You kept me like a secret
But I kept you like an oath
Well, maybe we got lost in translation
Maybe I asked for too much
But maybe this thing was a masterpiece
Till you tore it all up
~
And I'm so scared of getting used to this
You said, "I'm sorry that you worried"
But don't apologize
I told you to forget me
But you stayed by my side
So let's pretend a little longer
________________________________________________________________________________
Like I have been every night this week, I stay in the shower until I'm nearly asleep, then envelop myself in my towel, ignore my skincare routine, and wander out to collapse into bed. It's piteous, yes, but it's not as though anyone is around to witness the affair.
Until today.
My window is partway open, my curtains undulating in the breeze. I stop dead in my tracks. I can feel her— crouched in some shadow, concealed behind some corner— where is my rifle?— I brace myself, waiting, waiting—
"I see you were expecting me."
I whirl around in ice-cold terror, but I register the voice in an instant, and it's not the giddy, tortured chirp I was expecting. It's lower, lazier, more teasing.
Vi lies on my bed just as she did the first time I left her alone in this room: the soles of her boots facing the ceiling, her chin propped on one folded arm. Her eyes, half-lidded, run up and down my towel-wrapped body as if she didn't completely disappear on me a week ago, and all at once, an icier-cold fury spreads overtop my panic.
"What are you— how dare you— how dare you— I cannot believe—"
My stammering is quiet but acidic, and I'm panting like I've been sprinting rather than sitting on the floor of my shower for an hour and change. Wide-eyed now, Vi sits up on her heels, then hastens to her feet, palms held up defensively.
"I'm sorry," she says. "This was a bad idea. I'll just—"
"What was a bad idea? What emboldened you to break into my bedroom after dark without even offering a warning?"
"I was gonna... I wanted to talk to you." She's edging toward that godforsaken window. I normally see her as the wild one, the flight risk, but now she makes me feel as though I'm a skittish deer that she's trying not to startle. "It was stupid. I'm sorry. I can leave."
I will need to speak at length with the guards on duty tonight. "Please, do tell me: what part of 'talking to me' necessitated frightening me out of my skin and then leering at me?"
She winces, some of the wildness coming back to her. "Nothing. I'm sorry. I'll leave you alone. Don't call the enforcers."
"I'm not going to call the enforcers." She's making it difficult to stay angry, and that in turn rekindles my anger. "I would never call the enforcers on you. You should know that."
"Okay. Sorry. I'm leaving."
"You most assuredly are not."
She freezes with her hands on the underside of the window, much as she did her last night here, when she was attempting an escape. "What?"
"You haven't put me through the last thirty seconds just to vanish before doing what you came to do."
Her hands lower to her sides. She doesn't respond.
"Sit down." It's an order more than an invitation. "I'll join you in a minute."
She keeps her back to me until I've grabbed clothing from my closet and locked myself in the bathroom. The first thing I do is scrutinize the mist on the mirror and wipe it clean from edge to edge, and when I can see my reflection clearly, I glare at myself and slow my breathing. I never knew I could feel so certain of something so unreal. Despite everything, I find myself sympathizing with Jinx.
Additionally, despite everything, I have made a preposterous subconscious choice regarding my nightgown. I just told Vi that I didn't want to be leered at. But I can't very well walk back out there and say I've decided to pick something else, so I walk out as I am, an utter fool in black lace.
The window has been closed all the way, and now that I have the wherewithal to move my attention beyond it, I notice the hoverboard and satchel left beneath it and the fact that she's belatedly removed her boots. She sits backwards in my desk chair now, one stockinged foot tapping rapidly. Rather than leering, she asks, "Are you okay?"
I sit on the edge of my bed, ankles crossed. "Of course. Why do you ask?"
"You said I scared you."
"Ah. Not you. That is— before I saw you, when I could only see the open window, I thought you were Jinx. She abducted me in circumstances much like these."
Vi shifts her eyes. "Shit."
"It's unimportant. What did you want to speak with me about?"
