one—

Caitlyn wrenched herself awake. Her hands trembled, though as she moved to hold them, she found that they'd been bound by metal. Metal, which, was digging deep. What's more, her world was thatched fabric, and then an orange hue from behind the frayed patchwork. Arms, behind and tangled around themselves. Jaw sore. Thoughts spurred into restless vexation. She wanted out, though as her sweat began to pool down the sack over her head, all she saw was the moment during surgery. Where the the doctor was sewing together her skin. Startled by her frenzied consciousness…

The chains that tied her down by cuffs jangled to life with each jolt of her shoulders. Shit. She wasn't getting out of this. Not by a long shot.

"Finally got up from your nap, Cupcake?"

Caitlyn froze. Vi. Presumably right behind her. Chained as well. And she sounded tired—more than Caitlyn felt.

…fire burned her thoughts, and so too the smoke of Progress Day. Caitlyn's jaw hardened, and as she tossed her weight to snap the chains, she hissed, hoarse with her mind reeling, "I knew it was a mistake, trusting you!"

Vi scoffed. "You've been a real picnic yourself…"

"I'm not the one who walked us into not one but two of Silco's traps."

"This isn't Silco… This is someone else."

How could she sound so calm?! How could Vi just sit there and not do anything?! Nevertheless, her droned answer had Caitlyn pause. She cocked her head towards Vi's voice. "How do you know?"

"Because we'd already be dead."

"Oh very nice." Ammonia. Fire. Smoke. So long as that orange light laid in her pereferal, all three rattled Caitlyn to the core. "When were you planning on telling me that your lunatic sister works for him?!"

"Just as soon as you come clean about what you're really doing down here!"

"I told you the truth!"

"Bullshit. What was that glowing stone?" Caitlyn choked. In her hand, she felt the ghost of a smooth remnant. A heart of Hextech itself. And upon the silence that stilled between them, Vi growled, "That's what I thought." It wasn't like Caitlyn didn't want to— Well, no. It was exactly that she didn't want to confine any of this with Vi. After all, she'd just fished her out of a cell because of a snarky remark after snarky remark, and then a startling, intense intrigue in her evidence fi—

Blinding light pierced through the side of her sacked hood, and Caitlyn recoiled away from the heavy door as it rang in her ears. Boot-heels stormed inside, and Caitlyn felt the tug of chains—not her own but instead Vi's. "What's going on?" she hissed.

"St-Stop! Get your hands off of me!"

The chains slacked, and Caitlyn heard Vi's weight—her belt, the fine leather of her jacket—against the floor. In-tune with her panicked heartbeat, Caitlyn barked, "Leave her alo—!"

"Let me go!" Vi snapped.

"—ne!" The door slammed, and Caitlyn was left to the still silence that had strangled her words before. Except, now, knowing that Vi had been snatched away from her, knowing that there wasn't a promise that she'd ever hear her velveted voice again, it strained the panic in her words: "Vi?! Vi! Vi!" The chains may have been lax without the extra weight, though Caitlyn still struggled against the breathing room. "V-Vi…?!" A last feeble attempt. Vi was long gone. Caitlyn bowed her head. "Shit. Shit!"

And then…

As the last of her sharpened words faded away…

The drone of her heartbeat, the feeble depression of her lungs—her breathing was the only thing to hear.

Caitlyn finally sat limp against the pillar behind her back, and with her head against it, she exhaled the last bout of nerves. Not the anxious sort, no. More like…the gall. "Shit…" she echoed. All class and decency thrown out the window, Caitlyn added, "For fuck's sake," with a kick outward—one that found the round of a bucket, rocketing it straight into a corner.

She stared into that orange glow. It would shift. Perhaps a lantern, or maybe a dying lightbulb. Not an open-flame, though—surely not.

"This only works if we can trust each other…"

"It doesn't work. It never has… You top-siders always find a way to screw us."

The knot that worked its way down her throat was bitter. Far worse than the extinguisher's ammonia. Because Vi was right. It doesn't work. It won't ever. Just like their new-found…alliance. It wasn't really a partnership, was it? No, no it wasn't. Especially not after—

"We aren't monsters, you know. We're people… Just like you."

"You don't know anything about me…"

Especially not after she realized who Vi was. Or rather, who this Powder was. Did Vi know that Jinx could, would and has killed…? Without care, without regret? Was she the one to teach her?

The knot plummeted to the base of her stomach. And it was heavy, the pit it accumulated. The simple fact was that she didn't know. Perhaps Vi taught Jinx her strength. How to break a mountain-of-a-man's jaw with two hits of a food tray.

"You don't know anything about me…"

But she wanted to. Caitlyn really, really wanted to. She wanted to know everything—or as close to everything as humanly possible. To find more of those Undercity fragments. To discover where the inked clockwork led to. How Vi could smile and laugh after being locked away for so long. If her knuckles would wither away without bandages to hold them tight.

And she just fucked that chance over. Ate her words. Swallowed down the truth that Vi bled out at the brink of death.

"You don't know anything—"

Yet again, Caitlyn flinched away from the blinding light. But, the door was open, and instead of boot-heels, she heard the patter of softer shoes. Chains went lax. The cuffs unlatched entirely. The sack-hood— Another flinch, and Caitlyn blinked away more of the blinding light as she instinctively rubbed her wrists to soothe.

Squatted in front of her was a kid, hands forward with a bowl of water in them.

Another instinct: Caitlyn snarled an exhale and knocked the damn thing from his grasp. And it rolled…, all the way towards heavy boots before it settled between them. The man—young man, he had to have been a few years younger at least—twisted a dry, unhumored smirk.

Caitlyn leaned forward and snapped, "What have you done with Vi?" He didn't answer. The man only nodded for the kid to leave. "Listen—" She shifted her weight against the pillar. "Let her go. I brought her here. It's me you want." Her eyes darted to the shadow around the door's opening before her realization did.

"My hero."

"Y— But I thought you—" Did Vi really have to look so smug about it?! Caitlyn, frazzled, retorted, "I thought they were hurting you!"

The man worked his jaw, and in a voice that more-or-less confirmed his youth, he said, "Vi tells me I can trust you… You get a pass back, Topside, that's it. Let's go."

Caitlyn blinked, and as he jolted upright to saunter off, Vi lingered. Eyes narrowed as she followed Vi's folded arms, then the smirk that wouldn't stop creasing. She was slow to get to her feet, and then, sourly, Caitlyn muttered, "Would you wipe that stupid grin off your face?!"

And as Caitlyn passed her to step into the sunlight, Vi snorted. "What? I thought you missed it with all that begging."

She could only do what her mother did best: roll her eyes.

ɵ

"It's beautiful…"

A vast well of life. Bright walls. Colorful arrays of art. And right in the center, a tree nurtured to prosperity. It was truly a sight to behold, one that had Caitlyn stun-locked. She doubted she'd ever see anything else like it. Piltover was a gleaming craft of its own—lined by gold and copper, whenever possible—, and Zaun was something to appreciate in its own right—something which Caitlyn had only discovered so recently.

