Chapter Text
Day 324 since the end of the world.
The world hadn’t ended in a bang.
Not in the way stories had been told of flames swallowing the earth and monsters that lived in darkness. Of eternal creatures harmed by ultraviolet, ripping soft flesh from throats.
Vi had grown up with these stories – watching with unblinking eyes as people burnt and suffered and survived from the flickering screen of an old TV.
Powder always hid – pulling worn sheets over her face and still peeking through one eye. Vi instead looked with wide eyes – pretending to herself perhaps that fear was beneath her.
It’s not real, Pow, she’d say, prising the sheets from her sister’s face and keeping the light on. A golden glow that did little to expel the darkness.
She’d say it was for Powder.
Because Powder always feared.
And though Vi would never admit it, she did too.
The light awoke her today – somewhere restful in the nightmare Vi had made a home in for the last 324 days. The kind of nightmare that would play on loop after they’d watched those movies.
Streaming through the gaps in the dishevelled curtains, pouring liquid heat onto the desk alongside the bed.
Vi glanced up, lifting her hand to shield her eyes from the piercing light. Muscles relaxing – partially, for the day was always the easiest part.
It held a gentle sort of softness – one Vi could almost pretend the world hadn’t ended. One where the monsters hid, and the streets emptied.
She stood with a sigh, stairs creaking quietly on her descent to the kitchen, and rifled through the cupboards for any remaining food.
“Nothing?”
Vi jumped but covered it up with a sharp glare.
“Yeah, don't worry about knocking.” She muttered sarcastically, rolling her eyes.
Loris laughed – the deep, comforting kind that had always reminded Vi bitterly of her dad. “It’s not my fault you don’t lock your doors.”
“So? The monsters can’t get in.”
“No… they can’t,” he agreed. “But anyone still alive can. You need to be more careful.”
“Anyone alive?” Vi muttered to herself, opening the adjacent cupboard. "Good luck finding them.”
When that cupboard too was scarce, Vi slammed it with an irritated grunt.
Loris watched her, eyes heavy with almost pity. “Take some of my tins; save you having to go out there.”
Vi considered it briefly. It would be the easier option – avoiding having to enter long-stilled properties where monsters hid from the day and any wrong move would kill her.
But the outbreak had given Vi an exoskeleton – one of strength and independence and, above all, a facade.
“Don’t waste your resources on me,” Vi said, already moving to grab her bag. “I’ll be in and out.”
“You say that every time.”
“And it’s true every time,” Vi shot back. “I’ve killed hundreds, and none of them have ever killed me –”
“Yet. None of them have killed you yet, Vi.”
She paused, unable – momentarily – to refute his point. But her speechlessness soon gave way to a scoff, and she tossed her bag over her shoulder.
“Yeah, yeah. Catch you later.”
Vi’s feet had already begun to ache by the time the mansions of Piltover had come into view – tall gilded beasts that even the sun cowered behind.
But they were always well stocked. Empty too.
And Vi thought, almost sardonically, that it was good the rich too had not survived the end of the world.
She tried not to think of what had happened the first time they had gone on a supply run to this city.
Back when she was not so alone and the world did not seem like it was truly ending. Yet it clung to her mind like a foul scent and hid in every corner, tightening in her chest until she could barely breathe.
They were never supposed to come here.
Vi knew that; she’d known when she took the damn risk. But there were no supplies in their area anymore. Zaun had been depleted in its entirety by Vi and the various people she had survived with over the last 324 days.
Vi grimaced as her knees buckled from scaling the wall and jumping down, landing in the deserted streets of the once-alive city.
Sunlight streamed down, casting the cobbles in a pale bone colour.
Silent.
So eerily silent that Vi wondered if anyone was truly left.
She rounded the street to one of the houses she had not yet raided, the largest one on the street set back entirely from the others. It was the colour of a young fawn crested with a deep blue roof. Thin trees stood sentinel-like, armoured guards in front of the mansion, and the entire thing was enclosed in a wrought gate.
“Damn,” Vi muttered, unable to comprehend that someone had once lived in such a place. “Better have something for me.”
She found the gate open when she tried it, which was not all surprising. Likely they had fled in a rush or died before they could come back and lock up.
Vi made her way to the front door of the mansion, her boots echoing in the silence of the outside world.
The front door too was unlocked, and Vi clenched her teeth at the loud creak emanating as she opened it. Going to attract every monster in the damn area, she thought frustratedly, and she could only pray there was none inside here.
Immediately, though her prayers were ignored, for all the windows were covered by thick velvet curtains, blocking out even a sliver of light from outside.
“Great…” Vi scoffed, opening each set of curtains as she moved through the corridors.
As long as she stayed in the light, she would be fine.
The corridors and rooms were all marble and polished floors. Too pristine to be lived in.
Silent, and then a distant creak.
Instantly, Vi whipped her head up, holding her breath for another noise.
Another indication that she wasn’t truly alone.
When none came, she exhaled deeply and continued on.
Eventually, Vi stumbled across the kitchen, gauging what she could from the light flooding in from the open door. Each spotless cupboard was closed. The room still.
That was always a good sign the place had not been previously raided.
Instinctively, Vi went to open the grand curtains, finding underneath a plank of wood covering the window entirely. She stepped back, frowning a little. Was this some kind of trap? Why would the kitchen be the only room in which she wouldn’t be safe?
But Vi had come this far, and she could not go home with no food for another day.
The first few moments of searching the kitchen had gone surprisingly well. Vi had found quite a few supplies, enough so that she would not have to go on another run for at least a week.
She moved to the next cupboard and grinned.
They have whisky…vintage too, she mused, turning the bottle to look at the label.
Aged in the Kiramman Estate… 1950.
Vi removed the cork and took a large swig as she moved to the next area in the kitchen. The amber liquid burnt, but that of a comforting fire that she had grown accustomed to since the outbreak.
The grand, navy-coloured steel fridges caught her eye on her stroll through the kitchen, and she found herself pausing in front of them. Typically she never bothered to check the fridges.
The power had gone out on day 106, and since then, the fridges were always empty or filled with rotting food.
Yet, what had caught her attention was not the fridge itself but the slivers of light that dripped onto the floor from the bottom of the metal rectangle.
Vi stepped back and placed the whisky bottle onto the island.
How could the fridge be on? Unless whoever owned this place had some sort of backup power system that had not yet shut down.
Or they still live here, was the thought that came next, but it was a haunting one.
With a frown, she opened the door to the first fridge.
Empty. It was completely empty; the adjacent fridge was too. It made Vi shudder, but it was confusion that plagued her mind, not fear. Had something been stored here previously? But it could not be humans who occupied this place, or it would be loaded with supplies.
Yet if the monsters truly do live here, I’d be dead already.
The creak from earlier rang in her mind. The only thing to shatter the eerie silence since her arrival.
And somewhere in the darkness, Vi felt the strangest burn on her skin that she was being watched.
She closed the fridge slowly, reaching into her bag for a stake.
Grasping it, letting the rough press of the wood on her palm calm her.
Just leave, Vi. Don’t push your luck. Again.
Her strides were quicker now, crossing the threshold of the kitchen back to the door. Back to the light.
Vi had almost left the room. Almost gone, when she heard a noise from the darkness of the kitchen.
A faint shift of air. A quick movement she might’ve missed had she blinked.
It came again. A shadow beyond the light’s gentle touch.
Vi’s eyes locked onto the gentle drift of the curtains, moved by some invisible breeze.
Where are you, asshole? She thought bitterly, gripping the stake.
She should have left; it was the smarter thing to do. Gone back into the corridor where the curtains were open. But Vi knew the creature was here now, and she had never left one alive.
The vacuum of silence stretched out, only broken by Vi’s rough breathing. She waited, almost tempted to just give up, when a final whoosh of air sounded.
It was then that Vi saw it.
The figure stayed in the shadow, avoiding the little area of light that came in from the open door.
Vi could barely make out their features, just the dark outline of some sort of cape draped behind them like a second skin.
The second thing she saw was those eyes. Unblinking. Two pools of liquid sapphire that lured her in. Heavy breathing in sync with Vi’s.
She brought her stake up, ready to drive it through this monster's heart.
Why isn’t it attacking me? Vi continued to hold the figure’s gaze. Never had she encountered one that did not immediately go in for the kill.
She wondered, for a moment, if she had been mistaken and this figure was human after all.
But she was proven wrong.
The figure moved forward seamlessly, a mere part of the shadows themselves. Twitching manically as she had seen them do so frequently before a kill.
Vi could barely process what had happened. It drove forward. Teeth bared. Almost manic.
She brought the stake up like a shield, aiming at the figure’s heart.
The stake met nothing but air.
Vi heard the crunch of a bite, but there was no sting of pain that she assumed would accompany it. Her gaze fell on the figure again, and her eyes widened.
It had sunk its teeth into its own hand.
Vi should have run. Either towards it to kill it like she had intended or out.
Out of the mansion and as far away as her legs could take her without collapsing. Yet she was frozen in place. Only able to mutter a shocked:
“What are you?”
Blood trickled down the figure’s wrist, and still, they did not release their hand. They twitched again and drove their fangs deeper, fighting a war within their own mind.
Whether it was divine intervention or some sick stroke of luck, this being was fighting its instincts to not hurt her. Vi gave it one last look and fled, striding through the lit corridors, past marble and chandeliers, until she was back in the silent abyss of the outside world.
Vi glanced one final time at the mansion, shadowing her like some gilded mountain, windows like eyes piercing into her skin.
It was only when Vi had scaled back over the wall into home territory that she realised she had left the whisky on the island.
-
:⛧ ¨༺ ♱✮♱༻¨⛧ :·
Day 165,345
Eternity is a fragile thing.
165,345 days had passed like mere minutes. Entire lifecycles had spun out and fizzled into oblivion in the time that Caitlyn Kiramman had been alive.
Alive.
The word always felt bitter on her tongue, for she was hardly alive, not like the humans were. There is no life without death, and yet she was still breathing, still alive in a way that transcended the norms of reality.
The stars stared back at Caitlyn as she looked up at them. Sat on the grass of the hill just outside of the city. She would outlive every single spark of light up there, but so long had passed that it did not scare her anymore.
Caitlyn came up here most nights. She told herself it was to get fresh air, to think, and feel for a moment less alone.
But she was lying to herself.
Below the hill, the city of Zaun expanded out into the horizon. So vast and yet so cramped, like the world had forced the buildings together into one being, the streets spreading through it like veins.
Sometimes she struggled to comprehend the disparity of life.
How she had been allowed to grow up in a house so big it was almost a castle when people had once lived in houses no bigger than a single room of the Kiramman estate. Though she supposed none of it mattered anymore.
The outbreak that had come gave no mercy, not to the rich or the poor.
Piltovians who had spent their lives looking down on the other city were killed in minutes by the very thing they hated.
Caitlyn’s eyes found the city again, drawn back to the same location with such desperate familiarity.
The house in the centre.
From here she could barely make it out. Barely distinguish it from the other houses on either side. But the light drew her in every time.
It shone out like a beacon from the top room in the house, and Caitlyn would watch it every night until it went out.
She could not truly explain why she did. Perhaps it was the knowledge that someone else was just as alone as she was.
Monster or human.
It didn’t matter; they were both cursed with survival.
Her limbs had gone stiff by the time the light went out, but she always waited for it. The bittersweet feeling of the darkness that settled over the area, though even in darkness she could still pinpoint its exact location.
Goodnight. She thought to herself, finally standing and stretching her aching legs.
Caitlyn gave one final glance to the undercity before descending the hill, the only noise being the soft sounds of crickets. But her mind was foggy, a familiar uncomfortable sensation building that she had tried to ignore, waiting for the light to go out. She had to hunt.
Caitlyn did not share the joy of hunting that many others like her did. Those that hungered for the kill more than the blood.
Those that had brought the outbreak around in the first place.
In fact, she detested hunting. Each and every time something had died at her hands, no matter how necessary it had been, guilt had clawed at her soul.
Recently it had been getting worse. Only a few animals remained in the forests bordering the city, and so the times that she would bring herself there to hunt were fuelled by some manic desperation that she couldn’t control.
Once the first taste of the sweet, deep red poison touched her lips, she drank until the creature was dead.
“I will not kill this time. I will control it… I will,” She whispered to herself, surrounded by the darkness of the forest.
The moon cast the entire place in a soft glow, trees casting shadows like dead men rising as Caitlyn moved silently through the expanse of the forest.
