Chapter Text
“I’m going to die.”
“No, you’re not.”
“I’m going to die .”
The same phrase spoken for what was probably the fifteenth time that evening gained Len a pair of eyerolls from around their small table. Though attention lingered only shortly on him, quickly focusing back on the piles of books scattered on the entire surface, the smell of new paper at odds with the dingy basement they were in.
Len passed his hands through his hair, short, choppy and sticking out in a few different directions when he didn’t have to make it look presentable. He was quite proud of having partially cut it himself. Tamara, after spending a good half an hour trying to even it all out, not so much. With his hands falling back into his lap and on top of an open textbook that had been stuck at the same page for the better part of the last ten minutes, he groaned loud enough to get the other two’s attention back on him.
“I don’t get it,” he lamented, frustration obvious in the way he was debating whether to chuck the book at a wall or not. Then his shoulders sagged, a grimace on his face. “I can’t fail this.”
Tamara took in the way his eyes were lost among the jumble of letters on the page without actually looking at them, far away in some thoughts that she may have an idea or two about. He passed the pen from one hand to another, as if the switch would miraculously make his notes suddenly make sense and she recognized it for the deep frustration that it was. She raised her foot and used it to nudge at his knee, ignoring the halfhearted sound of protest at dirtying his pants and opting for an attempt to lighten the mood.
“Don’t worry, we’re probably gonna fail together,” she said with a laugh.
Len’s eyes widened as he processed the words while Arley gave her a rather hard smack on the shoulder. “Helpful,” they muttered as they leaned over to have a better look at the textbook their friend was holding. “What don’t you get?”
He shrugged, throwing his hands up weakly before letting them fall back over the open pages. “I just-... I hate math. It makes no sense.”
Arley hummed, reaching for the textbook to see what exactly he was stuck on. The two undercity kids didn’t have much more idea of all the complex equations either, the only school that they had experienced being a rather poor attempt among the neighborhood adults to teach them something . But the books they were using were surprisingly easy to understand, with all the steps laid down in front of them. Tamara looked over the pages and hummed while Arley raised their hands in an obvious count me out gesture, also not a fan of the subject.
“Here,” she said, taking the book from Arley and leaning over the low table. “I’ll show you.”
Len blinked and looked at her stunned for a brief second before smiling sheepishly. He scooted just a tad closer so that he would be able to actually see what his friend was explaining. Going over the steps that Len had been jumbling over each other came surprisingly easy to Tamara, pointing at all the parts of the page that would help him better understand. It was also great to see his expression slowly change from that frustrated confusion and into wide eyed realization once he fully got the process.
By the end of it, they both had a self satisfied smile on their faces. Arley was the only one looking pensive, glancing between her two friends from above the edge of their book on the history of Piltover.
“I don’t think we’ll get in,” they muttered, more to themself than to anyone else. Still, two pairs of eyes turned towards them and made them look back at the chapter they were currently trying to memorize about infrastructure.
“What do you mean?” Len asked dumbly, then winced when realization hit him just a heartbeat after.
Tamara still looked at Arley as she grimaced, or rather at the cover of the book that was now mostly covering their face. “I mean,” she shrugged and undid her ponytail only to have something to do with her hands while tying it back up, “I doubt they’d let two trencher kids run around their perfect little academy.”
Len frowned, by now fully aware that his enthusiasm may be misplaced but still not quite willing to relent. “There’s other students from the Undercity,” he rebutted.
Tamara simply shrugged, noncommittal and with feign nonchalance, and got back to the text she was previously studying about an old novel from when the city was only a few decades since its founding.
- ·················•·················•
“Shit,” came the barely there mutter from under the little mountain of covers that Caitlyn was sure she had become fused to. Or at least wished she had.
A short lived wave of nausea made her feel beyond sorry that she was awake and conscious, making the back of her throat feel sticky and heavy. She squeezed her eyes shut for what felt like a good few minutes until the sensation subsided and all that was left was the flaring pain that made her double over while still laying down on her side.
Not taking those painkillers the night before had been a mistake she was willing to admit. To herself. And maybe to the poro plushie that was looking at her with black beady eyes from Vi’s side of the bed. Not to anyone else though.
It took longer than she cared to count to finally sit upright, a few grunts that she didn’t bother to hide in the empty bedroom. Not that there was anyone to hear them at the moment. A little cold seeped into her body from the beginning of Piltover’s winter and made its way down her spine as a chill while Caitlyn made her way slowly around the kitchen, feet padding over the softly carpeted floors.
The idea of food left her feeling the nausea crawl up in her throat all over again, not quite over the painful awakening yet. So she worked on autopilot to put the kettle on and prepare a cup of tea, grabbing the first tea bag that she found in the drawer under one of the cupboards. She absentmindedly thought about cleaning out said cupboard as she waited for the brewing to be done, a frown on her face when she took note of the disarray inside. Her collection of mugs arranged in some semblance of a display that showed off either the silly quotes on each or whatever unusual shape they came in, all mixed in with sets of cups that were older than herself and she was fairly certain that some had actual gold in the intricate details.