But this. This felt like the love-child between the two. What was possible. What could've been. What could be. And yet…

"If you people had your way, it'd be rubble and ash," was snapped, though when Caitlyn turned to meet Ekko's scowl—the same that creased when she rejected the bowl of water—, she could only fumble:

She said, torn, "I-It's a misunderstanding. They think you work for Silco." It had to have been. It had to.

"Your people hunt us." Ekko's irritation jaded his walk. "Like animals—" face-to-face— "and Silco pays them to do it."

Caitlyn frowned. "That's not possible," she said, firm now. "You're wrong."

His face skewed with malice. "Say that…one more time—"

"Ekko." Vi forced them apart with a mere hand, having pulled herself from an ether into the center of it all. "She believes what she's saying, okay, she's not your enemy."

"Oh yeah? Then what's this?" Their eyes followed his hands, down to the cylindrical satchel slung over his shoulder. Its wall broke open, and—

Caitlyn jolted. "You've got it. You have to let me take that back."

Vi, however, watched her carefully. "What is it?" she murmured.

"It's a gemstone," Caitlyn winced—the same that she should have done before. A gemstone. The heart of Hextech. A smooth remnant "It was stolen during the attack—by your sister," she then added, quiet.

"You just forgot to mention that?" Another wince. Caitlyn heard it, how fractured Vi felt. It was only then did she realize that Vi never did know the severity of Jinx's little game. What kind of fire she was playing with.

Caitlyn swallowed, and, upon instinct, she watched the gemstone again. "This…" Her throat caught itself, and she started over: "Someone with the right knowledge can build any Hextech device… If enforcer are becoming more—" panicked, panicked and desperate— "aggressive, that's why." Her eyes lingered on Vi as that severity sunk in, deep, then snapped to Ekko's unbound awe.

He held the gemstone between his fingers, and his stare gleamed with the sunlight. "We could beat Silco with this."

"That won't solve things," Caitlyn said, almost panicked herself.

"Easy for you to say! People aren't dying all around you," Ekko snapped, and his balled hand eclipsed the gemstone from sight.

She was standing on ice. And it was thin. And she had to tread ever so lightly. "…Ekko, it's wrong what's been done to you. You'd be well in your rights to keep it. I couldn't blame you… But…" Another swallow, another bout of panic. She didn't want to feel everything crack around her—not as the weight of an unwelcome enforcer. "If you do, this cycle of violence won't ever stop. This is our best shot at setting the record straight. This city needs healing—more than I've ever realized." So Caitlyn pleaded to Ekko's awe: "Please, let me help you."

And he considered it. He watched her, and his lips thinned. "You got a plan?"

"I've got a friend on the council. Let me take the gemstone to him," Caitlyn offered, and she felt the ice thicken beneath her. "He'll listen to me. Your people won't have to hide anymore."

Ekko eyed the gemstone. His eyes, they still gleamed, but, his scowl drifted away. "One condition—I'm the one that gives it to them."

Relieved, Caitlyn gave a slow nod. "I won't stand in your way."

The smile that crossed Ekko's face was the first genuine one that Caitlyn saw. He nodded slowly, and, without looking, he slipped the gemstone back in its place. His eyes trailed up, past the branches to the sun. "And we could use night as cover," Ekko said. "They'll have those spotlights anyway, but getting up to the bridges will be easier without having to run into anything else."

Caitlyn nodded as Vi muttered, "Right."

Ekko looked between them. On Caitlyn, his eyes were curious; on Vi, his eyes were narrowed with an arched brow. Chuckled, he asked her, "Want a shower?"

Her hands found their pockets. "Is that a nice way of telling me I need one?" Vi remarked.

"You need a shower," Ekko said. His grin slipped into a smirk as eyes rolled. His chin nodded towards the tree's base. "There's some rooms down for guests. Traders and stuff. You—" his curiosity slunk back to Caitlyn— "two could use one before we head out."

Another nod. "Alright. When…are we going up?"

"Eh, not that long. A few hours? Just when the sun starts to dip. It won't take us much time to get to the bridge."

"Cool." Vi looked at Caitlyn, and she shrugged. We might as well.

And Caitlyn, knowing the blood and grime that seeped through the clothes and clung to her skin, couldn't agree more.

"I'll show you to it then. Come on," Ekko said, swiping a wave over his shoulder. "And it's, uh…probably not as fancy as what you have, Topside. We handle the brooms ourselves around here."

She eased a laugh. "I don't mind. I heard chores build character."

The laugh was shared, and from Caitlyn's side, Vi muttered, "You only heard?" Caitlyn swallowed and smiled sheepishly. "You have a butler, don't you?"

"…his name's Henry."

"Shit, Topside's a good name for you, isn't it?"

Ekko jousted a finger in the air. "Topsider's will topside!"

"Well…" Caitlyn grieved a sigh. "I suppose so…"

As they navigated down several staircases, Caitlyn lagged behind. She watched Vi and Ekko's quiet chatter. The smiles and brief spills of laughter that would arise. And she wondered… It was a small world, sure, but…

They strolled on. Her eyes ruminated across the scenery. The murals. The people. All that could be.

"You're with an enforcer…?!"

"Doing better than I thought you would."

Caitlyn thinned her lips, and yet again, she felt the empty weight on her back. Her hanged pillar of strength, sold for Vi. She didn't belong here—that had been made apparent. The sound of her boots against the stone, it didn't ring true to the strides of the pair in front of her. Arms folded together, she caught a central courtyard, and as her lingering stare followed the strokes of fresh paint, they stilled on two in particular: pink, and then blue. Both wearing tomboy-ishly wide smiles.

"You don't have…parents?"

"No." Her voice was strained. A dam doing everything in its power to keep the ocean at bay. "They were killed by enforcers."

Kids…

When had Vi been taken into custody? For how long had she seen the world through bars? Caitlyn didn't know if she wanted the answer.

"Doubt any other enforcer would take off their stupid masks and helmet for this…"

But it had been long enough to scrutinize everything. Down to the masks. Down to the helme— She swallowed down a lapse of thought, only to realize how far behind she'd left herself to. Caitlyn picked up the pace, one that doubled once Vi landed a curious eye over her shoulder.

Enforcers were what spawned Jinx to fruition. Enforcers carved every chip in Vi's shoulder. And Caitlyn could barely fathom it, how in the world she could heal those wounds.

"Here we go. Small and rocky."

Caitlyn snapped to attention as Vi slunk into the room. "Huh. Small and rocky."

Curious, Caitlyn stepped inside and found that small and rocky was the perfect description: the room was quaint, to put delicately, and from floor to the ceiling, it was all sandstone. Some coarse patches. Some brick. All blended together with the dark, wooden furniture—bed, desk, a few shelves. She moved around a broken vanity mirror and looked at the crater in the wall. Caitlyn pointed and looked over her shoulder. "And is that the bathroom…?"

Ekko shrugged. "Oh, yeah, sorry. It did have a door once, but it broke."

"Broke or exploded?" Vi mumbled.

"…anyway, nice little set-up, right?"

"Ekko, what happened to the door?"

