Archive of Our Own ^beta

it started out as being vi’s little rebound fuck:

After another win she's drinking and masquerading it as a celebration when there's a meek tap on her shoulder. Vi can barely feel the sheepish, fleeting contact through her thick jacket; but she can make out the sight of a figure right beside her. It's a little wiggly and fuzzy, melting into the background as the warm washes of alcohol begin buzzing beneath her skin.

Vi twirls on the stool, frowning at you, "Yeah?"

Her tone is vicious, full of snot and ridicule, eyes narrowed. Black shade smearing over her cheekbones from the influence of sweat. Similarly, her hair is sweat-slicked, unevenly dyed strands dewy against her temples.

"Uhm, Vi, right?" you clear your throat, leaning close because you're petrified she won't hear you.

"What?" she spits again, though cants toward you -unbalanced.

"Hey, so," your hands knot behind your back, forcing your chest to jut out. Gnawing your bottom lip and eyelashes batting up at her, "I'm kinda like your biggest fan..."

"Hah?" her jaw hangs open, an eye squinting at you in disbelief, "You fuckin' serious?"

"Super serious," you giggle in earnest, hoping maybe a bit more charm will make her hard exterior crack, "I think you're crazy out there."

Vi sighs, surely about to reject you when a hand lands on her shoulder -a brunette man shrugs at her, giving a tiny smile- and she visibly loosens. Shoulders slacking and creased brows smoothing. She turns toward you again.

Heart hammering between your ribs, you catch her gray eyes drifting from your pert face and over your chest and down your hips along your thighs. All sleazy like.

The man murmurs into her ear as she blatantly leers at you. Barely do you catch his advice over the thrumming music: have a little fun.

Vi nods against his tilted head and pats the stool beside her, "Alright, fangirl, hop on."

You've got to clench your bottom lip in razor teeth to withhold a squeal, nodding excitedly and bouncing up onto the seat. Swiveled to face her. Vi reaches boldly between your legs, grasping the chilled metal underside to yank your stool flush against hers. The sides clack, vibrating you in place.

“You drunk?” she slurs at you.

“Uh, no…”

“You want a drink?” she tosses a thumb over her shoulder, toward the shiny shelves of liquor jugs.

“Uh, sure!”

“You picky? What do you want?”

“Uh, whatever you’re having is fine!”

Vi’s brows raise, lips quirking in amusement, “Do you ever start a sentence without some moaning, sweetheart?”

Pushing your lips tight, you have to swallow down the ditzy ‘uhm’ rushing up your throat to refuse, “No! I’m normally super good at speaking.”

“Are you?”

You shrug, “I think so.”

Vi laughs -well more like a loose snicker but still!- and shakes her head at you, combing a wrapped hand through her patchy hair, “You that starstruck?”

“Are you kidding? You’re so cool,” you gush, hands falling to your knees. Squeezing around bone nervously, “I’m totally obsessed with watching you out there.”

“Oh, yeah?”

“Yeah!”
.
.
.

“Ooh,” Vi’s fingers, calloused and bruising, so tenderly draw beneath the strap of your bra. Thumbing the extra frills along each edge and pausing at the bow nestled just above the cups, she pushes the minuscule ribbons up with a blunt nail. Bottom lip trapped between her teeth, “This is cute, cupcake.”

“Cupcake?” you giggle, a bit ditzy with confusion swirling with anticipation -clogging your throat.

“Uh-huh,” she hums, blinking stiffly. Steely eyes flocking up from your chest to your face before tumbling back down. Fat spilling over the thin fabric, jiggling with your every labored breath. Vi wraps her other arm around your back, swiftly unweaving the hook, “I gotta get this off you.”

Bending into her grasp, you let Vi greedily peel your bra off; eyes tearing into the way your breasts drop free. One hand cinching the loose lace and the other eagerly pawing at your chest. Pinching a nipple solely to hear you gasp.

“So cute,” her eyes have some faraway film over them regardless of how active her hands are at your bosom as if acting out instinctually, like how she’d brush her teeth or breathe without thought.

“Vi,” you whine, raising your hands toward her arms and burning your prints into her forearm. Searing over her joints and up her bicep before wringing around her neck. Tangling fingers into her hair, “You seem distracted…”

“A little,” she admits, looking up at you so dejectedly you’re almost compelled to avoid eye contact. It’s wrong to see her so welpy and limp in spirit; goes against everything you’ve sifted of her personality through watching her fights.

“Should I go?”

“Don’t…”

“Vi, I’m worried-!”

You yelp then as she wrangles you forward by the hips, plying the flesh carelessly. She surges forward, chapped lips against yours with heat -- chaste pecks a ruse of affection before she’s licking into your mouth. Sour beer invades your senses as she cups your cheek and brings you closer. The brush of her thumb along your cheekbone is jarringly tender.

“Don’t talk,” she grunts, flipping and backing you into her makeshift mattress.

The hand not hovering your face massages your bare thigh. She punches up onto her knees, gasping openly against your mouth before rushing a thigh into the gap. Spreading you open while grinding her knee on your mound. Her palm rounds the top of your thigh to dig the warm inside. Merely squeezing her way down, closer and closer toward the crease where leg meets pelvis until her thumb slips beneath the gusset of your panties. Gliding over where you’re hottest to circle your clit with the pooling juices.

Bucking into her digit makes her laugh openly into your mouth.

Hand fluttering down from your face, Vi draws clipped nails over your neck and traces the swell of your breast -traversing your ribs and stomach before she meets the band of your underwear. Another bow greets her and she laughs again, twiddling the velveteen ornament.

“Dressed up just for me, cupcake?”

When her eyes are shut, she can’t see you preparing to speak but she can feel it -- must be able to because before you can confirm that yes, yes, Vi, I did and I wanted you to see me and notice how the set matches it’s my only one she kisses you again. But somehow, someway you need her to know the truth; you moan as you return the wet smooch.

Frantically humping her palm, anxious to dip her long fingers inside you, with a swooning wordless mewl. Vi purposefully ignores the mindless need, ‘tsk’ vibrating through your lips -she leisurely snags and drags your panties down your thighs. Dark fabric wrinkling between her knuckles, which blister white while following the planes of your legs. Her patience lasts until your ankles, where she finally and appropriately rips the cloth free. Tossing it aside. Then pinning your knee aside with the freshly spare hand.

Vi’s lips leave yours, she sighs and leans back to watch herself fan your cunt open, “You even realize you’re clenching right now? Or are you so desperate I’m all you’re thinking about?”

“I just want you,” you wail, back bending up to jam your tits in her face.

“‘Course you do,” she tucks her face into the junction of your neck. Digging canines into your pulse and sucking a welt as unavoidable evidence you had her between your thighs.

You’d let her vacuum hickies all down your body -- she doesn’t even have to ask.

A ragged gasp barbs your lungs as Vi slips her middle finger into you, curling toward the pouch of your stomach. Crescending from slow drawls into solid pistons, pushing out whines and curses between your teeth. She slides a second finger in, thumb sloppily drawing up to your clit.

Suddenly she’s braced overhead, studying your pinched face with intent. Heaving like she’s the one getting fucked. Gray eyes nonstop racing between your sploshing cunt wrapped around her fingers up to your chest and into your teary lashes. The rough pad of her thumb slides distinct characters along your bud.

You could be delusional, or she could be carving her name into you.

The thought she is makes you seize-- then a hard shot through your gut forces your head back. Lips crowning an ‘o’-shape.

“Breathe, baby,” she coos, pushing against your tummy as she continues fingering you through each spasm, “Breathe for me.”

You do as she says, reaping a big deep breath just for her -- with padded air, you sing, “Oh, Vi!” whole body jittering.

“Good job, cupcake,” she lays an overly sentimental kiss on your forehead as you pant back to normality.

Eyes low, you fling hands out to greedily caress her firm stomach careening toward her chunky belt. Rough hands pause you, Vi shakes her head and cups your face again to kiss you hard, pressing you onto the stiff bed with her weight over yours.

“Just wanna fuck you, cupcake,” she groans, taking a snip from your bottom lip. It stings faintly but she’s pleased with herself so you just run your tongue over the sore.

Then, she slinks away. Shortly, only as far as her nightstand, but you're worming down the bed to sap up her heat again. Vi unleashes something jarring, though not unwelcomed. You watch in stunned silence while she unveils it: a shadowy magenta-hued dildo rigged into black leather. She locks eyes, raising a brow: you get it, this is your chance. If you don't want to get fucked, you should leave. Good for Vi, getting fucked was exactly what you were wanting when you approached her.

Vi presses your hips down on the bed flat. Every fluid thrust into you ends with a deep electric pop. Her fingers stretch out until the silky head of her strap taps her skin and then she speeds up until that tapping is a battering. Her back straightens as you wheeze a sweet sigh; leaning upright. Arm stiffening to cuff your throat, thumb affectionately scrubbing along your pulse. Spare hand grappling beneath your knee to widen the gap between your thighs.