It was only when her tea was finally ready and she was leaning against the counter, still lost in mug filled thoughts, that she noticed the folded piece of paper placed there. Picking it up with one hand, the first thing she noticed was the small doodle of a cupcake and the little smiling face on it, together with Vi’s scratchy handwriting.
Got a lead in Zaun. Rest up and I’ll see you later to go to Jayce’s :)
The memory of Vi getting up earlier came back to her while reading the short note, a ghost of a kiss on her lips and temple before her partner got out of bed. The vague shuffle of clothes and softly spoken words in the background as Caitlyn fell back asleep enveloped by the warmth of their bed.
She grimaced at the barely there memories, leaving the kitchen with newfound determination that not even the pain flaring under her bandages could put a stop to.
Her tea ran tepid and almost forgotten while she gathered a few folders from her office and put them in order, together with full sheets of notes and small pieces of paper with annotations placed between the documents. A real waste of rather expensive green tea.
Putting on her uniform felt like a weight simultaneously being placed and taken off her shoulders, the leather holster hanging over her hip ready to hold her handgun feeling like a friend that kept her safe. A safety she’s needed ever since her sleeping hours had started to be plagued with crude doodles of monkeys and blue flares trailing over starry skies. She winced while tightening the belt just slightly too much, scrambling with shaky fingers to loosen it back. With a deep sigh she was careful not to repeat the same mistake with the strap that kept her jacket in place, making sure her breaths didn’t come up short.
Just as she was tightening the straps of her boots, the metal cuffs sitting comfortably under her knees she looked over at where her pistol sat on her nightstand.
Right by the small bottle of painkillers she hadn’t been exactly avoiding but…
Today’s task needed her to keep a clear head on her shoulders, no room for foggy or misremembered details to get in her way. The little pain still lingering behind from her miraculous recovery was manageable enough.
She took hold of the pistol, slid it in its designated place with steadier hands than she would expect, and left the room without a second glance back.
—-
“Still can’t believe you’re out here Pink .”
Vi rolled her eyes, an easy smile curving her lips and with it the scar there as she leaned back in the worn cushions of the booth. The nickname didn’t make her hackles raise. Not there. Not when it was spoken over the rim of a beer glass and a wide lopsided smile.
“Yeah,” she replied, still not fully in the mood but slowly getting there as she sipped from a sweet cocktail that the bartender put together for her. “Me either.”
“Walking around in uniform, no less,” came the reply. Not a bite, but Vi couldn’t help the way her nose crinkled at that.
She wasn’t even in uniform. Her enforcer issued uniform was somewhere at the back of her closet, forgotten there three or so years prior. She loved Caitlyn, but not even her could make her wear that thing.
“It’s not like that,” she pushed the other woman over the table that separated them, meeting no resistance as she fell back with the half hearted shove. She let out a loud laugh that got lost in the crowded bar, but was still enough to put a wider smile on Vi’s face. “We did some good things.”
The glint of amusement didn't leave green eyes as Vira looked back at Vi, still fighting off a fit of giggles as she tried and failed to take another sip from the beer. “I know, I know,” she waved a hand before using it to smooth back the unruly mohawk that fell over her shoulders and the back of her chair in a messy heap. “You and the chief really did a number of those assholes from Stillwater.”
That caught Vi’s attention, had her raising her eyebrows in mild surprise as she eyed the woman she had shared some of the longest and most tedious days behind bars with. She put her drink back down, barely having drunk any of it and starting to regret choosing the cherry flavor. Far too sweet, even for her.
“You heard about that?”
“Who hasn’t?”
Vira raised one arm in an awkward half shrug as she downed the rest of her remaining beer. The movement was exaggerated and had Vi chuckling despite the bitter flavor left on her tongue at the mention of the trials and the vague recognition of that behavior that she was anything but willing to dig up at the moment. The cherry drink didn’t sound half bad now.
With the beer done, Vira placed the empty glass dangerously close to the table’s edge, uncaring as it wobbled when another customer bumped a little too close to their booth. It was good to see her again, out of the striped uniform of Stillwater that she always insisted clashed horrendously with her style. Vi never cared much, hating the damned clothes for entirely different reasons, always cursing the thin and barely covering material while shivering on the cold floor in her solitary cell.
But now she kind of saw where Vira was coming from. The inmates had taken to calling her a diva no more than a few weeks into her stay at Stillwater, her loud and outgoing demeanor gaining her some popularity with the others. But now the nickname fit that much more, a title rather than anything else as she prowled the crowded bar of the Undercity. Piercing green eyes, mask on her face, guitar strapped to her back more often than not, she really was a diva.
Vi breathed out a laugh, shaking her head as Vira threw a joking jab at one of the waiters.
It was good to see a familiar friendly face down there. One that wasn’t as tangled with painful memories.
“He’s dead, right?”