"Um. I was just gonna tell you... that...." She exhales sharply. "This is hard for me."
"Take your time."
That makes her scoff, but pushes her to the point. "I have an... impulsivity problem."
My heart leaps. I scold it internally.
"And— other problems. You know at the hospital, when you said I was traumatized?"
"Yes?"
"I think you might've been onto something."
I give her an encouraging nod, willing the "No kidding" not to show on my face.
"Anyway, I don't really want to get into that. I just— now that I'm back in the real world, it seems like sometimes I get bothered by stuff that people wouldn't usually get bothered by." Her eyes flicker upward and back down. "But just because I get bothered by something doesn't mean it's actually bad, or that I get to react to it like it's actually bad."
My heart leaps again.
"I know I did that to you a lot," she says. "So I just wanted to say I'm sorry. You never did anything bad to me. You were actually really, really good to me. And Powder. And everyone."
You were the first person in seven years to touch me in a way that wasn't meant to hurt me. You were the first person in seven years to use my name.
"So I'm sorry if I ever made you feel guilty or anything like that, because you shouldn't feel guilty." She crosses her arms on the back of the chair. "And I'm sorry for trying to tell you what you do and don't need. I just wanted to protect you."
"I don't need your protection," I say. "Except in the instances where I ask for it. Certainly not in the instances where I explicitly reject it."
"I know," she mutters. "It's just that I'm used to protecting, and then the Shimmer thing happened, and you were the one protecting me, and I'm— not used to that. I overcompensated."
"Not everyone in your life is going to be like your little siblings," I say. "You don't always have to be the one that holds things together."
"I know." She glances up again and pulls her brows to the middle, as though the sight of me hurts her. "I do respect you. I do think you're capable of making your own decisions. I should have just taken you at your word last week."
I watch with a resurgence of panic as she stands.
"Anyway," she says, "that's it. I just thought I should make sure you know you didn't deserve the shit I put you through." She reaches for one boot. "Also— when I was delirious— I'm sorry if I said anything... inappropriate. I hardly remember, but everything I was dreaming about was nonsense, so you can probably just assume everything I said was too."
I force a smile. "Oh— of course. Yes. You mainly spoke about forks and hoverboards."
Caitlyn, I love you.
I should have known it was nothing. She probably just jumped from one train of thought to another, and the "I love you" was meant for Jinx or Ekko, or even popcorn.
I know she cares for me. She's said as much while lucid, and she's just sneaked through my window. And it's safe to assume she's attracted to me on a physical level. But of course she doesn't care for me like she cares for her real family— not with her whole heart, not in that all-consuming manner that warrants a word like "love." She cares for me like she cares for the other Firelights, or for her city: because she has a good heart and they do too and so she enjoys their company, not because any part of her is really built around them.
Not the way a part of me is built around her.
"Well... see you around," she says, looping her satchel over her shoulder. "I'll—"
I contained myself for as long as I could, but now I jump to my feet. "Wait."
She turns, and my nerve fails abruptly.
"I— I apologize for snapping at you," I say. "Last week, I mean."
"Don't. I needed to hear all that."
"Yes, but surely not in that tone."
"I'd just been yelling at you."
"Fair point."
She grins and pushes the window open. I'm about to let her leave. Again.
What about us?
She crouches on the window frame with one foot on her hoverboard, then kicks off with the other, swooping downward so sharply that I gasp before she kicks off again from the ground two stories under us and swings back up. She catches my eye over her shoulder as I look out, does a jarring U-turn, and comes to idle at my level. I freeze.
"Caitlyn?" she says.
I swallow. "Yes?"
"I'm probably not supposed to ask this, but— would you ever let me try again?"
Her gaze wavers, but stays near enough to my own to make my heart leap for a third time. "Try what again?" I ask.
"Being... doing what me and you were doing before I got sick."
"Oh," I say.
