a/n: part 3 of 5 then we'll get back to the intent of this story which is a shameless batch of one-shots!


"Ugh, they have utensils, you know," Ekko muttered, a scowl of disgust etched across his brow as he slipped onto a stool next to her.

Vi didn't answer, instead she continued to shovel food into her mouth, grease and juice dripping down her chin, staining the heavy timber table. A wet slosh of her fingers scooped up the next bite and turned the entire scene into an appetite-killing symphony.

"Or did you leave your manners back at Stillwater?" Ekko asked, nodding in thanks to the dish of similarly garish food being slid his way.

"No forks; too dangerous."

"Spoon, then?"

Vi grunted.

"You eat like a dog."

"Dogs don't have thumbs," Vi quipped back, wiggling her greasy appendages for good measure. "See?"

"Is everyone at Stillwater this… this…"

"Charming? Attractive?"

"I was going to say 'lacking in manners'."

"It's called adapting. You adapted and built a tree fort, and I… I…"

"Devolved?" he offered. "I hope you aren't the prison's poster child, otherwise it's a wonder anyone who gets released from there can be a functioning member of society," he replied, his upper lip curling at a squirt of sauce squeezing from between Vi's teeth and into his bowl.

"People don't leave Stillwater, Ekko."

That wasn't entirely true: Stillwater was parceled into different zones. There were the upper levels for low-danger criminals with minor offenses and small sentences. This allocation made up over ninety percent of Stillwater's footprint and three-quarters of its inmates. Prisoners were granted outdoor time, reasonably recognizable meals, and visitation. It wasn't pretty, fair, or just, but it was better than the windowless dungeons it sat above.

The dungeons.

It was where Vi had spent every sleeping and waking moment of her time; confined by the heavy stone walls stacked by inmates before her. The walls dripped with moisture, leaving the air thick and humid in the summers and cold and damp in the winters. It was never comfortable. Unglazed clerestory openings high up ensured only the faintest of light entered the spaces but ensured the coldest gusts of wind swept through the cells. Solitary was both worse and better: it never saw light, but at least the enclosed space didn't wick away the warmth as easily.

Between the two, Vi wasn't sure where she'd spent most of her time, but keeping track hardly mattered. Both were hell, and it became her entire world.

So she didn't know there were lighter parts; the purgatory. She didn't know that people could run out the clock and eventually leave. If she did she'd perhaps come to understand it was Marcus' way of guaranteeing her survival - if being starved, sleep-deprived, and beaten can be considered 'surviving'. When her neighbors didn't stand a chance of release, it ensured any whisper of her existence could fall flat before creeping out of the meter-thick walls. It also ensured his own safety. His lack of courage plopped her into the darkest pit Stillwater had to offer: lifers with a pentiance for trouble.

But these were all realizations granted through hindsight.

"Yea, well, you're lucky Kiramman dropped by, otherwise your ass would've been toast."

Luck. Always with luck, Vi sighed.

"Would've been? What was I before?"

She didn't believe in luck, unless it was bad. Good luck didn't exist; she had too many years of evidence to the contrary.

"Stale bread?"

It deserved an eye roll, so Vi gave him one, but it did little to fade the smirk growing on Ekko's pleased face.

"Where is she by the way?" he continued, scanning the crowd for a face he'd never find. "You two aren't usually more than an arm's length apart."

"Topside."

"Business or pleasure?"

"I…" the unexpected flare of jealousy stole Vi's retort. "I don't know."

She wanted it to sound indifferent, but the side-eye from Ekko revealed her poor execution. Fortunately he was merciful and didn't press.

"Sevika's with Jinx," he tangented.

Vi flinched. Clearly he wasn't that merciful. She hated the name, tethered with a guilt that pulled her sinking into a sea of what-ifs.

"Makes sense though," Ekko continued, "she's no good on her own."

"Which one?" Vi asked genuinely. Powder may have been her sister, but that didn't mean she understood the chaos she now wore from Sevika.

Ekko nodded, a silent touché Vi hadn't intended. "Sevika is a lone wolf always searching for a pack."

Vi blinked. "English, Ekko."

"She had a lot to say but was quick to side with Silco."

"Only because she was looking for a fight, and Vander wanted to keep the peace." Vi countered, flicking her fingers over the empty bowl before wiping a forearm across her mouth.

"Exactly," he replied through a grimace at Vi's unsophisticated gestures. "She's got a code and an agenda but can't lead on her own."

"What? You're saying Powder is her new leader?"

"No," Ekko replied, empty fork aimed pointedly at Vi. "I'm saying Jinx is."