Ekko whipped his head towards a (silent) call for his name. "Shit, I gotta go get that. Remember to clean your ears, Vi, and Topside…" He blinked, narrowed his eyes, figured that he didn't have a good enough quip, then waved his hand and shut the bedroom door behind him.

Caitlyn and Vi met eyes, though neither thought it would be worth a comment. So the door was a hole in the wall. Go figure.

After a moment, Caitlyn asked, "Is he a childhood friend?"

Nodded, Vi answered, "Like a little brother." To Caitlyn's tilted curiosity, she explained, "Ran with a little gang of my own. He had a job with the main trader back then, but…he'd tag along. Give us tips for whatever hit."

Caitlyn heard it, Vi's hesitance. She would've thought those times were fond ones for Vi, though the weight of each word spoke otherwise. It didn't take long for Caitlyn to understand. Who ran a gang without their sister? Down in the Undercity, down in the Lanes, where there wasn't much school? "Vi…?" she murmured, ever so quietly. "I…" Caitlyn gnawed the inside of her cheek, and the sight of Vi standing there, listening but not turned around, she couldn't fathom what it was she was trying to say. "I didn't know that J— Powder was…"

Vi tilted her head, and the eye that watched Caitlyn was all too similar to that first moment. "Who the hell are you…?!" Caged at her feet. Each chip in her shoulder sinking deep. "Jinx?" Vi growled, "Neither did I. Never heard or knew until I saw her drawing in those pictures you showed me."

"Well it's kind of hard to check up on people from inside a concrete cell."

And Caitlyn finally heard it. The same pain that rattled Vi to the core. It had always been there—since that first moment. "I…"

"She's not a lunatic. Just so you know." Even snapped, it was still there. Those chips at her shoulder, they had managed to crack all the way down to her heart.

Caitlyn tried again: "I-I didn't mean it like… Like that… I just…" She was back on ice again, yet, Caitlyn knew, she was already ankle-deep. The ice in Vi's measured stare froze her over. "You knew how to talk to her…" she murmured, almost frail.

"Because I'm her fucking big sister, alright? By blood. For life. It's not some mystery." Vi paced towards the foot of the bed. "I know how she fucking ticks. I know how much of a fucking broken wreck she can b— Got whatever the fuck dad—" She soothed her hands through her hair. "She's not evil," Vi partially whimpered. And Caitlyn hated it. She hated hearing her this way, alike a dog crying long whimpers with a broken leg. Vi shook her head. "She's not this monster lurking in the dark. She was born down there—those were her drawings, Caitlyn. She's not— She's not a monster. She just…"

"H-Hey… I'm sorry, I never meant to insinuate that she was…" At the surface, it was a damn lie. They both knew it. But…in between her words, laced within her tone… Vi knew what she meant. Vi knew that she didn't want to insinuate anything of Powder through Jinx. Jinx was absolutely the monster lurking in the dark. Caitlyn couldn't see it any other way… Though, if only to clarify, to assure, Caitlyn murmured, "All I have to know is what she left behind for my investigation, Vi. That's all." Her assurance wasn't a lie, but it was downright inaccurate. Caitlyn hesitated. "But even if she's not a monster, Vi, she's dangerous. More dangerous than you."

Vi scoffed. Tiredly. Visibly exhausted. "Why, because she was in the Undercity all this time?"

"Because you are a mountain, Vi. I can see it. And it takes more than your own delusions to tip you over the edge." Caitlyn snagged those pale eyes from the ground, and as intensity swept to lock with her sapphire, she added, "You were the only thing keeping her grounded before your arrest, weren't you…?"

Yes. The profound, silent answer. Spoken by only her eyes. Yes, I was. I needed to be. Vi swallowed, and she turned away. After a hoarse laugh, she remarked, "A mountain, huh Cupcake? Since when could those move like me?" Caitlyn eased a smile of her own. She couldn't laugh. She couldn't even breathe one. But she her smile was enough. It dismantled all the rest of what was said. Vi paused, and with a scratch to the back of her neck, she murmured, "I've always been the only one sticking up for her. And she'd fuck up. A lot. But I knew she was trying to do good by us, I swear. I just…"

"I understand… It's not always easy."

"What, sisters?"

"Family, I mean. They never align all the way like how you'd want it to."

Vi nodded, and that was that. Silence settled at their feet, and all there was to do was eye the room. Judge it for what was there. Bookcases. The modest desk, bed, couch and armory trunks. Vi watched the bathroom in particular—the gaping hole in the wall without so much a curtain in place of a door. She chucked a partial laugh. "Think the shower will be a good one?"

This time, Caitlyn managed to hum one of her own. "I wouldn't get your hopes up too high, there."

ɵ ɵ ɵ

"Caitlyn?"

She froze, and her eyes settled on the pin set at Stillwater Hold. Then, she turned around. Councillor Kiramman. "Why don't you rest and quit wallowing over that investigation?"

Caitlyn shook her head. Her eyes went back to the mess of paper at her feet. "I can't." She heard her mother's silent hand raise, only for it to collect itself and fold back with the other. "I can't sleep now with this."

"Well you shouldn't have put it right in front of your bed then."

"Well if you had let me do this as a job, I wouldn't have," Caitlyn snapped, though she wondered the validity of that sentiment. She did strike herself as the type to bring her work to home.

Councillor Kiramman's inhale was rife with conflict. "You know that I'm trying to protect you, Caitlyn." As Caitlyn gnawed her cheek, she added, "From yourself… Dear, I know you want to be in the middle of it, and that you feel yourself capable, but I know that you'll follow your nose in—"

"So what?!" Caitlyn whirled around and stamped off her cushioned footstool. "It's all I've ever wanted to do, Mum! I don't want to be stuck behind a fucking desk and talk my way out issues from the sidelines! I've never wanted that! I've never wanted to be a councillor. I've never wanted to be anything else. You and I both know that I've always wanted to be an enforcer, even before that botched robbery!" Toe-to-toe, against her mother's dignified scowl, she hissed, "Doingthis is just as natural to me as being a councillor is to you. You can't keep me from doing it."

Eyes of sapphire sifted between her own before they flecked to her bandaged brow. "Caitlyn…"

She moved away from her mother's comforting hand. "No," she murmured. "It's just a graze. I'm fine. It's part of the job." Councillor Kiramman opened her mouth, only for Caitlyn to snap, "I know. And I rejected Jayce's pity, by the way. You're not keeping me behind a desk."

Upon that admission, Councillor Kiramman grew ever stern. "You should have taken that offer, Caitlyn! That position would've been—"

"No, it wouldn't've have been enough. Like I just said, you're not keeping me behind a desk!" Caitlyn argued, almost shrill. "I will do this whether or not I'm paid. I don't care."

"As a councillor's daughter—"

"As a councillor's daughter, I know how many strings you're pulling to keep me back." Caitlyn swallowed, and she folded her arms. Guarded. Resigned. She turned back to her organized mess. "And what are you going to do next, pull some more strings and tie me down with a man?"

Taken aback, her mother hissed, "My word, Caitlyn, I would never do such a thing!" Dignified heels, though cross with irritation, clicked to her side. "And I've never insinuated as such!"

