Chapter Text
Prologue
There was a small monument at the base of the irregular gap in the skyline to the west. The shimmer of a large onyx prism reflected moonlight, erected in the shape of a sterile, stylized pyre. Caitlyn leaned against the cool marble pillar beside her and studied it as she absently rotated her champagne glass between her fingers.
A pretentious but genuine representation of Piltover, even if not for the fifty-two souls that died when the Council Tower came down.
“Hard to believe it was almost a year ago now.”
She glanced at Jayce, who stopped close enough beside her that she could smell his cologne. His face showed signs of weariness, though he was as relaxed as she’d seen him in months. Perhaps that was because most of the prominent movers and shakers of Piltover had finally excused themselves from Mel’s hosted party. A glance behind them confirmed Egil and his partner had left, meaning the last Councilor aside from their hosts had departed.
“It still feels like yesterday some days.”
Jayce laid a familiar, comforting hand on her shoulder and squeezed gently, turning his gaze west too. Caitlyn welcomed the fog of alcohol and all the intimate warmth it brought to the surface as she studied her oldest friend affectionately.
“How are you?”
He shrugged, then sighed. “Up to my eyeballs in projects and deadlines. Wishing I had more time to do what I enjoy.”
“Invent?”
“Invent.” He glanced at her out of the corner of his eye. “You’re hardly around when I swing by. The sheriff keeping you busy?”
“More like the ne’er-do-wells of Piltover are. Why do people have to kill each other?”
Jayce gave a sharp bark of laughter. “How many have you had tonight, Cait?”
“Enough to say I almost miss the innocence of my patrol duty.”
“Gotta leave herding the drunkards to Vi now, don’t we?”
“More like rescuing cats from high places.”
Jayce turned fully towards her in interest. “That’s a story I need to hear.”
“I don’t know details, just that Vi is now undoubtedly the hero of one little boy whose cat decided to climb on the roof and couldn’t figure out how to get down.”
“To being a little kid’s hero. We can all hope to be that lucky.” Jayce grinned and tapped his glass to Caitlyn’s. She smiled as she sipped her drink, warmed by their shared amusement at Vi’s good deed. She’d come a long way in the last year, from griping about the enforcer uniform and memorizing penal code to anticipating her shifts on the streets of Piltover. Being outside was never a bad thing to Vi, even in the pouring rain.
Mel wandered across the room. By her relaxed stance, bare feet, and unpinned braids, Caitlyn and Vi had to be the last guests remaining. On cue, the bell tolled far too many times. As Mel wrapped her arm in Jayce’s, Caitlyn finished her drink. “That’s my cue to find my date and duck out, isn’t it?”
“Feel free to stay for another drink,” Jayce offered. “The upstairs sitting room is comfortable.”
Mel’s smile was polite but non-committal. Caitlyn read that cue easily. “I’ll just visit the facilities and find Vi. We can show ourselves out. Did you see her?”
“In the music room,” Mel replied.
After Caitlyn relieved herself and washed her hands, she sighed at her reflected flushed cheeks and crooked smile. Perhaps that last glass of champagne had been ill-informed. Time to find Vi and return home. Hopefully she could stay awake long enough for a bit of love-making. Caitlyn’s reflection rolled her eyes at that overly emotional thought before she sighed, straightened, and made it to the door with cautiously even steps.
She paused at the sound of music. Mel’s keyharp if she wasn’t mistaken, which meant Vi. She followed the sound down the hallway and across the downstairs library. Caitlyn rounded the doorway, already knowing what she’d see by the sound of the gradually forming music.
Vi sat at the bench in front of the keyharp, pondering a piece of music propped on the stand. Her arms were bare, the clean lines of her tattoo stark on her pale skin. The muscles beneath her skin moved in time with each shift in her arms; Caitlyn could make out the flex of the broad planes of Vi’s back and shoulders as she shifted her hands up and down the instrument.
Caitlyn watched in silence until Vi turned her head to acknowledge Caitlyn with a smile. It was an odd thing, to see her sitting here in rapt attention. Vi had never once taken Caitlyn’s invitation to play the keyharp in her father’s music room. She’d only ever entered the room on Caitlyn’s heels and always seemed reluctant to stay.
What made Mel’s music room different?
Vi’s damnable guilt over her sister’s actions did. Caitlyn wished she could erase it, smooth it away, but she saw no way past reiterating what had already been reiterated. Her father would love for his collection to be enjoyed by someone who loved music as much as Vi did, however much she secreted away her talent and enjoyment.