Vi felt her knuckles clench around the unused utensils. She preferred the discomfort of being razzed about blushing cheeks to this.

"Honestly Vi, the sooner you accept that the easier all of this will be. Word is they've taken up residence at an old shimmer hold-out about an hour north of here."

"By foot or hoverboard?"

"What do you think?" Ekko answered dryly. "It'd be impossible to navigate all the wreckage and trash the Pilties have thrown up there over the years anyway. Between the Grey, waste and scrap metal, it's practically a deathtrap by foot."

Vi hummed lowly, tucking away her disagreement and stowing it with her bullheaded stubbornness clawing to prove him wrong.

"And I hate to say it, but topsiders could be a real ally here."

"You want enforcers standing by your side?" Vi scowled.

"Enemy of my enemy," Ekko muttered, stabbing the gnarled prongs of his fork into the fleshy dinner. "Maybe you could talk to ole Sheriff Kiramman and get us-"

"No."

"No? But she said she'd-"

"I said no-"

"She may be naive and foolish, Vi, but she's got the resources and authority."

"She's not a fool."

"I didn't say that. I said she's foolish. And it'd be nice to have the upperhand against shimmer for once."

"It's not a good idea, ok?"

"Why not?"

"Because."

Ekko rolled his eyes at Vi's retort: the defense of a child.

"What is it with you and her?"

"Why does there have to be something?"

Ekko stared, unmoved.

"What? It's nothing. There's nothing."

"Yea? So all those eyes you make-?"

"I liked it better when you had your nose stuck in a clock, little man."

"Well she isn't your enemy which can only mean you're dodging her for one other reason."

"Yea? And what's that?"

"That you like her," Ekko replied simply, his gaze returning to his dish.

It was a statement said affectionately, but that didn't stop it from startling Vi into silence. The sound of Ekko's fork scraping the tin bowl rattled inside Vi's empty head.

"I mean, you do, right?" Ekko continued, casually taking another bite, a mischievous glint growing in his eye.

Instead of meeting it though, her gaze dropped, eyes lingering on the dredges swirling at the bottom of her own bowl. She really hated the confidence he'd grown into. "No."

It came slow and without conviction.

"No?" Ekko asked, an eyebrow raised in disbelief.

"No? I… I don't… m-maybe?"

It came slower and smaller this time. It was the sound of defeat, uncertainty, and weak denial crumpled together.

"Maybe?" Ekko echoed, disbelief joining his scrutinizing brow. "'Maybe' as in 'you don't want to tell me'? Or 'maybe' as in 'you don't know'?"

Vi sighed, resignation in the tiny shake of her head and defeat in her voice: "I've just… I've just never, you know. And then there's… it's just… I just…"

A frustrated set of fingers raked through Vi's hair and would have been enough of an admission, but the weeks' long avoidance to put words to her feelings made her half-hearted defense come stumbling from her lips.

"You've just never."

"And even if I did I couldn't. It wouldn't work. It'd be - I mean, we both know it's better without… who needs that hassle, right?"

"Letting people in isn't a weakness, Vi."

"It is if I can't protect them."

"Jinx isn't your fault."

"Isn't she? Aren't they all? Vander, Claggor, Mylo - they're all… if I'd just-"

"Just what? Given yourself over to the enforcers years ago none of this would have happened? It would've still happened. People would still be dying. Silco's plans had been in motion for years - you think shimmer appeared overnight? You think resentment hadn't been stewing all along? Things were always going to get bad - worse."

"Except maybe more could have survived," she shot back, a scowl scrunching her nose in annoyance.

"Maybe, but you can't protect everyone, and you don't have to do this alone."

"Yea, well, I don't know another way."

Ekko's shoulders slumped at the response - the deflection. He lifted his fork, idling the prongs across the plate's remains, resigned by Vi's blindness and the brick wall he couldn't punch through to get her to see the world differently.

Silence engulfed the duo. It was a silence that drowned out the banter, laughter, and raucousness of the crowded pub around them. It was a silence that sent Vi mulling over the last few days. It was a silence that gave space for a confession:

"I don't even know what it's supposed to look like," she murmured, her voice nearly lost to the buzz of chatter around them.

Ekko had the self-awareness to remain silent, giving Vi the time to sift through her brain. It was something she'd avoided for weeks. It made her retreat to her cup for distraction. She felt the lukewarm liquid sting its way down her throat. It was a harsh contrast to the warm, sweet chocolate she'd let coat her tongue the day before.

"You ever see snow?" she asked.

