The bed is cold when Caitlyn stirs.
When she reaches out instinctively to hold Vi, to touch her and feel her there, she’s only met with empty sheets. Piltover’s lights spilled through the curtains that Caitlyn meticulously closed last night and confirmed her suspicions,. Vi has left in the middle of the night, again. And Caitlyn was worried.
Vi has been the sturdiest part of Caitlyn’s life, the solid piece of matter next to her, but like everything does she’s been drifting. VI’s been drifting and Caitlyn isn’t sure how to hold on. How to stick her claws in her and hold like hell Vi doesn’t let Caitlyn in, she’s so used to being strong. Caitlyn needs to teach Vi that her demons don’t have to be here alone. Her ghosts don’t need to haunt her
Sighing slightly, she reaches up to rub her eyes and rises. Like any woman would Cait wanders, hoping to find Vi, and help alleviate her demons a little. To find her and hold her and coax her to bed.
She leaves and soon finds who she’s looking for, the bundle of pink hair and pajamas perching on the windowsill. Smoke billows from the cigarette carefully slotted in her fingertips the red embers glowing softly in the night.
“Couldn’t sleep?” Caitlyn murmurs.
Vi let’s out a puff, “I never do”
Her voice sounds weird, it sounds rough, strained. It sounds like she’s been crying. As she moves to get closer she sees something, Vi is gripping her wrist tightly. Her fingers are wrapped around it so hard that the skin around her fingertips pales, it could bruise. And then she sees what could’ve caused the tars. Cuts, a lot of them. Little red slivers in neat packed rows.
Caitlyn feels her breath catch in her breath, “Shit Vi, love”
Caitlyn has seen VI’s wounds before- Vi was no stranger to them. Her body was covered in battle scars, she often had bruises, she spent half of her life fighting. But this, this was different. With this Vi was deliberate. These aren’t from a fight, not an outward one. This is from herself. This is from her demons, her ghosts materializing. This is proof Cait couldn’t protect her. As she rushes forward Vi tugs down her sleeve defensively but too late.
“Don’t” Vi mutters. “Just go back to bed cupcake, forget it”
Caitlyn scooches next to her and cradles her face, “Love, you don’t have to hide from me,” She meets her gaze and finds small tears welling in VI’s eyes. “You don’t have to do it alone.”
Vi extinguishes the cigarette and tosses it to the side. Caitlyn knows that Vi has always held more pain in then she let out, but she had no idea it had gotten this bad. She had no idea it manifested in this way. How could she have no idea that the love of her life was doing this to herself. How could she feel so helpless.
Caitlyn gently grips the unaffected arm and leads her to the bathroom. Being an enforcer means you hold a certain amount of medical training. That’s what she try’s to focus on. Clean. Dry. Cover. Caitlyn’s mind spirals as she does this, how long has this been happening, how did she not notice, why did Vi not reach out to her. The woman she loves, her girlfriend, the dirt under her nails has been hurting and in turn hurting herself and she didn’t even know about it. Caitlyn truly doesn’t know what to say. She didn’t know how deep those scars go.
“How long has this been going on,” Caitlyn prys.
“Does that even matter”
“It does to me”
Vi let’s put a laugh at that, Caitlyn truly doesn’t back down. Vi has to let something slip to put it up. “Pick a time Kiramman. After the mines,after prison, after I nearly killed my sister. It was bound to happen when she actually died. When I actually killed her. Everyone called her the Jinx, the cause of everything that’s gone wrong but it’s me, it’s always been me.” Violet doesn’t know how she let so much slip so soon, but she did and she couldn’t go back now. She doesn’t mean to let so much slip but she can’t stop. The nights in Stillwater, the pit fighting, the whole thing all the time just hoping to be hit hard enough to make it stop. It was natural to turn to this, it was the only way to make it work. “Cait, the guilt fucking eats me alive. I made it out of there and Jinx didn’t. My own sister died because I tried to hold on. I have you and that’s great, it’s fantastic but she’s my sister and we couldn’t even find the body. It all just creeps in sometimes and I just need it to be quiet, and sometimes this is the only way I can fight it.”
Caitlyn does what she can- she listens. She doesn’t stop listening. She doesn’t interrupt, she doesn’t call Vi dramatic, or blame her for not coming to her sooner. When she feels Vi finish she does ask something tho, softly “What can I do?”
Vi scoffs, feeling like she’s done all that for nothing. Like she let that part of her soul out and all she got was judgement. “You can’t fix me Caitlyn.”
“Violet, I don’t want to fix you,” Caitlyn squeezes VI’s hand, “You don’t need fixing. All I want to do right now is help.”
Vi states, puzzles and not quite believing it, “What if I don’t know how to let you.” she mutters softly.
Caitlyn answers, completely sure, no hesitation. “Then I will stay here with you until you figure it out.”
They sit there, and soon Caitlyn pulls Vi into her lap and just holds her. And then they talk. And talk. The conversation shifts into something and it’s tentative and fragile. Caitlyn stops VI’s constant attempts to deflect with humor and turn away when she feels exposed. She gets Vi to discus’s boundaries, about how Caitlyn can help Vi without smothering her. At some point Caitlyn pulls her in closer, and let’s a small previous piece of herself go too. Her issues are different but the help Vi. They make her feel less alone.
“You never talk about this stuff,” Vi mutters.
“Neither do you”
It’s so small, such a small thing, but it makes Vi realize she isn’t alone in this. As they return to bed Caitlyn doesn’t stop gripping her arm once. Vi doesn’t once try to pull away.
They fall asleep to the steady rhythm of each others hearts, the sound of lungs filling and deflating. Today VI’s ghosts don’t feel too heavy tonight. Caitlyn presses a kiss to VI’s temple, and Vi finally let’s herself think that she may not be as broken as she thought.
——————————
The next morning Vi had admitted the hardest part, the fact that she doesn’t know how to stop. How sometimes it feels inevitable, like muscle memory when you go to tuck the strand of hair away but instead it’s this. And they together came up with a plan.
Vi would stay with Caitlyn on the bad nights, no matter how much she wanted otherwise. She couldn’t sneak off alone. Caitlyn thought that fair and so did Vi.
Vi would talk even when it’s hard, whether that be to a therapist or to Caitlyn she doesn’t care, just no shutting down. Vi has to have someone.
“Vi can you make me one more promise love,”
“I can try”
“It’s not to me, it’s to you.”
“A promise to myself?”
“I want you to promise to try, even when it gets hard.”
“But what if I mess up,” Vi mutters softly.
Caitlyn grabs VI’s hand and lifts it pressing her lips to VI’s knuckles. “Then we try again.”