Hours she spent in that forest, looking for something to eat. She’d gone so far now that she could barely recall which way was back home. Surely something must be here… she thought, the hunger in her veins almost painful.
But the forest was silent.
Caitlyn’s head spun, her eyes blurring.
“Get a grip, Caitlyn,” she muttered to herself.
Still, she could barely think, her breathing intensifying. Such hunger was so foreign to her that she did not quite possess the skill to fight it off.
She forced herself to sit against the tree, her deep blue cape spreading over the leaves like inky blood. Caitlyn’s fangs emerged, trying to bite into nothing; her entire body ached with the visceral need for blood. But the forest was empty, and the gods were not listening.
Somehow Caitlyn managed to drag herself back to the Kiramman estate, up the marble staircase to her bedroom. Most other days the warmth of the silk sheets against her cold skin soothed her into a relatively peaceful sleep.
Today was the exception.
Caitlyn grimaced and turned onto her side, holding her hand over her mouth to stop herself from biting at the air again.
In all 165,345 days that she had been alive, hunger—access to blood—had never been an issue. The forests were always full, and there had always been others of her kind with enough to share.
But eternity had taught her nothing truly lasts forever.
DAY 165,346
Caitlyn smelt the human before she saw them.
At some point prior to the fatality of sunrise, she had fallen asleep, her mind allowing her to forget the hunger, though only for a couple of hours.
But the smell of blood was enough to wake her immediately. So heavenly that her brain clouded.
From here she could hear their heartbeat too, thrumming loudly in her head.
Caitlyn was out of the room before she could stop herself. Shaking manically from how desperately she wanted the contents of their veins.
Just a little, she told herself. I won't kill them. Her words were empty, though. It had been too long since she had real blood. If she bit them now, they would die.
Halfway down the stairs, she forced herself to stop, gripping the bannisters so hard that her nails dug into the wood. The sunlight stretched out over the stairs, spreading like wildfire through the entire corridor.
“Damn it,” Caitlyn grimaced.
She couldn’t go.
Whoever this was had opened every curtain in the corridor.
Yet she could still smell their blood, sweet and metallic, luring her like a siren. The burns would be worth it, wouldn’t they?
With no further hesitation, Caitlyn moved at light speed through the corridor into the safety of the dark kitchen.
The sizzle of her burnt skin and her pained hiss broke the silence of her movement, but her brain barely acknowledged it now that she was so close.
No.
What was she doing? Caitlyn had never drunk directly from a human.
Her stomach twisted at the fact she had even come down here. Their heartbeat echoed, and Caitlyn held her hands to her ears, trying to drown it out.
Fight it. Come on. Fight.
Caitlyn looked up again, unable to make out their features in the dim light. Her hands twitched over her ears uncontrollably.
It was only when they headed towards the door that she snapped. One of their heartbeats passed, and Caitlyn was there. Fangs bared. The hunger would go away. Finally, her days would not be plagued by starvation.
Caitlyn lunged at them, not even noticing the stake the figure held in their hand. So close she had come to drinking the blood she had craved since they walked in.
But she could not do it.
Caitlyn’s hand came up instantly, and she sank her teeth deep into it. Breathing heavily against her own bloodied flesh.
The figure’s pale blue-grey eyes met hers, and Caitlyn noticed for the first time it was a girl.
She didn’t say anything.
Did not run, nor kill her; just stared blankly at this monster that had bitten their own hand to not bite her.
Leave… What are you doing? Caitlyn wanted to scream at her. The smell of blood was so tangible that she drove her teeth even deeper, dark red spilling out of her hand. Fighting against her hunger was the hardest thing she had ever done.
But she would not kill a human.
After what felt like centuries, the girl left. Back into the corridor where Caitlyn could not hurt her.
Cait ripped her hand from her mouth, cursing herself for coming so close to taking a life.
She had never wanted to view herself as a monster. Never could she see herself as the same as those who started the outbreak.
But now, her ragged breathing being the only sound in the room, Caitlyn wasn’t so sure.
Day 324 since the end of the world.
“Find anything?”
Vi had dumped her bag onto the counter, carefully unpacking all she had taken.
“Some tins. Raided one of the mansions.”
“And…?” Loris pressed, sitting on the counter alongside her, drink already in hand.
“And what? That’s all there was.”
Loris gave her a long glance, eyes catching on her tense frame. “Any monsters?”
“No.”
Her answer came too quickly. Too sure to be true, and Loris had known her long enough to see through her lies.
“Bullshit.”
Vi gritted her teeth and focused instead on filling the cupboards.
“Did you nearly die? Is that why you can’t tell me?”
“I didn’t nearly die. I had my stake,” Vi muttered.
“So there was a monster.”
Vi sighed deeply, but she knew lying was a losing battle.
“Fine, yeah, there was a damn monster.”
He offered her the drink, which she took, taking a long gulp.
“It was just… weird.”
“Weird how?”
Vi passed the bottle back. “She didn’t attack me… I mean she was going to, but –” She cut herself off, shaking her head before continuing. “She bit her own hand.”
Loris frowned, blinking a little in surprise. “And you’re… sure it was a monster.”
“Yeah. The darkness, the twitching. She was a fucking monster, for sure.”
She sighed, closing the cupboard door and leaning against it. “I’ve never seen them act like that… like… conscious almost.”
“Some of them do seem more aware than others,” he shrugged. “Maybe she was more resistant to… whatever caused everyone to turn.”
Vi agreed, because there was little they knew about the monsters.
And yet, she couldn’t shake the strangest sensation that whatever that creature had been was different from any other monster.
Almost alive.
Notes:
HIII.
Welcome to my Walking Dead meets Vampire Diaries meets Arcane AU that has taken over my life for the past few weeks.Also, I know there is no dialogue in this chapter, but lock in, it will be worth it :)
This is also the FIRST fic I have ever written, but I enjoy writing and wanted to write something that I can share. SO yeah if the tags are wrong or something let it slide pls xx
ENjoyyy.
ps comments are always appreciated to motivate me <3
Chapter Text
Day 165,351
“...I don’t know; I found her like this.”
“What? … Chained up?”
“Injured too… It’s only been a week and a half since we last came…”
Caitlyn stirred at the voices, her eyes fluttering in the dim lighting of the room.
“Is she… waking?”
The hunger slammed into her as soon as even a sliver of consciousness returned, and she grumbled.
“Cait?”
Caitlyn’s eyes opened, and she blinked, attempting to focus through the haze of starvation that clung to her.
Finally, she acknowledged the two people that had come into her room. The candlelight danced softly over their features, veiled by the darkness.
But she recognised them instantly.
“What are you doing here?” Caitlyn’s voice was weak, a mumble more than anything. She attempted to lift her head and look at them, but it thumped so hard that she relented and flopped back down.
A small click filled the air, and immediately Caitlyn’s senses were overwhelmed with the smell of blood.
She bolted upright, the chains clanking with the restraint of holding her back.
The two shared a confused, almost pitying glance, but Caitlyn missed it entirely in her state of desperation.
Her entire body thrummed with weakness, the intoxicating scent being the only thing she could focus on.
“Go on. Eat.”
Her hands grasped the bag of liquid red as soon as it was chucked to her. Clinging on to its warmth like an anchor. But hunger was never enough to outweigh humanity, and Caitlyn forced herself, shakily, to wait.
“ Turn around ,” she urged them through desperate, strained breaths.
One of them scoffed at her request, though nonetheless they both turned to face the doorway.
Cait wasted no time after that, bringing the bag to her mouth and downing what felt like an elixir. The warmth slid down her throat rapidly, clearing her mind a little for the first time in weeks.
Within seconds the contents had been depleted, and she let out a shaky exhale, her muscles unclenching as her hunger dissipated.
Partially.
I must look like a madwoman , she thought bitterly. Blood coated her mouth, dripping down her chin, and she had just drunk litres in seconds like an animal.
“Thank you. Jayce, Viktor…” Caitlyn said, though she could not meet their eyes as they turned back around.
Jayce was the first to speak, “We tried to come around for three days straight. You didn’t answer a single time.” He frowned, looking over her blistered skin, her hand still drenched in her own blood. “What happened to you?”
“No. What happened to you two ?” Caitlyn snapped, suddenly embarrassed that they had seen her so weak. “You said two days. Two days , and you’d be back with more blood. I was starving, and there was nothing in the forests and… and…”
Her hands clenched at her sides. “I nearly killed a human.”
The admission stung.
How could she have come so close to blurring the barrier that separated her from the others of her kind that were truly monsters?
And though the memories of that day were a blur, she saw those grey-blue eyes and that look of confusion every time she closed her eyes.
Jayce grimaced. “I’m sorry… We had no idea it was that bad.”
Viktor frowned. “I don’t see why you care so much. It’s in our nature to kill.”
“Because I will not be a monster ,” Caitlyn stated incredulously, her voice sharp.
Viktor had always been more resigned to his nature than the other two. At some point he had accepted that for eternity he would be a monster, and at times Caitlyn couldn’t help but feel almost jealous.
How freeing it must be to not be plagued by your very existence .
“You are a monster. We are all monsters. At least in the eyes of the humans.” Viktor replied, his accent thick.
He reached over and tossed her another bag, and again Caitlyn had to fight not to drown herself in it.
Jayce gave Viktor a pointed look and spoke up again. “We had issues… with the stock.”
Issues ? Caitlyn brought the bag down from her lips. Jayce and Viktor had changed everything through their scientific innovation of fabricating blood.
Starving, for the others like them in their area, had become a thing of the past. A relief in the burden of eternity.
It had only been since the outbreak that problems had crashed over their enterprise like a tsunami, and still the two could not explain why.
“We were robbed again,” Jayce sighed. “By irredeemables. At least we think it was by them.”
Caitlyn shuddered. The irredeemables had been the ones to catalyse the outbreak. She’d seen the way they stormed cities, with bloodied mouths and an insatiable hunger for death.
Though the humans see us as identical, I will never be an irredeemable , she’d told herself in the early days of the world’s end.
Not that she’d seen many of them in her lifetime. Piltover had been massacred quickly, and after that, the irredeemables had gone elsewhere. Other cities where the trees did not know the screams of death.
“Where did they steal your supply from?” Cait asked, sipping at the bag of blood cradled in her lap.
“ Inside the lab. And we didn’t invite them in—not that it mattered,” Viktor muttered.
“They went inside without invitation?” Caitlyn frowned.
“Apparently. We assumed it couldn’t be humans, since what need would they have for synthesised blood?” Jayce said, glancing at Viktor.
Caitlyn’s frown deepened. “But non-humans cannot enter without invitation… It’s impossible. Unheard of.”
“We’re wondering if there is more to the irredeemables than we had originally thought.”
Whether it had been irredeemables or someone else that had broken into Jayce and Viktor’s lab, they could not afford to have the blood supply tampered with.
“And what of the blood? Of my… blood.”
Caitlyn hated how selfish she sounded in the moment, but Jayce and Viktor’s supply was her lifeline, and she could not bear to come so close to losing control of her hunger again.
“Hopefully it won’t be affected after this. The security of the lab admittedly was weak, but if we secure it, likely these types of issues won’t arise,” Jayce reassured her.
Caitlyn brought the bag to her lips, her muscles unclenching as the warmth of the blood filled her body.
“Though, you should still work on controlling yourself,” Viktor told her.
“I can control it, and I did.” Caitlyn rattled the chains still around her wrists and sighed. “How can you two do it so well and I can’t?”
Truthfully, Caitlyn was more frustrated with herself than anything. She’d been alive just as long as Jayce and Viktor, and they had never seemed to struggle with controlling their hunger like she did.
Your thirst for blood is bound by silk chains, Caitlyn , her mother had told her once. And reluctantly she had to agree.
“You have to learn. It doesn’t help that your lifestyle has allowed you to avoid starvation for most of your life.”
Caitlyn cringed at Viktor’s words, cursing herself for complaining so thoughtlessly. How careless must I look worrying about my hunger in front of someone from Zaun ? Someone who undoubtedly never had the infinite access to blood as I did .
“I will try to control it.”
Next time, she wanted to add, but God did Caitlyn hope there wouldn’t be a next time.
Eventually, Jayce and Viktor took their leave, graciously giving her the container filled with blood bags that they had brought.
Caitlyn did not know whether they had intended to from the start or had done it spontaneously- fuelled by pity. But either way, she was thankful.