"But you do the same for every other facet of my life?!" Caitlyn narrowed her eyes and matched her mother's piercing glare. As her grip around her bicep hardened, she felt the under-layer of pain. The persistent ache that had yet to pull away. Fire. And as the smoke quelled all conscious thought, as the fire swarmed around her, she remembered how easily she collapsed. How right her mother was, again, even for one particular instance… She turned away—from identical sapphire, and so too her mother's judgement. "Job or not, I need to do this," she murmured.

She didn't know what, exactly, it was that dismantled the councillor's cold edge. Something in her tone. Something in her words. Whatever it was, it pulled her mother's hand to her shoulder. "Caitlyn…" For once, for the first time in however long, Caitlyn felt herself wrapped in maternal warmth. It had to have been a while; she never quite realized how much taller she was until that moment.

The reds and oranges and yellows continued to blaze around her. Caitlyn felt a wall of her own whittle away. "…I was the one that noticed the fire. Told them to fetch the brigade."

"I'm sure you were…" Councillor Kiramman murmured, her voice warmer than it had been for years.

Her world warbled, and as she rested her head into her mother's shoulder, Caitlyn felt it sting. "I didn't mean to lead them there…" she whispered. To their deaths. I didn't mean— I didn't mean to…

"I know, Caitlyn. I know…" A long pause where the councillor sought to remember her daughter's drive. What made her tick. How to talk to her. "Just… Don't get pricked by one of those pins with all that."

Caitlyn tightened her jaw. "I won't, Mum." Perhaps this was her mother's way… The closest she'd get to accepting all of her.

Even so…

Her eyes ignited. With that night's fire. With the illuminated figure of a jinx that burned in her mind. From over her mother's shoulder, Caitlyn eyed that pin, the one set at Stillwater.

ɵ ɵ ɵ

Caitlyn twisted the faucet tight, and for a moment, she kept herself there. The water had been cold, and if her hair was down, she expected that it would have felt coarse. Difficult to get out, to say the least. A significant downgrade of luxury compared to the likes of her own private shower. There wasn't even a bar of soap. Though, it wasn't like she hated it entirely. Cold was better than frothed sewage. Coarse was better than toxic. And no soap was absolutely better than fermenting in the sweat and grime that she'd collected throughout the past couple of days…

If only any of that extended towards the coiled aches of her body. The tension that refused to be unfurled. Caitlyn shouldn't have been surprised; to her mother's detriment, showers served as the time to dwell, leaving the relaxation to her rifle's work. …or, well, any activity that induced the pleasurable buzz of energy. Training. Cardio. Sex.

Not that Councillor Kiramman knew that last one.

At least, Caitlyn sure hope she didn't.

Regardless, it didn't take long for her to find her clothes. She didn't know what to think about it, really, how much cleaner she felt after a brief rinse. She also didn't want to ask what she'd been coated by beforehand, and even if she were to be given the answer, Caitlyn doubted the answer would be a confident one.

She stepped out from the hole in the wall, and with a stretch, she found Vi laid across the bed, legs dangling over the edge. She perked. "Shower good?"

"Yes, it's just fine," Caitlyn hummed, but she had to note, "There isn't any soap, by the way. Though I doubt a rinse-off is much to complain about."

"Right…" Vi grunted as she sat up, and once Caitlyn settled at the end of the couch, she arched a brow. She followed Caitlyn's wandering gaze, all before it landed back on her. "What's it you're thinking about there, Cupcake? Still surprised that an Undercity place can be this clean?"

"Um…yes, actually." Even without the soap.

Vi chuckled. "Me too." She paused, however. Caitlyn hadn't been sitting on the couch for long, yet, even so, Vi had caught the swarm of thoughts that had resonated in her shower. "What is it?"

Slowly, Caitlyn asked, "How many have worked out deals with the Undercity? Enforcers, I mean."

She hadn't expected the level of surprise to turn up. Vi blinked, and after a flickered brow of thought, she said, "Most, at one point or another." To Caitlyn's cocked head, Vi added, "Vander worked with Grayson. And…" Another arched brow, one that had a smirk trail after it. "I'm assuming there's others now. Maybe even some hypocrites."

"I'm…not a hypocrite."

Vi playfully squinted. "Just a little bit?"

"No."

"Sure, sure…" She got to her feet. "But you get it then, right? How easy it is? It's not like whatever pledge you sign yourself to kept you from fucking around with me, Cupcake."

"I know. It didn't." Caitlyn shrugged. "I'm just…confused, is all."

"Then relax if you're so worked-up. Gotta let off some steam at some point. Y'know?" Vi swiped towards the few shelves above the desk. "Read one of those books or something. You don't strike me as the type to punch a wall."

"Oh, and do you read?"

Vi promptly rolled her eyes. "I am going to take my shower."

"Alright then." Caitlyn didn't notice that she'd taken off her jacket. Safe to say, she squeaked once it was tossed over her head. She peeled it off and, eyes wide, ogled as Vi grinned. "Wh—?"

"Watch that for me, won't you? I like the fabric."

Caitlyn blinked. "Ah… I see…"

"Keep it warm too, if you want."

"…sit on it?"

"No." Another eye-roll, one that deepened the curl of Cailtyn's lips. "I'm going to get this blood off. And dirt."

Caitlyn muttered, "I'm sure there's a lot more than that."

"Hey, at least I didn't look like a sewer rat."

Her eyes might as well popped out of their sockets. "Oi! Says the greased pig you are!" Caitlyn snapped, leaving Vi to chortle her way to the shower.

And so, there was one.

With a complimentary jacket.

Caitlyn settled into the couch, and she thumbed a seam at the jacket's shoulder. She was still restless—more so now as the shower drummed the stone floor. Restless, and removed of any and all leisure. Perhaps she should grab a book to skim through, though Caitlyn was swiftly reminded of the sheer countless times that she'd attempted to do so while feeling this way. While riding the line between overtired and uptight, Caitlyn might have well been illiterate. Words would smudge together. Pages would glue themselves thick between her fingers. And whatever stories were drawled, monotone lectures—ones that reminded her of her mother.

Her hand tightened. There was an itch. The same kind that fed her enforcer-instincts. To do something. Anything. Burn her energy away until she was an overtired heap of a person. It was the only thing she had the mind to think about. Caitlyn thought of her rifle, but, as quickly as it had cropped to fruition, it soured. Her eyes lathered across the jacket. It was a moment of blank intrigue, one that didn't ask for any comprehension: she inhaled. And as she inhaled, Caitlyn ruminated in the scent of Vi… Her gut ignited. Her back prickled down hot spires.

"So what'll it be, man or woman…?"

A consideration speared itself to life: have Caitlyn relieve her stress on her own. Indulge in the sprout of thirst. Just for a little while—before Vi was done with her shower.

…but why wait? Why relieve herself on her own?

Sapphire eyes shifted along the room. It was quiet. It was private. And, most importantly, it wasn't a brothel.

Well, no. It wasn't a brothel, but more crucially, she'd answer that damn question. Man or woman—as if Caitlyn didn't have a record of sneaking in girls to her bed behind her mother's back. Before and after the unfortunate exchange over her lovely tutor…

What?