Moonlight picks the purple thread out against the silver-blue of her irises and the fine pink hair out against the bare skin of her arms. The sight puts goosebumps on me too. At this time of night, all I can hear is the whir of the propellers on her hoverboard and the sound of the question in her stilted breath, and it's only the shock of relief that makes me hesitate.
"Yes," I say. "Yes, I would very much like for you to try again."
She evidently expected me to decline. She hovers for a couple seconds without speaking, and it's only once I open my mouth again that she remembers herself and drifts forward, placing her hands on the window frame on either side of mine.
"Do you want— should I give you time?" she asks.
Willing to risk any consequences, I reach up to tug a stuck lock of hair from under her bandana and smooth it down with the rest. The one consequence I receive is a shiver.
"No," I say.
"Really?"
"I had a week," I say. "I don't want anything more. Unless you do."
"I don't."
I put my hands back in the space between hers, searching out the slight hint of heat I can feel without direct contact. It surprises me at first that she's not still burning the way she was when I was last this close to her. "Will you come inside?" I ask.
"If you back up," she says, and drops suddenly so that she's hanging from the frame with one hand. With the other, she switches off her hoverboard and slides it past me, then pulls herself in after it like it's nothing. "You worry too much, cupcake," she says, catching sight of my face. Bold of her to return to the nickname so soon.
Her boots and satchel come off again, but I keep watching her expectantly, so she removes her knife holsters and her comm as well (having turned it to full volume— I imagine she's being extremely careful about leaving Jinx alone), then busies herself with organizing all of it beneath the window while I take my chance to examine her up close. I shouldn't feel so starved after just one week, but I do.
At last, she runs out of tiny angles to correct and stands straight, facing me. On solid ground, she's no longer at my level. She looks upward to meet my eyes.
Shit.
"Why did you come here by such means in the first place?" I ask, even though I don't care. Disapproval makes me feel some amount of control.
She snorts. "You think I'm gonna prance up and knock on your front door at this hour?"
"Why not come at another hour? It isn't safe for you to sneak around unaccompanied. There are a lot of people who hate you after your involvement in the coup."
"Yeah, and your mom's got to be one of them, right?" Vi strolls past me and drops back onto my chair. "She's the only Piltie that scares me."
I had entirely forgotten about Mum. "Is it because she used your full name? I'm truly sorry for letting her know."
"It's not that. She doesn't actually scare me. I just don't like confrontation with people I can't punch."
"Why can't you punch her?"
Vi squints. "Because she's your mother."
I shake myself, blushing. Tonight seems to have scrambled my social filters. "Right. Well. You can't avoid her indefinitely— she'll simply have to learn accept your presence. In fact, I made some progress with her in that vein while you were ill."
"Really?"
"Yes. That was before our fight and Powder's graffiti, of course, so there's been a bit of a setback, but it's no lost cause."
"Huh."
"But Vi, you mustn't purposefully intimidate her anymore," I say, settling on the end of my bed. "You may know that you won't hurt her, but she doesn't."
"Got it." Her toe starts tapping like before. "And I'll stop raising my voice at you. And making choices for you. And taking the shittiest conclusions from what you say."
I want terribly to interrogate some of her other implications from last week, like that she's afraid of hurting me and that she believes the way she mistreated Powder makes her undeserving of my (or perhaps anyone's?) good graces. I don't, though. She'll bring it up when she's ready.
"I enjoyed doing what we were doing," I say.
"Me too."
"Would you like to sit closer?"
She looks up and I gesture to the spot on the mattress beside me. I don't think I've experienced this feeling before— I had never reached the point of making up with a romantic attachment after a fight until Vi, as she was my first successful romantic attachment to begin with. Last time, after the failed Council audience, we were forced back together by logistics and just ignored our attempt to part. Meanwhile, my platonic relationships don't generally end in anger, but rather in the other person realizing that I'm incompatible with them and drifting away inch by inch until it feels natural when they stop associating with me. I'm even out of practice with those incidents, not having tried to turn a colleague into a friend since I left the Academy.