Vi blinked a few times, taken out of her train of thought by the bluntness of the question. She frowned as she processed the words, seeing Vira mimic the expression yet not reflecting the same tinge of confusion. Instead, there was a simmering kind of anger under her gaze, one that she knew well, that was slowly dripping through the years into small cracks of one’s mind.
Now that was a kind of familiarity Vi didn’t look forward to butting heads with.
“Yeah,” she replied simply, passing a wrapped hand through unruly hair. She snagged into a small knot and hoped nobody had accidentally spilled something on her without her noticing. “We’re-... we’re looking into it.”
Vira snorted, a mocking sound not directed at Vi per se but still with no one else around to take the blunt of it. “Why? Better off without that fucker.”
“It’s not that simple,” Vi said, and hated herself just a little for it.
She saw the flash of hatred that passed over the other woman’s eyes and couldn’t find it in herself to even remotely disagree with it. She had felt it so many times in the past, a venomous little thing that boiled in her veins through all her years locked in a stone box, beaten and afraid and so so angry.
Vi also couldn’t lie to herself and say she didn’t relate. The world was better off without Crogan and she was more than willing to scream her relief in the privacy of her own mind.
But things weren’t that simple. When were they ever?
“He’s connected to another case. We think,” Vi tapped around the rim of her glass, huffing out the explanation and being surprised when it didn’t fall on deaf ears, lost in the loud music around them.
Vira nodded slowly, eyes following the movement of Vi’s fingers without actually looking at them. The previous anger slowly trickled away, leaving her with a slight sag in her shoulders as she rolled them out and a drawn out sigh. Tension now mostly gone, she relaxed back into her chair and brought one leg up, long nails making a soft metallic clink as she taped them on top of the mechanism of her knee.
She raised her gaze back up, making eye contact with Vi, who was already studying her.
“Why are you really here?”
Vi sucked in a breath, holding it in for a few beats before she let it out as a strained laugh. It wasn’t like she didn’t enjoy the company, quite the contrary, but she did come down in the Undercity with business in mind. The familiar face was only a fortunate accident and she decided to count her blessings.
With a roll of her shoulder, she shoved a hand in the inner pocket of her jacket, fishing out a few documents that she had folded up. She would deal with the reprimand from Caitlyn for bending important documents later, better that than bringing an actual briefcase to the Undercity. Who does that?
She unfolded the papers, doing her best to get rid of the ungodly bends as she placed them on the table between the two of them. Vira ‘s eyes narrowed as she read through the report, picking up one of the files and making a face as she looked over the picture at the top of it.
The enforcers at the station didn’t do a great job of a background check, only being able to go as far as legal documentation went but having their hands tied otherwise. The detectives weren’t of much help either, far more experienced in Piltover’s petty matters and when it came to the squabbles between powers that liked to feel greater than life. But in the Undercity? They were a fish out of water, gasping for air that was never quite the right kind for them, metaphorically or literally. And with Caitlyn out of commission, whether Caitlyn wanted or not, Vi took that part of the investigation into her own hands.
“Name rings a bell,” Vira said, not looking at Vi but still scanning over the papers.
“They’re Crogan’s cousin,” Vi explained and, were it not for the seriousness of what she was doing she would’ve laughed at the mock gagging expression that the other woman made at the Director’s mention. She pulled out one of the papers, a series of transfers that didn’t quite look important if not for the fact that they had come personally to the Undercity for them. “Do you know if they were up to something down here? Anything weird?”
Vira hummed and snorted because who wasn't up to weird shit down in the Undercity, really? She leaned over the table and was still fixing the photo with her piercing green eyes as she spoke. “They look familiar,” she murmured, and Vi let her take her time with it. She wasn’t necessarily in a rush, sure that Caitlyn was still home and their dinner with Jayce was hours away. Surely Caitlyn knew that the best thing to do right now was resting.
“Oi, doll!”
The sudden shout from her companion made Vi crinkle her nose, feeling too on edge lately to be comfortable on the streets where she had grown up. It was at that moment she noticed how the bar had quieted down just a bit, the patrons still rather loud, but without music to act as the noise to fill in the blank spaces. Vi watched Vira wave at another girl sitting on top of the bar’s countertop, a guitar in her lap as she was tinkering with its mechanism. The girl rolled her eyes rather dramatically but still set aside the instrument to jump down and approach their booth, steel-toed boots clacking on the floorboards.
“Don’t call me that,” she said instead of a greeting when she was within earshot.
“But it suits you so well.”
“I’ll take apart your leg. And sell it for new earrings.”
Vira laughed loudly, clearly not taking the threat seriously, and the other girl joined in too with a much quieter chuckle. Vi only recognized the newcomer as the singer that Caitlyn enjoyed listening to whenever they came down there to unwind after a particularly stressful period of time. She vaguely remembered other patrons calling her Siren and thinking the name sort of made sense with the way she downright charmed the audience. Damn singers. A weird bunch.
“Look here,” Vira shifted the focus back onto the papers still in her hands, moving them up to the other girl’s eye level. “I’m sure I know them from somewhere.”