Caitlyn blinked. Without realizing, her eyes found the broken vanity mirror she nudged past the door. It stood there, feigning innocence as it reflected Vi's silhouette, fogged from behind the shower curtain. She chewed her lip and considered looking away, only to find that, no, to be quite frank, she didn't want to.

She wanted that question to be answered. She wanted Vi to understand her interest—of her silhouette which, as the minute passed her by, broiled into temptation.

Her groin was the charged bullets that settled between her legs, waiting for the moment to discharge. To leave her empty of lust, surrounded by shells of satisfaction.

The water ceased. The curtain rattled. Vi stepped out.

Caitlyn felt her cheeks fume red from behind the jacket, though her gaze didn't swerve away. They lingered, and they soaked. A towel was torn from the wall once pants were tugged on, and Vi turned her back.

Even from there, Caitlyn saw the scars. The ones that went deep, cracked into bone, carved by Stillwater. Though, with every scrap of air stolen off of the red jacket, those scars melded into the backdrop. They were the environment. They were the earth in which she'd found Vi. The Undercity gem. Looted by Stillwater. All for a Kiramman to find her… Her knuckles grazed her lips in thought, eyes kept stapled along Vi's hourglass figure—one not of soft curves but instead rugged brawn.

Caitlyn thought of the bed, and of that figure. How, for once, she may let herself settle underneath her intrigue; perhaps Vi would be different from all those other women; for once, Caitlyn felt she could lay herself vulnerable. It was a damning thought, one that jostled her spine down to her stomach. She squirmed, and as she watched Vi fish out a towel from a rack off to the side, Caitlyn felt that jostle contort into apprehension. She thought of Vi running her hands through her hair, parting her rich, crimson red away from her face. And the towel that would soothe the layer of water that remained. And— Oh.

No, actually. It seemed as though her lust wouldn't be fed by this.

Vi alternated between vigorously ruffled the towel over her hair and tossing her head like a wet dog. Caitlyn muffled a giggle into Vi's jacket. Of course, Vi didn't take any notice; by the time she flung the towel to the side and stepped into the bedroom—hair fluffy, hood fanned across shoulders—, Caitlyn had practically ducked away from intense steel. Because the ducking had been in the name of fleeting panic, however, Caitlyn peered out with burning cheeks, only to draw her eyes away.

Vi glanced over her shoulder as she passed the mirror. Stalled to a halt, she eyed Caitlyn, and there was a smug twitch along her growing smile.

Oh. I see.

Her own poise, usually the most staunch thing about her, spasmed. The mere thought of Vi knowing what a creep Caitlyn had been… Well, she didn't know what it did, actually. It did something. Picked up the pace of her heart. Stewed more of her intrigue.

Intrigue, which, Caitlyn intended on satisfying. She was one to test the waters first, however: with a gathered thought, she murmured, "That mural…"

"Hmm?" Vi picked up her gaze from the bookshelf.

"The one off the base of the tree." Caitlyn tilted her head and got up to stand beside Vi, jacket left on the corner of the bed. "Was that…pink hair yours?"

Vi grazed her hair without thought. "Yeah. Back before Stillwater when I had enough sun to bleach it, I guess," she answered.

Caitlyn quirked a humored brow. "The Undercity? And sun? Surely not."

"No, but Piltover sure had a lot. Especially when it got caught in all the shit I…um, borrowed," Vi said, as nonchalant as one could when admitting crime.

"Uh huh…"

"Honestly, it was borrowing. All the stuff's probably in circulation now, right?"

A slow, "I don't think that's how it works."

"Really?"

"Yes, I don't think so." Caitlyn allowed her eyes to roam. Along tattooed skin. Down the shapes of muscle. Along the worn stripes of fabric. Softly, with her eyes still pinned to Vi's belt, she asked, "Are those still the trousers you wore in the prison?"

Vi looked down. "Yeah. They only gave me the hood and undershirt."

"At least your number's off," Caitlyn offered.

"Yeah…" Vi rolled a shoulder and noted, "It feels a bit tight. I didn't realize I gained so much weight in there."

Caitlyn hummed a laugh. Her hand buzzed for contact. "From eating the food like a pig or…" The buzz didn't leave as her palm slipped to a bicep. Caitlyn felt her groin jolt with excitement. Even if she hadn't witnessed the bare-handed demolition of her cell, Caitlyn felt how prison bricks shaped Vi's body.

And steel eyes followed her caressed thumb that followed a pattern of ink. Her voice smoothed into a mellow thrum: "The food's shit in there. But I dunno. It was still the highlight of the day. Eating the food." She chuckled a breath, something that encouraged the hand along her arm. "Throwing the food out to whack some fool's face open— Did you know that trays make for a real good shield and fist? Good stuff."

Albeit a tad distracted, Caitlyn arched a brow and murmured, "And that's how you broke his jaw?"

"…his, and a few other fuckers. Still. You should carry them around. Some good shit right there," Vi said with such conviction—it was yet another spoonful of advice.

But the only attention Caitlyn spared was for the barreled grasp that inched itself to her waist. "…noted." No longer shoulder-to-shoulder. Toe-to-toe instead. "Is all that why you were put on the fortieth floor below?"

"Yeah…" Vi was watching her with care. Silently asking what Caitlyn had in mind as she joked, "I'm also a little bit of a demolition expert."

"That's a given."

Vi's scoff wasn't a sharp one. "You're a bit of an ass, y'know that?"

"…another given," Caitlyn hummed with a smile. She couldn't unlatch the hand on Vi's arm, so, the other, it found its way onto the height of her hip. She swallowed down leaked apprehension to ask, near-cooed, "Did you…see anybody else in there? Regularly, I mean."

I see… Vi weighed her head on either side. "Lunch. I didn't get time out in the pens." Caitlyn cocked her head to the side. "Grass time."

"There was grass there?"

"I don't know. Barely saw it." Vi seemed closer than before. At least, Caitlyn could pick apart the flecks and lines that glittered steel. "Why ask?"

"You were further down from everyone else. I just wondered…"

Vi shook her head softly. "No, I didn't."

The hand to Vi's hip wafted to the flat of her stomach. Through cloth layers, Caitlyn could feel her breaths—more of her muscle. "Sounds lonely," she whispered.

"Eh. Hated everyone anyway," Vi muttered with a tone to match. "Even you before you let me out."

"What a surprise… And now…?"

"Dunno…" Vi snickered. "Never thought I'd lead an enforcer into a brothel, for one…"

"And two…?"

Caitlyn saw it. The flicked steel towards her lips. "Didn't think I'd get close to one in the first place."

Eyes darted. Along Vi's face. To each piercing… "Enough to get closer?" Vi's swallow wasn't exactly nervous. Perhaps it was the same apprehension that quelled Caitlyn before. "Did you…" Her attention continued to flicker. Between Vi's cut brow. Those intense steel eyes of hers. The swept red of her hair. Her full lips… "Did you ever get close to anyone else in there…? Physically…?"