If Ekko was surprised by the pivot, his face didn't show it. He shook his head, settling his elbows onto the table. "But Benzo used to tell me about it. He hated the stuff - always sloppy and wet, soaking through his shoes whenever he had to travel topside for a client. There wasn't a time he didn't come back cursing mad."

Vi nodded, feeling a tug to align with Benzo - with the undercity, but she couldn't quite bring herself to do it. Instead, she recalled Vander's words. Instead, the distraction of floating flakes, the laughter of a shattering snow ball, and the tumble into a newly formed drift of the night before occupied her thoughts, and she felt the subconscious pull of her lips that curled upward.

"I didn't know you could do that."

Vi blinked. "Do what?"

"Smile."

"Shut up."

And he did. Again. And the silence fed into the introspection Vi avoided through action and distraction. It had been weeks since she'd let her mind wander, and for good reason: because her thoughts were messy and picking a fight, getting into an argument, or running away was far simpler.

I don't even know what it's supposed to look like.

Because whatever Caitlyn was? It was strange and warm and infuriating and comforting and challenging and soft and every other juxtaposing feeling stitched together into the most contrasting rag that was their relationship.

Just like that very morning.

That very morning when her sleep had been stirred by long lean fingers delicately ruffling past tendrils of hair, an overgrown mop concealing the scarred battlefield below. A tingling sensation followed the path's wake, spreading down her neck into her shoulders and stirring lower into the coil of warmth that had nothing to do with the mountain of blankets covering her.

For a moment she was lost between the world of sleep and consciousness. For that moment she wasn't Vi, the orphaned convict from the Lanes. For that moment she wasn't weighed down by a history of violence and death and short-lived happiness. For that moment she was suspended from reality and leaned into the soothing, caring strokes that danced over her skin.

But only for a moment; a steady, singular, intimate moment.

Then it was over. A voice broke through the illusion, and her eyes blinked open, shattering the rest of it. Except the illusion wasn't shattered; it remained staring - caring - in front of her. It held the secret of a smile and the gaze of… of something Vi hadn't felt graced with since she was a child.

And instead of confronting it, she'd left - fled - from the warmth of company, the curling of a comforting hand, and the softness of a curious voice, because she refused to give into the temptation of that. So instead she focused on the strange and infuriating and challenging because it was the easier way forward; the safer way forward.

Unfortunately, she couldn't run from introspection, and the more she sat in it, the more she wasn't even sure she wanted it to be easy. If she were honest, she wanted the strange with the warm. She wanted the infuriating with the comfort and the challenging with the soft.

Yet, she was terrified of exposing parts of herself - parts she'd never allowed to see the light of day; parts undiscovered or ignored or kept secluded to the dark corners of her cell at Stillwater.

She hid her fears with crass indifference. It worked against the big-bellied thugs in Stillwater; it'd work against the Ekkos and the Caitlyns.

Ekko; a Zaunite; a Firelight; a boy who'd become a man far too quickly and carried the respect of forgotten families.

Caitlyn; a Piltovian; a Kiramman; a woman so far outside her league it was laughable.

Laughable.

Vi winced at the thought and slid her empty plate away. Oh, if her past could see her now. Surely teenage-Vi would snarl and spit at the insecure shell she'd become.

As a teen, she'd sneered at Pilties. Back then, topsiders were a class above the undercity to only themselves, and she was determined to prove it. She'd wanted so badly to give Powder and Mylo and Clagger the chance at happiness; at fresh air; at a night not spent scrounging for a meal. The undercity was home, but it wasn't a place of opportunity. That right belonged singularly to Piltover, and throughout Vi's childhood she'd hated the privileged, rich city for the way it glowed in the bright sun and caught a cool breeze on a warm summer's day. She hated the way the people were given opportunities not granted to people like Powder. She was disgusted by the way no one from the undercity was given the chance to excel when 'average' topsiders were catapulted into the limelight.

Piltover wasn't above them; they were hardly on par with them.

It was this belief that she carried and nurtured and resented them for. Life in the undercity was cruel and unforgiving, but Vi dreamed of a world where Powder's genius soared, where Ekko's analytical mind exceled, where Mylo and Clagger felt the love of comfort, the warmth of the sun and the carefree life every child deserved.

"Those kids look up to you."

Look.

Looked.

Vander's words didn't resonate the same in past tense.

Because then it all changed. Then she was torn away from that life after watching it shred and die in front of her eyes before being thrown into an even more desolate world. Years caged away like an animal in the pits of Stillwater mutated her resentment. Instead of her hatred for Piltover and the well-dressed, arrogant killers it called enforcers, Vi's guilt twisted that hate onto herself. No longer was it disgust for the topsiders; it was disgust for herself; for not fighting hard enough, for not being clever enough, for failing her family when they needed her most.

