a/n: to everyone who commented on my last piece, thank you for all of the lovely words! I've been trying to figure out how best to express my undying infatuation with this duo, and because I'm working on a separate long fic for a different fandom, I couldn't imagine starting another one for these two and doing it any justice. So instead, this will be a collection of one-shots inspired by a tumblr post of prompts. If you want to come shout with me, I'm there as EQT_95.


Caitlyn glanced up at the window again. The latch was left unlocked, yet the frame remained closed. It did no good to look except to crush the flicker of hope at seeing a familiar smirk; a knowing wink; a flash of red. She knew logically that the creak of the hinge would give away any hint of an intruder, but that didn't stop her from impulsively checking.

Vi was late. Not that she had a knack for being on time, but this was more than simply running behind. It wasn't a ten minute lapse or even a two hour tardiness.

No, Vi was two days late.

Two days without a word, whisper, or hint that she was alive and well; that she wasn't bleeding to death in some dark alley; that she hadn't been caught up in the latest raid by Enforcers and tossed back into a desolate cell in Stillwater; that she was never coming back.

It didn't sit well with Caitlyn. She wasn't a worrier - at least, she wasn't normally. The injection of the hot-headed woman into her life had upended everything she'd once considered normal. With it came irrational fears for Vi's safety, minutes lost to vivid memories of snark and cynicism, and constant distractions by a window that refused to open no matter how frequently she stole a glance.

Vi was two days late. After promising it would only be an afternoon affair, she'd vanished.

Vanished. A hyperbole if ever there was one. Caitlyn knew in her gut that a cooler head would prevail; that logic and reason would be a far more effective method of dealing with Vi's absence.

And yet she felt her eyes flick up once again in distraction.

"What's going on with you?"

The words were from Jayce, and it wasn't their first occasion of interrupting her aimless staring.

"What do you mean?"

"I don't know; you seem more uptight than usual," Jayce offered, making himself comfortable against the edge of her desk.

"I'm not uptight," she replied with a quick glare. It melted into a sigh, and her eyes flicked to the open window for the twelfth time that hour; out past the altered skyline polluted with the waning smoke of destruction and toward the dreary haze of Zaun.

"It'd be understandable if you were," he replied, sympathy formed across his brow and in his eyes. That he was alive was a miracle; that he was standing at all was even more jarring. Her eyes broke from the cityline beyond and back at her friend: he was heavily bandaged, running on adrenaline, and trying his damnedest to hide the grief swimming in his own eyes. A crutch leaned forgotten against Caitlyn's desk, a symbol and unintended homage to Viktor who was still missing.

"Your mother… Cait, I'm so sorry."

Her mother. In the three days since the attack she'd benched any feelings of grief. Perhaps it was because a body had yet to be found that Caitlyn could compartmentalize her feelings so well and file the ones associated with grieving and loss into an unused room. Her father wasn't so fortunate. He wore his emotions on his sleeve, a trait her mother was not shy about criticizing. Oh, to see him now, Caitlyn pondered. From the moment she set foot in her childhood home two days earlier she couldn't recall seeing him without the traces of tears on his cheeks or swimming in his brown eyes.

"We're going to find who did this," Jayce said, misinterpreting Caitlyn's stare.

She wasn't worried about finding Jinx; the entire city, its Enforcers, and even allies were swarming to flood the culprit out of whatever hellhole she'd scrounged into. No, she wasn't worried Jinx would eventually surface. She was worried about who would get caught in the crosshairs of a fire-fight.

And that 'who' was singularly Vi. Parting words, hurried and rushed, had sent them down separate paths. But those paths were meant to be temporary: a promise flowed from Vi's lips, and Caitlyn had taken it and clutched it to her chest. Every passing second, minute, hour that the promise wasn't kept only exacerbated the irrational ache in Caitlyn's heart and flooded her thoughts with worries and distractions.

"Cait?"

She blinked again, grounding herself in the pen balanced between her fingers, the creak of the chair under her, and the concerned gaze coming from Jayce.

"Sorry, I… what were you saying?"

"This was a mistake - asking you to be interim Sheriff after everything; I-I shouldn't have pressured you into-"

"Ms. Kiramman?"

A knock followed the interruption, her door swinging ajar and a familiar staff member poking his head into the room.

"Yes?" Caitlyn asked, welcoming the distraction from the distraction's distraction.

Another glance was given to the window: still closed.

"I, uh, I have a package, Miss."

"Please," she replied, gesturing for him to enter. What he carried was small, painfully pink, and a far cry from the floral arrangements and cards of sympathy that had overwhelmed her and her father the last few days.

He sidestepped Jayce who's gaze emanated of suspicion at the sight of the tiny parcel.

"Where did this come from?" he asked, stepping between it and Caitlyn protectively. Caitlyn rose from her own chair, interrogating the flimsy cardboard in the staff member's outstretched hands.

"A courier delivered it moments ago."

"And no identification? No scrutiny of the package? There is a mad woman on the loose with a penchant for obliterating buildings using tiny explosive devices, and you just walk into Ms. Kiramman's quarters with a suspicious box that fits the exact size and specification of - Caitlyn, what are you doing?"

A flinch of fear danced across Jayce's face as Caitlyn's fingers delicately lifted the boxes lid.

"Is that-?"

"A cupcake," Caitlyn whispered, plucking the tiny confection from the box. The cake was hidden by a gold paper and topped with a frosting that straddled between pink and red. Atop that were deep blue sprinkles that clashed terribly with it, and yet she'd never been so immediately infatuated by anything before.

"Wh-who would… who would send you a cupcake?"

Caitlyn didn't answer. Instead, she set the frosted treat in front of her, licking her forefinger and thumb of the sugary coating. Normally she hated sweets; Jayce was attuned well enough to know this. His scowl was evidence of that.

But Vi had inverted her whole being, and with that altered worldview came an unexplainable appreciation for the tiny cake sitting in front of her. She glanced once more at the window, all doubt and fears placated if only for a moment.

"The city needs a Sheriff-" Caitlyn began, sliding the cupcake to the side of her desk but within her periphery.

"No, no," Jayce rushed, his expression and verbal stumbling struggling to keep up with the unexpected shift in Caitlyn's demeanor, "I shouldn't have-"

"And I can think of no better way to serve this city."