Vi hitched her brow, entertaining whatever writhed inside Caitlyn. The itch of desire, as it were. "Happened to get myself stuck in that solitary confinement—made the cell my own. Just to…get the message across." As her calloused hands found Caitlyn's hips, arms dangled along her shoulders in turn. "They all pissed me off, so no, not really…"

Another jolt of arousal led Caitlyn to quirk a sly grin. "You really don't like using your words, do you?"

"Words aren't everything," Vi answered, her voice but a low thrum.

As one of those strong hands caressed the round of her ass, Caitlyn leaned close and purred, "Just so you know…, I'm not one for mindful activities while stressed…"

"No books…?" Those strong hands tightened hungrily.

Nails raked along inked clockwork. "No…"

"Words…?"

"There doesn't need to be any," Caitlyn cooed. "I am an enforcer, Vi… That has to count for something, doesn't it…?"

Intense steel smoldered with intent, against the flat of an anvil, and her slit-brow arched. Their heartbeats were the chime of ironwork. "It counts for breaking someone out just to rail them…?" Hammer against steel. Sparks flown to singe air.

"That's not in-line with my pledges…" So close. Their unspoken words swept their skin. Their eyes darkened as lamplight was shielded away. Heads, already tilted for contact. Caitlyn felt her heart throb. The mere apprehension, the strand of prospect—it all held her breath. They were dancing at a cliff's edge. Each slow, hitched exhale, a spark to singe. Every pulse, hammered through fingertips. "So what about it, under-sider?" She began to lace her fingers through red hair, and from the back of her neck, she felt Vi's silent swallow. "Man or woman?"

A low, husked laugh—one that melted several layers of Caitlyn's groin, leaving it to pool. Deep. To slough away all formalities. To leave raw fixation behind. "You sure you're a detective? Your deduction needs some work…"

"Well it's no wonder I never interrogated you," Caitlyn murmured, edged by the beginnings of a moan. "You can't answer a simple question."

"You never did…"

"You seemed to have figured it out anyway…"

Just jump. Off the cliff, for the sake of her giddy lust, Caitlyn wanted nothing more than to just jump.

"Because I'd make a better detective."

"Oh… I see…" Her hum was almost a whine. Underneath her clothes, her skin was already swamped by the tension. Underneath those strong hands, though, her body scorched itself alive. Rather than those intense steel…, it was Caitlynmolding to Vi's shape. The curve of her hips. The girth of her biceps. The round of her bust… "Really now…? You truly believe that…?" She just wanted to plunge—off the cliff, into the vat of water like a blade to simmer.

"Yeah… Bet I'd make a better enforcer too… None of you know how to deal a good punch, do you…?"

Their spoken words had dipped into the realm of incoherence. It didn't matter. Neither were sober—not with the drugging tension. Caitlyn's tongue itched as it salivated. Her thighs hummed with warmth once her hips were pulled into Vi's own. Just jump. Just grind. "To be fair, you're sure a lousy criminal," Caitlyn groaned, "sticking around an enforcer like you're on parole…" She swore if Vi wasn't going to do anything, she'd throw the damn woman on the bed and kiss those stupid, scarred lips away herself.

Said lips which practically grazed her own. "Like I released myself because I broke a fucker's jaw…" Vi retorted, her tone playfully, sinfully, erotically humored.

"I could still throw you back in… For stealing these clothes off of another woman…"

"I'd like to see you try…"

"Y…"

They never did jump. They merely slipped off that edge.

Though, Caitlyn sure as all hell felt that her body steamed away any cool air as they finally plunged.

Open-mouthed, they strung themselves together as tongues teased their way through. Caitlyn's hung syllable slinked across as a drawn, satisfied moan. All that she had craved in that moment, pressed against her lips, gliding along her tongue's rim. Everything charred. Not even Vi's nose-ring could keep itself brisk; as hands tightened, as her mind seized of all rationale, Caitlyn wouldn't have been surprised if its silver simply melted down their lips…

Perhaps the air was too scalding for her pleasure.

Caitlyn felt along the base of Vi's abdomen and decided that the layer of clothing was unwarranted. So, once the rim of cotton was caught, it was pulled away, over her head. And… Oh, for fuck's sake. From the glimpse of body she managed to catch before Vi reeled her back in—reinvigorating the kiss broken—, Caitlyn remembered how well black was made to slim. How well the hooded undershirt hid the strength right at her fingertips.

Not that it particularly mattered. With ease, Vi wrapped her arms around her torso and raised Caitlyn to greater heights—which prompted a surprised, muffled laugh that was fed straight down the back of Vi's tongue. Legs and arms tangled around Vi like vines to a tree, and the only thing Caitlyn could gather was something along the lines of birds of a feather fall silently, nobody could hear as they collapsed into the couch—their nest…

It was a saying, Caitlyn swore.

That, or it most certainly wasn't, and it was Vi and her frantic hands that discombobulated every sense of reason and direction that her mother gave her. But it was another thing that didn't matter. However her moral compass spun, every fiber in her being wanted to stay underneath Vi as her mess of shoulder-pads and corset-work were dealt with and abandoned to the floor. Surged with desire, Caitlyn couldn't care less about the button that had ripped off after those frantic hands did their work, nor was she fazed by the sudden chill that bathed her chest.

Vi broke away with a surprised grunt, and her eyes slipped to the bare chest made available to her. Even though Caitlyn hadn't any way of knowing for sure what glazed intense steel in that moment, the few seconds of pounding silence said enough: dumbfounded euphoria.

Brow arched, dumbfounded, euphoric steel slid back to her. "…did you not need extra support, or…?"

Caitlyn barely felt the burn of her cheeks as she hissed, "I couldn't fit what I had on before with that—" she seethed at the soft corset on the floor— "and the damn blouse…! Who'd you steal that off of, a chicken?!"

Vi smirked and mumbled, "Well I thought it fit just fine."

"You thought…" They strung themselves together. Tongues teased. And yet again, her hung words slinked across in satisfaction. The last few buttons were undone, and as they leaned forward to slip the blouse off her shoulders, Caitlyn curled into Vi as hands traveled down her spine. At her fingertips, she hooked the final layer of unwarranted clothing, and with Vi's guiding weight back to the cushions, the bra was slipped off and abandoned without remorse.

And without it.

Caitlyn felt she could hear the tick of inked clockwork. How the inner-workings of Vi snicked away, whirling and chiming with every palm that grazed her shoulders, then the fingertips that followed the lines of muscles. Scarred lips began to draw away. First, they drifted to the corner of Caitlyn's mouth, then the edge of her jaw, the hilt of her neck…

Then.

A breathing point. As if where they plummeted had led them down a waterfall, and at its base, they had been holding their breaths up until…

Vi frowned, her eyes pinned cross bare skin. It took a moment to realize what it was. What troubled Vi so. Behind her eyes, there was a dark cloud. One that perpetuated confusion. Overwhelmed, if anything. "Vi…" Intensity slid to meet Caitlyn's lathered stare, and she breathed, "I'm not leaving anytime soon… There's no need to rush…" Her palm found its way underneath Vi's red locks, and as Vi leaned into it, Caitlyn murmured, "I'm here for whatever you want."

Then, a slow, gradual nod. Within steel, the dark cloud was warped by resolve.

