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"You could have saved me," Vander says, standing before the flames he and Vi had been surrounded by over half a decade ago, "You could have saved me so many times, but you didn't. You aren't worthy of those gauntlets."
Vi blinks and sees a flash, a distortion on the man's face, one of an ugly beast. An ugly beast from recent memory.
"You aren't worthy of anything, are you, girl?"
The brawler looks down at the floor, holding back the tears she can feel burning under her eyes. She can't look at him anymore. "No, I'm not." She replies, her voice trembling slightly.
Vander lets out a huff, or is it a scoff? Vi can't tell the difference if she's honest, and at this point doesn't care. "You're right you're aren't. Look at you, you can't even look your old man in the eyes when he's talking to you."
Vi slowly raises her eyes, leans her head up, reluctant to look at whatever this was.
She shouldn't have.
Immediately the brawler notices a figure next to Vander she can't make out. They're short, way shorter than he is, and are horribly scarred along the right side of their face. Scratch that, along the right side of their entire body, Vi realizes.
It doesn't take long for her to put the pieces together once she sees the twin braids on the floor behind the figure. Once a bright, beautiful blue, the braids are now lifeless; a shade of a dull gray.
Jinx.
Or what Vi's mind imagined of her, since they never found her body.
"Now look at you. You can't save anyone, sure as shit can't save your own damn sister. Poor Powder."
The shorter girl turned her head away, as if she was ashamed of even looking at Vi.
And Vi felt the same way at this point about herself. She looked down at her hands, her usual bandaged wrists. They weren't covered. Not with bandages, and certainly not with blood, either.
"Nothing to show for it either, huh? No blood on your hands. Wasted all the training I gave you. Wasted it when Mylo and Clagger needed you. Wasted it when Powder needed you, or did you?"
A memory rang through Vi's ear, her head tilting to look to her right to see it physically manifested.
"I only wanted to help." Little Powder muttered, voice shaking as tears started to stain her cheeks. "I only wanted to help. I only wanted to help. I only wanted to-"
The younger Vi cut her off, a glare growing on her face. "I told you to stay away."
Little Powder cried, begging for forgiveness. "Please. Please. Please-"
"I told you to stay away!"
Younger Vi raised her voice, her anger taking over as she smacked Little Powder across her left cheek, sending her to the ground.
"No. Why did you leave me?!" Little Powder's voice broke as she began to sob, barely having any time to as her sister squeezed her mouth shut, pulling her an inch closer while leaning in.
"Because you're a jinx, do you hear me? Mylo was right."
"No. No. No. No. Violet, please."
A drop of blood began to ink from Little Powder's nostril, leaking out of her nose.
Younger Vi's eyes widened before she slowly let her sister go, staring at her own bloodied hand; realizing what she had done.
"Whoo wee! You sure showed her, didn't you, Vi?" Vander's voice called out mockingly, prompting Vi to turn her head back to look at the two.
He was gone. Replaced by whatever beast he had been turned into by that scarred scientist. She silently prayed he wouldn't bring up how they couldn't find either of them, either. Not Vander's body. Not the scientist.
Somehow, his voice still came out of the wicked animal. "You got your hands messy then, because that's the only time you know how to: When you're hurting the ones you love. Have a funny way of showing it, don't you kid?"
No, you're wrong, Vi wanted to say. Wanted to scream. But she couldn't. Because he was right.
"Now look at Powder. Jinx, as you call her now. Having to go and get herself killed because you can't do anything right when it comes to us, can you?"
"No."
"No, you can't."
Her eyes drifted to her sister next to him again, staring at the scorches and scars now covering half of her. "I'm sorry."
"Sorry doesn't cut it, not when we're dead, Vi. Because of you."
The tears that never left start to spill over.
"Because of you, our entire family is gone. Mylo, Claggor, Jinx, me. Who knows how long until you get your little fling killed, too."
"She's not a fling." Vi snarls, anger starting to fill her voice.
"Oh, but she will be with how good you are with keeping us around."
Vi couldn't disagree, couldn't find the strength to no matter how angry she got.
"It's a good thing your parents died when they did. They didn't deserve to see the failure their daughter turned into."
Vi screamed, lunging at Vander, at the beast, closing her eyes and throwing her arms every which way as she tried so desperately to shut. Him. Up.
When she opened her eyes again, Jinx's disfigured frame was in front of her on the floor, beaten and battered and bruised.
"Wh-what?!" Vi panted out in disbelief, staring at what she had done.
"You just can't help yourself, can you? Even dead, she isn't safe from you. From those cursed hands."
Vi screamed, louder than she thought possible while forcing herself to look at her handiwork. To look at the fruits of her labor. Look at what happened to everyone that ever got close to her. Her parents, Vander, Mylo, Claggor, Powder, Loris, Jinx.
All that got close to her were destined to be hurt. To die.
She was the real jinx.
"Violet? Please wake up." A distant voice hummed. A soft, warm, familiar voice. Caitlyn's voice, Vi recognized. Slowly, the brawler came to, opening her heavy eyes as her senses returned.
"Morning, Cait..." Vi greeted groggily, letting out a deep exhale before noticing how empty her body felt. She looked down, eyes focusing and realizing that they were standing. "Why aren't we..?"
"In bed?" Caitlyn finished her question, looking far too awake than she should've been while she stood next to her, the brawler noted. "You got up and started punching the wall in your sleep. I tried to stop you as best I could, but you seemed to be stuck in a trance."