Siren pursed her lips in thought, pushing a strand of pink hair behind her ear as she bent down to have a better look. A certain kind of recognition passed over her features, soft under the stark makeup. Vi couldn’t do much other than watch the two of them exchange a few murmurs, a back and forth of half formed ideas until one of them seemed to realize something. Blue eyes widened as Siren looked towards Vi, suddenly seeming much more energetic.
“They used to come down to the Lanes until a few years ago,” she said, snapping her fingers a few times as if that helped her remember, and who was Vi to say it didn’t. “They always met up with some woman at a bar I used to sing for.”
“What for?” Vi asked, suddenly feeling excited at the prospect of finally finding something in all of this jumbled mess of files and poorly connected clues. Her skin was suddenly itching with the possibility of moving things forward, getting up from the metaphorical ground that this investigation had been pitifully laying on for weeks, frustrating her, but Catlyn that much more. She pulled another record from the small stack, reading over it with her mouth progressively turning into a grimace as her eyes skimmed through the words. “It says here that they were buying uh-… toothpaste?”
Both of the other women snorted and even Vi breathed out a laugh, more from confusion and disbelief than amusement.
Then Vira leaned over the table, suddenly much closer as she rapidly tapped the slightly sticky surface to get Vi’s attention. It worked, though she also gained herself an unamused raise of scarred eyebrow at the overenthusiastic grin that spread across the so-called diva’s face, pulling back enough to reveal a silver tooth.
“Do you remember what they used to sneak shimmer around Stillwater?”
Vi’s eyes widened, penny dropping as if launched from an airship and directly onto her head.
“Toothpaste tubes.”
“Toothpaste tubes,” Vira repeated, grin not leaving her face.
—-
Caitlyn made her way through the station’s doors with plenty of time to spare, still early in the afternoon despite the biting cold that was creeping its way through Piltover’s streets in an icy fog and the cloudy sky making one believe that it was much later than it was. The enforcer stationed at the Hall’s reception desk greeted her with a certain cheer in their tone, one Caitlyn was yet to get used to receiving as the Sheriff.
“I thought you were on leave,” they said at one point, leading her down the tall corridors of the temporary cells block. It was formed as a casual statement, but Caitlyn didn’t miss the inquisitive tone and the curious glance they gave her.
“This is rather urgent.”
She didn’t feel like spending her time on small talk, already in a not so great mood after her rude awakening and her stubbornness against the pain medication. Having her presence in the place where she was ultimately the leader was the least thing she wanted at the moment.
The officer seemed to understand as much, pursing their lips and looking forward as they passed empty cells. Most of Stillwater’s wardens that had to be put behind bars had already been sent to whatever far off prison the council had decided upon, save for a handful of delays. Not that an impromptu trip to Ionia or wherever else would deter a Caitlyn Kiramman on a mission.
The two of them walked in silence down the silent corridor, the only sound being an echo of footsteps rendered that much louder by the reinforced heels. The officer seemed rather intent on avoiding eye contact, leading to Caitlyn assuming they were a newer recruit and making a mental note to not let rookies be assigned alone for that post. Not that she didn’t trust her enforcers, but she knew from experience that while the Hall was usually quiet, when it did get chaotic it went all in.
Then their head snapped suddenly as if remembering something.
“The tip from the other day,” they said, turning to the side so they could notice the way Caitlyn’s eyebrow raised in question. “I heard Willes say it was a good one when he came back from the inspection. Thought you’d want to know.”
Caitlyn mulled over the information and decided to not dwell on it at the moment. She filed it away in her mind for later to be dissected in minute detail and also get an update personally from the officers that went there.
Maybe she could pass through the station on her way home and ask Willes then.
She muttered a thanks and they fell back into silence for the rest of the short trip through the cell block. It felt a lot longer than it did in the past, but Caitlyn had the suspicion it was because of the current effort she was putting into merely keeping a straight position while walking.
“Here he is,” the officer finally announced, gesturing to a closed door that they had stopped in front of. They fished a ring of keys from a pocket and looked through the numbers on them, in search of the right one that would let Caitlyn in. They hesitated briefly after finding the right one, looking between Caitlyn and the key held just in front of its slot, evidently weighing something in their mind. “Do you need someone inside with you?”
Caitlyn simply shook her head and kept herself from scoffing, straightening up and ready to step through the door. She was only mildly frustrated when the officer’s hesitation dragged even further.
“Are you sure? He can get a little…” they drifted off with a vague wave of their hand, unsure of their wording.
“I’ll be fine,” Caitlyn shut that down, not angrily but evidently done and wanting to move things along. She even patted her holstered gun hanging at her side in hopes that it would put their mind at ease. It didn’t, but she also didn’t care much as she stepped through the reinforced door.
The man inside stopped in the middle of throwing a tennis ball at the wall in order to pass the time, eyes narrowing at her entrance before widening in surprise.
“Kiramman,” he greeted, the name used more as a snide remark than anything remotely denoting the respect that usually came with it.