Another purr escaped Caitlyn. The kisses that peppered languid strides at collarbone were done pointedly: I want your body. I need your body. Right here, right now.

I'm not going to rush.

I'll take my time.

Please stay with me.

As a soft, warm tongue glazed the in-between of breasts, Caitlyn tangled her fingers within red. She moaned another breath. Vi had found a sensitive point, and as she began to nurse more from her—the buzz of her skin, the pulse of her heart—, Caitlyn wanted nothing more than to stay. To the point where, if they were interrupted, she'd be the one to raise all hell.

I'm not going anywhere. I don't want to.

Vi experimentally massaged the length of Caitlyn's thigh, and as her hand ran along the pant-leg—up to curve of waist—, she lowered her hip and mounted. The newly docked pressure urged Caitlyn's breathed approval. She hadn't realized how much she was aching. How much she needed Vi to ground her into the couch. There was something about it. Something so wonderful about being tied together in this way.

Like…

Like leather and silk. That's what they were. Caitlyn was silk. Thought of as delicate, but, whenever need be, she was durable. That is, before her unbridled lust left her wet underneath the strength of leather. Hands found themselves carving lines along Vi's back. As Vi moved to curl Caitlyn further into her hips, those hands felt the shift of heavy muscle. The intricate gears of her shoulder. The ones that Caitlyn came to admire.

Knuckles to stone. Sweat beading down her imprisoned hide.

She felt the immeasurable strength underneath the mere barrier of skin. And as her exploration paired with the burn of lips as they trailed up her sternum, Caitlyn could only moan another breath. She didn't know which was the drug that rattled her thoughts: her hardened nipples as they grazed Vi's own, or the sight to behold as her half-lidded eyes roamed down Vi's back, following those inked gears until the belt's bridge.

Steel narrowed over her shoulder to glare down Caitlyn's sapphire.

Their eyes met, only for a split second, but as they hung in place, Caitlyn found the same, knuckle-worn bricks behind Vi's yearned stare. A merge of lips. A snake of tongues. Their groans melded together.

How Caitlyn had found herself there, in that time on that couch with that woman, she wouldn't ever know. Even if she traced back her steps, she was sure there'd been a leap of logic.

Not that she cared. Vi's peppered kisses did enough to dismember her rational as they followed her jawline, then down her neck. Languid, yet purposed.

"Who the hell are you…?!"

Teeth sunk along her clavicle, as did the nails down her back. Vi's groan wedged itself into her chest, all the way down to her heart where Caitlyn felt its rhythm seize. She hummed a moan of her own, and as she felt the first roll of hips, her long legs tangled themselves around Vi's waist. And Caitlyn felt it, how Vi's desperation overflowed. There was a tremble in her grasp, one that charred her nails in the vain effort to tie Caitlyn close, and then sharpened her teeth, just to do the same if not mark her lust.

Upon a whimpered groan, however—another one that wedged its way to muddle Caitlyn's heartbeat—, those teeth unlatched. Lips burned the length of Caitlyn's neck. With each pant, she whispered more nonsensical words and toyed with Vi's red hair. "You feel so good…" she purred. "Vi, you feel so good…"

Even if they were nonsensical, her voice, those words, they consoled. Leeched away the tremble in those strong hands. Heightened the gut pulled into Vi's desperate groans. "Cait," she thrummed, and as steel met her own half-lidded stare, Caitlyn saw how molten Vi was. Her eyes, that steel, was riddled with longing—the kind of need that broiled and festered without peace, up until it overflowed.

If anything, Vi needed this more than Caitlyn ever did.

"Cait, please."

"This was a waste of time…"

"Couldn't have said it better."

She didn't care to remember the last time she heard Cait. A while ago. Too long to care. "I'm here," she cooed, "I'm here. You don't need to rush…"

"C-Cait, I—"

But she knew that Vi was the only one. "I know… We have the time, I know…" The only one to startle her as she spoke that name—Cait. The only one to usher a nervous swarm in her gut. More than Cupcake. More than her full name. Her arms coiled around Vi's shoulders, and soothed, she whispered, "Go ahead… Go and alleviate yourself, Vi…"

That was all it took.

Her words. Her body. For however many minutes, that was all it took for Vi to rest her head into Caitlyn's chest, and all at once, her body rattled with satisfied tremors. Her moan of finality was silent, though Caitlyn heard it all the same—just as she felt her subtle, jolted pleasure race across her skin.

"In what mad world would I trust someone like you?"

"Someone like me?! You enforcers are all the same…"

She wondered what prison did to her. She wondered if there wasn't ever the chance to think of women, and that was why she first found Vi dismantling the wall with her knuckles alone.

But Caitlyn didn't quite believe there wasn't a time. The lips that dragged against her own were too soft. Vi knew how to handle the body of a woman, to the point where her calloused hands didn't feel as such. As she nurtured a spot along Caitlyn's neck—just underneath her ear, ever so sensitive—, she felt one of those hands pop the buckle of her trousers. Lips were pulled into a smirk, right against her skin, as Caitlyn quietly gasped. "You're a little bit of a mess down there, Cupcake…" Vi murmured.

"And you're just going to make it worse?" Caitlyn rasped.

"Of course I am." Her hand slithered down Caitlyn's trousers, and as Vi massaged, Caitlyn gave a surprised mewl; she hadn't expected herself to be this ready for her. "Damn, Cupcake, you're practically melting," Vi laughed. There wasn't much of a reply. Not unless Caitlyn's hissed air was supposed to be one. The massage continued, though after a few moments, there was a pause, and then, a dip. To Vi's curled pump, she moaned delicately. Lips found her own. Caitlyn felt Vi's smug satisfaction bleed all the way through.

And.

To Caitlyn's great dissatisfaction.

Vi broke away.

But that dissatisfaction swiftly curdled into intrigue; her eyes lathered Vi's upper-body. Every line of definition. All sheens of sweat. The sight to finally gaze upon, and with that sight followed the hand that parted from Caitlyn, knuckles rimmed by hot sex. Her arousal followed Vi's tongue and lips as her glaze was cleaned away.

"The Undercity's gonna eat you alive…"

"You taste good, Cupcake."

Sinful under-sider. Caitlyn arched a brow. "…oh? Do I now?"

Greed cracked across Vi's face as a smile. "Gonna eat more," she murmured.

"You are?" Caitlyn was caught coy. "With the same manners you had before?"

"Only way to go is sloppy, Cupcake."

Paired with that wink, Caitlyn could only think of the mess Vi had made with the Undercity food. Except, instead of whatever disturbed sauce, it was her own that splayed across Vi's mouth. And as strong hands gathered her belt, then the rim of her trousers, it was apparent, how much Vi wanted to remind her of her appetite, and then her manners. How much Vi told her you won't complain about my eating habits again, Cupcake. Not after I'm done with you.

Caitlyn helped in ditching her damn clothes, and once she swooned after another long, wet kiss… Well… She was simply ensnared by the prospect of pleasure. Ensnared by Vi. By her partner. Her temporary ally. Inmate 516…

It had to have been broken, her moral compass. How else would a leap of logic to this magnitude come to fruition? How else would she not care if it was so?