Needless to say, when Vi sits tentatively at my side, I'm unsure what to do next. So, it appears, is she. We spend a moment in silence, looking at our knees— more to the point, I look at my knees, and she looks at the space between hers, and, God, I have missed her splayed legs and her wrapped hands and the feel of the scar on her lip when it brushes against mine, a rough little notch charged with everything about her that I have yet to know.
"Vi?" I say. We're spaced a bit farther than I indicated, and I don't want to move nearer without asking in case her intimacy complex is at play, but I don't have to: as soon as the syllable is out, she swings up onto my lap and kisses me.
I'm not sure if she's unaware of how heavy she is or if she just doesn't care, but I'm thankful either way. She reminds me of the weighted blanket I had as a child, except warmer, with callused fingers to clutch the straps of my nightgown and that scar running under my teeth. Our arrangement leaves her slightly above me, a rare sensation. I grip her arms and feel the tendons flex.
I am the happiest girl in the city.
We get a minute or two before I notice a quick sting at my left shoulder blade and a soft snapping noise. Both of us jerk back at the same time and look down to find one segment of a newly-broken strap in her fist.
"You really do like ripping my clothes, don't you?" I say.
"Sorry." She reaches behind me for the other piece and starts tying them together in an industrial-grade knot. "Um— sorry."
"It's okay." I have to catch myself as I slip toward the approach I took with her while she was ill: more tender, more open, more risky. It would probably make her feel patronized now that she's in her right mind. "It's just these fragile Piltovian fabrics."
"You're gonna have to start shopping in the Undercity. But make sure you bring me along so they don't fleece you." Finished with the knot, she climbs off of me and readopts her previous restive posture on the edge of the bed, unbearably endearing in her shyness. I lie flat and turn on my side in hopes of getting her to follow. After a moment, she does.
"Do I look like your mum?" I ask.
She laughs, caught off guard. "Not really. Why would you?"
"You mistook me for her while you were feverish. To be fair, you also mistook my mum for her. I was just curious."
"Your mom?"
"Yes."
"Fucking hell." Vi laughs again, but cringes at the same time, tearing her eyes away from mine. "What'd she do?"
"She pretended to be your mum. It calmed you."
Vi contemplates this for a long time with a look of conflicted mortification. I decide to keep quiet.
"My mom had purple hair," she says eventually. "But it sometimes looked more like navy in dim lighting."
"That's lovely," I say. "She was purple-haired and had one daughter with pink hair and one with blue."
Vi smiles in the way she did the first time we were here together, when she told me about the monster game she played with Powder. "Her parents were pink-haired and blue-haired. I got how they mixed to make her purple, but I don't know how she unmixed it for us. Maybe she just wanted to be able to tell us apart."
"In fact, phenotypical expression is fully involuntary," I say. I took a class at the Academy that covered elementary genetics and found it captivating. "What must have happened was that her parents' pink and blue genes were both dominant, meaning she had to receive a heterozygous allele pairing with an incomplete dominant expression. Because she was heterozygous and each parent only passes on fifty percent of their DNA, you and Powder would end up with only one dominant from her, pink or blue. This is fascinating because it may have been possible for your mum to be pink or blue, but impossible for you two to be purple, unless your father's parents were also pink and blue—"
"Cupcake," Vi says, placing a finger against my lips, "I don't understand a single damn thing you're saying."
I sit up quickly, my spell broken. "Oh my goodness— I'm so sorry. That was completely insensitive." And to think, there I was just moments ago, complaining about the fact that people distance themselves from me.
"Wait, what?" Vi sits up too. "What was insensitive?"
"We were supposed to be talking about your parents, the ones that were murdered in war, and I'm blathering on about biology!"
"You were talking about my parents," she says. "Yeah, not in the way people would normally do, but it's been seven years. I'm not picky."
My eyes sting with tears at the word "normally," threatening to bring even more attention my way. Shit. "Still, I apologize," I say stiffly. "I misinterpreted you. You were making a joke, not asking for a lesson."