Caitlyn’s lips were pushed in a thin line, a well practiced mask slipping into place the same way it did since she was young, learning from such an early age to navigate the politics of her gilded home when it suited her.
“Mr. Rowen,” she greeted in return, not bothering to hide her contempt.
—-
“Why would I know anything?”
Lucien picked up his previous meager activity of playing fetch with the wall, the clanking of it against metal grating on Caitlyn’s nerves. She sneered, not quite in the mood to withhold the contempt she felt for the man.
“Because you’re a suspect,” she replied simply, maybe too simply for information she wasn’t really supposed to give out like that. But the beginning of a headache was making her patience rather thin.
His movement stuttered, almost not catching the ball the next time it bounced off the wall and back towards him, fumbling with it for a moment before his fingers got a good grip around it. Caitlyn almost smiled in mock triumph before she caught herself and made sure to keep her mouth in the same serious frown. The way he slowly turned towards her, eyes narrowed with both disbelief and suspicion made it plenty difficult though.
By the time Caitlyn walked through the door to her office, she was holding herself up by a small mercy of the universe. She really wanted to lay down, have a nice warm meal that she had skipped in the morning, and take a much needed breather. But the Sheriff was nothing if not thorough. So she put her badge down into one of her desk’s drawers, a sort of mental compromise with herself to keep her from working herself to the bone in the coming days, if not for the stabbing ache flaring under her bandages, for the promise she had made to Vi.
With long fingers drumming on the polished surface of the wood, nail busying with a rather long scuff, she leaned her weight on the desk and took a few deep breaths. Slow and dragged on for longer than she cared, not wanting to risk anything quicker.
When she was sure she could stand upright without any immediate issue, she pushed herself up and went to look for Willes.
“Why am I a suspect?” Lucien’s voice snapped, suddenly loud and echoey in the barren room.
Caitlyn didn’t back down, still standing tall and seemingly unperturbed a foot or so from the door. Though she still was hyper aware of the gun hanging from her hip. “That’s none of your business,” she said, nonchalantly looking at the file she was holding without actually reading it.
He scoffed, a grimace pulling at his features as he shook his head in annoyed disbelief. Turning pensive for a brief moment, though Caitlyn suspected he was recollecting the temper she was well aware had a tendency to flare like an unattended fire, he slowly passed the ball from one hand to the other.
“I was in the hospital this whole time,” she replied eventually, eyes snapping back to her with contempt washing all over them. “Bet you’d know a thing or two about that.”
Caitlyn was finally at the very least sitting down while reading over the report. Willes had insisted on being a gentleman and offering her the seat at his desk while he briefed her on what went down during the inspection. Caitlyn had a sneaking suspicion that his main reasoning was that he was far too aware of the extent of her injuries, all but sensing the jolts of pain she was silently enduring.
“It was mostly unsafe working conditions. We gave the owners a fine and one of them wants to talk to you because of the lack of notice,” Willes explained, pointing out a few key points that he had written in the report. “Something about that being illegal.”
Caitlyn couldn’t hold back the exaggerated sigh and eyeroll, the mix of tiredness and sudden reluctance to deal with the petty higher ups of Piltover’s society on top of everything else making her mentally jerk away from the mere idea.
“I’ve got things to do,” she said, scoffed really, as she flipped the report shut and pushed it back towards the older man.
He chuckled, taking it and placing it back into the small rack on his desk where he ordered his paperwork. “Told them as much.”
The sudden bang against the far wall almost made Caitlyn jump were it not for the fact that she really saw it coming. In the way Lucien’s eyes darkened with the contempt he was feeling, in the way his hands shook before his fingers closed into fists.
“If you could remain calm,” she spoke into the echo of his hand slamming against the metal.
“I don’t know shit about Brooke. Why the fuck would I care about her?!”
The new outburst didn’t put off Caitlyn more than his general demeanor already had. Hatred dripping from his tone as it raised ever so slightly, his eyes denoting the same sentiment when they snapped back at her. She had no doubt that he could be frightening to most people that would come face to face with the man, but frankly all she could think about while meeting his gaze was a much younger Vi having to face the same thing, but cuffed and defenseless.
She couldn’t help but wish her bullet hadn’t hit only his leg, suddenly regretting wasting her time with him.
Caitlyn was almost ready by the time Vi made her way into their bedroom, looking tired but somewhat content for the first time in a long while. Caitlyn on the other hand felt frustrated and exhausted, her interrogation dragging on for far longer than she had anticipated only to leave her with the exact same results she had walked in with. Which were sparse and poorly put together to begin with.
And to top it off, her skin felt like pin pricks under the bandages, sending little flares of pain through her nerves whenever she moved too suddenly. It made her movements sluggish and she hoped Vi wouldn’t notice when she reached for a sweater on a higher shelf of the wardrobe and the pull of the muscle protested against it.
A fool’s hope, but a hope nonetheless.
“Long day?” Vi asked tentatively, the softness in her voice a stark contrast to the sharp attentiveness in her eyes as she took in every minute movement of her partner.