Tainted memories corrupted her dreams, and those dreams became nightmares. Visions of Powder's tearful shriek of apologies; the look of hurt, rejection, and betrayal when Vi's fist struck her flooded the lonely nights. At the edges stood Mylo and Clagger - their unmoving, unstaring eyes haunting her inaction. And then there was Vander's voice booming through it all. So distorted had it become that she hardly remembered the loving words of support that filled their relationship. Instead, sleep brought out the wretched guilt that sat in her heart and reminded her of all her failings with Vander as the mouthpiece.

Every night felt like drowning. Every night was a version of the same. Every night meant fighting and struggling and failing to save anyone. Instead came the swirls of purple, the engorged features of mutated bodies, and the cries of fear and pain.

Eventually she learned to live around it. Hours raged against the prison walls drained her body of energy and, only when truly and fully exhausted, could she collapse into a less violent slumber. But the damage was done. The darkness of Stillwater had latched onto - into - Vi, and it was now the filter of her life. Where a snarl of confidence once stood tall, a hunched desperate shell of uncertainty replaced it; one where hope was extinguished, where luck didn't favor the brave, and where the memories of steady love faded like smoke and mirrors.

Somewhere in those years of isolation she'd lost her zeal. Only when she'd left that isolation, allied with an enforcer and back in the Lanes, did she feel the tug of its renewal. A flash of blue smoke lit her with purpose, but the nagging voices of change cast doubt. Denial was easy when the alternative was being lost and aimless. Without Powder to anchor her, she felt adrift in the murkiness of a world shaped by the years of imprisonment and warped sense of unworthiness.

Yet in that murkiness she'd found Caitlyn. Their first few hours together had been blinded by the uniform she wore and the agenda Vi had to return home. The feeling of splintering wood and chipping paint rejuvenated her confidence enough to bluff her way into a near-death confrontation with Sevika, but the first crack to that facade came surrounded by childhood memories and under the worrying gaze of the enforcer.

From there it spiraled out of control, and with every fiber of Powder that frayed away, the more she felt the steady, unwavering fabric of Caitlyn. The image of an enforcer that Vi had carried all her life and projected onto the woman melted away. In its place stood someone with far too much optimism, good, sincerity, and naivety for a world like Zaun; for a person like Vi.

Because that was Vi's luck. Inevitably, Caitlyn too would enter the crosshairs and not come out the other side. A table of four had been witness to such an occasion, and only three lived to tell the tale. It was only a matter of time before that good - Caitlyn's good - was snuffed out, too.

It wasn't something Vi could live with; not again.

So yes, deep down she wanted all of it: the chaos, the unknown, the vulnerability that came with someone like Caitlyn. She craved it all, and maybe that was the source of her conflict. Because she'd never felt it before - or maybe she had but forgot. All she knew was that she wanted to keep feeling it over and over.

But she was also acutely aware of how attachment caused the worst kind of pain; she'd seen what hope and opening herself up had done before; she'd seen all of it and carried the consequences with her. She'd already lost too many, and Caitlyn was too good to become another line in her tally of heartaches.

More than that though, she was tired of putting people in danger. Powder was still out there - was her responsibility; Vi knew it in her heart her sister hadn't vanished. But she also knew that it would take going through Jinx to get her back, because Jinx was also her responsibility. She'd planted the seed that night years ago, and it wasn't a fight she was willing to let anyone else enter the crosshairs for.

So she said she didn't know, because she didn't know if letting her feel this at all was right; was allowed; could be allowed. Precedent and her gut said no. It told her to run; flee; extinguish the tiny flicker of hope Caitlyn brought into her life.

She tossed back the rest of her drink and slid the glass across the bar. She flipped a coin in it, the clink and rattling a distraction as she rose to her feet.

"Vi?"

The call paused her progress, and she turned back toward Ekko.

"You may say you don't know," he said, "but I can see it clear as day."

A bluff was called, and Vi didn't have the heart to defend a lie.

"See you around, little man."

No bell jingled as the door opened. When she looked out onto the street, it wasn't dusted with white, and the air wasn't filled with giant flakes falling so slowly they seemed suspended in time. More than that though, when she looked to her left, there wasn't a familiar profile standing next to her.

Instead the hinge creaked and caught on the damaged threshold. Instead the street was dark, murky, and filled with a warm haze that stung at the eyes of the unordained. Instead she was alone.

She shook off the weight of isolation as best she could and turned left into an alley: downward and northbound.