It wasn’t a battle for tonight. Caitlyn picked up Vi’s jacket to take its place on the bench beside Vi, reaching out to brush Vi’s hair back enough to get a clear view of her right eye. Vi smiled and accepted her kiss. Her breath smelled of bourbon and bitters, but she was clear-eyed and sober.
“Will you sing something for me?”
“Shit, Cupcake.”
Said so bashfully, as if Vi didn’t know she had a good voice. She sang in the shower, hummed, occasionally accompanied a song playing on the record player, and sang in a group setting—including the Piltover anthem during the few formal events they’d attended.
“Something from the Undercity.” The alcohol in her skull made her say, “Did your mother sing to you?”
Vi shook her head absently, her gaze far away. Caitlyn touched her shoulder, brushing the curve of a gear. Then Vi plucked out a few notes. “My dad did. He used to carry me on his shoulders down in the sump when I was little.” She added in her left hand, her brow gathered as she played the melody and accompaniment. It was vaguely familiar, but only when Vi added her voice did Caitlyn recognize it.
“Dear friend across the river,
My hands are cold and bare.
Dear friend across the river,
I’ll take what you can spare.
“I ask of you a penny.
My fortune it will be.
I ask you without envy.
My bare hands you can see.
“We raise no mighty towers.
Our homes are built of stone.
So come across the river
And find our fallen home.”
Vi stopped there, exhaling heavily. Her smile was slight as she dipped her head. Caitlyn gently tucked hair behind Vi’s ear again, thumbing her ear. She disliked the melancholy she’d brought out in Vi.
“There’s another verse, but I don’t remember it.”
“What were you playing before?”
Vi’s attention went back to the sheet music propped on the stand, and she played something more complex. Caitlyn shifted over when Vi reached farther up the keyharp, distracted by how sure Vi’s hands were on the instrument despite having little experience with it. Vi’s hands were rough, her knuckles still reddened and heavily callused, yet she didn’t disguise her gentleness and grace as she delicately picked her way through the piece.
Caitlyn knew Vi read music. She knew she was musically inclined. But this degree of taking ink on a page and turning it into music on an instrument she’d rarely touched was shocking. In another life, Vi would be performing on the stage of the opera house and making her living tutoring bored, pretentious high house scions of Piltover. Caitlyn could picture her abruptly: scarless, her skin uninked, muscles softer, her hair tousled but symmetric, and her ever-present edge of darkness absent.
Quiet applause turned both their heads. Mel leaned against the doorway with her hands together. Her smile was slight but warm. “Color me surprised,” she murmured in rare humor. “And humbled. Vi, you play it better than I do, and I’ve been practicing for weeks. I should stick to painting.”
“I cheated. I’ve heard the full orchestra version a few times. It’s spicy.”
“Well, so long as you’ve listened to it before,” Mel said dryly. “I’d never applied a taste to it, but it’s an apt description.”
Jayce stepped in from the hallway. “Am I that drunk? Or did you suddenly stop being tone-deaf, Cait?”
“She’s not tone-deaf.”
Caitlyn was surprised by the sharpness of Vi’s retort. “I pretended to be to escape music tutoring. Jayce, Vi was playing.” She touched Vi’s shoulder and curled her lip at Jayce in a false sneer.
Jayce leaned over the bench to peer at the music sheet. “Is that what it’s supposed to sound like?”
He was in rare form tonight. Mel rolled her eyes.
Vi shot the keyharp one last longing look before she slipped off of the bench. “Guess it’s time to go.”
“Indeed. Thank you for the invitation, Mel. It was a surprisingly pleasant party.”
By now, Mel was aware of Caitlyn’s impatience with the networking implied at these soirees so she only smiled at the backhanded compliment. Jayce pulled Caitlyn in for a firm hug, then walked them out. There was a taxi waiting at the curb outside the estate walls.
“Your place?” Vi asked as they settled in the back seat.
“I was looking forward to the privacy of your flat.”
“My bed is about a quarter the size of yours.”
“Exactly,” Caitlyn murmured against Vi’s ear.
It had been a surprisingly mellow night. Aside from a few sneering comments from Egil, the Salo House Councilor, no one had looked twice at the sump-rat tagging along on Caitlyn’s coattails. The keyharp had been a fun thing to find, and Mel was nice enough not to mind Vi fiddling on it.