The chains hung limply at the side of her bed, nothing more now than a memory of how close she had come to forsaking herself. Caitlyn caught sight of them in the mirror, the metal glinting in the candlelight.
I would lock myself there for the eternity that I shall be alive if it means I will not kill a human , she thought decisively.
Yet for some strange reason, pride tugged at her heart. She had fought it; she had fought her urges when the human was right there.
Caitlyn had survived hunger, survived herself, and next time… it would be easier.
She observed her reflection.
The burn marks that had blistered her body were gone, along with the bite mark on her hand. In fact, her body was pristine, like nothing had happened.
That was one of the benefits of being a monster- her body would heal…as long as she was not starving.
Caitlyn’s eyes darted to her face. Glittering vibrant blue stared back at her, so unfamiliar to the dampened colour she had seen over the last week.
Caitlyn sighed - a deep, tiresome sound, and stepped over to the container, hoisting it into her arms. Despite having downed two blood bags in the last half an hour, the ache of hunger still remained, deep in her bones.
But it was manageable, and she forced the sensation down.
As she stocked her fridge full of blood, Caitlyn’s mind drifted back to the human that had raided her kitchen.
She had expected the stake. The swift act of self-preservation driven into her heart.
Yet it had not come, and the girl had just stared at her. Perhaps she had been scared , Caitlyn mused, lifting another bag of liquid red onto the shelf. But it seemed unlikely. Her expression was contorted in confusion—mild anger too—but not fear.
So desperately she wished to believe it was a coincidence. That the visit had been, above all, a surprise. But was it?
Caitlyn’s cupboards were stocked; she had boarded up the kitchen windows to avoid the sun, and each night she had waited for their light to go out.
No, Caitlyn had wanted to see the human.
That part was undeniable. More than anything, she had wanted them to see her.
To refabricate the very beliefs they had built their survival on—that all of her kind were monsters.
But she had ruined it.
Caitlyn had shown them the shadows of her soul, the darkest part of what she was that no light could expel.
The girl would never come back, and the regret ached more than any hunger could.
The slam of the fridge door reverberated, shattering the silence of the kitchen. There will be another chance , Caitlyn told herself. If not with her, then someone else… There has to be .
Only once Caitlyn turned around did she notice the whisky bottle on the island with the cork off, and her shoulders relaxed. They must have left it here when they saw me, she thought, picking up the bottle and turning it in her hands.
The girl appeared once again behind her eyes, and this time the regret did not ache.
You perceiving me as a monster does not make me one , she told them, and in that moment - Caitlyn knew what she must do.
Night 330 since the end of the world.
What was the point of anything? Countless nights Vi had spent lying awake in the dim light of her bedroom replaying every event that had occurred since the end of the world and pondering that very question.
She had clawed her way into survival. Blood, tears, and the last remnants of her past life dripped onto the floor in pursuit of a fleeting dream that would never last.
The worst part was that it had all been for nothing. Survival was an empty promise of sacred hope and desperation.
Some would paint it as luck -claiming that she should be thankful that she had made it almost a year into the end of the world. But Vi always wondered what it may have been like if she had died at the start.
Laid to rest in the same grave as all that had taken her place in death. Cauterised on the very fire of the plague.
It would have been the easier way out. Perhaps too, her sister could have survived.
And in Vi’s most hopeful dreams, sometimes she did.
Vi wanted to say the loneliness was the worst part. But it was her own fault.
The other survivors had left months ago, fleeing to some survivors' camp in another city draped in silver and hope. They had invited her to come with them - insisted really, yet she had refused.
Vi could not bear to part with the house. The place that she had once had a life past survival, where her sister’s laughs filled every room and her ghost hid in every corner.
They’d tell Vi that it was no way to live, but isn’t it better to be haunted by someone than to never think of them again? Vi thought it was.
As long as she lived, so did her sister.
Though, these haunting nights were infrequent, and she always put it down to exhaustion. That was easier than admitting the pain that survival had brought.
What did it matter? She’d tell herself in the darkness.
The sun would rise again, and so would she.
Day 331 since the end of the world.
At least Vi had food and water.
That was one issue that had troubled her at the beginning of the apocalypse that had actually been surprisingly manageable. On day 32 she had begun her potato farm.
Initially it was nothing more than several potatoes in one corner of the small garden. Soon it had become incorporated into her daily routine, and admittedly she had enjoyed farming more than she thought she would have.
Today was the pinnacle of success for her potato farm.
Not long after sunrise, Vi had gone outside, dressed in a tank top and no jacket, and though the morning sun was delicate, she was not cold.
The outside porch was a mess of buckets - lining every surface to collect rainwater, and so she always had to step carefully when going to the garden.
From here the garden was somewhat impressive for the work of only one individual. She had expanded it into the next two gardens on either side of hers to yield maximum output. Standing there in the shadow of her backdoor, Vi grinned with pride.
Though her survival had been messy, she had made it work.
In one area of the farm, the leaves had shrivelled up and died, the once green leaves corrupted with a yellow-brown colour instead. When Vi reached into the soil, her fingers met the fully grown, firm bodies of the potatoes.
The wait had been worth it.
She could not stop the grin that spread over her face; how different it had been from the melancholy that had consumed her last night.
But survival wore many faces, and only half of them were genuine.
Next, Vi began the rather laborious process of digging up half of the ripe potatoes. She always kept the other half in the ground to continue the growing process.
The sun was sweltering by the time she had finished, and she stood with a grimace, sweat dripping down her muscled arms. But she had enough food to last her at least a few weeks, and other, later planted areas would be ready soon too.
The backdoor creaked softly as she pushed it open and re-entered her house, the bucket of potatoes resting under one arm.
The silence, at this time of the day, was undeniably peaceful, especially combined with the soft glimmer of sunlight casting liquid gold onto the walls.
These were the good parts of the world’s end. When nature prevailed and Vi could close her eyes and pretend there were no monsters.
But her face fell a little once she closed the cupboard that she’d been storing the potatoes in.
Across the wood, scrawled in crayon, her sister had written their names. Vi and Powder. It wore the scratches of age - Vi could feel them as she traced her fingers over it.
But it was an heirloom. A memory of better times in permanence on the wood.
“You’d be proud of me, Powder,” she whispered. “I made it work. I lived, and I did it all for you.” Vi smiled sadly, hoping that somehow, somewhere, Powder was listening.
In another world, where there were no monsters and every cupboard was covered in her sketches.
That night, Loris ate with her atop the steps of her backdoor. He too had stayed in Zaun, and Vi had never found it in her to ask why.
But something about the stillness of evening - the quiet. The loss of life that echoed around them, and the gentle breeze, had brought the question out.
“Why didn’t you leave?”
He blinked at her question, lowering the fork from his mouth.
“You’ve never asked that before.”
Vi shrugged. “I didn’t think it was my place to.”
“I guess… leaving felt too real. Like the world was actually fucking dead.” Loris grimaced. “And to me that survivor’s camp just seemed like a sure way to get myself killed.”
“Why?”
“Packed in like sardines, no easy way out. All it would take was one person to turn.”
“Mm… I guess,” Vi said, staring out past the garden - into the darkness.
“And someone has to check you’re alive each day.”
Vi chuckled. “You stayed to babysit me. I should have known.”
“Eh well I don’t pity you, not anymore than I pity those other fools out there.”
She was silent for a moment, taking in the slow hum of night.
“You don’t have to stay for me. I’m fine.”
Loris raised an eyebrow and stood. “I know. I know you are.” He ruffled her hair gently. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”
Vi didn’t watch him go, instead staring out across the garden and trying to ignore the ache his absence left.
A few minutes passed, before she stood - heading back inside.
The floor creaked softly under her boots as she re-entered her house, shoving the plate she had eaten from on the side.
Remembering the door, she reached back to pull it closed.
And then she heard it again.
The faint, almost imperceptible shift of air, so awfully familiar that it made her freeze.
Slowly, even cautiously, she turned around, her heart racing.
“Who the fuck are you?”
Notes:
HII
I know the fic just dropped but I'm posting chapter 2 already bc I was able to write several chapters while in the A03 waiting line.
Also this chapter adds a lot more lore and stuff so ;)
BTW i made a twitter acc for this (@severxnce_) so find me there for updates etc!!!
ENJOYYY
comments and kudos always appreciated <3
Chapter Text
Day 165,353.
Caitlyn had spent the last 167 days watching the light like it was the last star in the sky.
A concept, more than reality, for so long that she wasn’t entirely alone. That somewhere down the hill, past long-dead streets, the world did still have a pulse.
And now she was here.
An action done on regret and hope, standing between densely packed houses that lingered with the scent of blood.
Decayed, almost acrid, and then—stronger, alive blood.
Caitlyn paused outside the door, holding her hand up to knock and then withdrawing it. Knocking felt too personal, too human for a monster that had come so close to killing her.
Truthfully, Caitlyn was stalling, whisky too heavy in her grasp, and fleeting hope that the three bags of blood she’d drunk before would be enough.
Instead, she circled around to the back, breath catching in her throat.
And saw the light.
Outside on the porch, an old oil lamp sat fighting against the dark on one of the back door steps. Light poured from it like a beacon, lighting every surface in a hazy glow that Caitlyn felt both captivated and frightened by.
Catching on the stairs, and then the girl.
Staring into the night, soft shadows flickering across her face—almost peaceful.
And for a moment, they were. Nothing more than two silhouettes illuminated—no monsters. No regret.
Yet, nothing lasts forever. The girl stood, picking up her plate and the lantern, and began to head inside. Caitlyn blinked, reminding herself again of what she had come here to do.
For once she didn’t think, didn’t plan.
Just rushed forwards, whisky and apologies in her pale hands—desperate to catch this girl in the light once more.
She turned around and then froze.
“Who the fuck are you?”
Caitlyn recoiled rather sharply at this human’s words, cursing herself for being so hopeful.
Perfect, she thought frustratedly. I haven’t even spoken yet, and the conversation is already hostile.
“Caitlyn,” she said through a mask of forced neutrality. “You left this at my house.”
She held out the whisky until it hit the invisible barrier she could not cross. But it only served to make the girl take a few steps back, her teeth gritted.
“I wanted to… apologise for how I acted when you were in my house.” Caitlyn took a deep breath before continuing. “What you saw is not how I am. I don’t drink human blood.”
The girl narrowed her eyes, and Caitlyn tensed—half-expecting to be staked right there in her back garden.
But her expression relaxed, eyes widening in realisation and then narrowing again in what could only be mocking.
“You don’t…feed from humans? What? Are you, like… a vegan?” The girl laughed, but it was more a scoff than genuine.
Caitlyn flinched, but she knew the sarcasm was a weapon—something to protect her soft side where the outbreak hadn’t quite reached.
So she took a deep breath and replied. “That wouldn’t be possible. I still drink blood—just… not human.” Calm. But the shifting of her feet gave her away.
“Well, aren’t you a saint. Didn’t seem that way when you almost killed me.”
“I did not almost kill you—” Caitlyn stopped herself, already cringing at how her voice had risen.
God, this girl knew how to get under her skin.
“Really? Because biting your own hand to not bite me does kinda seem like you were going to kill me,” the girl snapped back. Her eyes still watched Caitlyn. Wary. Too close.
“Yes… Well, I was starving…” Caitlyn began, and then the iciness returned to her voice. “And you broke into my house.”
“You left your door unlocked,” she retorted without missing a beat, but sighed. “Fine. You have a point.”
“Thank you.” Caitlyn held out the whisky until it hit the barrier—one Caitlyn couldn’t pass without invitation. “Are you going to take this, or not?”
Vi stared at her, weighing up her options before reaching over with a grunt and taking the bottle.
Their fingers brushed—barely. A gentle touch, but Caitlyn felt it more than she wished.
You’re welcome. Caitlyn wanted to snap, though she knew better than to allow this girl under her skin for another moment.
“I best go,” Caitlyn said sharply, meeting the girl’s pale eyes momentarily before backing away. Not quite turning—not quite ready to risk looking away entirely.
She’d made it almost halfway down the steps into the garden when the girl’s voice called out again.
“What the fuck are you?”
“Excuse me?”
Caitlyn turned sharply, locking their eyes with a frown.
“What the fuck are you?” She repeated, not backing down despite Caitlyn’s steely glare. “I’ve seen a lot of monsters… but never one like you.”