The way Caitlyn’s face was schooled into a neutrality that was too tight to make Vi believe it. The way hands shook ever so slightly while unfolding clothes. The hiss stifled by clenched teeth as Caitlyn pulled the garment over her head.
The uniform hanging on the back of a chair, definitely not where it had been in the morning.
Vi’s gaze snapped back to her partner, narrowed as she watched Caitlyn freeze the moment she noticed the exact same thing. She bit down on her lower lip before taking a slow inhale that hissed its way into her lungs, the jacket she was taking off a hanger forgotten on her arm. Embarrassed.
Stupid.
“Did you go anywhere today?” Vi asked, and that really was Caitlyn’s downfall because she neither wanted nor could lie to her partner.
Her shoulders sagged as her expression turned into a grimace, both from stepping all over the promise of resting and the way her body was starting to feel.
“It was only a quick interrogation,” she tried to reassure in vain.
Vi’s eyes widened, a mix of worry and frustration storming in her eyes. “You and I need to make sure we’re on the same dictionary page,” she said, a tinge of sarcasm slipping into her tone involuntarily. “The one with the definition of vacation.”
“ You were working,” Caitlyn threw back with an exasperated shrug, frustration about having her hands tied for so long visible in her jerky mannerism.
“ I didn’t almost die.”
“You didn’t have to sit here being bloody useless while others pick up your job.”
Any other words of protest died in her throat, weighted down by the months of poor sleep and stress, followed by the choppy recovery that sometimes still left her feeling like walking around her home was far too big a task. She only then noticed the sag in Vi’s shoulders, the sheen over her eyes at the mere mention of how she had indeed almost died. The genuine and almost desperate worry.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered out with a sigh, feeling guilty over the small outburst but also somewhat guiltily relieved at having gotten it out.
The notion of being on time for the dinner suddenly seemed like a menial deal, the weight on the both of them taking its rightful yet cruel place at the top of their problems for the time being. Caitlyn gave up the useless task of trying to get rid of an awkward fold in her coat as a poor excuse to distract her thinning nerves. She threw the garment on their bed, hands suddenly antsy and wanting them to be free of the weight.
Except in that moment she forgot about the feeling of pin pricks under her skin that had followed her throughout the day, little spikes of pain that simply wouldn’t leave her in peace. The sudden jerk pulled at her muscles, sending a quick jolt through her nerves.
“ Shit ,” she hissed through clenched teeth, a hand flying out to whatever furniture was closest for support.
Vi was beside her before the pain even had time to fully settle as a dull but persistent throb, the previous frustration melting away into eyes wide with worry. Wrapped hands came to grab her shoulders, a mix of gentle and firm as she made sure Caitlyn was upright.
“Hey hey cupcake,” she said, trying to sound soothing but her voice betrayed the rising panic. “C’mere, sit down.”
Caitlyn took a deep breath that filled her lungs far too quickly, making everything that much worse as the expanding of her ribcage pulled on flaring muscles. A wince passed through clenched teeth as she shook her head.
“It’s fine.” The strain in her voice wouldn’t have been able to fool anyone, let alone her partner. “It’ll go away soon.”
She tried for a reassuring smile as she turned slightly to see Vi, but it came out more akin to a grimace that had the complete opposite effect. Seeing the worry flash on her face made Caitlyn relent, if not for the way nausea seemed to seep its way slowly into her body, for the way Vi looked not much better. With a self encouraging squeeze on the back of the chair she was leaning on, she pushed herself away, ready to relent to the request of sitting down.
Big mistake, turns out.
She did end up sitting, though Vi most likely didn’t mean on the floor .
Caitlyn’s legs decided that would be the perfect moment to give up on her, knees turning to jelly as she folded in two. A panicked shout of her name registered somewhere at the back of her mind as she felt Vi being dragged down with her, hands still secure around her arms and keeping her from ending up in an even worse heap on the carpet. She felt her partner’s body braced against her own, a warmth that was beyond welcomed despite the situation.
“Cait. Caitlyn hey,” Vi’s voice was so much closer, their bodies almost flush against each other in a tangle of limbs.
Caitlyn felt the entirety of her day come crashing down on top of her, the entirety of her weeks recovering from her far too near brush with death. It was almost as if the staticky sensation of shimmer was coursing through her veins again, back in the hospital room, brutally yanking her away from a precipice that she was nearly walking blindfolded into. That firing of every nerve being tensed until ready to snap, mixing with the nausea that came with it as the drug settled in her system.
With a whimper, she turned her head and nuzzled into Vi’s shoulder, eyes shut as they started to sting with a few stubborn tears that she was refusing to let fall, out of habit more than anything else. She forced out a mumble, something that she hoped was close enough to an I’m fine to put her partner’s mind at ease. It came out as only an incoherent mess of letters and she didn’t try again, realizing the sheer irony of that statement.
When Vi’s hand shifted slowly to push a navy strand behind her ear before running through her hair, Caitlyn clenched her teeth and swallowed a lump.