"I'd rather talk about the family genetics part than the family-gets-murdered-in-war part," she says. "You just have to dumb it down a bit. I didn't get quite as much formal education as you."
"I didn't intend to make you feel undereducated."
"I don't really feel uneducated. I just am."
"I said undereducated. Not uneducated. You're knowledgeable about many things."
She lies back down and pulls on my hand until I follow suit. "Point is, I sure as hell don't know what an allele is."
"I can... draw all of it out for you sometime." I'm uncertain how to recover from this. "There's a diagram people use that makes it easier to understand." I hurriedly add, "Or we can forget about it."
"Yeah, I'd like to see that."
She meets my gaze with a soft smile, and her hand is still in mine, so I mustn't have messed up too awfully. Perhaps she's cutting me slack in return for my letting her try again with us. Not that that was truly a favor.
"My mom's name was Calla," she says. "My dad's was Ceres."
"What were they like?"
"Street trash," she says, and there's pride in her voice, the kind Topsiders would use in responses like "sophisticated" or "ingenious" or "wealthy." "Dad worked in the mines and Mom was a tailor, and they taught me how to fight before I was five. They did everything for me and Powder's sake— that's why they fought in the rebellion. To build a better world for us."
"I'm sorry that they didn't get the chance," I say. "I imagine they would have been proud to see what a skilled fighter you've become."
I see the words shut some door in her. She shrugs. "Well, you know, I try not to dwell."
I don't know if I should apologize, or if that would stress her out more. To what piece of the suggestion did she object? Can I ask that?
"Is there anything else you want to say about them?" I say cautiously.
"No." She squeezes my hand. "That's it for now. Thanks."
I watch her downcast eyes. The lashes. The freckles. I feel intoxicated.
"Why did you tell me you don't remember your dreams?" I ask.
"Hm? Because I don't."
"No," I say. "Last week, you called them nightmares."
She tenses. "When?"
"When we were quarreling. You claimed you must exhaust me because your nightmares wake me up whenever I sleep next to you."
A beat of stillness. She drops my hand and rolls onto her back.
"I already knew," I say. "I could tell by how you reacted to them."
It was meant to comfort her, but it clearly doesn't.
"Anyone would have nightmares after experiencing what you've experienced," I say. "What you were put through—"
"I know, Caitlyn." She curls her fists and rests them on her stomach.
"Why did you hide it?" I say. "I'll never press you to share any details. Have I made you feel that I will?"
"No," she says. "It just isn't your job to worry about it. You said when you do, you can't breathe."
It's just my luck that that's the part of the conversation she remembers, rather than the I love you part.
"I don't want you to have to carry my baggage," she tells the ceiling.
"Vi." I turn onto my front and shuffle up closer, putting my hand over one of her fists. It twitches. "When I said that, I wasn't saying it to make you feel guilty for confiding in me. All it meant was that I care. Greatly. Did you not hear the rest of the speech?"
"I don't know. I heard... some things. I don't know if they were real."
"I said I was thankful that you trust me with yourself. I want to carry these things with you."
She scoffs.
"You're allowed to ask that of me," I say. "It's not as though you're relaying graphic memories for an hour every day. It's not as though you're expecting me to cure the nightmares or absolve all your guilt or fix your damaged relationships. I can manage waking up for thirty seconds to help orient you; I can manage giving you an ear for ten minutes and a couple sympathetic words."
"I don't need that. It's not worth what it'll do to you."
"If it starts to 'do' something to me, I have other people I can lean on," I say. "Who do you have? I know you don't want to lean on Powder or Ekko. Who takes care of you?"
Vi scoffs again and flicks my hand off. "I take care of myself."
"That isn't sustainable," I say, undeterred. "Everyone needs someone else to take care of them sometimes."
"Just forget it, Caitlyn."
"I'm not asking you drop all of your walls immediately and cede all of your agency and inner thoughts to me," I say. "I'm just asking you to trust me to know what I can take and accept what I give you when you want it."