Drilling into you, Vi manages to jolt you across her bed mat. And like a fly to honey, she chases -in a flurry to not leave your cunt too long before returning with a slam. Genuine groans and hums singe her throat: heat spiraling down her arm until your hips hop up toward her pelvis.

“Beautiful, baby,” she grunts, eyes fluttering back in her skull.

Skin slapping skin merges with the music of your wetness wailing around Vi. Firework displays of arousal beget more arousal -- watching her crinkle and fall over you makes you clench around her. Something about her borderline manic moans and drooling makes you feel like she somehow feels it.

Vi squeezes your throat before releasing your windpipe: now using both hands to swerve and press your thighs against your bouncing chest. Cock reaching mysteriously deeper. She folds your torso in half, squatting over you so there’s no escape from her dick. Every twitch away is easily overpowered. Her entire weight crashing into your soaked cunt.

Curses flicking between Vi’s clenched teeth when she finally pulses hard, hard into you. Sitting base deep and grinding, swishing back and forth as her eyes widen and glisten.

“Aw, fuck, baby,” she sounds a bit pathetic but the sounds more intoxicating than what you drank tonight, “Baby, baby, cupcake, so good!”

She lowers to kiss you. Once. Then twice. Then she pulls back to smile down at you. Sleepy and lopsided and hazed with serenity.

After precisely one second, she slowly pulls out. Very kindly massaging your thighs as she lowers both legs before rising from the bed.

Vi meanders toward the bathroom -- kitchen sink hissing to life soon after.

Hands unwound by your head and legs smeared across her bed, your chest thunders with each heave for air. Soft padded steps veer closer before pausing completely at the foot of the bedroom.

“Need a walk down?” Vi’s shoulder burdens the doorway, head tipped toward the frame.

Oh, were you being rude?

Maybe so…

“Yes,” you grunt, hips uncooperative as you slide off her lackluster bed. Vi does not rush over to cradle you off but watches with a satisfied smear. Fighting on your clothing, sans the bra flung somewhere over her shoulder, you eventually crash into Vi’s side.

“Trouble walking?”

“Shut up…”

Vi snorts, sympathetic enough to wring an arm around you. Brunting your weight as you both shuffle toward the door, cracking it open to an uncaring brisk wind. Shivering deeper into the burrow of her side, the cold emboldens you enough to wrap both arms around her waist. Borderline snuggling as she hefts you toward the stairs.

“Cold?” a question, you think. Vi says it with plain confidence. Not that she needed that confidence to declare something bare before her eyes. Sometimes when the sky is dark and a dog is barking, you just have to call them as they are.

You’re fucking freezing.

Wordlessly, Vi shrugs off her jacket -- red leather squeaking along her arms and over yours. Her eyes pounce over you, it could be predatory if you didn’t like it so much- before she ‘hmph’s, “You should keep that. I like it on you,” she jumbles you around easily, “Besides, you should start dressing warmer.”

“Are you telling me to cover up?”

She croons over your pout, blatantly looking down your low top -- nipples cutting through the thin fabric and soon-swelling lovebites on display, “Nope. Maybe a long-sleeve couldn’t hurt, though.”

“Oh?” a sudden stroke of genius (and desperation) lathes you, “And would you come give a second opinion?”

Tone lilting just enough to be casual, you could absolutely play this off as a joke! …but you’re not joking.

“If you want me to,” she shrugs.

No fucking way it worked.

“Yeah, really?” your entire point of cool and casual melts without restraint, an audibly nervous, bumpy chuckle flipping through your throat, “I’d -yeah- I’d like that.”

“Then let’s do it.”

“For sure,” you giggle, positively lightheaded.

“You got it from here?”

“Oh, yeah, I can get home…” when you glance her way, Vi’s eyes are over your shoulder. Her knuckles blistering around the banister, “I don’t live far, really.”

“Yeah?” her foot taps anxiously. You nod with a quiet ‘yeah, vi, promise’ and she returns the gesture. Then pats your padded shoulders, fingers tightening around familiar leather, “Jacket should be enough warning, anyway.”

“You’re just that big and bad?”

“Oh, yeah,” she mimics you, shooting a wink before turning up toward the steps, “Find me tomorrow if you’re serious about that little shopping trip.”

Oh God she’s turning away, she’s about to waltz right out and you know yourself. You know you’ll lose this spontaneous courage as soon as her back has faded up the stairs, so you blurt out:

“Uhm, actually!”

“Huh?”

“...do you want to stay the night at mine?”

Vi blinks herself from her stupor, tackling a single step down with the most conflicted confusion lashing her cheekbones. Rolling the proposal from one tooth, around the ring of her jaw, and finally swallowing, “You want me in your house?”

“I can make you breakfast,” you add, to avoid the accusation of being overtly domestic you then throw in a softening, “I have bread and eggs.”

Unthinkingly, she snubs a hand over her stomach -- merely mentioning food has her guts flipping. Phantom curls of toast twist into her nose, saliva gushing freshening her palette. Vi takes another step down, then another, and another, and she grabs your hand -yoinking you forward silently until you’re guiding her toward your apartment.

***

Wet heat. Feathered scratches. Someone’s mewling.

Oh, oh, oh God -it’s you.

Fingers are already knotting into sheets, hips quirking. Gut clenching.

Startling awake with a gasp, your back’s already sharpened upward. Head thrown back into the pillows and legs tossed over Vi’s shoulders. Thighs shaking around her ears. Instinctually, you try raising your hips from her maw- squirming up the thin mattress for relief- but Vi easily rakes you back down. Blunt nails shoveling into your hips, pushing down to keep you still.

Tongue parting your folds crudely, Vi revels in your apparent distress; blinking up at you slowly as you grapple a fistful of hair. She even has the gall to chuckle at you. Vibrations spiraling and fizzing out in the balls of your hips, but still just knowing it’s her makes your chest tighten. Another squeal tumbles out, tongue fighting its way into your cheek to no avail. Every attempt is halted swiftly with Vi lewdly, loudly, and unabashedly sucking syrupy cum from your hole.

Moaning for more, she swivels her face into your cunt before pulling back to flay a broad stroke over your clit. Circling the bud precisely just to hear your staggered huffs. Frustrated tears well in the corners of your eyes.

Palming her flushed forehead, your shuddering arm tries in vain to shove her away. Vi shakes her head into you again, scolding you with her eyes as she suckles your clit -- pulling away just to ‘tsk’,

“I’m trying to clean you up here, you know?”

An uneven puff of breath leaves you, chest jittering and head flinging limply, “‘s too much, Vi…”

“Too much?” she leans upon her elbows, wrapping an arm around your leg to push two fingers across your cunt, spreading you open and watching you clench around nothing, “But you’re still so wet, baby.”

“Yeah, you’re too much,” you manage to pant out, fractionally grateful for the break and partially wondering if it’d be too hypocritical to hump her shiny face now.

Vi mimics a frown, way dramatically downturning her lips, “Am I?” you nod, “So, should I stop?”

You bite your lip.

You shake your head.

“Aw, okay then,” she slaps your thigh, “Stop whining so much, yeah?”

Vi really is so mean to you.

***

First stop on your mental list is also the sole stop, so ideally, this trip would not last long. Of course, before you two make it far, you’re distracted:

“Nice comb, probably expensive,” Vi gruffs from over your shoulder. She saw and fully knew you were going the wrong way and said nothing, only followed with hunched shoulders and hands in her pockets. Mean glares passed onto leering men.

Squeaking in shock, you cradle the comb to your chest and pray it calms the rapid beating of your heart. Flipping the smooth darkwood in your hand, skimming your fingers along the teeth just to feel each fine spike.

“I can afford it,” you insist.

“You got a job?”

“Uh, yeah.”

Vi’s almost startled by your offense, raising her hands in surrender with a small shrug, “How am I supposed to know? You’re always on me.”

“What?” you pout dejectedly, “You got a problem with that?”

“Nah,” Vi snatches the comb from your hand before twining your fingers together, “I like having a pretty thing around,” she holds the tool up over your head before you can grab it, snickering as you try stretching over her to grab it back, “What do you do anyway?”

“Huh?”

“For work,” she kindly elbows you flat onto your feet, squeezing your hand as she guides you through the coagulated market, “What do you do?”

“I’m a waitress, kinda,” you quiet, leaning your face against her thick bicep. It’s warm against your face, skin soft regardless of her own career, “I open at Bombshells…”

“Didn’t know that place was open before night.”

“Our dancers don’t show up until then, yeah.”

“Slow, huh?”

“I mostly clean with the other girl.”

“Sounds terrible.”

“Says you.”

“I’m fine as long as I win,” she grins wolfishly, canines glinting in the sunlight leaking from above. A honeyed glow cast over her faded dye, “Which I always do.”

Cheeks heating at the dichotomy between jagged danger and her big eyes and pretty face, your gaze darts away. Vi ghosts her lips over your temple, it could’ve been a kiss but you mostly just felt her smirking against you. Whenever an unfortunate head turns your way she fastens you deeper into her side, undoubtedly possessive. Terrible a trait as that is, especially given how the two of you aren’t official, you’re bewitched by the showmanship.