“Because I’m not a monster,” Caitlyn said—too defensively to be true. “At least… not in the way you think I am.”
“But you drink blood.”
“Synthesised.”
“Sunlight?”
Caitlyn sighed. “Burns me.”
The girl leant her muscled arms on the doorframe and watched her. No - studied her. Looking for a way to shatter the confusion thick in the air.
“What the fuck,” she muttered eventually, shaking her head.
And then sharper.
“Whatever. Just stay away from me.”
Caitlyn rolled her eyes and turned once again to leave.
“And Caitlyn?”
She clenched her eyes shut to not turn and snap at her right there. Staying silent—not trusting herself.
“Lock your door next time.”
·:⛧ ¨༺ ♱✮♱༻¨⛧ :·
Day 332 since the end of the world.
Vi stood in her garden, dirt caked on her arms up to her elbows, and the uncomfortable dampness of sweat clinging to her back. Doing anything to push the monster from her mind.
She’d planted half the potatoes dug up the other day, starting as soon as the sun had risen—protecting her from Caitlyn. Placing them deep in a grave, piling dirt on top until it solidified, and waiting.
It was a decent distraction—enough that her mind remained occupied—but too mundane to escape the way that creature still stood behind her eyes.
“You’ve been busy.”
Vi turned, shielding her eyes from the sharp sun to see Loris, arms resting on the fence.
“I have a lot on my mind,” Vi replied, brushing the loose dirt from her forearms in several quick motions.
“Don’t tell me you’re still thinking of the monster.”
Vi didn’t reply, gritting her teeth and diverting her attention back to the garden.
“Vi,” he sighed. “Look… she probably just retained more of her humanity when she turned than others.”
“You said that last time.”
“And I meant it then, too—it’s not worth worrying about.”
She sighed deeply, flopping down under a large oak tree, the leaves shielding her in a dense canopy.
Silence came after—the awkward, thick kind that Vi could feel in every corner.
Eventually, she forced the words out.
“She was here last night.”
Loris raised his eyebrows, sitting more upright from the fence.
“Here?”
“Just after you left. She brought the whisky and…apologised.”
“Oh,” Loris blinked.
“I mean, what the fuck? She almost bit me, and there... she seemed almost—almost human.” Vi leaned her head against the cool bark of the tree in frustration.
Loris sighed, hopping over the fence to meet her in the garden. All tanned muscles and a lingering smell of beer and cigarettes that clung to his skin.
“Do you remember the stories? Shit we all thought were myths before the outbreak?”
Vi shrugged. “Yeah? Course I do.”
“Blood-sucking monsters that hid from the light and could only be killed by stakes…” he listed flatly. “You get the idea.”
Vi wrinkled her nose, watching as he sat alongside her. “Those myths were bullshit though… I mean—until the outbreak.”
“Were they?” He shrugged. “Every story starts somewhere.”
Her reply caught somewhere in her throat, and Vi closed her mouth. Could Caitlyn have contributed to the birth of these myths?
Myths. That’s all they were, and they had never depicted those monsters in a good light.
That creature who had spared her was no exception.
Vi scoffed, breaking her thoughts. “I thought all that folklore was below you, Loris.”
“Well…people will believe anything if it’s right in front of them,” Loris said flippantly. “I knew a guy who kept them in his basement.”
“What? The monsters?” Vi raised her eyebrows.
“Yeah. Started off with just his family, and then he’d pick random ones off the street—neighbours… friends,” Loris sighed. “Poor fool was a psycho, believed they could be saved.”
“I’m sure that ended well,” Vi scoffed.
“It was, until he left the basement door unlocked.”
“Idiot.”
“But that’s my point—those things look human until they’re not.”
Vi gritted her teeth, distracting herself by brushing more dirt from her arms. “I’m not going to put her in my basement if that’s what you’re implying.”
“I wouldn’t put it past you—”
“Asshole,” Vi mock-punched his arm but nonetheless laughed.
“I just meant… Don’t entertain her. If she comes back, if you see her again,” his voice lowered.
“Remember, she’s a monster.”
·:⛧ ¨༺ ♱✮♱༻¨⛧ :·
Night 332 since the end of the world.
The night was still at this hour. No glowing remnants of day remained, though the sun had only set half an hour ago. Darkness only broken by pale moonlight pouring down like tears.
Vi had gone a little way past Zaun with nothing but a stake and nostalgia, further than she typically allowed herself.
But the end of the world had sharpened her fear into a weapon.
She found a hill to sit on, soft grass moulding to her form. From here, she could see Zaun’s corpse. Silent houses and dead streets that once thrummed with life.
Oh, Vi muttered quietly, only for her dear city to hear.
I miss you.
“What are you doing here?”
Vi whipped her head around, pulling her stake up to be level with whoever had—
The monster.
She almost got to her feet, intending to put as much distance between them as possible. But Vi would sit there—rooted and unmoving—if it meant she’d be unable to smell the fear.
“Are you following me?” Vi snapped.
Caitlyn scoffed, “What reason would I have for that? I highly doubt your human life is very exciting,” she gritted her teeth. “I come up here every night.”
Vi narrowed her eyes, not lowering the stake an inch.
“You shouldn’t be here,” Caitlyn pointed out. “It’s nighttime.”
“I’m aware.”
Her eyes flicked to the stake still gripped in Vi’s hand. “I suppose you think that will save you.”
“It will,” Vi fired back. “I could kill you right now.”
“I’m fast—”
“So am I.”
I could bite you faster than you could stake me.”
“But you didn’t. I was in your house, and you didn’t.”
“Neither did you.”
Vi gritted her teeth, biting back a sharper retort, and with a deep sigh, she lowered the stake.
Caitlyn took a step closer, steady, like she held no wariness for a human.
“Why do you fear me?”
“I don’t—” Vi scoffed. “I don’t fear you.”
“It seems like it.”
“It’s not fear, it’s—”
Memories flashed in Vi’s mind—her sister. Cornered up to a tree, a monster ripping deep into her throat. The way her city had been reduced to ashes in a week. Her blood burnt with each memory, but it was not fear.
Fear didn’t even cover the feeling she held for these creatures.
“Hatred,” Vi said eventually.
“Hatred for me?” Caitlyn asked. “Or the ones who started the apocalypse.”
“It’s the same damn thing.”
“It’s not, and I don’t appreciate being compared to those.”
Vi scoffed, turning away from her and back to the remains of her city.
“Look at it—Zaun.” Vi clenched her hand around the stake. “I should kill you for what you did to my home.”
Caitlyn said nothing, letting the silence fill where words might’ve been. A stiff sort of silence born from uncharted waters that neither knew how to fill. Instead she stepped closer, stopping just behind Vi.
“Don’t you think I miss my home too?”
Vi scoffed again, bitter and dismissive. “I don’t know.”
“I grieve what once was every day,” Caitlyn’s voice came firm, almost strained. “The apocalypse took all I had.”
Vi exhaled wearily. “I don’t know how you can expect me to believe you’re different when you’re… every part the same as them.”
“You don’t have to believe me. But I’m telling you I’m not,” Caitlyn lowered herself down next to Vi. Too far for them to touch, but enough that Vi shifted away. Perhaps subconsciously.
“We call them irredeemables. Because we can be saved—and they cannot.”
Vi snorted, covering her mouth with her free hand to muffle the noise. “You call them irredeemables? Did you come up with that?”
“Not me specifically, but my… kind,” Caitlyn answered.
Vi continued laughing. “God, do you really think you’re that morally superior? You almost drank from me.”
“That was an accident,” Caitlyn stated pointedly.
“Is that what the irredeemables thought after ending the world?”
“They can’t think, actually.”
Vi blinked for a moment at how stupid her comment was and rolled her eyes. “I was joking.”
Caitlyn sighed but then spoke up—surer than before. “The incident that occurred in my house only happened because I was starving.”
“Uh-huh.”
“My friends produce blood—a fake, synthesised version. They were supposed to drop some off for me, but they never came.”
“Sounds like your friends hate you,” Vi said, a grin pulling at her lips.
Caitlyn bristled, but her voice wore no sign of frustration. “They were robbed.”
“Robbed? Right,” Vi shook her head. “The monsters can’t enter without invitation, and no human would want synthesised blood.”
“I can’t understand it either,” Caitlyn said. “But it's an irredeemable. That I’m sure of.”
“Huh. So they can think.”
“No. I mean maybe—” Caitlyn cut herself off with a grunt.
“Am I getting under your skin? Vi grinned.
“You are infuriating, but don’t flatter yourself.”
Vi was grinning now—only briefly, before she gritted her teeth again, Loris’ words ringing in her ears.
Remember, she’s a monster.
She pulled her knees back up to her chest. “I should go.”
“Let me walk you back.”
Vi’s jaw slackened, turning to meet those bright eyes—so foreign to how the other monsters looked.
“What are you going to do against a horde?”
Caitlyn stared back down at Zaun, hair blowing in the gentle breeze.
“I can smell them. Warn you before they arrive.”
Vi stood, stretching her aching limbs. “Thanks, but I don’t need protecting.” and then: “Especially not by you.”
“Right, because God forbid anything challenges this idea you have that you’re indestructible,” Caitlyn muttered, getting to her feet. “Think of it as a peace offering.”
“A peace offering?”
“I’ll walk you back. You don’t kill me, and I don’t kill you.”
Vi bit her lip, weighing up her options. She should go—stay as far away from this being as possible. Stake her right now and forget. It was the smarter thing to do.
And yet, Vi couldn’t help the pull to humour her. The way the night seemed a little brighter atop this hill with a monster, and how fire had sparked in her veins.
She’d call it confusion—perhaps intrigue. Or desperation for something to soothe the ache of loneliness.
Deep down, Vi knew it was none of the three.
And maybe, just maybe, there was something so alive in meeting another ghost.
They’d made it halfway down the hill back to Zaun before Vi’s logic caught up to her.
She glanced at Caitlyn—at the way the soft moonlight caught on the sharp curve of her cheekbones. Her jaw. Her dark hair—
Vi grimaced, ripping her eyes from Caitlyn. She wouldn’t do it—wouldn’t look at her like she was something worth looking at.
She was a monster. And one conversation on a starlit hill did not change that.
Vi exhaled to get a grip on the way her heart had begun to pound in her chest and decided to distract herself.
“Tell me about these irredeemables then.”
Caitlyn blinked, like she hadn’t expected Vi to actually resume their conversation. “I… uh—we don’t know much.”
“Doesn’t seem that way.”
“Well…” she began, testing the waters. “Currently, we believe they are some kind of mutation—hence the similarity to my species.”
“A mutation? Really?” Vi raised her eyebrows.
“Why ask if you weren’t going to believe a word I said?” Caitlyn scoffed, sounding posher than ever.
“I never said I didn’t believe you.” Vi looked back up at the faint stars that littered the sky. “How do you know you won’t mutate?”
“I don’t think it works like that,” she sighed. “The outbreak spread so fast it might’ve only taken one person.”
Vi didn’t reply—because for once, no smart reply came to the front of her mind. She’d never admit it, but Caitlyn’s theory almost made sense.
Caitlyn spoke again, breaking the silence. “It’s my turn to ask you something now.”
“Oh, is that what we're doing?” Vi shook her head, but it did little to hide the grin that had spread across her face.
“You’ve asked me like four questions in a row,” Caitlyn pointed out.
“I didn’t think I had anything you’d want to know that badly. But fine, ask.”
Caitlyn took a deep breath, stepping around the question like she feared it. “How did you survive?”
Vi faltered. Truthfully, she had no idea—how was it that she was permitted to live when the rest of the world had to burn? Why was it always fated to be her burying loved ones, instead of lying in the grave herself?
“I don’t know,” Vi admitted, the laughter now entirely bled from her expression. “Luck. I guess that’s what people would think anyway.”
“No,” Caitlyn said immediately. “What do you think?”
Vi turned to meet her eyes again—deep things like oceans that watched her—demanding an answer. Her answer.
Eventually she exhaled deeply and replied. “I wasn’t scared. That’s how you survive.” Each word spoken recalled a memory, so bitter that she’d shoved them down deep where her grief lay.
“Because the outbreak doesn’t wait for those who are scared. I had to run and kill—kill people who hadn’t even goddamn turned yet. And you can’t survive that with fear.”
Caitlyn was silent, watching her with softened eyes. “Oh.”
But that expression did something to Vi—relit the fire she’d allowed to be dampened on their walk. Her voice sharpened again.