She's quiet for a long time, but I stay quiet too, resisting the compulsion to elaborate and make things worse. While she traces the patterns in the ceiling paint, I put my hand back on her fist.
"It's your life," she says. "I said I wouldn't make your choices for you. But you have to tell me if it gets to be too much."
"Of course."
I move to the top of the bed where the pillows are and nod for her to do the same. We settle on our sides again, our knees pulled up and touching.
"You should consider seeing a counselor," I say.
She goes up on one elbow. "A councilor? What the hell's a councilor gonna do to help me?"
"Not a councilor," I say, laughing. "'Counselor,' with an 'S' and an 'E.' A therapist."
"A what?"
I stop laughing. "You haven't heard of therapy?"
"No," she says. "Should I have?"
"I just assumed everyone had. Perhaps it's not a common practice in the Undercity."
She lies back down. "Well, what is it?"
"It's... well, you know how when you break a bone, you go to the doctor and they set—"
"We don't go to the doctor for that."
I glance at one of her pinkies. "I— okay. You know how you could go to the doctor when you break a bone, and they'll set it and put a cast on it so it heals? Or give you antibiotics when you have an infection? A therapist is kind of like that. They're essentially a doctor for your brain."
"So are you saying this because I get so many concussions, or...?"
"No. I don't mean your brain physically— well, I do, because trauma changes the brain, but not in the same way as a concussion. It may be more accurate to say 'mind.' A doctor for your mind. They speak with you and have you do mental exercises and such like that to help you heal."
"I don't think I'm traumatized enough to need a mind doctor."
"No, you are."
"I appreciate your faith, cupcake."
How do I put this delicately? "You probably have more trauma than everyone I know who's attended therapy combined."
She snorts. "Yeah, this is definitely a Topside thing. Do Pilties just go in and cry about how someone else wore the same tie as them to the theater?"
"We have legitimate problems here too, you know," I say. "Our position protects us against a lot, but we still experience grief and stress and frustration and self-doubt, just like you."
A pause as the amusement fades from her expression, and she twines the fingers on one hand with mine and meets my eyes. "I know," she says. "I'm sorry."
"Just keep it in mind," I say. "It doesn't have to be a big deal. You're just talking."
"I thought you wanted me to talk to you."
"I do, but this talking is different. Therapists go through schooling to provide counseling. They can help you with the things that are beyond the layperson's abilities."
"Right," she says. "So the therapist is the one that absolves all my guilt and fixes my damaged relationships?"
"Well, no," I say. "But they're the one that gives you the tools to do those things yourself."
She's half-convinced at best.
"Just keep it in mind," I say. "You may want some more time to adjust to your new lifestyle before you get into it, but it would be good for you. And for Powder. And Ekko. Honestly, for all fissure folk. I'll need to broach this at the next Council meeting."
Vi laughs. "I can keep it in mind. No promises."
"How is Powder doing, anyway?" I ask. "How are the two of you?"
Again, Vi's amusement visibly fades. "She's been spending all her time with Viktor and his lungs. She hasn't done anything bad that I know of, but she doesn't want to be around me. I don't know what to make of it."
"Jayce says she's having the time of her life in the lab," I say. "I imagine it will be good for everyone to have her working for a cause. She'll want to feel purposeful again after having lost her role with Silco."
"She drew Snake's portrait on the Firelights' mural too. Just did it by herself for no reward. But it upset her when people gave it attention."
"Is she avoiding the other Firelights too?"
"Yeah. I figure she's starting to feel bad for what she did to them and doesn't know what to do about it. She hasn't done anything to me, though, so that doesn't explain why I'm getting avoided."
"Perhaps she needs time to adjust as well," I say. "Time before she's ready to dig into her past. It's going to be brutal on her."
"True."
I grapple for a second and ask, "Will she want to see me back in your life?"