You assume it's a good thing: that she wants you.

When she leads you up to the vendor and uses her own coin to pay for your comb, your assumptions only sink deeper. You pray not into delusion, but you’re sure that possibility isn’t off the table.

“Take care of that thing,” she says with finality, as if you need the warning.

A wood so dark it burns red, strips of yellowish discolor vining diagonally along the middle. Shining in your palm with searing polish. You had a prettier comb when you were little -- a gold spine and black veneer, you carried it everywhere. Until you lost it. Losing that comb was hardly the worst thing in your life, especially at the time, although it was very beautiful and so pricey. This comb, if you lost this comb, you can only guess that the world itself would end.

Again cradling the comb against your chest, now with sincerity, you squeeze the hand Vi has wrapped around yours, “I think it’s my favorite.”

Vi laughs at you. Good-natured, you think. You hope.

She takes your hand in hers back on the way toward shirts all the same.

Vi occasionally has to redirect your sights back onto long-sleeves from tiny cut tops. You manage to pluck two that caught your eye and Vi’s little smirk and nod as she says, “you’ll have to model for me.” makes you weak in the knees.

And the downright perverse way her eyes crawl down your torso doesn’t help. She’s slouched back onto the bed, one thigh bouncing in frenzy.

“C’mere,” Vi slurs, raking you between her spread legs with hands on your hips.

“Vi!” you giggle, maybe a little more vapid than necessary, and try to balance yourself against her shoulders.

Without much concern or forethought, Vi is prying the shirt over your head. Mumbling to herself, just loud enough for you to catch snippets, desperate claws to see your skin. How much she misses it already. Calloused hands scar up from your sides to cradle your back while her lips tease down the swell of your breasts. Laving your nipples in broad tongue-strokes before softly tucking one in her mouth, cheeks hollowing. She croons around the bud as if it’s doing anything for her.

As she pops off, you catch the rouge caked into her cheeks. Webs of slobber stitching her swollen lips to your stiff nipple. Shining with saliva.

Then she’s pushing you away, a non-committed attempt at a kiss ghosts your lips before Vi is turning away. She clears her throat and pets through her hair.

“I’ve gotta get to the bar,” as if she can sense the wild request gushing up your gullet, she adds, “You should stay home and get some rest,” she must feel bad because she turns again to give you another chance at a kiss. Chaste and speedy before she’s darting out, “See you around, babe.”

Baffled as you are by her sudden disappearance, you’re equally -maybe even more- flattered by the pet name.

And in the quiet of her distance, you abruptly and sharply realize:

Oh, I didn’t go to work.

Oops.

Well, it’s too late now.

And the thought of finishing off what Vi started between your thighs sounds rich right about now. Your fingers may not be as satisfying but they’ve finished the job before, they can do it again.

Three sharp taps quake the door. Shrieking hinges shooting you alert. What are those odds? They must be good, right? Who else could be coming to your residence?

Did she forget something?

Does she miss you, too?

Skidding along the flat floor, a shirt hanging over your shoulders with skimpy panties beneath, you fling the door wide. Arms speared on either side, eager to wrap around the disheveled woman. You’re about to pile over her when your eyes hone on the face at your stoop.

Avont.

A grizzled man with wiry black hair curling around his jaw, bridging over his top lip, and connected to the slick-black ‘do of a proper undercity businessman.

“What happened?” oak eyes scrutinize you, scanning from your mussed hair to your bare legs, “Are you okay? You didn’t show.”

Ohhhhh maybe the boss you flaked on. That’s someone who might show up late at night, duh. Completely normal.

Well, fairly: it is normal when it’s Avont.

A faux sniffle schlucks up your nose easier than the throat-stabbing cough you force. Stumbling into the doorway with a very sudden, very apparent light-headedness, “I got- !” you silence yourself with another cough, forcing your voice down into the base of your chest, “Caught something… at that bar…”

Scoffing, Avont nods, “Big surprise. That place is nasty as shit. I keep tellin’ you stop going there,” here he goes again -you mentally retreat, planning the next ploy to aid your virus story, while he spiels, “You’re too nice for a gross ass place like that. No little crush is worth that black-eye waiting to happen! You need to listen to me, I was right about that girl and I’m right about that bar!”

Clearing your throat and shaking off both his lecture and the subtle jab at your dating history, you apologize softly and assure him, “I’ll be back on my feet soon…”

“Get rest, kid. I better not see your ass prancing in the lanes…”

Ugh, no faith. Like he thinks you’re a liar or something!

You feign a pained swallow and show a ‘thumbs up’. Nodding curtly. Shutting the door as he turns away. Returning to bed orgasm-less, and now dulled of all carnal heat upon the sight of your boss ]

***

Rising from bed provides a fresh ache, unrelated to the -still recovering- fingerprints scorched along your hips or the bite marks on your chest. This one curdles inside: above the vagina and below your throat. Acting more as a realization than a concrete feeling, one you think is meant to be stifled instead of acted upon. Not that self-awareness helps any.

Because whether it’s embarrassing or not, you’re itching to see Vi again. No amount of maturity or hindsight can pin that into a designated place. It rattles around, bowling one end of your stomach to the other like a wild hog until you’re shuffling out of bed. Intent on somehow finding those slate eyes on you again.

Skimping on work is something you’d be scolded for at home, which makes you thankful you’re not: you get to flee your house without a lecture on the importance of career dedication.

You planned on waiting before seeing Vi, you could picture it so well: you, posted at the bar by yourself in a cute little number with a drink you took one sip from. Lipstick around the rim. Lashes thick and batting over your shoulder as she approaches you for once.

All of that daydreaming is dashed as soon as you step foot inside.

Vi is already there. Black face paint thick around the eyes, strewn down her cheeks nearing the corners of her mouth -- black lipstick around there, too. Outgrown strands flattening out around her neck like oiled feathers. Individual pieces compiling to craft this perfect ego, some mask to make herself unattainable.

Always there. Always lingering. Always looking despite the danger ahead.

It makes you wonder what she serves. You want to know more. You need her to tell you, whisper it against your lips with her tongue in your mouth.

But she’s always there.

Does she live here or something?

Between strobing lights and swamped bodies, you manage to make out Vi’s stained silhouette. Ear cuffs shining back into your retinas.

Now you struggle with how to approach… should you be upfront? Should you tease from the sidelines and pray she notices?

Before you can formulate the most immaculate lie, Vi spots you in the faded crowd. Her eyebrows raise a smidge, a smoke visibly clearing from her gaze upon the sight of you. As if you could have no other prerogative than her (you don’t), she beckons you forward with two flicks of her middlemost fingers -- effectively eliminating the most awkward part of approaching her. Good!

Bounding toward the woman, you shyly tuck your hands at your hip and give a coy, “Hey, Vi…”

“What’re you doing here?”

Fuck!

“I’m here all the time,” not really a lie, just strategically subtracting the part where you come solely to catch glimpses of her beneath floodlights.

“Sure,” she pushes off the crackled counter, sliding back toward the door.

“I was just bored…” you admit glumly, reduced to a miserable, truthful goop beneath her glittering eyes, “Couldn’t think of anything but this place.”

Vi, naturally, chooses to pick on you, “You thinking of me?”

“Wha- ! Ugh, uh, no. Not really. Not even,” again, your bluffs disperse as simply as smoke with a mere flick of her eyes, “Just super bored.”

“Uh-huh,” she shrugs, jerking her head toward the back of the room, “You bored enough for a quickie in the bathroom? I gotta go out in ten for my first fight, need something to get my heart started.”

“First fight?”

“I get double-booked most nights, sweetpea.”

Your automatic reaction is to squeeze your thighs, feeling that slight nudge of fat ripe against your clit -- the friction. The resounding echo of your heartbeat against each rib bone. A dodgy snort racketing through your sinus, “You need to work on your nicknames.”

Vi’s initial response is to roll her eyes as if she could read the arousal off you like text -- her second response is to quietly mumble, “Forget that one from last night.”

Out of respect, you singularly nod and say nothing else, no matter how oddly the request strikes you.

And when Vi links an arm through yours, out of respect, you let her drag you into the bathroom. Spiked jacket collars dig into you as she crushes you toward the back wall -- rigging a janky lock last-minute; you’re not sure it ever clicked, and you’re also not sure that you care.

She keeps you pinned against the tile wall when you try slinking down her body. Vi ‘tsk’s in your face, nipping your neck, black fingernails already dipping beneath your waistband. Fluttering your bottoms down your thighs before whirling you around yet again. She slides onto the lidded toilet, legs spread wide. One thigh braised, muscle tense. She sits you on that thigh.

“Come on, baby,” she viciously swipes your cunt along her thumping thigh, swerving your hips by force. Rudely mimicking your pathetic whimpers back to you, airy, echoed “ah, ah, ah”s passing between sloppy kisses, “You gonna cum for me?”