“I can walk the rest myself; thanks, though.”
She opened her mouth—perhaps to argue. To insist, but Vi’s gritted teeth seemed enough to stop her.
“Okay…”
Vi stood there. Still. Half wishing to not end the night so abruptly. And she’d already risked too much, allowed this monster to see the cracks in her facade.
“It’s Vi, by the way,” she found herself saying. Words pouring from her mouth—anything to extend the moment.
“What?”
“My name. Since you’ve walked me all this way, I thought you deserved to know.”
Caitlyn nodded, a half-smile forming on her face. “Vi…perhaps I’ll see you again.”
Perhaps you will.
But she didn’t dare say that, settling instead with a dismissive
“Don’t count on it.”
And then she left, back into the darkness with a lighter heart and something unthinkable blooming in her veins.
·:⛧ ¨༺ ♱✮♱༻¨⛧ :·
Day 165,354
Caitlyn hadn’t stopped thinking about the human. Not when she lay down for the twentieth time in a poor attempt at sleeping, and not when Jayce had come over to—in his words—check that she hadn’t killed someone.
It was Vi’s words that stuck in Caitlyn’s mind.
The outbreak doesn’t wait for those who are scared.
Spoken with such sureness and grit. The true words of someone sharpened against their will.
Or at least Caitlyn told herself that was what intrigued her, and definitely not the perfect angle of her nose and the way her jacket did nothing to hide the ridges of her muscles—
“Cait.”
She blinked, glancing up to see Jayce watching her with a frown. “Are you even listening?”
“Yes. Of course… sorry.”
He rolled his eyes. “You act like you’ve never spoken to a human before.”
“This is different. One in a million—literally.”
“There are other humans,” Jayce retorted. “Just… not many.”
Caitlyn sighed deeply, her hand clenching on the glass of blood. “I don’t know—it’s just comforting to know the world hasn’t ended entirely.”
“Cait,” Jayce muttered, rubbing his forehead. “Don’t do it.”
“Do what?”
“Don’t look for her. Don’t go out of your way to have another conversation with her.”
“I wasn’t going to,” Caitlyn retorted. Quick. Indignant. The words of someone caught in a lie.
“Bullshit.”
“I’m serious—” Her words trailed off into a sigh.
“I just think you should be careful. That’s all,” Jayce said in between slow sips of blood. “She could kill you—she has good reason to.”
“If she was going to kill me, she would have tried to already.”
Jayce opened his mouth, but he was unable to refute her. Caitlyn did have a point. “Fine… but… what—what are you even hoping to achieve?”
“It’s not a crime for me to speak to her. I’m not trying to achieve anything,” Caitlyn answered—only half a truth.
“All I’m saying is don’t get attached.”
Caitlyn laughed, taking a long sip of chilled blood to hide her expression. “Don’t be ridiculous.”
“I mean it, Cait.” Jayce waited until she met his gaze before continuing. “Any day she could get slaughtered by irredeemables and—”
“Don’t,” Caitlyn snapped, her mind already conjuring brutal images of Vi, neck ripped open. Blood pouring out like spilt wine and left for dead. “Don’t even say that.”
“But it’s true. She’s not immortal like we are.”
Caitlyn paused, looking up at Jayce and then at a random point on the wall.
She wasn’t immortal. She had survived the last few months on pure luck—narrowly evading death’s claws each time.
And soon enough, it would catch up to her.
Caitlyn swallowed the rest of the blood in one thick gulp, pushing back on the nausea that had begun to form.
“Fine,” she said finally. “I won’t speak to her again.”
Unless she speaks to me.
·:⛧ ¨༺ ♱✮♱༻¨⛧ :·
Night 334 since the end of the world.
Pinks, blues, and oranges of every shade and tonality amalgamated under the power of the setting sun.
Sometimes, on nights like this, when the hues darkened and the sky bled in crimson, Vi felt the world was once again ending. Though it was only crimson on one side, pouring through the gaps of the Piltovian mansions down onto the cobbles. Still stained deep red in places from the outbreak.
Vi had long stopped fearing the night—instead enjoying the comfort brought by the soft whispers of darkness. Hoping, fleetingly, that one night would bring Powder back to her.
Tonight, a part of her wished to see Caitlyn.
The weak half of her—stripped bare by isolation and painfully fragile. What would Loris think? She reminded herself. What would Powder think?
But Caitlyn was different. Vi couldn’t argue with that, no matter how hard she tried. Desperate to paint her as the monster Vi had once believed she was.
The ones that donned the face of a human but had no humanity in their soul. Vi could always see it in their eyes—voids of nothingness. Not even a glimmer of their past selves.
And so different from the cerulean ones that had pleaded with her to understand the other day.
She rounded the back of the city, bordered on one side by the dense forest. The wind picked up, hurling between the branches and seeping cold into Vi’s bones. But she did not shiver.
Nor did she shiver when the noise shifted to steady thumps.
Footsteps.
Immediately Vi pressed herself against the shadow of a house, shielded overhead by criss-crossing branches, and reached into her pocket for the stake.
She grasped it tightly in steady hands, trying to ignore the thought that whoever this was could definitely smell her.
And then she saw them.
Emerging out of the shadows. Draped in a cloak of deep red as if part of the darkness itself.
His face was long. Gaunt. Marred on one side with scars, jagged and culminating in one dark, almost monstrous eye.
But what caught Vi’s attention the most was what he had grasped in his arms.
At least three bags of blood sat cradled to his body as he headed away from the city. Glancing around him. Searching for something in the darkness.
Vi’s hand loosened on the stake.
He hadn’t come after her—instead continuing down into the stillness where Zaun lay.
With a deep frown, Vi stepped out from her hiding space against the wall, watching as his silhouette dispersed into nothingness.
Blood bags.
Caitlyn’s words replayed in her mind. The thief, the reason she’d been starving. Surely Vi hadn’t just witnessed it?
She stood there, half covered in dim light, debating what to do.
The logical thing would be to return home. To not involve herself in whatever this monster had done. But other words rang in her ears.
Caitlyn would want to know.
The castle-like mansion appeared on the horizon before she could talk herself out of it.
Truthfully, she couldn’t. Perhaps it was logic; she’d tell herself that.
Caitlyn was not an irredeemable, and therefore Vi was not betraying Powder’s memory. Or she’d put it down to circumstance, that Caitlyn had to know she’d seen someone else with the synthesised blood.
Though Vi would never admit it to herself, both of those were excuses.
Caitlyn’s house was exactly the same as it had been the last time. Silent and pristine. And yet the air carried the scent of something different.
Something new.
Vi clenched her hand into a fist to stop it from trembling and knocked on the door.
Waiting, in suffocating silence.
The door swung open quicker than Vi expected, forcing her a few steps back.
Caitlyn.
For a moment, Vi’s mouth went dry—no words forming at the sight of this monster standing in front of her once again.
“You shouldn’t be here,” Caitlyn said, breaking the silence and glancing over Vi with a frown. “It’s nighttime.”
“So? I’m armed.” Vi grinned, patting the jacket pocket that contained the stake.
“Because one stake is going to do you wonders if you get swarmed by irredeemables,” Caitlyn pointed out dryly. “Why are you here, really?”
“You said you drink synthesised blood. What does it look like… what’s it stored in?”
Caitlyn’s frown deepened. “It’s in bags… What—what does that have to do with anything?”
Vi lifted her chin to meet Caitlyn’s gaze, and then she spoke. “Because I think I just saw the thief.”
Caitlyn froze, narrowing her eyes.
When she spoke next, it came low. Cautious.
“Come in.”
Notes:
I have rewritten this chapter!
ENJOYY (and find me on twitter @severxnce_)
Chapter Text
Night 334 since the end of the world.
Following a monster into their home at nighttime was probably the most reckless thing that Vi had ever done since the world ended.
Yet there she was, trailing behind Caitlyn, back through the pristine winding corridors that her past supply run had led her to. One foot in front of the other, trying to keep her steps steady.
Ignoring that she’d just broken every promise she made to herself to stay away.
“Don’t you ever get lost in here?” Vi muttered, mainly to fill the quiet – and because she’d already lost track of the way out. If something went wrong, she’d have to sprint in the direction they’d come and hope for the best.
“Of course not. I’ve lived here for 453 years,” Caitlyn answered, not looking back at her as they walked.
“You’re four hundred-”
“I’m immortal, Vi.’ Caitlyn cut her off matter-of-factly. It’s not that surprising.”
“Right,” Vi replied tersely.
She exhaled deeply, attempting to relax her clenched muscles.
Because Vi had no reason to be afraid – not truly. She’d killed enough monsters to know they weren’t a threat to her anymore.
Her eyes flicked to Caitlyn’s figure, mostly obscured by the cape and noting what she could – mainly how fucking tall she was. And then how her legs moved under the fabric –
Stupid , Vi thought, turning away so fast that her neck stung. Anyone but her.
She gritted her teeth and averted her eyes for the rest of the walk.
Eventually they reached a grand lounge beyond a set of double, gold-plated, wooden doors.
The room itself was the size of the entire ground floor of Vi’s house, held up by thick marble pillars. The peak of opulence – all tapestries, paintings, and plush velvet, lit up by a roaring fire at the back.
“Damn,” Vi muttered, taking it all in with wide eyes.
Caitlyn grinned a little, lowering herself on one of the more distant sofas. “Does my home impress you?”
Vi didn’t sit. Instead, lurking in the doorway – close enough to escape if it came down to it.
“No.” Vi muttered. “I’d have a house like this too if I was prehistoric.”
Caitlyn rolled her eyes. “Four hundred is young for my kind, I’ll have you know.”
“I don’t think four hundred is young for anyone,” Vi scoffed.
She almost smiled; Vi could see the twitch in the corners of her mouth. But it vanished as soon as it had come, and her voice hardened. “Tell me what you saw.”
Right. The thief.
Vi cleared her throat, shifting awkwardly on her feet. “I don’t know – some guy carrying bags of blood.”
Caitlyn raised her eyebrow sceptically. “Is that… all you came here to tell me?”
“A thank you would be nice,” Vi muttered coldly, to cover up how stupid she must look. “I just thought you might have wanted to know.”
“I appreciate it, truly.”
Vi sighed, resting her arms on the wood of the doorframe. “So… was that the guy who was stealing from you?”
Caitlyn shrugged, leaning back against the deep velvet of the sofa. “We don’t know. It might’ve been – maybe there are multiple.” She paused and glanced up at Vi. “Aren’t you going to sit down?”
“Are you going to eat me if I do?”
“Depends how much you piss me off,” Caitlyn said smoothly.
Vi clenched her jaw to not grin and sat down – admittedly as far from Caitlyn as she could get.
Neither spoke for a few seconds – the room filled instead by the background crackle of the fire, spitting sparks to the ceiling.
“How the fuck does he get in?” Vi asked, the thought occurring to her.
“I wish I knew,” Caitlyn sighed. “I told my friends they must’ve invited whoever it was in – before the outbreak – but they said they hadn’t.” She began to play with a loose thread on her cape. “Or the irredeemables are evolving.”
“Shit… surely not.”
Caitlyn flicked her eyes over to Vi but looked away. “It’s possible. Mutations are unpredictable.”
Vi swallowed down the nausea that rose in her throat. Irredeemables not needing invitation – the thought was a haunting one.
She leant forward, resting her arms over her thighs. “And you’re sure they’re a mutation?”
“Positive”, Caitlyn said immediately. “Even the way they turn people is different – just from a bite.”
Vi frowned. “Isn’t that how…
you
turn people?”
“ If I were to turn someone… Which I wouldn't . The human would have to die with my blood in their system. Just a bite wouldn’t do anything.”
The more Vi talked to Caitlyn, the more – frustratingly – she had to acknowledge how different Caitlyn was from the irredeemables.
Even the ways that they turned people were different.
Vi would never admit it, but what she knew about the irredeemables almost made Caitlyn seem human.
Almost.
She sighed deeply, listening to the fire roaring in the background, and then spoke. “So what are you going to do? About the thief?”
“Track whoever it is down. Kill them,” Caitlyn paused. “You could help me.”
Vi scoffed cruelly. “And why would I do that?
“Because they can enter your house uninvited. I’d have thought that frightens you.”
“Nothing frightens me.” Vi said, meeting her sharp blue eyes.
“So you’ll do it.”
“You’re putting words in my mouth.”