…that was, until she realized when she took that leap.

It wasn't off of a figurative cliff, no. Not to plunge as a blade to simmer. It wasn't off of the literal cliff—down to the Undercity where Inmate 516 had taken off, suddenly so unbound.

"No…!" Caitlyn had near-snapped.

She knew when it was. She knew it was the very moment she heard the front doors lock shut after her mother's departure.

After she eyed the pin on her map for too long.

Her clarification, ever so forceful: "It's for her release."

ɵ ɵ ɵ

Those thriving hours have yet to wane. Through it all, Caitlyn doesn't allow them to.

"It's been real, Cupcake."

You said as you left.

She doesn't want to remember the throb of her chest—the pang behind her ears. She doesn't want to remember every fine detail as fog consumed Vi whole. Nor how easily she found herself on the bridge, leg near-obliterated. Yet, she does. She remembers how the fog mirrored her sucked breath—tendrils reaching after Vi's silhouette.

Ammonia, trailed by jinxed music. She thought she was dead. She thought the bridge had claimed her—under fireworks, left to drain into the stains of civil unrest. Caitlyn wondered if a child and her mother saw the show from a bedroom window, at the peak of Piltover. She wondered if the child's curiosity outmatched their mother's command for bed.

And even now, as water steams off of her naked skin, the glass and circuitry of the bug writhes its final moments, tearing her flesh apart. She doesn't know if robotics could even have ghosts of their own. But if they do, this one is restless. A confused soul that still plagues her body.

Much like that glass and circuitry, she doesn't know if the living could leave behind ghosts as well. But if they do, the warbled sight of Vi leaping through the shadows—illuminated by the spotlights—, it remains there, branded to her mind's eye. And she took her away. Stole her to the window that overlooked the same bridge. Led her back home. Kept by her bed.

I'll take my time. Please stay with me…

Said your eyes, laced by arousal. And you still left.

I stayed. How could you?

Her hands are plastered on either side of the faucet. The steam is too much like fog. The water, too much like cold spires that fell from the clouds. So, she focuses on the grout of tile, and her skin, it burns underneath the water that does everything to evade those cold spires. Caitlyn wants nothing else to trade her bed—her room—for the one before. Lay herself vulnerable. Freed of the jinx that followed Vi, latched to her shadow.

I know you didn't want to leave. Not on that bridge. Not—

Not in…

Her mother was right. For fuck's sake, she'd always been right. Caitlyn's own reckless nature had done her in, and it was fate—the mercy of the bridge—that reeled Vi back in.

For a day. For the hours before the council, and those clouds, their cold spires…

Rain.

And she can still feel it, the cold, bitter rain as it seeped through her clothes and seared deep into her skin. She's still there, ever so helpless as Vi walked away.

Oh, if only she could turn back time…

Caitlyn leans her head against the tile. It's desperate, her wish for Vi to step in the shower with her. And that way, neither of them would leave. They would both stay, together, and cling onto the raw desire they had unearthed. To resume. Away from Piltover. Away from the Lanes. From her mother. From Jinx. From everything. And they'd stay put. Lock themselves to those hours… Her eyes flicker open, and she stares at her warbled reflection in the faucet's gold.

Hands wrung themselves around her waist. Shower droplets ran as smoldering lips burned her shoulder.

Turn back time… And if she couldn't go back to those thriving hours, have it be back here. A mere spell before. Alone again. Yet alone together. Please, for her own sake.

But.

No… Yes, it would've been easier to stay down there. Keep themselves tucked away on that couch, and then that bed. Or in that shower, and then on her bed—behind the lavish curtains. Continue to ferment in her strong arms which felt better than she could've ever imagined…

But, no, that won't ever be how life works. If something, someone, came into her life quickly, it would be taken away as such.

The faucet is pulled off with her lips tight, brows sewn together. Caitlyn will find Vi again. Vi will come back for her. She will. She has to. Her throat knots, and from underneath those wrapped bandages, her mauled leg burns. It's all-consuming, and the shower's light is too alike the bridge spotlights. Caitlyn needs to collect herself. Do something. Speak to the council again, or slip away to reason with Zaun herself. Caitlyn doesn't appreciate the prospects of either option, though one is astronomically safer than the other. Talk to her dear friend and trust that hecould speak to the council, or find her new-found lover and plead with her that it is possible. That oil and water can exist together.

Caitlyn ripped her towel off its hanger. Oil and water could absolutely live together, but, oil would always want to sit overtop. And if there was any objection? Well then, that oil would spit fire. Stand as a blockade between her and the council.

She scowls. Any analogy that only served to prove a point not her own has always been a nightmare of Caitlyn's, and in this hell, it's the salt that litters her wound—deep to the bone.

"Oil and water…

"It wasn't meant to be."

Jaw tense, the bridge of her nose pinched, Caitlyn exhales a long breath as she steps out of the shower. The towel dries everything she has the mind to do, and her eyes sweep her private bathroom. "You're just saying that." The steam still rises to the ceiling. I need you. I want you, so, so much. Her eyes gravitate across the sinks. Come back. I'll find you, but please, come back. Then, to the mirror. I don't care about oil and water. Leather and silk. Leather and silk—that's all I need from you.

Her brows flicker, and she slows to a dull stop. Her eyes follow the lines drawn in the mirror. The erratic, sharp edges. The—

Caitlyn freezes, and her blood runs frigid. All coherent thought spasms. Ammonia. She thinks of the flare. She thinks of blue. She thinks of violence, of chaos. The writhing soul deep in her flesh. Destruction. A failed soul… "Who are you?" her memory whispers as eyes trail the length of glass. The lines that the mirror burns to recognition, they're drawn like paint on metal. A warning. A promise.

Right…

Before…

She swallows, and she sees her complexion drain. So abruptly pale. She wants Vi. Right now. To barrel down the wall behind her and snatch Caitlyn to safety. She scans the reflection before they still at the wall behind her. Right where the door stands aside. So nonchalant. So unbothered. Yet so, so much like the monster in the shadows…

A pair of malevolence glint at her from the corner. They shimmer. They leer. They lunge.

…and the only thing that scalds her mind's eye is steel. Steel, and the intense loyalty that welds her strength together.

A fragment of the Undercity. One that Caitlyn cries out for as bandages tear, and her blood smears down the counter. Caitlyn whines. It's sharp, the ache. And she watches how easily the wood stains. How easily she's torn apart. How right her mother was.

Caitlyn's swallow is cut short. Painted nails dig into her skin, and she comes to realize how strong her sister is. Rather than the brawn of a bear, however, she wields the malice of a boa constrictor. Red eyes—of blood, of insanity—shimmer across her naked body, the towel but a limp strand of security…

Vi. Oh God Vi please.

"Did the Undercity eat you alive, or are those from my sister…?"

Bring me back into your arms. Anything but this. Anything but—

"Answer me, Cupcake."

.

Enforcer, who descried.

The reality. The sins. Despite eyes of wool.

Here, the enforcer who descried the city underneath that of promise.

---

Hope you enjoyed!

:)