Now that the taxi was puttering over the bridge, tension settled in Vi’s shoulders. Caitlyn was drunk enough not to be sharp, but Vi couldn’t underestimate her eye for detail. When they were let off down the street from her flat, she peered at the balcony on the third floor to make sure the glass was closed. The light was off too, but that didn’t necessarily mean they were safe.
“They need to fix that lock,” Caitlyn said as they passed through the front door. Vi took the stairs quickly, unlocking her apartment door and cracking it before Caitlyn was at the second landing. One quick sweep confirmed her apartment was empty. Everything looked in order.
Relief flooded her; she was comfortable flipping on the overhead light. Caitlyn followed in on her heels, reaching out to close the drapes Vi had fitted to the wide glass window looking out on her rickety balcony. Vi shut the door and locked it, then stripped out of her clothes.
Caitlyn did the same. She was apparently tipsy enough to be alright walking down to the communal bathroom in a long sleep shirt and Vi’s flats. Caitlyn returned a few minutes later and used Vi’s sink to wash the makeup from her face.
“Drink.” Vi handed Caitlyn a cup of water from the potable jug she filled at Headquarters every few days. Though Caitlyn repeatedly reassured her about the safety of water from the tap throughout the city, Vi had seen enough people get the shits from taking a chug from their sink to prefer water from the other side of the bridge.
After draining the glass, Caitlyn protested, “I’m not drunk.” She tripped and thumped her head on the upper edge of Vi’s bedframe and collapsed in laughter. “Contrary to my clumsiness,” she giggled.
“Champagne gives you headaches. So drink.”
“I’ll have to pee as soon as I fall asleep.” But Caitlyn drank a second cup before she snuggled into Vi’s bedclothes, hugging Vi’s pillow to take a deep breath of it. Weirdo. She pulled the bed curtain closed, then her hand reached out between the curtains. Vi chuckled at Caitlyn’s disembodied come-hither wave.
She washed her face and finger combed her hair. When she ducked into the curtains across her bed, Caitlyn hummed in pleasure when their bodies came together. She sighed into Vi’s kiss.
“Did you have a good time?” she asked Vi.
“Yeah. It was a nice night.”
“You looked hot.” Caitlyn’s hand wandered to Vi’s ass for a healthy squeeze.
“You’re the hot one, Cupcake.”
Caitlyn hummed against Vi’s kiss. She sighed and stretched. “You said you’re working on Progress Day?”
“Yeah. Patrol first day-shift. I’m off at four. Are you?”
Caitlyn sighed heavily. “No. Mother asked for me to be in the Kiramman tent for the day.”
“Too much schmoozing for you?”
“I cannot count how many times I’ve listened to my mother and uncles extol the virtues of our family. Did you visit a house tent before Stillwater?”
Vi searched her memory. “If we did, I don’t remember it. You really just stand there all day and give the same talk over and over again about how great the Kiramman House is?”
“Exactly,” Caitlyn said dryly. She kissed Vi’s neck, her thumb moving in the groove of Vi’s lats, right in an area between ticklish danger zones. “That’s not to say there isn’t a lot of history in our house, but how can one possibly make a lock patent interesting? The only thing I have a remote interest in is our firearm history.”
Vi knew that; Caitlyn could talk her ear off about guns any day. “I know you guys produce most of the lines for enforcers, but does it go back further?”
“We’re not the first to invent firearms. That honor doesn’t even go to a citizen of Piltover. It was widely accepted to be an invention of a Noxian woman some three centuries ago.”
“How could you even invent a gun?”
“It’s a matter of energy. A crossbow uses energy stored in rope. Once blackpowder was invented, it was only a matter of time before someone stuffed it into a pipe behind a projectile and set it on fire.”
“People are reckless.”
“Indeed they are, reckless person,” Caitlyn replied with a warm laugh.
“So how do the Kirammans come into it?”
To which Caitlyn, despite being clearly drunk, eloquently described the contributions of her house to firearm technology: from the transition of flintlock to percussion caps to rounds that contained blackpowder. “Though,” Caitlyn admitted dryly. “We technically didn’t invent rounds; we patented them.”
Vi chuckled knowingly. “It only counts if you’re the one to make coin off of it.”
“In this city? Absolutely. Though I can proudly say the smokeless powder was developed and patented entirely within our factories in Piltover.”
