Caitlyn sat up, awake in bed, staring up at the ceiling of a bedroom. Her sleep had been fitful for months now. Ever since that final battle for the Hexgates she hadn’t been able to get a full night’s rest. She would be awoken by a dream re-running her most tense experiences for her unconsciousness to ruminate on, or a sudden feeling of needing to be present for some issue would shake her into consciousness. Her mind wouldn’t stop preparing her for another struggle, another fight, another battle to fight tooth and nail to win.
At this point she didn’t think it would ever let up.
There was, however, one constant relief whenever she woke.
Her gaze was tugged down to where Vi lay on her back, bundled in blankets and snoring gently. Caitlyn loved how she breathed when she slept: soft yet audible. It was a constant reminder that she was always there, breathing and alive, beside Cait. He slipped her hand over to rest on Vi’s diaphragm to feel the way her stomach rose and fell with her breath. It was grounding, familiar, safe.
Violet huffed through her mouth, lips twitching into a frown. Caitlyn moved to smooth her hair back from her face, trying to soothe away whatever displeased her in dreamland. She only succeeded in waking her.
Bleary pale blue eyes blinked up in confusion. “Hmm?” Her expression softened as her gaze focused on Caitlyn. “Issit morning?”
Guilt twinged in her gut. “No,” she whispered, carding her fingers through her hair, “sorry, love.”
“It’s okay.” a strong hand reached up and cradled her face. “Are you?” Her voice was still thick with drowsiness.
“Am I what?” Caitlyn grinned.
“Uhm. Okay?” Calloused fingertips traced along her jawline. “Cause you’re awake.”
“Oh.” Cait shrugged slightly. “Just a dream.”
Vi frowned and shifted slightly, lifting the blanket a bit and extending her other arm over the pillows beside her. Cait sighed through the nose and took up the offer, curling in and burying her face into the knit of her pullover sleepshirt.
Familiar arms cradled Caitlyn, lips meeting her forehead. She could feel the knick in Vi’s lip; a scar who’s history had never been explained to her. No time for it.
She smiled at the idea that now the two of them had the rest of their lives to explain things to each other. Every scar, every mole, every memory.
“Do you want to talk about it?” Vi rasped, bringing Cait back from her thoughts.
“No, thank you.” She’d much rather not revisit it. Just thinking back on it brought back strange phantom pains like her old wounds were waking up, accompanied by the rush of adrenaline and fear that was perfectly necessary on the battlefield but extremely inconvenient when there was nothing to fight except her lover sleeping beside her. Her lip twitched at the first time she’d had an active dream like that. She’d been thrashing around in her sleep so badly that she’d kneed Vi in the stomach while they were both asleep. When they woke, Caitlyn had been distraught, but as soon as she described her nighttime fits as ‘unproductive’ Vi had gone from sweet and soothing to trying to smother a grin.
Apparently because it was such a ‘Caitlyn’ response or something. Either way, they’d both managed to laugh it off and get back to sleep.
She didn’t know what she would have done if Violet hadn’t been beside her then. What she would do if she weren’t beside her now.
“Mkay.” Vi mumbled, shaking Caitlyn from her musings. Vi’s breathing slowed again to a heavy, steady pattern. The sheets were clean, the comforter weighted and downy. Even so, it was difficult to forget the responsibilities waiting for them in the morning, especially now that Counselor Medarda was voyaging back to Noxus to fill her mother’s shoes and they were still rebuilding the damage done to both Piltover and Zaun. Rehoming families. Opening up childcare for orphaned children, working to extend humanitarian aid to the parts of Zaun still reluctant to work with Topsiders. There was still the issue of getting everyone who had been evacuated back into the city and back to their homes. . .if their homes were still there.
Deciding how much aid should go to whom, who had lost the most. War, even in its aftermath, was just numbers. Who had more of what, who lost more, who wanted more, who was willing to do the most harm, lose the most life, to get what they wanted. Quantified suffering in the pursuit of muddy ideals.
Violet stirred around her, pulling her carefully closer. “I can hear the gears turning in there,” Vi mumbled, “chill out, cupcake. We’ve got a couple hours.” Her palm ran down Cait’s back, rubbing soothing patterns up and down, wrinkling the silk of her sleepshirt.
Caitlyn hummed affirmation against Vi’s neck, listening as Vi’s soothing ramblings become more soft and incoherent as calloused fingers carded sleepily through dark blue locks.
“Thank you, darling.” She leaned forward to press a kiss against Vi’s forehead.
Violet, now asleep, shifted in Caitlyn’s arms. “Mmph.”
. . .
Caitlyn woke up before her girlfriend and before the sun. She drifted slowly out of sleep and into the sensation of Vi wrapped around her. Two hands in Caitlyn’s hair, rhythmic breathing in her ear, legs tangled in hers. Her face was cozied up against Violet’s shoulder. The other woman’s cheek was pressed against the top of her head. A curtain of pink hair lay down the side of Cait’s face. She tried not to move too much as she huffed to blow it out of her eyes. She could only hope that Vi wasn’t drooling in her hair.
Caitlyn allowed herself to rest there for a while longer before gently and oh-so-slowly extracting herself from her lover’s embrace, but Vi mumbled in her sleep and reached out as she left, so that was only the first attempt at leaving. Caitlyn settled back down beside Violent for another hour and a half before rolling out of bed forty-five minutes before seven o’clock to shower.
She stepped out of the shower and wrapped a towel around her waist before stepping over to the sink to brush her teeth. In her peripheral Caitlyn stopped a still half asleep Vi sidling over. Strong arm wrapped around Caitlyn’s waist and almost the entire body weight of the fighter leaned into her, lolling head finding a resting place on a bare shoulder.
“Good morning, Violet.” She was careful to keep her voice soft.
Vi pressed a kiss into her shoulder. “Morning. Why’d you always have to get out of bed so early?”
“I’ve got a morning meeting. . .we both do, actually. I just like having more time to get ready beforehand.”
Vi nodded and plopped her head back down in the crook of Cait’s neck. “Yeah.” She paused before continuing. “Bed’s cold without you.”
Something in Caitlyn had a feeling that a cold bed wasn’t the full reason Vi didn’t want to wake up alone today. “Okay, darling. You alright?”
“Sort of. Sorry.”
Cait reached back to gently scratch at Vi’s scalp.“Don’t be sorry. Bad sleep?”
“Something like that.” Vi shrugged but otherwise didn’t move.
“Do you want to go back to bed? I could sit with you until you fall back asleep.”
She felt Vi grin. “Don’t we have that meeting?”
“You can sit this one out if you want.” Cait gently shifted from foot to foot.
“Yeah?”
“Yes.”
“If I get to sit it out, you should too, cupcake.”
“We can’t both skip it. . .” She reached back and took Vi’s hand.
Vi leaned toward the door to their bedroom, shifting both of their weight slightly in that direction. “I dunno. I think they can survive one day without us.”
Caitlyn scoffed. “I think we both know that’s not true, especially now that Counselor Medarda is in Noxus.”
“There’s a point there. . .but I think Sevika can keep things on task for at least ten hours.”
Caitlyn bobbed her head, considering it."I'll send the message to Sevika, then I'm right behind you, love." She patted Vi's lower back as she turned back toward the bedroom, sending her off.
"Don't miss me too much."
"Oh, but I will," Caitlyn grinned, "desperately."
Once the messenger was sent off she was able to slip back between the freshly washed sheets and slot herself neatly against Vi’s body.
One day off wouldn’t hurt.