Hard pressure and stroke against your clit has a ragged gasp raking through your chest, you spread your legs and wrangle hands into her jacket.

Then twisting those hands up toward her blackened hair. Vi has no sympathy, only pushing down harder and sliding you wetly over her skin.

“Come on, girl,” she moans quietly, “Give it to me. I need to watch you cum.”

Your gut twists at the desperate husk in her voice. Thighs quaking around hers. Nails snagging the nape of her neck.

She nudges up into you on each stroke, pressing her lips to yours.

“Uh- !” you gasp, knot blistering apart in your stomach.

“Yeah?”

“Hah…!”

“Uh-huh, baby,” she slowly releases your hips, allowing you to rut at your own pace while you come down from your orgasm.

“Oh, Vi…”

“Good girl,” she pecks your cheeks. Papping the black lipstick stains away kindly, “I needed that.”

Vi has enough decorum to help you yank up your clothes before shuffling you back out into the crowd.

Her thick jacket is laid over you. She pats the two-headed hound over your back with a playful shrug and chooses to not acknowledge the way you solely gaze at her chest beneath the wrap top. What a merciful and kind woman.

You slide your arms through the sleeves of the heavy jacket, letting Vi guide you via a hand just above your ass. Until you’re squishing through raised pews, not mumbling apologies quick enough for all the shoes you’re trampling. Too fast you’re moving in a space too dark.

“Here, baby,” Vi gruffs from behind you, shoving you as politely as possible onto the stone seat beside a man over thrice your size. She pats your padded shoulder and beams at the man while saying your name, then turns to you amongst the cheering crowd and says, “This is my friend! Just stick with him and nobody’ll fuck with you while I’m down there!”

Eagerly nodding along, you perk up as Vi leans down. One hand on your cheek and the other darting between the open drawls of her jacket -- not-so-subtly copping a squeeze of your tit -- pressing you with a soft, open-mouthed kiss. Then she hops down the pews vertically, carelessly shoving aside viewers. People scream after her in outrage but don’t change their bets on her win.

An elbow jutting into your side knocks you violently into Vi’s friend. Rather than become as upset as the patrons, he smiles down at you softly and slinks an arm around your back to keep you away from the rowdiness.

Lights dim, then shoot alive. Flashing down into the pit. Circling and circling like scavenger birds as a man rippling with black ink enters directly across from Vi.

You sit up seeing her. Eyes widening as if that could provide some higher definition sight of her.

The man keeps you upright among the thrashing throng. He has no room to say it, but the lovestruck haze on your face both terrifies and moves him. He prays for both yours and Vi’s sake that Vi is big enough with those muscles to dwarf her past. He’d love to put the idea of caution in your head, of a safe distance. But for one: the mob is shrieking, and two: your eyes are soaking wet with infatuation.

Even when Vi is making a man even bigger than himself spit out teeth and blood, you look down at her like she’s gifting a ribboned bouquet.

Post win, reveling in the coins freshly lining her pockets, Vi has you on her arm while her friend repeatedly gathers the bartender’s attention with his broader, taller stature.

Stares linger. Regular betters spotting this man with Vi is not unusual, but you are. A glaring lime green dot in the center of this portrait. Girls stray, syrupy voices sultry to lure Vi from her seat; yet it never works.

Her arm hooked around your waist tightens every time, screwing you into her side until your skin is basically glued against hers. If, at any point, you could be worried about her taking a different girl home: she quickly remedies that by how sparingly she diverts her attention from you.

It was always going to be you she takes home, and you were always going to say yes.

“This is cute,” Vi holds, between two fingers, your absolute embarrassment, “You carry this wherever you go?”

“Why are you riffling through my things?!”

You launch forward to rip your bag out of her lap and try snatching the comb from her fingers but she tosses it aside to wrench you forward. Both arms wrapping around your waist; wrapped hands with dried blood around the knuckles securing you against her.

“I trusted you…” you seethe, albeit non-seriously, and slap her shoulder, “I leave you alone for two seconds and you try teasing me.”

“It’s cute! You got a little reminder charm in your purse, it’s adorable,” when you only pout harder, Vi relents, “Sorry for betraying your trust while you pissed.”

“Ew, don’t say it like that…”

“So sensitive,” she lulls onto her back, bringing you with her so you’re fully nestled on her chest.

Grumbling protests into her bosom, you squeeze yourself around her. Throwing a leg over both of hers. Her blunt nails barely make an indent against your back as she draws lines and circles -and hearts you think?- along your spine. Despite her heavy-handedness and rough pads, the ministrations are incredibly soothing. So gentle and sweet that you find your lids drooping.

Heavy lashes beating down onto your cheeks. Breaths evening and slowing. A fragile yawn escapes your parted lips.

Just as your mind is leaking blank, you’re jostled.

“Alright,” she coughs awkwardly, clapping the fat of your ass until you’re shuffling upward, leaning upon your elbows. Lashes clumped by black dye beat up at you, she presses her lips with furrowed brows, “Let’s get you home.”

“At this hour?” you yawn.

Slipping out from beneath you, Vi is already stuffing her shoes back on. Carding long fingers through her tangled hair as she murmurs, “I’ll walk you.”

You don’t suppose that’s the warmest invitation, and so slink off Vi’s board of a bed.

Much of the creep towards your apartment is as silent as it is prolonged. Her silence could speak volumes if she wasn't so flagrantly dragging her feet, pointing into the smokey, unclear sky to attract your attention or pausing you at each sketchy corner to 'scope' rounding dangers. Patiently, you wait for her to tell you any of the multitude of thoughts she's withholding, but that doesn't come before she's clomping outside your door. "Well, sweets, looks like it's goodnight. Keep those bugs away, huh?" lame, yet charming. You wouldn't have imagined someone as made-up and scenic as Vi would have a shamelessly cringe bone in their body and yet she surprises you. You're desperate to see more.

She’s turning, she’s getting away. For some odd reason no matter how much time you siphon from her it is never enough.

“Wait, Vi!” you clap a hand over your mouth as soon as the call has left your mouth.

She quirks a brow at you silently.

“Uhm,” now you can’t retract it. Commit or die of embarrassment, “Are you hungry?”

Vi’s lips raise in disbelief, disbelief that suffocates itself with a confused smile, “I haven’t eaten.”

“Do you want to come in? I’ll make you something good.”

Vi, for an unbearable few seconds of stunted silence, contemplates the offer before shrugging. Face elongating in pure why not energy -- skimming your side as she slides into your apartment. Saddling your stove impatiently with big puppy eyes, just waiting until you follow in.

“I wanna have a special nickname for you…”

“Give me one, then.”

“How about…” you hum thoughtfully, “Red? Like the jacket?”

Vi tenses, then shakes her head wildly, “Too close to one I don’t like.”

“Uh, okay, then… uhm… ughhh, there’s not enough to work with… I don’t wanna just call you ‘V’, that feels so cheap.”

“Full name’s Violet, if you really want more ammo.”

“Violet,” you sing it so sweetly that it makes heat swoon to her cheeks -she almost clutches her palms over her face like a child at the realization- “What if I just call you that? Is that okay?”

The blush is immediately overwritten by a heinous cackle, “That’s the exact opposite of a nickname.”

“Yeah, but it’s just as special because only I’ll call you that. It’s a name-extender, or something.”

“Uh-huh, or something,” when you don’t retort, instead just blinking up at her bashfully, Vi tilts her head sardonically, “Yes?”

“Do I get a nickname, too?”

“Oh, yeah, let’s go. How about ‘princess’?”

“No! It has to be related to me!”

“You don’t see how ‘princess’ is related to you?” brattishly, you shake your head and Vi rolls her eyes (albeit not with any malintent), “Alright, then… Pumpkin? Candy lady? Sweet girl?”

The last one makes you clench and rub your thighs, but you press that down, down, down and pretend to be normal.

“Why are all my nicknames so ‘sweets’ related?”

She answers, or instead dodges, your question with another one, “How can you sit there and be so nice all the time anyway?”

“I don’t know, it just feels better than being spiteful.”

“Okay, well. Sometimes you have to be.”

“Yeah! I didn’t mean anything by it… just, for me. Right? I didn’t mean anything.”

Vi doesn’t seem to buy it, which is confusing because you don’t think you ever gave her a reason to think you would lie.

“Where are you from?” her gaze narrows.

“Huh? How does that matter?”

“Where were you born?”

“Vi, if you just want someone to be mad at you then why are you with me?” sensing she won’t drop the topic anytime soon, you sigh and answer with great hesitance, “Piltover. I moved here when I was sixteen.”

“Why?”

Her questioning makes your skin crawl. You don’t like her sneer. You don’t like thinking about your past. And you don’t want to explain yourself to someone you thought would understand.

“A girlfriend,” you try to wave the answer away beneath the pan’s sizzle, but Vi catches it.

“You moved down here?” you hum and nod passively, praying she’d only drop the subject, but instead she scoffs, “She was stupid to not move over.”

“She had a family to take care of…”

“She could’ve moved them all.”