Vi knew Caitlyn knew her weapons—privately owned or assigned by Enforcers—inside and out, but her knowledge of the history and development of said firearms was fascinating in and of itself. Her passion was amusing and attractive and stoked bizarre affection. Vi would happily listen to Caitlyn lecture about Kiramman firearms any day.
“Why don’t you just talk to people about that?”
“Pardon?”
“On Progress Day. For your tent thing. You know everything there is to know about your family’s contributions to guns, and you make it interesting because you think it’s interesting. So just tell everyone what you just told me.”
Caitlyn was quiet for a moment, her thumb continuing its dangerous path between Vi’s armpit and her ribs. Then she kissed Vi’s lips gently, her own curved into a smile. “That is an excellent idea.”
“I have those sometimes.”
“I love you.”
There was a brief flash of hope and joy and happiness, and then it all flared up in a burst of hot anger that confused the fuck out of Vi. Caitlyn’s touch on Vi’s side stilled, and her lips hesitated too. Vi realized she’d gone stiff and pulled away, ducking her head to hide her face behind her hair and figure out what that unfair burst of emotion came from.
“Surely you already know, Vi.”
Vi’s voice failed her.
“Did you hear me?”
She nodded silently. She should be happy. She had been for just a moment until… Vi cleared her throat to find her voice and failed. She tried to blank her expression and failed at that too. In the dimness of their cocoon, Caitlyn searched Vi’s face. Her thumb brushed Vi’s cheek, over the ink that marked her skin, and her smile was bittersweet. “Why are you crying?”
She wiped at her cheek impatiently, shaking her head. “I don’t…”
“Tell me. Please.”
I don’t know what the fuck is wrong with me.
She shook her head again. “You can’t love me.”
Caitlyn sat up and shook her head sharply, as if trying to wake herself up. Her voice was soft, as if she were speaking to herself. “I’m too drunk for this.” Then more firmly: “Why, pray tell, can I not love you?”
Vi grappled to put it into words, and the truth sprang up to slap her in the face. Caitlyn couldn’t love her because of the lie that opened distance between them, a distance that Caitlyn couldn’t see. The knowledge of it lurked constantly within Vi, but it hadn’t risen so sharply between them in months. All Vi could say was, “I don’t deserve you.”
“That’s not true! You must know that.” Her tone lightened. “Do you have any idea how many people are willing to listen to me dither on about the history of firearms?”
“Cait,” Vi sighed.
Caitlyn’s voice firmed. “Vi, tell me you don’t look at us that way. Whatever your concern about yourself is, you are enough.”
Vi shook her head, her heart twisting up tight. For once, Caitlyn’s reassurance made Vi feel worse, as did her soft whisper, “Oh, darling…”
Caitlyn’s affection was damning, and it sparked another strange burst of irritation, as if Caitlyn’s care was audacious. When Caitlyn urged Vi’s head to her shoulder, Vi heaved a shuddering sigh. It was overwhelming, and it put the itch under her skin and made everything too close, including Cailyn’s arms. Still, Caitlyn smelled good, and folding herself against Caitlyn’s body was easier than trying to put into words what her fucked up brain was misrepresenting.
Maybe it wasn’t anger at Caitlyn at all. It shouldn’t be. She’d done nothing wrong. This was all on Vi and the lie she’d been carrying for the last year. As Caitlyn’s breaths deepened in sleep, Vi turned it over and over in her mind again until she teased out what exactly she was feeling.
It, this, felt like cheating. It felt like a lie. Because as deep and true Caitlyn’s emotions ran, she wouldn’t feel this way if she knew the truth. The more Caitlyn cared under false pretenses, the worse it would be when everything fell apart.
Would it be better to end it now? Vi shied violently away from that thought, as much for herself as for the pain she knew she’d cause Caitlyn to walk away now. Yet telling herself she was in this for Caitlyn’s happiness reeked of selfishness.
It was that stupid word: love. Love meant permanence. It meant family. It meant forever. But Vi could only borrow and not keep, and one day when everything fell apart, Caitlyn would look at her in betrayal and disgust.
She was in too deep now. The only end result would be heartbreak, whether she pulled away now or waited for everything to fall apart. Vi had already made peace with her own heartbreak, but Caitlyn’s… It made her heart twist in her chest and her breath come short.
Beside her, Caitlyn slept peacefully, oblivious to the storm raging inside Vi.