"She's gonna have to get used to it if she doesn't," Vi says. "Like your mom. But I'm pretty sure she's kind of okay with you at this point."
I'm taken aback. "She is?"
"She hasn't tried to shoot you for a while, has she?"
I grin reluctantly. "No."
"Consider yourself in her good books."
I press forward, aiming for another kiss, before the image of Vi in this bed under the lamplight flashes a memory into my mind's eye and sends me jolting backward. She mirrors the motion.
Will there be long-term effects from taking that variant?
"What's wrong?" she asks.
I sit up, nauseated. "There's something that I haven't had the opportunity to tell you. It may make you angry with me."
"I said I'd act right from now on, didn't I?"
"That's irrelevant," I say. "You're the one who will suffer from this."
Her eyebrow goes up. "I'm gonna suffer from this?"
"Yes— well, no— not from me telling you. From what it is that I'm going to tell you about."
"Hurry up and tell me, then," she says. She's still lying down, not looking especially concerned.
"The Shimmer variant I gave you," I say, fiddling with the knot at my shoulder. "The one that caused your overdose. The doctor told me that it may have side effects in the future."
Vi nods. It takes me a second to register that it's a "please continue" nod.
"Oh— that's it," I say. "I'm truly sorry. I should never have—"
"Uh, what?" says Vi. "That's it?"
"Is it not significant to you?" I ask. "They don't know what the side effects will be. You could become chronically ill. You could develop a weakened immune system. You could experience a premature death!"
Inexplicably, Vi begins laughing. I exclaim in indignance. There are so many ways in which I fail to understand her.
"Like I said, cupcake: you worry too much."
"This is plenty reason to worry!"
"Caitlyn, I was born next to the mines and I get in brawls every week," she says. "If I die young, it's not gonna be because of your Shimmer."
"That's not comforting!"
"Why? I'm absolving you of all your guilt. I hear that's rare. I'd cut and run with it if I were you."
I cross my arms. "It isn't comforting to see you so cavalier about the prospect of your own death!"
She frowns and pushes herself up on one hand, putting the other on my forearm. It appears that she finds my perspective as shocking as I find hers. "That's just how we are in the Undercity," she says.
"Why?"
"Because death is a pretty common thing down there. We're not trying to die, but we face the facts. Why waste energy crying over something that's gonna happen to everybody?"
"I... wow. Is that why you always rush headfirst into things you shouldn't?"
A heavier look settles on her. "Partly."
Is that the point? To hurt you?
It's like I'm paying my debt.
"Will you stay the night?" I ask. I don't care if it's forward.
Her fingers tighten briefly around my arm. Trenchers doubtlessly have no regard for forwardness as an issue, but I've still surprised her. "You want that?"
"Yes. Not if you don't want it, of course."
She does an unnecessary but enthralling parkour move off the bed and turns off my lamp. I laugh and slide under the covers, and she curls herself around me a moment later, leaving a bit of space like she did the first night we slept here together. I scoot back until we touch.
She smells like concrete and smoke and blood, the way she did when we met. And like Vi. I'm embarrassingly grateful for this— I forgot to say anything and Aluya washed my bedding on schedule, taking all the leftover Vi before I had gotten myself together enough not to mind. Odd that such a thing counted for so much, but it did.
"Ekko says you've been sad," she says quietly, twisting a damp lock of my hair. "I'm sorry if I made you sad."
"It's all right," I say. "I understand why all of this unsettles you. Just— no more of it, okay? Leave whenever you want, but not like that."
"Not like that."
I close my eyes. "Would you like to do something that would make me happy? To make up for it?"
"What're you thinking?"
"Tell me a story about your family before the rebellion. A happy story."
Again, it's forward. I feel her hold her breath for a long time. "Okay," she murmurs, putting her arm over me. "I'll tell you the first."
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Intro lyrics from "All Too Well" by Taylor Swift and "Everything Goes On" by Porter Robinson.
so excited to give you guys the reunion for the holidays!! hope you enjoy <3