“Why does it matter?” you move the pan and swing around after stifling the stove, hands clutching your counter and sights rounding with juicy globs of upset. You already know why it matters. You heard it two years ago and you’re reading it in the displeased lines of Vi’s scowl.

“You don’t belong down here,” she speaks so casually.

“I belong wherever I want.”

“Not down here.”

“Not with you?”

Vi inhales slowly, eyes fluttering shut and arms folding, “Come on, you know that’s-!“

“No, you come on! That’s what you’re saying!” you wail, pushing into the rusting stove when Vi steps closer, “That’s what you’re thinking. That’s why you’re saying all this, right? Why else would you care so much about shit I don’t even think about.”

Vi approaches, hands uncomfortably stuffed into her pockets, “I just can’t understand not being angry about anything.”

“That’s not because you’re from Zaun, that’s because your life was hard.”

“My life is hard because I’m from Zaun,” she bites, “I had a little stay topside, and it was still shit for me.”

Again, you can read what she’s thinking. The sudden crease between her brows says it all -- that vengeful twinge and aggravated quirk of her lips. And again, your heart tells you with fiery anguish that you must hear her confirm it verbally,

“Why were you in Piltover?”

Vi looks down at you over the bridge of her nose, “For a girlfriend.”

Staring each other down with only the rocking of your unsteady body against the stove droning through your apartment. You frown while Vi smiles cruelly. She wants you to say it back. You didn’t belong there. She wants you to bang the pan in her face.

“I’m sorry it was so shit for you,” you cough between bulbing sobs, and the urge to spit them out only grows when Vi is visibly disappointed in your response, “If you’re looking for a fight then you should go back to your own place.”

Vi leans back into the counter opposite you. Arms coming up to fold across her chest. She burns thumb and forefinger into her eyes, then massages her brow and trails across to her temple, “You’re so sweet.”

A mirthless laugh scatters from your deflated self, “Like sugar?”

“Yeah…” she sniffs and clears her throat, “Like sugar.”

Foolishly, you allow the disagreement to settle over her stunted compliment(?), “I still don’t like that. You sound like some hounding drunk.”

“It’s all I got.”

“We should work on your nicknaming skills, Violet.”

“Yeah, whatever ‘name-extender’.”

***

Waking up hours earlier than your routine calls for does not suit you finely. But, alas, you do it for Violet. Violet.

Gorgeous name for such a rugged girl. Her scarred lip and gnarly dye-job don’t scream ‘fragile lavender flowers’. Sometimes there are things you can connect Violet to violets over: soft, round eyes and flushing skin and the taste of her lips. Violet. You roll the name between your brain-folds -- like a marble through grout, contemplating the history behind it. Has she always preferred Vi? When did that nickname sprout? Why is it tattooed on her cheek? Would she let you kiss her tattoo? Would she let you moan Violet when she’s inside you?

For the tenth time this morning, you shoot the clock a deadly scathe. Half past ten.

No longer satiated passing time examining her name, you stand to swing the door and survey your floor. Clean of any body, let alone the significant profile Vi provides.

Vi never struck you as a punctual person, definitely seeming the type to be fashionably late even to her own party, but this was grating. Surely she didn’t choke on vomit in the middle of the night, right?

Momentarily, you feel inspired to burst out and give chase: rush to her studio and cradle whatever hungover pieces remain. Then comes the concern: what if she comes here, and you’re out trying to hunt her down?

To avoid creating a complicated circle, you stay plopped on your couch with your elbows stabbed into your knees and your face hanging into your palms. Every time sleepiness creeps over you, dizzying your head or yanking your lids, you’re shocked awake with anxiety: what if she knocks and you don’t hear it?

To avoid inconveniencing Vi, you stay wide awake on your couch. For uninterrupted hours.

Until you’re forced to rise upon the realization that the sun has crashed beneath the horizon. Indigo glows of nighttime bruise your carpet through dusty windows. Slowly waking, the moon yawns behind a veil of thick smoke. Discoloring it to a vague yellow-ish-green-ish.

You’re a very punctual person. Vi tells you a time, and you find a way to be there two minutes early. So ideally, when she said she’d be showing off at 21:00- you would’ve caught her in the ring.

After elbowing toward the front, hands clasped around the top rail to haul you up high above the fighting -eyes wide to peek at Vi’s rough physique and soft face up close. Only to find two burly men duking in the center. Teeth and blood splattered across the chipped floor.

Bathroom, perhaps?

Shuffling around the edge of the room, you budge toward the back where a single light flickers above the sign with missing letters spelling: RE R O

All you find in the bathroom is another hot couple sweating and moaning in a broken-lock stall. Too caught in their rambunctious whirl of passion, neither pays you any mind before you gather the wherewithal to duck out and slam the door.

Between flashes of light and thumping music, you make out that none of the faces in the crowd are Vi.

Outside, then?

Maybe?

You dash outside, cutting between sweat-slick bodies until the cold air greets you. Music muffled behind steel walls and cigarette smoke curdling around unfamiliar faces. Kiramman banners reflect sickly green beneath the street lamps. They don’t swing in the faint billowing wind; stiff material snaking in jagged lines that hide trashed gutters. A girl with long hair stands in the center, shouting and hugging a boy shorter than her -- you would bet she reeks of Zaun’s finest.

Outside was no luck, you twirl vapidly in the street -as if Vi is standing just out of sight to tease you. Then you find the flight up to her apartment: if Vi’s nowhere, she must be up there.

Bracing the trek two steps at a time, you find a conflicting hint to Vi’s whereabouts.

Coming down the same stairs is the big man Vi usually slinks around with, brushing off his hands with an unbuttoned coat and flushed cheeks. You typically think so kindly of this stranger, but whether it's the swollen concern or aching longing you’re quickly assuming the worst of him. Marching up and pushing him back (rather, he’s polite enough to pretend you forced him back).

He stares down at you with lidded eyes. Bloodshot with heavy bags. He’s frowning.

“What’d you do with her?” despite the comically obvious size difference, you shove at the man’s broad chest with both hands. Face twisted up at him and teeth bared, “I thought you were her friend!”

He merely throws a hand toward the stairs, moving aside for you to fly up the steps and throw yourself into her door. Roughly jerking the knob, finding it unlocked for any passerby, and flinging yourself inside with a panicked call,

“Vi?!”

The door clicks shut behind you, and the sullen strange man stalks away.

“Shhh!”

On her side -eyes clenched and legs twisted around one another with both arms flopped out on opposite sides- Vi is thrown into bed. She looks like she got dumped off by a truck and decided moving wasn’t worth the struggle. You imagine she’s feeling that way, too, if the clattering bottles you kick over when trying to enter are any indication. Her teeth bared with the dangerous shush.

An empty brown glass rolls into an empty green one and the dying orange sun makes them glitter into each other. Cautious to not make too much noise, you step over the two bottles and creak her door shut. A black bucket is beside her bed, angled beneath her face (for easy puking, you imagine). Several more emptied bottles marble the floor, and with the new vantage point inside her room, you spot a bottle on its side spewing bubbly beer. No doubt already soaking into the floorboards.

“Oh, Vi…” you husk, ambling through her maze to pick up the abandoned glass. Setting it on her side table and searching for anything to mop up the impending stain.

Your attention is speedily diverted.

“Don’t,” she spits, eyes still crinkled shut.

“Hmm?” you hum, inching forward to gently card hair from her face. It’s a tad too pliant, not so much soft as it is greasy, “‘Don’t’ what?”

“Say that… my name,” you could’ve laughed if she didn’t sound so deadly serious, “‘Oh, Vi’ like you give a shit…”

“I do,” you hope that regardless of your hushed tone, the firmness behind it is all the assurance she needs, “Vi, I care,” she doesn’t reply to that, instead groaning and leaning her head further off the edge of the bed. You silently adjust the puke bucket so it’s closer to her gaping mouth, “Vi, we should shower.”

“‘m fucked up, babe.”

“I can see the alcohol, Vi.”

“Sure…”

“Are you okay to stand?”

“You’re serious about a bath?”

“Super,” you comb through her fringe, “You’ll feel better afterward. All nice and clean, and then you can pass out all you want.”

“I don’t wanna stand,” she huffs.

“Then I’ll wash you.”

She snorts. Then shrugs, “Pick me up, then.”

Standing, you preemptively remove your thin shirt and shorts before cautiously hauling Vi into a sit. Looping one of her arms around your shoulder and dragging her into the bathroom. Vi silently lets you lay her in her itty bitty tub and twist on the water.

“Is it too cold?”

She remains silent. So you assume she’s fine.

As you tip her head, scaling water over matted black knots and scrubbing pigment straight off her neck with gentle ministrations -Vi is leering through the corner of her eye.

“You stripped,” she notices.

“I did,” you scratch soap into her discolored hair, “Should I throw on a towel or something?”

“No,” Vi leans back into your hands, a soft moan escaping as you massage her scalp, “Bath and a show. I like it.”

“I just didn’t want you ruining my clothes. You look like a splasher.”

“It’s water.”