You cannot trust her, Vi. Don't be reckless , she told herself. But that little voice, born more from her heart than her head, sounded again.
Your house is not safe as long as that irredeemable lives .
Caitlyn hummed, crossing her arms over her chest. “Nevermind. You’d die anyway.”
Vi gave her a sharp look. “Will I? I’ve made it this long, haven’t I?” And then she sighed – and reluctantly replied.
“Fine. But I’m doing it for myself.”
It was stupid – reckless in every way – to help someone she didn’t trust. Someone she was supposed to hate.
And hating Caitlyn was the easy choice – the right thing to do. Yet something, a deep gut feeling that she couldn’t stop, kept bringing her back to this place.
This monster.
No. This was strategy – an outcome that benefitted them both.
Vi wouldn’t allow it to be anything more.
“We’ll see how long you last. What if there’s more than one?”
“Then I guess I’m killing more than one,” Vi replied without a second of hesitation.
“That’s ludicrous. You couldn’t—”
Vi moved closer to her – only a few steps – and tilted her head. “Have you ever actually…
killed
one of them?”
“Of course I have,” Caitlyn said without missing a beat.
Liar.
“Really? How many?”
Caitlyn almost blushed, her pallid face growing rosy. “Um… a few hundred.”
Vi scoffed. “You’re a terrible liar, monster.” She watched as Caitlyn’s blush deepened.
“Fine. I haven’t.” Her gaze moved sharply back to Vi. “But I’m quick – quicker than you.”
“You haven’t killed any…” Vi’s expression darkened suddenly. “So what? You just sat on your ass at home while the world crumbled around you?”
“No. If I could have done something, I would have. Of course I would have.” Caitlyn stood briskly – metres in front of Vi.
Vi threw her arms up in disbelief. “I don’t know. Maybe took some of them out? Instead of watching humans get cornered up to your window and –"
“You don’t know how it was for me,” Caitlyn snapped.
“How it was for you ? Are you fucking kidding me?” Vi’s voice had risen now. “Cause sitting at home knowing they’ll never touch you is so hard—”
Caitlyn stepped forward again, sparks snapping from the fire behind her.
“I lost people too,” she spat. “But you wouldn’t understand that because your thick brain cannot comprehend that I’m not a monster. ”
“Oh, how hard that must be,” Vi retorted. Fists clenched. Blood pounding. “But you were fine because you’re immortal –”
“They can
turn
me too.”
Vi fell silent. Behind them, the fire crackled, one ember flickering out in the air.
Caitlyn’s gaze fell to her feet. “They can turn me too,” she repeated – all bite gone from her voice.
“... What?”
“Doesn’t matter how I know. But—”
The air felt thicker now, choking Vi’s lungs raw.
“I didn’t know,” Vi said, softer – before her walls went back up. “Doesn’t mean I trust you.”
Caitlyn chuckled, a bitter noise that lacked any warmth. “Yeah, well, how could you? You never believed me.”
At Vi’s silence, Caitlyn turned away. Speaking low, barely audible.
“They won’t hunt me. Not like they would to you,” her shoulders slumped. “But if they bite me, I’ll turn.”
“Instantly.”
Vi didn’t let her expression soften. She’d pity Caitlyn. Pity her for being a monster, for sharing the same expression of grief.
Because as long as Vi was looking down on her, Caitlyn would never have the upper hand.
:⛧ ¨༺ ♱✮♱༻¨⛧ :·
Day 165,357
“I didn’t think you’d show up.”
Vi gave her a quick up-and-down look with narrowed eyes. “Yeah, I wasn’t going to.” She pushed off the doorframe. “But I always keep my word.”
“You’re dirty,” Caitlyn commented with a grimace, for Vi’s hands and legs were coated in a thick layer of mud.
“No shit,” Vi retorted, brushing the loose dirt onto Caitlyn’s pristine floor, which got her a sharp glare.
“What? It’s not like I can just wash whenever – I’ve got to conserve water and all that.”
Caitlyn’s grimace only deepened, and she side-stepped to let Vi in.
“Delightful,” she muttered under her breath.
They headed through the winding maze of corridors back to the kitchen – the same place they’d met the first time.
It seemed different now, lighter in the almost ethereal haze of candlelight. Or perhaps the weight lifted from Caitlyn’s shoulders – thick chains. One hunger, one regret.
Immediately Vi went to rifle through her cupboards. Caitlyn said nothing, watching her and seating herself at the table.
“Fuck yeah, you still have whisky,” Vi grinned, taking the bottle from the cupboard with a barely audible clink.
“Really, Vi? We have a job to do.”
“So? I doubt we’re going to do anything that exciting.” She unscrewed the lid. “Plus you owe me.”
“I do
not
,” Caitlyn scoffed.
Vi leant against the counter, still keeping her distance. “You do. One for trying to kill me, and two for making me fucking track down this guy.”
Caitlyn bit back a sharper retort, eyes drifting over Vi. Her stance, leant against the counter, might’ve seemed casual, but Caitlyn could see the subtle tension in her limbs.
The way she didn’t rest her full bodyweight against the side, and the obvious outline of a stake in her pocket.
She still does not trust me, Caitlyn thought. But she had expected no different.
“Tell me this unbeatable plan you have for finding this asshole then,” Vi said, swirling the dark amber liquid around the bottle.
“We wait,” Caitlyn answered decisively. “Wait until they steal again.”
Vi raised an eyebrow. “That's what you needed me to help with? Waiting.”
“You know what he looks like.” Caitlyn’s eyes found Vi again before looking away. “We’ll watch from the upstairs window from sunset to night daily. There’s a good view of the lab.”
“Great,” Vi muttered.
“It’s not like you have anything better to be doing.”
Vi narrowed her eyes. “How would you know?”
“Because the world ended and you have little human connection.”
“How insightful you are.” Vi pushed off from the counter. “Let’s just get this over and done with.”
:⛧ ¨༺ ♱✮♱༻¨⛧ :·
Day 336 since the end of the world.
The morning came slow and heavy – thin rays of sun piercing through an otherwise untouched veil of cloud.
Vi’s first night keeping watch with Caitlyn had been underwhelming – even boring. No sign of the thief. No sign of anything.
She’d stayed, awkwardly sitting a few metres from the monster, helping herself to a few more sips of whisky and leaving before night could fully settle.
10 minutes into sitting there, Vi had already begun to regret helping her. But Caitlyn had been right.
Vi did have little else to do.
Loris had come with the rising of the sun, as he did most days. Tapping his knuckles against the dirty kitchen windows and calling out,
you still alive in there, kid?
But Vi enjoyed his company – someone to carry the weight of the world’s end with her and, above all, someone who made her feel less insane.
“Yeah, yeah, give me a minute,” Vi muttered, crossing the threshold of her kitchen and throwing the back door open. “You look like you’re about to go somewhere.”
“I am,” Loris replied. “Freshly carved stake and all.”
Vi took in the piece of wood, sharpened to a point at one end and enough to slaughter an irredeemable without much brute force at all.
“Impressive.”
Loris took a seat at the kitchen table, leaning back slightly. Mornings were always casual like this. A time of gentle breezes and no monsters.
“Where are you heading?” Vi asked, ripping the lid off a tin.
“Eh. Been thinking of raiding this supermarket.”
“It’s not already empty?” Vi frowned.
Loris shrugged. “I did a few walk-bys. Seemed pretty stocked to me. It’s in Piltover too.”
“So? I thought supermarkets would be the first things emptied.” She sat opposite him and dug a spoon into the tin.
“In Zaun maybe, but any Piltovans that lived – which was not many – got rescued.”
“Fuck that,” Vi scoffed in between bites.
“Yeah, fuck that.” He leaned forward, resting his elbows on the table. “But it’s good for us ‘survivors’ they left for dead.”
Vi continued eating with a slight grimace before breaking the quiet. “I thought you had food.”
“I do. This is more for…luxuries.”
“Cigs and booze. I should have known.”
Loris grinned. “Free stuff like that almost makes the world ending worth it.”
Vi shook her head. “Don’t die.”
He froze for a moment and looked at her, lips twitching up.
And then burst into laughter. “God, you’re starting to sound like me.”
“Whatever,” Vi muttered, but she too was grinning.
Loris paused, watching her eat.
“Come with me, if you want.”
Vi stirred her food around the tin, considering. The clink of her spoon being the only noise in the room.
“Shit, why not? Got nothing better to do.”
Piltover appeared rather quickly on the horizon, for their journey had disintegrated in shared laughs and the occasional spikes of fear in their veins that came with supply runs.
Vi too was growing familiar with this route. Here in the shield of daylight, it seemed almost a stranger to the path Caitlyn had walked her back on.
Caitlyn.
Vi wouldn’t think of her today – wouldn’t let those piercing eyes haunt her mind or listen to her voice play on loop.
She was tonight’s problem, and the sun had only just risen.
Eventually they stopped in front of the supermarket.
Or what might’ve once been one.
Glass had shattered in several windows, shards like ash coating the floor. Signs hung half off walls. Surfaces were coated in long-dried blood.
The air felt heavier here too – perhaps the scent of decay or the presence of the ghosts who had died here.
Vi grimaced, already reaching for her stake. “ This is where you wanted to go?”
“It’s stocked, is it not?” Loris stepped forward.
Vi tilted her head in agreement, shoving the doors open in one quick motion.
The scent hit them first – a putrid stench of rotting meat and decomposing flesh that slammed into Vi’s nose, making her gag into her arm. Only once before she straightened up.
“Jesus.”
Loris grimaced. “What? Did you think it would smell like roses in here?”
And then he was silent.
Next to the door, frozen in what could only be a failed escape, lay a body. Face pale and contorted in the same expression of pure fear it had worn in its final moments.
“Shit.”
The two walked over – cautiously, like it would jump up and bite them – a likely scenario in this world.
“It’s fresh,” Loris commented, eyes flicking over it with a grimace.
“Really?” Vi shoved her hand into her jacket pocket, needing the wooden slope of her stake to relax her.
“Hasn’t properly started to decompose – hasn’t been eaten completely,” he observed. “I’d say a day old. Maybe two?”
“Damn,” Vi shuddered uncontrollably.
Loris clamped a heavy hand on her shoulder. “Not worth worrying about. Maybe the poor fool got caught outside at night and thought his chances would be better in here.”
Vi tore her eyes from it, feigning nonchalance, and turned to one of the aisles.
For the most part the scavenge brought nothing – a few more tins, some other supplies that Vi would find a use for. She kept walking until her foot caught on something.
A lock.
She glanced down at it, noting the way the metal part was bent unnaturally.
Not unlocked. Not even cut open with a tool.
Bent with pure force.
Vi aimed her stake at it and then lifted up, tracing a path and stopping on a door at the back.
A stock room once. Closed. In partial darkness.
And unlocked.
Vi forced down a shudder and turned back – because something deep in her bones told her to return to Loris.
Glass crunched underfoot, shattering the silence and making Loris glance up from where he’d been sitting, cigarette hanging from his lips.
“Found my luxuries, as you called it.”
Vi grinned, despite the unease that clung to her mind like a shadow. “Damn, give me one.”
Loris tutted. “I’m gonna have to see your ID, kid.”
At that Vi laughed, though it didn’t reach her eyes. “Fuck off,” she muttered, hopping onto the till beside him.
He took a deep inhale, shoulders relaxing. “Did you see anything?”
“Why?” Vi asked. Too quick. Too uneasy.
“You just…” Loris exhaled slowly. “Seem… spooked.”
Vi grimaces. “This place just feels off. The corpse… the lock—”
“Lock? What lock?”
She pointed to one of the aisles. “It’s over there. All bent out of shape.”
His eyes glanced over to the direction she was pointing to. “We won’t stay long,” he said, crushing his cigarette under his boot.
Loris was halfway through packing his supplies when a noise made them freeze.
“Did you hear that?” Vi whispered, locking onto the direction it had come from.
A louder thud this time. Reverberating.
Silence filled the space, both holding their breath and waiting for the noise to sound again.
Another beat.
Another pause.
And then the irredeemables came.
At least 10, pouring in a dark wave from the unlocked door. Bared fangs. Preserved corpses. Growing louder until it swallowed everything else.
Shit.
“Don’t run,” Loris muttered, not taking his eyes from them.
“Don’t run? Vi hissed. “The light is just there.”
Loris shook his head silently. “They’ll catch us if we run.”
Vi held her stake up. Shaking. Breathing heavily.