“Are the painkillers not working?” Vi asked, voice having lost some of the panicky tone and instead coming out gentle and soothing.
The affection dripping from those words left Caitlyn with a gnawing sense of guild wrapping its clawed hand around her chest. She pressed her face further against Vi’s shirt, enjoying how soft it felt against her skin.
“It’s not-” she tried, drifted off with a grimace. “They make me so-... I can’t even think straight .”
Vi hummed, the sound reverberating in her chest and being felt against Caitlyn’s cheek, not forcefully pressed there anymore but instead resting as she enjoyed the feel of fingers running through her hair. They stopped briefly to scratch at her scalp, blunt fingernails at her nape making Caitlyn close her eyes.
“And being in pain is better?” Vi asked after a beat, not unkindly.
Caitlyn snorted, feeling the stupidity of her situation. Because no, not really. Having her body feeling as if it was on fire whenever she made too sudden of a movement wasn’t much of an improvement from taking too long to arrange the clues on her conspiracy board.
“It took me three hours to go through a few reports,” she complained uselessly, well aware that she was treading the fine line of becoming whiny. But if she could allow herself to be whiny in anyone’s presence, Vi was definitely the one person that she would permit to witness it.
Vi chuckled lightly, endeared by the way her partner's face was buried in the crook of her neck while she was complaining about time efficiency. Yet a faint sense of bitterness still made its way into it. The way Caitlyn had prioritized their case, already one she had taken head first when the trials started and turned that much more important after the murder.
Caitlyn hadn’t looked that out of it after her stay at the hospital, still her smart and quick witted self, if not slightly sluggish due to the injury she was still recovering from. Even still-
“You’re not meant to solve a murder while still recovering, Cupcake.”
The sigh that left Caitlyn after those words, slow and drawn out, was felt by the both of them.
“Yeah. Yeah you’re right.”
They stayed like that for just a while longer, Caitlyn waiting for her body to stop its incessant protesting at any and all movement no matter how small. Vi too stayed in their heap of limbs until her partner’s breath wasn’t a pained hiss of air against her collarbone.
“Can you…” Caitlyn pointed to the small bottle on the nightstand as she raised from the position she had been laying in for the last good twenty minutes.
Vi reached back, being closer to it, and opened it to drop one pill into Caitlyn’s hand. She pulled a face, nose scrunched up in disgust when she threw the bitter little thing into her mouth and dry-swallowed it, not waiting for a glass of water.
“You monster.”
—-
The tall stone form of Stillwater would never not look looming and intimidating. At least not to Vi. But even Caitlyn beside her, leaning on the rusty rail of the small ferry, didn’t look much more at ease. A grimace adorned both their faces as they watched the shadowy silhouette of the Hold crawl closer and closer above the heavy fog.
Going through those doors was even worse.
Vi couldn’t remember the first time she had passed between the massive pillars on each side, her memory of that night murky as the water below and ending with the uncomfortable bed of an unfamiliar room shadowed by iron bars. Each time she had to return there during the trials her partner’s steady presence beside her did a great job at putting her nerves at ease.
Great. Not flawless.
She pushed a thumb into her palm, running the pad of her finger over the material of her wraps, feeling its texture as a poor means of distraction. Her other distractions consisted in listening to the echoey clack of Caitlyn’s heels and fidgeting with the loose straps of her jacket. Both rather unsuccessful at keeping her mind off things.
She was grateful, and she was sure Caitlyn was too, when their path didn’t have to venture deep into the pits of Srillwater. Their business started at the front desk, greeted by an officer appointed a short while ago during the trials, and ended only a few corridors away, in the Archive.
Vi pushed the doors open for the both of them, catching a soft smile from her partner as she walked past her and into the library-like space.
Stillwater’s Archive was much like the one from the Hall of Law, if not for the much darker gray tones that the entire place had and the fact that it looked as if people walked in there about thrice a year. The shelves full of cases holding reports and documents had a fine layer of dust on top, not having been touched in gods know how long.
It was a good thing they weren’t there for a library trip.
Caitlyn walked up to the long desk at the back, an assortment of office supplies pushed to one side in some form of an attempt at making the place look more tidy. It failed, but they had more urgent things to deal with than lost paper clips.
“Sheriff,” the officer behind the desk greeted once they noticed the two of them. They turned to Vi, giving her a onceover that bordered on cautious before nodding to her too. “Deputy.”
Vi returned the nod while Caitlyn was in full Sheriff mode, the few days of rest she took showing in the way her shoulders squared with that same confidence so typical of her. She gave a brief greeting before getting down to business.
“I’d like to take out a few files,” she started, tapping her fingers on top of the desk’s surface for a few beats. “The same ones officer Brooke took during our trials.”
The officer eyed them both for a few moments, placing the coffee mug they were holding up until then on the desk and so close to a stack of documents it made Caitlyn’s lips purse to keep from grimacing. They raised to their feet, giving a mumbled in a moment and pushing a door at the back of the small sort of reception open. They left the two of them alone in the cavernous dusty room, disappearing inside what was likely a continuation of the archives, holding more sensitive information.