“Yeah, bathwater.”

Vi laughs quietly, proving your point with a flick of her wrist and sending a small sploosh of water up into your chest. Powder blue eyes locked on the way your breasts bounce in your bra as you flinch away, then how they jiggle when you try scolding her,

“Vi!”

“You should walk around like this more often,” she grins up at you.

“Whatever,” you try hiding your face in your arm.

“Yeah,” one of her hands dips out of the water to flip your tit, giggling maniacally as you screech and retch back, “Whatever, huh? Listen when I talk, babe.”

Standing abruptly at the new title of ‘babe’, you shudder and shake out the nerves bottling in your gut, “I might as well join you if you’re gonna soak me.”

“You should,” Vi spreads her legs while leaning back, making an obvious gap for you to fill. Rapping her knuckles against the side of the cramped tub, “I’ll treat you real nice in here.”

“Liar,” you smother your humiliation beneath indignation, then a thin spread of frustration, “You’re getting pruney, let me finish washing you.”

“What if I wanna wash you?”

“Do you? Or do you just want me in the water?”

Vi shrugs playfully, a drunken smile on her face, “Never tell.”

“Okay, Vi,” you roll your eyes, rinsing suds from her hair and watching as the water browns beneath her.

Her skin gleams beneath the shoddy yellow lights now, and you can clearly make out each intricate line in the tattoo going down her spine. Branching off either arm and licking up her neck. Outgrown hair hides some of the neck detail.

“When’s the last time you got a cut?” you wonder aloud. Not really expecting a response.

Vi stiffens, arms locking around her bent knees, eyes unfocused and breath heavy as she answers, “Couple months now.”

Patting Vi’s shoulder into a rise, you unplug the tub before assisting Vi out. She trips over herself and just snickers as you scramble to keep her upright. Vi yawns while you lead her toward her makeshift bed with both hands. Kicking aside empty liquor bottles as you do.

“Wanna get dressed for bed? Or total commando?”

“Naked,” she stumbles up, caught by diligent hands and escorted back onto her stiff, patchwork mats, “Thanks.”

“Hm? Uh, oh, sure. I don’t mind.”

“Okay…”

Despite technically fulfilling her request: you feel guilty leaving Vi there, bare to the sprawling draft on a thin mosaic of lumpy cots. She curls tightly, spiraling around herself with her clasped hands as a pillow. Heart drowning in stomach acid, you sigh and drop onto your knees,

“Vi, don’t you have a blanket around here somewhere?”

She mumbles something and flings an arm straight out, a single finger pointed straight toward the boarded floor. Crouching beneath the bed frame, you reach out blindly into the dark undercarriage; fully unaware there was even enough space down here to fit something. After uncarefully scrounging for all of two seconds, you find bundled fabric. Absolutely not soft enough to be a genuine thread blanket, even from the fissures.

The material itself is… off. Thin, sure, but almost plastic-esque. Not vinyl. Not a sheet.

Yanking the cloth out and flattening it across your lap. No matter how dark Vi’s room grew with the sunlight’s decline, you could make out that boorish symbol anywhere. Hard lines stacked into the most offensive polygon you’ve ever seen;

A Kiramman crest flag.

Did she just rip it from a post? Surely with all she wins, she could’ve gotten something more… well, like a blanket.

“Vi, you can’t wear this, it won’t keep you warm…”

She snores and twists away from you. Jet-black ink staring you in the face, now. Swaying with her breath, but otherwise motionless: perfect opportunity to scan down her spine. Because that’s where her tattoo sits, of course.

Hard rectangular blocks, exceptionally round, screw-like joints and gear types at either shoulder. Never before could you conflate Vi with mechanics because everything about her is so hot.

Blood and skin. Layered hair. Bloodshot eyes. Pink lips. A heartbeat. Flaying lashes.

Perhaps that’s an old part of her. Locked away behind the years since she got the tattoo done. Maybe she doesn’t even remember what the meaning is.

What if it just looks cool?

Slammed out of your thoughts, Vi rolls around again with a strung-out huff. Now a silvering scar denting her top lip stares you in the face. A nose ring glints just to the left, teasing you to stick around. You see both so much better without those black shades she packs on before each rumble. For as much as you adore the hardened painting, you think she’s prettier like this. You catch the roundness of her cheeks better. The wideness of her eyes. Her collarbones.

You inhale slowly and stumble back into a stand. Hands shaking at the sudden, frightening swell of affection.

You should probably go.

Vi shivers, big eyes clenching tight and burly arms roping around herself for cover.

Dropping into a speedy squat, you snatch the Kiramman flag and splay it across her although it does your heart no favors. Still unpleasantly contracting.

She could get sick…

She’s doused by moldy colors. Surely the material is scratchy, too.

“At least I know what’s watching me…” rouses you from the fresh concern.

“Huh?”

“Can’t sleep like this,” Vi laughs, stifling it in the hull of her throat before rolling to sit up. Staring up at you tiredly, “Felt like I was being watched.”

“Oh, I guess I was… I wasn’t, I mean- not like that,” you groan, scrubbing exasperation from your tense eyes, “I don’t wanna hurt you, Vi.”

“Comforting.”

“Just worried… you’ll get sick, you know?”

Vi pushes off to stand, smirking when your eyes momentarily sink toward her chest -- she pinches your cheek, “Cute.”

Shirking a stringy black top and boxers on, Vi snags the flag -and kicks it back beneath her bed before assuring you, “I’ll find something else, okay?”

“Okay…”

Striding past you, Vi opens her door and knocks her head into the frame before gesturing you through, “Ladies first.”

You chuckle, good-naturedly rolling your eyes and flouncing out of her apartment, “You’re a lady, too.”

“Mhmm,” she shuts it behind you both -impulsively going to jam her hands in pockets until she realizes there are none there. She says nothing but leads you toward the wide staircase, “Not like you, though. Coming all this way for me… Undercity’s finest.”

“Not even,” you’re glowing beneath the praise. Goofy smiling and cheeks heated. So you intentionally stray a few steps behind, so she cannot see you.

As you dust the final step, looking out into the narrow alleys -flaying Kiramman flags mystifying the space, so crowded together you can no longer see between them as the wind raises each flap- you realize you have a longer way to go.

Vi must come to the same conclusion simultaneously. Already staring down at you when you peek toward her.

Her mouth opens, lips faintly stained blue around the ridges and smears of black lingering beneath her lashes. Vi’s eyes trace you, hands shaking at her sides. Then she sighs, eyes blinking half a second apart, “I might be too drunk to walk you home, sugar.”

Knowing she’s inebriated gives you an edge -knowing that perhaps tomorrow her head will pound so hard she won’t remember this conversation- you straighten your shoulders, “Then why don’t I stay the night?”

Blinking down at you, drowsy lashes hanging for a moment, Vi hums thoughtfully even though you can see the rejection already in her face, “You shouldn’t…” eyes sliding away from you, “You won’t get much sleep…” she laughs at herself before bumbling out, “the mattress is uncomfortable.”

“Huh,” you twist uncomfortably, an overbearing and embarrassing tension rising as you battle uphill to get back into that apartment, “I’ll miss you then.”

“Stay safe, sugar,” she soothes a hand up your arm before slinking away. Overly cool and completely unbothered, she has to white-knuckle the rail as she climbs back toward her lonely studio apartment.

A biting wind slithers up your back.

You forgot Vi’s jacket at home.

***

Technically, there was no plan to see each other again.

That doesn’t mean you want to any less.

Work is disinteresting and despite living here for coming to eight years, you have yet to establish a social circle independent of work or… Her. Who shall not be named.

The most social stimulation you’ve had today was another knock-switcharoo incident. Flurrying toward the sound, expecting Vi to be leaning there with her muscles and soft lips, you opened the door to find your next-door neighbor with a crooked smile. She held out a silver key and asked you to keep it because it’s a new copy and I don’t trust myself with the duplicate….

That was two hours after you woke up. Many more have passed since then.

A momentary pass of awareness scoops you up: is everyone right? That you don’t belong here? Should you go back home? Would that help you re-grow your spine, would that re-inspire your social battery? Would that alleviate the doubts still gnawing at you with Her teeth?

But then you wouldn’t get to see Vi if you moved back home…

Maybe you shouldn’t.

You sit at home. You don’t know what to do with yourself alone except for craving Violet.

Antsy for something to do, you resolve to rid yourself of the last fossil from two years ago: throwing apart the cabinets above your speckled stove, nearly tearing one door from its hinges. Sparkling from the back, unhidden, is a bottle you haven’t touched since She stormed out of your apartment. Leaving you with a two-bedroom to hemorrhage money over while her things slowly disappeared overnight. Its waxy red neck shivers for warmth, and your palm is awfully sweaty -- it needs something cold to wrap around.

Thrilled spines pierce along your spine and into the arm you’re extending for the bottle. Amber liquid swirls kindly at you, calling your name with such foreign affection that you have no choice but to politely reciprocate. Unscrewing the cap and abandoning it into the garbage. Swigging like water until your throat burns, then you drink more to pacify the sting.