One more beat of silence passed.
And then carnage.
Vi couldn’t recall her blurred movements – swallowed up as they met the small horde. Stabbing and retreating like a well-practised dance.
She ripped the stake from one, sending blood splattering across the wall. Quick. Precise.
Vi aimed her stake at the next one, refusing to let her hand shake. And then the floor fell from under her.
Glass crunched underneath – sure to have cut somewhere. But Vi didn’t feel it.
Her attention was entirely on the irredeemable on top of her.
Writhing. Fighting.
Anything to slaughter this monster that pressed her into the ground.
It snapped and snarled above her, fangs open in a sickly grimace.
Shit.
“Loris.”
Her eyes flicked over to him briefly – watching as he stumbled to take out the rest.
Vi was choking now, pushing back with all her might to avoid being bitten.
This is how I go. This is how it ends.
Her arms were growing tired now. Muscles straining. Sweat prickling her skin.
When it lunged again, her hands slipped.
No
No-
Vi turned her head. Unable to watch this beast sink its teeth in and drain every drop of blood from-
The bite never came.
Vi looked up to see the irredeemable flung to the side – a stake deeply embedded into its chest before it could process.
Something was in here with them.
Not a human. Not an irredeemable.
Moving – like a shadow or a God around them. Too quick for Vi to catch a glimpse.
Noise riveted in her ears, mixing with her laboured breaths.
And then silence.
Vi blinked, glancing around at the slaughtered irredeemables. At Loris, grimacing and brushing himself off.
Finally at the figure, standing in front of her. Holding their arm out –
Caitlyn.
Fuck my life.
It was definitely her – even through slightly blurred eyes, Vi could see the dark outline of her cape. The shine of her eyes.
She’d slaughtered them all.
She had saved Vi’s life.
Vi grimaced, shoving Caitlyn’s hand to the side and shakily getting to her feet.
Caitlyn blinked, stepping back. “I thought you were an expert at killing them?” she murmured with a grin.
“I am,” Vi spat, breathing deeply to calm down. “I had that kill.”
But she couldn’t bear to look at Caitlyn.
“Didn’t seem that way.”
Vi ignored her, reaching down and slinging her bag over her shoulder.
“I knew you were goddamn following me.”
Caitlyn tilted her head. “Following implies some sort of interest. I have no interest in you.”
Loris sighed. “Vi give her a fucking break; she just saved our lives.” He turned to Caitlyn. “Thank you. We appreciate it.”
Vi – still scowling – lifted her hand up where bright scarlet was dripping down her shaking arm. “Damnit.”
Immediately Caitlyn turned her head away, hand covering her mouth – subtle. But Vi knew what it meant.
“Did you get bitten?” Loris asked, eyes wide at the sight of the blood.
“No,” Vi grumbled. “I cut myself on the glass.”
Caitlyn spoke again, slightly muffled by her hand. “You’re going… to have to clean that –”
“Don’t look at me like that.” Vi glared at her.
“Like what?”
“Like you’re about to eat me.”
“I’m not—” She lowered her hand slowly. “I’m not. I just… wasn’t expecting you to… be bleeding.”
Vi gave her one last glare in the silence of the supermarket and then turned to Loris.
“Let’s go.”
He glanced between the two before sighing. “Thanks… again.”
The sun touched Vi’s face with a gentle whisper once they were back outside, and she tilted her head back, letting the light soak into her skin.
And relaxing – tension bleeding from sweat-covered skin for the first time in minutes.
Loris watched her with a small frown. “Are you going to tell me what that was about?”
“It was nothing.”
He scoffed. “Bullshit. She saved our lives, and you looked like you wanted to stake her too.”
“Yeah, well. I said we should have run.”
They walked side by side under mid-morning sunlight for a few beats before Loris spoke again.
“That was the monster, wasn’t it – the one who talked to you.”
Vi glowered but said nothing.
“Why do you hate her? She seemed human.”
“I don’t.” Vi stopped herself, forcing calm back into her voice. “I don’t hate her. I just don’t… trust her.”
Truthfully, Vi hated that Caitlyn had seen her like that – weak. Desperate. In need of saving.
But she’d never admit that. Not to Loris.
And definitely not to herself.
So she scoffed, wiping blood from her hand, and muttered.
“Hope your luxuries were worth it.”
Notes:
LORE AND PINING
I'm so obsessed with this fic and Vi slowly realising that Cait is not the enemy!!
Also this has been rewritten
ENJOYYY comments and kudos always appreciated <3
(twt: severxnce_ )
Chapter Text
Night 337 since the end of the world.
The windowsill dug uncomfortably into her legs. Whisky too cold – too heavy in her grasp.
The air too was thick. Choking with the unsaid words between them.
All of this – Vi would tell herself – had nothing to do with how close Caitlyn was sitting to her – at the other end of the windowsill.
Instead, she focused her gaze outside. On the setting sun like a spitting fire on the horizon, casting shadows down each remnant of buildings.
Caitlyn drummed her fingers on the painted wood – a steady rhythm, but one that made Vi grit her teeth.
“Are we going to talk about what happened?”
Her words were enough to make Vi’s breath catch, and for a moment, she felt the weight of the irredeemable pressing into her chest.
A ghost of the moment that had nearly taken her.
“Is there anything to talk about?”
Caitlyn blinked. “I think so. You almost died.”
For the first time, Vi didn’t refute her.
“How did you know I was there?” she asked eventually. “It was daytime.”
“I couldn’t sleep,” Caitlyn admitted, pausing as if to avoid saying the wrong thing. “And then you screamed for your friend and—”
Vi stayed quiet, bringing up the whisky in hope the burn could erase those memories.
The acrid smell of the irredeemable – the brightness of Caitlyn’s eyes. Staring through every part of Vi in concern . Not the gloating she had presumed.
“Pass the drink, please.” Caitlyn said, pulling Vi from her thoughts. “We have a lot of time to kill.”
“You can drink this?” Vi asked, almost incredulously.
“Of course I can.”
She reached out to take the bottle from Vi, and their fingers touched.
Brief.
Barely there, but they held it for a moment. Gazing past the distance that held unpleasant memories as the world slowed around them.
Vi almost wanted to stay. To let the unsaid speak for her and lower those impregnable walls for once.
But she wouldn’t. Wouldn’t forget the near bite. Nor the incident at the supermarket.
A dagger between her ribs that she couldn’t quite ignore.
With a sharp inhale, she pulled her hand away – diverting her attention back outside.
Trying to ignore how the brush of Caitlyn’s hand lingered on her fingers.
“Are we sure this irredeemable will be out at sunset?” Caitlyn shifted back a little atop the windowsill.
Right.
It had almost slipped Vi’s mind that she’d agreed to help. But here – lit up by the flamed oranges of sunset – she could not deny that it was her turn to owe something.
And truthfully she owed Caitlyn her life.
“When I saw him, it was sunrise,” Vi said, leaning back against the wall. “Guess he reckoned no one would see him.”
“Mm,” Caitlyn agreed. “Late enough for him to walk outside without burning.”
“Not like there are any humans to see him either.”
Caitlyn paused, drumming her fingers more steadily before asking.
“Are there any humans? I mean surely you aren’t… the only one.”
Immediately, Vi tensed, memories slipping through her fingers like ash.
There had been others. Once. Back to a time where Vi could still find it in her to believe the nightmare would end if she woke up.
Too long had passed for her to know if their presence that lingered in every room was their memory.
Or their ghost.
“Why do you care?” she muttered, hoping to avoid having to speak about it.
Caitlyn’s eyes found Vi before glancing away. “I don’t. I was just wondering.”
Neither spoke for a moment, letting the outside hum of night fill the distance.
“I don’t know,” Vi admitted, resting her forehead against the glass. “I haven’t seen them in a very long time.”
“Where did they go?”
Vi scoffed. “You ask a lot of questions.”
“Because you never give me answers,” Caitlyn replied immediately.
“Why would I? I don’t talk about that shit.” and then, lower. “Especially not with you.”
Vi brought her hand up, fiddling with the dirtied bandage around it.
“How’s your wound?” Caitlyn asked after watching her.
“Fine,” Vi said coldly. “Pain in the ass to get the glass out, though.”
“At least it wasn’t a bite –”
Vi smirked. “Mm. What would I have done without my
hero
rescuing me?” she laughed.
“It’s not funny.”
“It was a little bit. You with that stupid cape and clumsy movement with the stake.” Vi bit her lip to not laugh again.
“I slaughtered most of them, if I recall correctly,” Caitlyn huffed, taking another swig of whisky.
“Wasn’t bad for your first time.” Vi tilted her head.
“And it was atrocious for your… what – two hundredth time?” Caitlyn was grinning now too.
Vi rolled her eyes. “Blame Loris. I knew something was off about that supermarket.”
She reached over to take the bottle from Caitlyn. So close that her arm almost brushed Caitlyn’s shoulder and the air filled with the scent of something on her skin.
Something old, perhaps floral. Sweet but not overpowering.
“Did you—” Vi’s lips curved into a smirk. “Did you put on perfume?”
She blushed – her expression stilling from the subtle heat on her cheeks. “I might’ve done.”
Vi tilted her head. “Because you knew I’d be here?” she teased.
“Don’t flatter yourself. I always wear it.” Caitlyn shifted atop the windowsill and exhaled – trying to dull the rosy tint of her usually pale face.
“Yeah? Why?”
She paused, meeting Vi’s eyes with a smirk.
“You ask too many questions.”
:⛧ ¨༺ ♱✮♱༻¨⛧ :·
Night 338 since the end of the world.
The sheets clung to Vi’s sweat-covered body as she tossed and turned in the pitch-black stillness of her room.
Dreams had haunted her mind intermittently – blue-stained flickering dreams that whispered in her ears.
Caitlyn lurked in almost every single one.
Illuminated by the light, letting the cape drop to the floor and reaching for Vi.
Past the shadows. Past darkness in a place where the world did not know to burn.
And then the clouds merged like a thick sea. Covering where the sunlight reached.
Vi was alone again. Irredeemables pouring from every corner, trapping her back in the forest where she’d lost Powder. Defenceless.
Somewhere, she met Caitlyn’s gaze. Watching the horde part around her, hearing her own screams like a distant war cry.
She jolted awake before the irredeemables could catch her, gasping and cold with sweat.
The monsters were typical features of her dreams – a way, perhaps, for her mind to process the feelings she could not.
She had never dreamt of Caitlyn.
At least not until now.
“Idiot”, Vi muttered to herself in the darkness, wiping sweat from where her hair stuck to her forehead.
Because she’d dreamt of Caitlyn. Not as a monster, not as an irredeemable.
But in a soft, gentle way that made her breath catch.
Vi rolled over, kicking the covers from her body and sighing. She wouldn’t let Caitlyn affect her like this – in her mind. In her veins.
In every part of her.
But she knew the only colour she’d see if she closed her eyes was dark blue.
:⛧ ¨༺ ♱✮♱༻¨⛧ :·
Day 165,361
Vi hadn’t spoken more than three sentences since she’d arrived for their fourth day on lookout.
Caitlyn had snuck her glances from the corner of her eye – noticing the stiffness in her limbs, then the way her hair fell gently over her face.
Then the glimpse of dark tattoos creeping up her neck.
That was all it took to force her eyes back outside and her fists to tighten around the fabric of her cape.
The sun had dispersed more now, the entire city veiled in darkness and only lit up by the sunset that roared like some untamed fire behind the buildings.
But her heart ached at seeing the city she’d spent centuries in so desolate.
Caitlyn had seen Piltover grow up. Branching out and expanding, tech and civilisation blossoming upon the cobbled streets. She’d watched it double in size and then triple.
For a while, it too had appeared immortal to her – Piltover never slept; even at night when she’d venture out to meet Jayce under the cherry blossom tree near his lab or go for a walk by the river with her mother, she’d always feel the city’s pulse under her feet.
There was nothing but silence now.
In one week, the city had withered and died, and Caitlyn could do nothing but watch and then sift through its ashes for memories.
“What’s that look for?” Vi asked, eyes still staring blankly out of the window.
“Nothing,” Caitlyn murmured, shifting to stare down at her lap instead.
“You think I wouldn’t recognise that expression?” Vi sighed, shifting to look at Caitlyn directly.
She smiled, but it barely flitted across her face before melancholy returned. “What’s the look, then?”
“Grief. Maybe longing.”
Caitlyn opened her mouth, but no words came.