Vi looked around, feeling strange at the space that she had never seen before, despite spending the better part of a decade in that building. Then again, being behind bars didn’t exactly give her the best opportunity to roam and explore. Caitlyn was equally mesmerized by the place, though perhaps a better word to describe the expression on her face was an odd kind of curiosity that was slowly making its way into aversion.
“This place needs a cleanup,” she murmured, and Vi couldn’t help a short burst of laughter at her partner’s skewed priorities.
Caitlyn turned to her, nose scrunched up in a grimace, but didn’t comment further on the state of dust and dirt of the Archives. Instead, they both waited at the desk the officer had vacated, Vi picking up a pen to play with to pass the time.
A good ten minutes passed before the heavy door to the back opened again, the rather petite officer pushing it with their shoulder due to their arms being currently occupied with a stack of files that didn’t look particularly lightweight. They let them almost fall on the desk with a huff, rattling the coffee cup dangerously as they sat back down and started filing in the report of what was being taken out.
“Anything else?” they asked, grabbing a pair of glasses from somewhere inside the chaos and pushing it on their nose, sighing when the pads of their fingers accidentally touched the lenses.
Caitlyn shook her head, looking over the stack of envelopes, yellowed and stained over the years. The officer pursed their lips and started compiling a blank report, listing off the code for each file, pointedly ignoring Vi’s searching gaze.
“Actually,” Caitlyn started, that political poise so characteristic to the Sheriff slipping into her voice. “Do you know about officer Brooke?”
Their hand stilled on the pen, creating a small splotch of ink before they quickly jerked it away and salvaged the paper and their time. There were a few beats of silence, their eyes still fixed on what was in front of them, before they nodded and kept at their task.
Vi watched as her partner’s eyes narrowed, her head tilting ever so slightly as the investigative gears were whirring in that brilliant mind of hers.
“Can you tell me anything about her? Anyone that would’ve wanted her dead?”
There was an unmistakable strain in her voice in the way she said it. Dead. The death that had been clinging to their shoulders for different reasons but still in equal measure. Guilt over a failure to protect someone that was under her, that was there because of her. Guilt over a missed opportunity to reconcile with someone that was changing for the better and in the process chipping away at change in Piltover as a whole, that chance now gone and buried six feet in the ground.
The officer took a deep breath, holding it for a few moments as a plethora of thoughts seemed to run across their gaze, before leaning back in the chair and letting it out as a sigh. A slender gloved hand came up to scratch at the back of their neck, tugging lightly at the reddish hair that fell just above narrow shoulders.
“I didn’t know her well,” they said, stopped moving, and looked for their words with too much care. “But what happened to her that-... it’s messed up. She was just just a small part of that whole mess.”
Their shoulders sagged in a far too familiar way, wanting to be smaller, less visible. Vi recognized it far too well, had been the one curling in on herself far too many times in the past. She locked eyes with them, a flash of fearful dark blue before they averted their gaze and found far more interest in the report that had already been completed and was just waiting to be archived.
“I think-... My best bet is one of the wardens. Lewis was her direct superior. Rowen was hospitalized for a while. Crogan would’ve died before he let anyone get in his way,” they listed off, their words a jumbled mess of ideas thrown into the air just to fill the silence.
Caitlyn sighed, nodding slowly more to herself than at anyone in the room. “We’ll look into it,” she said, not seeing the point in giving them an update over how the better half of their best bet were dead ends. “Thank you, officer…”
They gave her a small smile, demeanor shifting into something less resembling a cornered cat with its hackles raised, ready to jump away and book it at the smallest sign of threat.
“Smith.”
“Officer Smit,” Caitlyn repeated, committing the name to memory the way she tried to do with the enforcers working under her. “Thank you.”
She picked up half of the files piled up, Vi understanding the unspoken request for her to help with the rest. Arms full of far more paperwork either of them wanted to deal with at the moment, they bid their goodbyes and made their way back to the entrance. The echoey halls and their tall ceilings of stone felt just a tad less oppressive as they walked out.
“Did you notice?” Vi asked once they were descending the stairs.
Caitlyn raised an eyebrow, giving her a curious look for a brief second before going back to watching where she placed her feet. Damn stairs were beyond ancient and the corrosive salty waters that surrounded the small island didn’t do the structure any favors.
“They were left handed.”
Caitlyn furrowed her brows, a mix of confusion and amusement at her partner’s almost conspiratorial tone. She let her have some sort of fun, gods know Vi deserved it.
“So is Joel,” Caitlyn rebutted. “I can’t start investigating every single left handed person in Runeterra.”
Vi let out a short laugh. “You’re right. Maybe we should look into him too.”
“Vi!”
Caitlyn gave her a half hearted nudge with her shoulder, hands still too busy for the usual swat that her partner’s poorly placed humor would warrant. Vi only let out another breathy laugh, before a pang of guilt washed over her at making light of the investigation and she grimaced.