Once your belly is buzzing and hot, and any thought past breathing is too hard for your head to compute: you decide you’re in perfect condition to get out of your stuffy apartment.

After all, don’t you deserve it?

You’ve been locked away too long, you should get out. You should dress up. You should keep the bottle with you as you get dolled up. And you should roam deep into the inner city. For no specific reason except that’s usually where the excitement thrives. Your ex taught you that.

Deep in a cardboard box buried in the back of your closet is a matching set. Your only one. You only wore it twice.

Black thread is thickest in the outline: straps and cups, then a sheer mesh. Wine tinted over your flesh and purple bows on either bra strap, right at the pit of your arm, and over the front of your panties. Vi loved it the first time, she’ll have to love it again. It’ll remind her of that first night: the heat, the passion, she could’ve eaten you alive and it was enchanting.

Over that, you tug a pink dress. Short to let your legs breathe. Hugging around your hips and chest. Simple enough to be unassuming as a slip dress, but undoubtedly tempting for someone like Vi.

When did this abrupt outing become about Vi?

…you don’t remember…

You don’t care too much, either.

A dangerous walk to the pit is nothing to your drunken mind. Determined with nothing but soot in your hands, dust blowing out of your fists without you realizing.

Vi doesn’t notice you with her back turned. She’s alone and hunched over the counter with a vice grip around a glass bottle. Her cheeks are rosy and the glass has only been dug into a fifth of the way. You approach, and she must catch your glinting smile in her peripherals because her head glides your way.

Releasing the bottle, Vi tilts her head onto her newly spare hand while reaching out for you with the other. Fondly, she massages the back of your hand with her thumb -- settling you onto the stool beside her and tugging you flush into her side. She pats your thigh and cups your cheek.

Vi snickers, drawing a thumb beneath your bottom lip and swiping up-away from the corner. Only once you see the crimson smear on her skin do you realize she was cleaning up drooping lipstick. What a romantic…

“You look like me, sugar,” she says strangely. Not happy. Not sad. Just quiet. And her face betrays nothing at all.

“Are you happy to see me?”

“You drink before showing up?”

Her question flies out so quickly it doesn’t occur to you that she completely dodged your own.

“Can you tell?”

She nods, “Hard not to when I can smell it.”

“Augh…”

“You’re still cute,” she promises and swings back her next drink. Dragging the back of her hand across her jaw to catch sour dribbles, “I just have to catch up now.”

Before she can poke even a little, you’re clawing an open hole through your stomach. Guts piling onto the counter in front of her. An earnest glow overtaking your face, and a desperate rag choking your sweet tone, “Vi, I missed you.”

“Did you?” she swallows another shot from the bottle.

“I want you totally, Vi.”

“Do you?”

Now she looks at you again. Your face is spared two seconds before her steely eyes drop toward your cleavage. Elated with having her stare on you again, you don’t catch the pure carnality electrifying her. Raw desire infects her sloppy judgment when she nods.

“I want you too, sugar.”

“Seriously?” despite all your dreams, you hadn’t thought she would agree. Preparing yourself for the utter worst, now you don’t know what to do as she hops down (stealing the whole bottle with her, you notice).

“What else would you be doing here?” she grins up at you from your perch on the stool, “Now come on, are you gonna sit here and make me go home alone?”

She already knows, you can tell by that smarmy lilt in her voice, she must know that isn’t what you came here for.

Taking her offered hand is natural. Medical wrap comfortably fitting into the grooves of your clasp. When you trip over the first step, she dramatically sweeps you up into her arms. Barking a laugh when you scream and curl both arms around her neck in panic, legs tightening and smacking against her clavicle. Regardless of her not being winded or in any detectable pain, you rush to kiss her cheek and spew apologies.

“I’m tough, sugar, don’t be sorry,” she carries you up the steps, “Feel free to keep kissing me though.”

So you do.

Red lip print after red lip print, overlapping and staining her pale cheek. Mingling and murkying with her long-drawn eye makeup. And when you sear your lips against her jaw you see that black shades over some of the red.

As a test, you kiss down her neck and again: black in red. She stained you, too.

It makes you giddier than it should, but you blame it on the alcohol and not your festering obsession.

Vi lets you off after kicking her door open, finding plenty of joy in how you -again- squeal in shock and cling tighter to her. Bonking your forehead against her. Her laugh is so full of fluff, delighted by your dread -she still sounds so pretty. She kneels to unclasp your shoes and slips you out of them with black tar kisses on your knees and shins.

Unlooping the straps of your slip until it bleeds onto the floor: pooling around your ankles. You hop out of it without a second thought.

Kicking off her own shoes, Vi slides her hands over your neck and smooches both cheeks -- grinning broadly with bloodshot eyes at the sight of her lips printed on your skin.

With the door open, you feel free. Unhidden. A bottle about to be chugged. Her hands on your neck, so warm and so gentle. You feel buzzy in your belly and overwhelmed by endearment, you pry your ribs back to expose a still-beating heart. Vi can take it. She should take it.

“I think I love you, Vi.”

Hands tighten around your throat before snaking off, fastening at her sides. Red eyes come alight like she didn’t just carry you up the stairs and kiss your legs, “What?”

“I’m - I mean, uh… I… I want you, I want us…” your shoulders slump, brows furrowing, “I thought…”

“You thought?” she prods, eyes wide and chest erratically pumping. Each breath a gunshot.

“I just thought…”

“Thought what?” she spits, glare spearing you against her bedroom wall, the radiating chill washing your back keeps you stiff, “What could you possibly have thought this was?”

“Uh,” you lull, shoulders rising toward your ears and eyes drooping onto the floor, “uh,” you hesitate and let your arms flop out on both sides, “uh…”

“God!” she scoffs, and it teeters off into a snaking laugh by the end, “Do you ever start a thought without moaning?” Vi shakes her head, eyes cutting aside -toward her cracked mirror, “What did you think I was gonna be for you? What you were for me?” she looks back onto you, low and angry. She’s never looked at you like that, “You can’t be that dumb.”

“Oh,” your chin falls into your collarbones, eyes pointed onto your socked feet and beginning to sting. Hands come up belatedly and curl around yourself, “...oh…”

Vi steps back and collapses on her bed. It creaks beneath her. She isn’t looking at you. You’re not looking at her.

Instead, you’re focused on your clothes strewn over her floor. A baby pink slip you ripped from the lanes -a thin film of soot caked into the fabric- and Vi’s old red jacket. A toppled pair of flats with the soles beginning to poke through the bottom kicked by her door. An unfortunate glance cast toward her mirror confirms the lipstick you wore is now smudged sideways. Hair mussed and whole body constricting to hide itself.

Vi stares at the floor. You feel so stupid.

“Was I actually just sex to you?” you finally ask. A whisper into the buzzing coffin.

Like a nail beneath the hammer, Vi answers, “What else could you have been?”

Maybe her girlfriend.

You don’t suggest that. You just nod. You step back into your dress, pulling each thin strap slowly around the curve of your shoulders. She says nothing. It’s so quiet you can hear the extra step it takes for you to skip over her old jacket and slip each shoe back on.

Fingers tighten around the brass knob, twisting until it squeaks and pops out of frame.

“It’s weird to leave your place without you walking me down,” you whisper, gaze hooking back just to see if she’ll flinch. Vi remains static, bent over herself on the bed.

“You’re still upright,” she mutters, voice low and strapped with razor wire.

“I tried really hard to look nice, Vi.”

She shivers as her name crawls off your tongue, tucking her head down and away from sight. You’re not sure what else you expected. She obviously wants you out, yet you stand just to delay the inevitable. You’ve never spent the night before, that won’t change because you confess how pathetic you are for her.

Leaving feels wrong, staying is wrong.

You step out slowly, as if to taunt Vi into grabbing your hips and yanking you into her chest. As if she would.

“Goodnight, Vi.”

A stiff, low nod is all you get. And the only evidence that’s what you even got was the rustle of tarred hair flapping.

Sliding the door shut behind you, you pull the knob hard to ensure it surely shut. Silently stepping back, you coil around yourself upon a sweeping breeze; peeled eyes set on that dilapidated door. No shuffling, no screaming, no banging. Vi sits on her bed, then, and quietly forgets you were ever there. But you can’t stop thinking about it.

Feet dragging down each step and an unsteady hand clutching the rail. Sniffling. Reconsidering everything you said, every spot in her room you looked too closely at, how you didn’t rush to touch her -hug her, hold her, soothe her. Wondering if maybe had you kept your mouth shut tonight then she could’ve fallen for you, that maybe all she needed was more time. After tonight, she could’ve been yours, right? She just needed time, now she wants nothing to do with you.

But you keep hoping she’ll run down after you. She should be tripping over herself, racing the wind, and skipping three steps at a time to scoop you into her big arms.

A nasty, soaked hiccup chokes you. Cupping a hand over your mouth stifles nothing, but it does make you light-headed with the sudden lack of oxygen. Maybe if you pass out now she’ll find you and feel so bad she just takes you with her anyway.