Vi sighed. "I'm sorry." She felt her eyes begin to water, felt them burn. Must've been crying in her sleep, she supposed.
She felt warm arms engulf her, sliding around her sides as the taller woman moved behind her. "Don't be," Caitlyn whispered, pulling Vi closer against herself, "It's okay, darling. I've got you now."
Water began to stain her cheeks as Vi couldn't hold them back anymore. She didn't deserve Caitlyn, no matter how much they disagreed on it. No matter how many times the marksman had tried to say the opposite, that she didn't deserve Vi. The brawler knew the truth.
"Do you want to talk about it?"
She didn't want to. But with Caitlyn, Vi couldn't keep anything to herself no matter how hard she tried.
"It was... I saw him, again. Vander." The tears burned worse. "He was... scolding me, mocking me, for how I failed. Failed him, failed... failed Powder..."
Caitlyn's arms tightened around her reassuringly, her head resting against the back of Vi's own. "I'm sorry, Vi..." She whispered, making the tears burn worse.
"He told me how... how it's my fault. How it's all my fault, what happened to them. What happened to our family. How I didn't..." A sniffle. "I didn't protect them, only hurt them. How I'll... only hurt you. Fail you. Kill you."
The taller woman let out a soft exhale, letting a beat pass before saying anything. "I'm sorry you had to... experience that, Violet." Was all Caitlyn could think to say. She didn't want to overstep, didn't want to say the wrong thing and make Vi feel worse or argumentative. She knew how her partner could get when it came to these nightmares. It was, unfortunately, far from the first one she had had like this.
"He showed me what my hands are good for... Hurting the ones I love. Showed me... when I hurt Powder... years ago... when I left her. After he... they... died... The same memory I thought about every day in Stillwater. The same smack, the same cries, the same blood. Everything the same. Yet it feels new every time, like I've forgotten it or pushed it away." Vi started to sob, her hands frantically pulling Caitlyn's embrace apart so the brawler could instead turn to bury her face in the marksman's chest.
Caitlyn's arms wrapped around her again, this time over Vi's shoulders as her right hand slowly rubbed a soothing circular pattern on her partner's back. Just below her neck. "Nobody is perfect, Violet. It's okay. I promise, it's okay." She whispered, leaning her head down to press a tender, gentle kiss on Vi's forehead. "It's okay."
Vi's sobs became unbearable, her chest hurting like it was being squeezed; her nose getting all stuffed with snot running out. She hated being like this, feeling like this, but she knew it was okay. Not the first time, not the second, nor the third, fourth, fifth, tenth time.
But one day she accepted that it was okay. Because Caitlyn always told her so. Her beautiful, soft, warm Caitlyn. Her protector. Her light. Her lover.
The two stood in each other's arms for a few minutes, saying nothing besides the occasional whisper of reassurance from the taller woman, "It's okay." She had repeated, hand still rubbing Vi's back.
Slowly, the brawler's sobs turned into silent crying, which slowly turned into singular tears. She sniffled, lifting her head off Caitlyn's chest and noticing the deep stain she had left on her partner's sleeping top. "I'm so sorry, Cait."
Caitlyn looked down at where Vi had been staring, as if she hadn't even felt the stain be pressed into her shirt against her skin. "Oh, that's fine, darling. Don't worry about it." She said, raising her gaze back to her partner. "You can make all my clothes snotty and wet for all I care. Seriously."
Vi huffed out a chuckle, her eyes too sore for how early it was. She shifted her arms, moving them so that she could take Caitlyn's hands in her own, holding them like they did so often. In her peripheral, the brawler noticed something red beneath her, and looked down.
Her knuckles were cut, scrapped, blood dried around them.
"The wall, remember?" Caitlyn reminded her softly, her thumbs brushing the skin above Vi's knuckles gently. She wanted to rub the knuckles themselves, but couldn't stomach the thought of accidentally getting any of them infected.
The brawler sighed, remembering what her partner had told her when she woke up. "Yeah, right." She sounded tired, so so tired. Why couldn't she just have a normal life?
Caitlyn lifted her right arm, Vi's left by extension, raising their hands towards her mouth. She kissed the lower spots of Vi's fingers, where the marksman had been rubbing her thumb prior to this. Her lips were so soft, so gentle, treating Vi's hand like it was something truly delicate and deserving of kindness. "Every part of you deserves love, Violet. You can object to that, oppose it, disagree with it all you want, but it's the truth."
Vi couldn't help the smile that twitched out of her shaking lips. "Even... even those?" She asked, motioning her head at her own hands.
"Especially these, Violet." Another kiss, close to her middle knuckle. She felt tears start to burn her eyes again, but it was okay. They weren't the same tears from before, somehow. They were... happy tears. Loving tears. The ones Caitlyn got out of her so much.
The brawler moved her hand, their hands, down again and leaned in, closing the distance between them and kissing Caitlyn slowly, passionately. Her eyes fluttered shut as her lover's did, a single tear falling down her left cheek.
A few moments later, the two pulled their lips away, both smiling. "I love you," Caitlyn whispered, a confession she had given countless times but one that never changed. Vi opened her gray eyes, staring into Caitlyn's right sapphire and sunken, scarred left. Both were beautiful, she had told her lover repeatedly.
"I love you." Vi whispered back, squeezing Caitlyn's hands tightly.
She had a long way to go before she'd truly be okay again.
But with Caitlyn by her side, Vi knew she'd make it.
Oil and water could not mix.
Yet, they did, never the less.