Or maybe someone else will find you and feel so much pity they stomp you out right there.

Either way, you would have been saved from the humiliating task of blubbering all the way home by yourself.

Only once you’ve stripped and kicked off your shoes do you realize -you left a comb on Vi’s bedside table. Your favorite one. And your favorite bra, too, was thrown somewhere across her bedroom. With much hesitation and more regret, you swallow the fact you’re never seeing either again and climb into bed.

Steely cold sheets slither over your skin, flatly covering with no comfort -- and surely no softness. Despite the conditions, your eyes close and you clasp your hands over your chest, rolled up tight on your side. Never before has your breathing sounded so lonely, ravaged by a swelling throat with lungs knotting around your heart. Slowly unballing your fists, smushing them flat over your eyes just to catch the dripping wetness.

Maybe if you collect it all, and show the swirling cups to Vi she’ll let you stay and cry for her a little bit more.

Or maybe she’d just shut the door in your face.

***

Nights are long. You sleep to get to morning and sleep some more to ignore the day. Tempting is the bottle, but then you'd be flat broke and with all those sick days recently you doubt your boss will be thrilled to keep you around on tough times.

Rolling out of bed for a shift feels how you'd imagine a glass blade dragging over your face feels. Dramatic, possibly, but if someone could bare their palms around your every thought then they'd know the comparison was real. Much dread fills you, so full and so bloated with trepidation that you could spew it out unto neighbors as you walk.

A blinking red sign awaits overhead. Few letters are stubborn enough to remain lit the four minutes you spend procrastinating outside. The rest flicker without remorse, spelling a stuttered and ill-aged: BOM S

Deciding to brave a striding entrance rather than being dragged in by your glaring coworker, you finally push open the cracked glass door. Fingerprints and blood smears of varying degrees of dryness paint the exterior. No new faces decorate the floor: a promise that you still have a position. After all, not many are bustling to work at the poorly managed, poorly budgeted titty bar.

Skidding past the curious and agitated faces of coworkers, you veer into the back room. Pleased to find your locker intact and untouched.

Your name plated across a dinky silver tag with a crooked back pin is still stitched into place over the heart of your black apron. Which smells as clean as you left it. Same with your tiny black shorts and low-cut top. Shucking on the minimalist uniform, you speedily whip out onto the floor and ignore the incredulous stare of your fellow opening girl.

Levaya storms your way while the floor is still empty, an uneasy morning dust still coating each table. Sticky beer clicking your heels into place on the floor. Monte is still at the bar area, wiping the counter before getting to any part of the restaurant used at this time of day - which makes total sense, of course.

Her red lips are twisted furiously, though the pinch in her eyebrows unveils deep concern, “Where have you been? We thought you died!”

“I was sick. Really out of it.”

Scoffing, she rolls her eyes, “You’re always out of it. Just tell Avont before your story changes, yeah?”

“Yeah,” you watch her storm off, “whatever.”

Mornings at Bombshells are never, ever busy enough to justify having two servers on staff -- you doubt there was a sudden influx of patrons before afternoon that has Levaya salty. If anything she must have just been so concerned she gave herself a stress headache, as if that’s your fault.

In any case, you end up outside Avont’s office before the first hour of your shift ends. His name is seared into a rusty board, too thin to be the plaque he insists it is. You knock out of courtesy before simply opening the door, which is never locked because there is no lock. He blew that budget on the front door, a smarter venture given the location.

Avont sighs when he sees you, “Where’ve you been?”

“I was sick, real loopy. Couldn’t tell time, kept falling in and out of sleep.”

“Right, m’kay,” he scrawls -you assume that excuse- in the corner of a paper before waving a hand to shoo you out. As you’re trying to exit, you swear he mutters, “Hope it was worth it…”

The wish makes you swallow hard, and gaze upon the hollow chairs -ghostly tables. Were you better off here than out in the pits?

Levaya palms your shoulder, warm skin on warm skin, she tilts her head, “Are you okay?”

“Huh?”

“You’re usually spacey, but not this bad.”

“Uh,” you clear your throat -you should start thinking without moaning, apparently it’s scathing- “Fine. I'm fine.”

Snapping catches both of your attention, Monte holding out a bucket and two rags. A silent prod if you got time to lean, you got time to clean -- which usually doesn’t bother you, after all, you could’ve moved to the night shift when people actually show up if cleaning bothered you. But right now you’re almost too devastated just standing, let alone scrubbing and soaping.

“Technically,” Levaya seethes, “One of us should be at the host stand,” she snatches the harder job up right in front of your eyes and waves the rag at you like you’re a child, “And you owe me, so you have to take it! No arguing!”

You don’t get to open your mouth before she’s whipping you in the ass with the rag.

So you quietly meander to the so-called ‘host stand’ which is just leaning against the peeling wallpaper and waving at bypassing citizens. Nobody stops in. Nobody ever does since Avont axed the cheap lunch specials. Why would anybody stop into a place like this without dancers otherwise?

Why would someone go where they aren’t fulfilled?

Why do you stay in the undercity?

Levaya swears at a chunk of dried gum beneath a table. Monte laughs. Avont waves papers in his office.

Your name is shot from Avont’s cracked doorway, he flaps a clipboard at you, “You have to sign these!” when you don’t jump up from the wall, he grumbles, “For your sick days, kid, let’s go!”

.
.
.

Waltzing out of Avon’t office provides the kind of show you’ve missed at Bombshells since moving to the morning crew. Shouting. Angry shouting.

Levaya is wringing her grayed rag with fury, mouth similarly twisted as she glares upward, “Get out! I don’t know who you think you are, but she’s not here! And if you don’t get out now, I’ll make you!”

Rarely do you see the dark-haired woman so enraged. So you eagerly round the corner to peek at her opponent to find-

Violet.

Completely pliant to the person screaming in her face. Dormant in a corpse way. Eyes low and fingers knotted kindly although she doesn’t seem to be listening at all.

“Get! Out!” Levaya whacks Vi in the arm.

The woman flinches, glaring down at your coworker but otherwise still. Pale gaze warping around the floor just to find you.

“Vi…?”

She finds you.

Levaya scoffs your name, “Come on!”

You wonder how she knows you so well.

“We should talk outside,” you rush over, pushing Vi around and forward by the shoulder. She moves easier than water, entirely soft beneath your fingertips. Nothing like the stonewall woman you’ve known.

“Good friend,” Vi mutters as soon as the glass doors clink shut.

“What are you doing here?”

“I was drunk last night…”

“You were drunk a lot of nights.”

Vi sighs through her nose. Eyes scrunching shut. Her hands are tight in her pockets.

“But last night, I wasn’t. I didn’t,” she groans, “I wasn’t thinking last night. I got scared.”

“You got scared?”

“I got scared,” she confirms, “And it wasn’t you, it’s everything behind you. It’s topside.”

“I don’t live there, there’s nothing for me up there,” or down here, but you don’t say that, “I can’t be loyal to a place I left.”

“It’s not about loyalty,” Vi lets the statement linger so long you almost start a refusal when she bursts out with, “Last time I had a topside girl, my spirit was crushed. I just don’t want to be that way again. Blinded and unsure, it’s not good,” she gestures to herself as if to add humor but it truly just makes you sad, “You’ve seen the results.”

“I like you, Vi, I like what I see. You treat yourself like a chore forced onto me, but if I didn’t want to be with you then I wouldn’t be,” such generic statements make you nauseous, but it’s the single truest thing you could think to say. The most honest you can be is in those blanket statements.

Vi’s eyes soften, self-loathing dissolving into something much more passionate. She looks down at you sweetly, though her thoughts are anything but: you’re so pretty she wants to choke herself and so kind she wants to pluck out her own eye. You’re terrifying because she knows she could fall for you, and you don’t belong with her.

“I don’t want to hurt you, Vi.”

And yet you’re so concerned with how she feels.

“I don’t wanna hurt you either,” she lets out her pocketed hands just to ball them at her sides, shaky with frustration and red hot need, “I just want you around. Everything’s boring when you’re gone. And your apartment is more comfortable than mine now,” frantically, she cards a hand through her hair and wets her lips, “Or maybe it’s just you because I swear the one time I could lay on my shitty bed without a backache was when you were in it.”

“Why push me away, then?”

“I was scared. But I’m more scared of never seeing you again,” she palms the back of her neck, almost shyly, and nudges her head toward the glass doors, “So, can I see you again?”

“You wanna watch me work for the next six hours? Nothing happens on mornings…”

“But you’ll be here, sugar,” she beams, you can tell she’s trying to be suave but it all cracks into unadulterated glee as you nod.

“Well, I guess you’ll be my first customer…”

“What an honor, I’m sure the service will be great.”

“The best.”

“For some reason, I doubt that,” Vi entwines a shaky hand with yours, dragging you toward Bombshells. Re-entering, but now, you think- you plainly assume- as a couple.

If not, then at this point, what the fuck else could you possibly be?