Somehow, Vi understood – knew every part of the wounds they both wore.
“I suppose… yes,” she sighed. “It’s just hard… seeing my home so ruined.”
“I get that,” Vi scoffed. A bitter noise born from all the apocalypse had ripped from her. “It’s too fucking quiet.”
“The silence is the worst part,” Caitlyn agreed. “453 years I have been here – sleeping during the day with the backdrop of human noise.” Her voice grew colder. “Centuries of life and development gone in days, snuffed out like it was never there to begin with.”
Her voice caught, but she swallowed the choking feeling down. “I’ll kill every single one of them.”
“What would it achieve? The world would still be too damn silent.”
So it would , Caitlyn thought solemnly. No one thinks about the noise until it is silent .
They stayed like that until night, mourning two different worlds crushed under the same cruel fist.
Once the sunset had faded into darkness, broken only by the dim shine of stars, Vi stood.
“I should get going,” Vi said, stretching her legs from sitting. “I don’t think he’s coming tonight; it’s too late now.”
Caitlyn blinked. She was almost tempted to offer Vi a room – insist she took silk and comfort over traversing the darkness back to her house.
She’d tell herself it was charity.
That guilt would find her if this human died.
But Caitlyn wanted the moment to freeze – to stay in permanence atop the windowsill and feel the stars’ eyes on their skin.
Caitlyn had opened her mouth halfway to ask, but Vi’s expression made her pause.
Taut. Frustrated.
Unable to meet Caitlyn’s gaze for more than a few seconds.
Somehow she knew better than to ask.
Caitlyn headed downstairs after Vi left, her mind insatiably on her.
Her strong arms, the way she had lent them on the doorframe. Her grey eyes, tainted so heavily by the apocalypse but still so alive.
Alive.
That’s what drew Caitlyn in the most – her steady heartbeat drumming in every silence they had. In the ashes of the world and the darkness of her life, she had found a light.
Faint. Flickering. Powered by the fuel of desperation, but one that nonetheless dispelled the darkness.
That moment, atop the windowsill, it seemed as if they were the only ones in the world.
And in a way, they were.
Don’t . Caitlyn told herself sharply. Your city, your mother – two dear things you had thought immortal. If they did not last, do you really think this human would ?
Immortality was a facade.
They placed it on her like a crown, and it crushed her. Vi’s light would eventually flicker out, and Caitlyn would be alone in the darkness again.
She didn’t think of Vi for the rest of the night.
A majority of the nights, Caitlyn would spend hours in one room of her house – the room in which she had begun to collect information on the irredeemables.
A large pinboard covered the wall, drowning in notes, photos and information she had discovered about them since the start of the outbreak. In the centre of it all was a sketch she had done from how Vi had described the man believed to have stolen the blood.
He sneered back at Caitlyn from the paper as she stood there, sipping crimson liquid and thinking.
She glanced at the list she had made about the irredeemable’s traits.
- High ultraviolet intolerance
- Highly aggressive towards humans – due to uncontrollable hunger, but also observed a drive to kill without feeding
- Cannot enter a building without explicit invitation
- Appears to have a neurological deviation from their original selves – cause unknown
- Primary motivation seems to be mass orchestration of the human race under a shared monstrous species – cause unknown
- Able to turn humans with just a bite
- ORIGIN: unknown
- Genetic mutation of the original species?
And then scrawled under it. Ability to turn original species . Caitlyn sighed and added a question mark next to the point about them requiring an invitation.
So long had passed since the beginning of the outbreak, and Caitlyn was no closer to understanding the irredeemables nor to understanding how to stop them.
If it was even possible to do so.
Caitlyn placed the half-empty blood bag onto her desk with a barely audible clunk. Just past it stood a framed drawing she had done of her and her mother, and her face fell when she noticed it.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered. “You’d know what to do. You'd have known…exactly what the irredeemables were months ago.”
Her jaw tightened the more that she looked at it. Cassandra’s features were slightly off. Caitlyn had hated that when she had finished the drawing.
She hated it even more now.
One day this drawing would hold the features that her brain had forgotten, and it wasn’t even perfect.
“I’ll see you again. The real you,” Caitlyn whispered, feeling the burn in her eyes as one tear fell. “I promise.”
She didn’t let herself grieve for long, wiping her cheek and turning back to the board. I’ll figure it out, she thought, straightening her posture.
I have all of eternity to do so .
:⛧ ¨༺ ♱✮♱༻¨⛧ :·
Day 341 since the end of the world.
Vi had quickly settled into a new routine.
She’d farm, relax and do any chores required of her during the day, and then leave an hour before sunset to go to the Kiramman estate.
They’d sit atop the windowsill. Sometimes talking, sometimes in silence.
But it had evolved.
No longer the stiff, awkward silence that Caitlyn’s proximity used to bring but instead a still one.
A silence that seemed almost comfortable.
Caitlyn hopped up onto the windowsill, close enough for their legs to brush.
This time, Vi didn’t move away.
“Can I ask you something?” Vi said, eyes fixed on outside.
“I suppose so.”
“Why were the windows in your kitchen all boarded up… and why do you have human food?”
Caitlyn tensed, the words getting caught in her throat.
“I-” she stuttered. “I guess I wanted to help your kind… in any way I could.”
Vi laughed – a deep, comfortable sort of laugh. “So you made a trap for humans?”
“It’s not a trap.”
“It looks like one. You could’ve had unlimited food,” Vi retorted.
“I would never.” Caitlyn glared at her with wide eyes.
Vi let the silence hang before smirking and replying.
“You almost did.”
Caitlyn groaned, burying her face in her hands. “I thought we were past that.”
“Past you wanting to eat me? Nah. Never.”
She leaned her head back on the glass, feeling the cool surface soothe her racing thoughts.
“Your food really didn’t hit the spot, though,” Vi sighed.
Caitlyn rolled her eyes. “You’re complaining?” She gave Vi a chiding look. “You know, there’s probably some human out there praying for even a bite of the food you stole.”
“For that?” Vi grimaced. “I always knew rich people food was mediocre, but… I guess I did appreciate the break from eating potatoes for every meal.
And then more incredulous. “I don’t know how you’re able to eat the same thing every day.”
“It’s all I’ve ever known. The idea of human food makes me feel… frankly quite sick.”
“No,” Vi said in mock outrage. “There are these fish things I used to eat before the outbreak. No way there’s anyone in the world who wouldn’t devour them.” She sighed. “That's one of the main things I miss. Fresh, non-tinned food.”
“I believe many survivors would share that sentiment. It was better when the world was alive,” Caitlyn agreed.
“Bet you miss it too,” Vi smirked. “All-you-can-eat buffet right outside your house.”
Caitlyn’s eyes widened. “I’d never—”
“I’m kidding,” Vi said, drawing out the last word. “But weren’t you a little tempted?”
“No,” Caitlyn replied sharply.
So easy to rile her up , Vi thought with a soft laugh. She leant against the window, scanning the street below, just outside of the lab. Still, there had been no sign of the man that Vi had seen.
“God… will he ever show up?” Vi groaned, though truthfully, she rather enjoyed these nights with Caitlyn.
“Hopefully. But we have to be patient,” Caitlyn said. “And we don’t have anything better to be doing.”
“Easy for you to say. You have eternity to do whatever you want.”
“Right. Because I’m sure sitting in your house alone and tending to your farm is thrilling.”
Vi narrowed her eyes, but her glare was gentle. “Don’t shit-talk my farm. I’m proud of it.”
“I guess that’s one way to survive.”
“Yeah,” her expression stilled, shoulders falling partially. “I guess it is.”
Silence fell like nighttime – a dense cloud in the shades of melancholy and grief.
Vi sighed deeply, letting her fists clench in her lap. “I can’t believe it’s been what – 11 months?
“It does tend to go by in a blur,” Caitlyn agreed.
Vi paused, debating whether to say what she was truly thinking – to speak alive thoughts caged between her skull.
Here, sitting with Caitlyn in the soft candlelight of her room, the confession slipped out.
“Sometimes… I can barely remember how things used to be.” She hesitated, but Caitlyn wore no expression other than understanding.
“Like… I can picture it. But I can't goddamn feel how it was to truly be alive.
The noise of Caitlyn’s sigh filled the air, and Vi turned to look at her.
“Maybe we aren’t alive anymore,” she said slowly. “Just ghosts that died the same day the world did.”
“It feels like that sometimes,” Vi agreed, and then she froze.
What am I doing?
Being so honest with a stranger. A monster at that.
But Caitlyn wasn’t a stranger, and Vi wasn’t truly sure she was still a monster either.
She understood. In a way Loris didn’t quite – for he liked to pretend the outbreak hadn’t bled him dry.
Caitlyn let herself feel it. The ache. The grief.
The ghost of loss that haunted every room.
“Doesn’t matter,” Vi said, colder now. “This is the way it is. There’s no point in reminiscing.”
Caitlyn tilted her head. “I think it matters. Just because something is dead doesn’t mean it’s gone.”
Vi shook her head. “I’m not the same person I was before all this.”
And I miss her more than any other.
But she’d never admit that.
“Perhaps not,” Caitlyn murmured.
And then quieter:
“But perhaps you can be something better.”
She laughed, but deep down, Caitlyn was right.
And Vi would never, never admit it, but she’d feel the ache of loss once they had found the irredeemable and no longer needed to keep watch every evening.
For the first time in months, she had found a purpose beyond surviving for a ghost.
The evenings by the window had also forced her to acknowledge how lonely she was. Four… something months since the survivors left. Vi couldn’t remember the exact timeline.
But she knew it had been a long, excruciating time without even a shred of companionship.
Perhaps that was why she had followed Caitlyn into her home without trusting her completely.
If she were to drown under the weight of isolation, she’d rather do it trying to swim to shore.
Notes:
This is a new chapter added because I had a lot of content I still wanted to include from the rewrite.
chapters 3,4 and this new chapter 5 have had a lot added in terms of dialogue and pacing, so I hope you all like <3This is still a wip, and I am editing the next chapters soon!!
Find me on twt @severxnce_
xoxo
Chapter Text
Day 165,364
On the sixth day, they saw him.
Caitlyn had informed Jayce and Viktor to stick to their daily activities like normal, in the hopes that the thief wouldn’t notice anything amiss and get suspicious. By the time this evening came around, Caitlyn was already half-convinced that they’d never see him again.
Vi was lying on the windowsill staring up at the ceiling, and Caitlyn was in her usual position, knees to her chest, parallel to the window. Unlike Vi, she never took her eyes off the street outside. Irredeemables were quick, and she didn’t want to miss him.
“What do you reckon he’s stealing the blood for?” Vi asked, throwing a hand over her forehead.
“Who knows? Probably to feed himself since the irredeemables turned nearly their entire food source.”
“Damn. Shame they can’t die from starvation.”
“They can’t,” Caitlyn agreed. “But I’m sure they wish they could.”
She recalled her own starvation, or what she could remember from the blurred haze of those few days. I could not survive starving like that indefinitely , she thought to herself. How horrible it must be to be an irredeemable, stuck in perpetual torture .
There had been times that Caitlyn pitied the irredeemables. The ones that had been human but had been struck by the cruel hand of fate and forced into an eternity they did not wish for. Whoever was the first to mutate into an irredeemable, however, she hoped every minute was agony.
“What happens if you don’t eat anyway?” Vi asked, sitting up against the wall.
“Your brain goes cloudy and you can’t think properly. At least in my experience. It’s observable on some of the irredeemables, the ones who seem entirely brain-dead.”
“So if you didn’t eat, you’d be just like them, stumbling around clueless?”
Caitlyn grimaced, memories of her hunger hitting her again. “I wouldn’t have the same… aggressive drive as they appear to show, and I’d still be able to think; it would just be harder to control my desire to feed.”
Vi made a noise of understanding.
Caitlyn was about to say more when something from outside caught her attention. A shift in the shadows that hung down from the buildings. It was fleeting; if Caitlyn had blinked, she would have missed it entirely.
She leant forward, focusing on that spot. Vi must have noticed too, for she turned her gaze outside.
“What? Did you see something?”
Caitlyn shushed her, and they sat together, silence weighing on them like a chain. Not even the noise of Vi’s breath could be heard. Had my eyes deceived me ? Caitlyn wondered. The street was entirely empty, the shadows unmoving. Perhaps my desperation to catch the thief has tricked me . Yet she continued to watch, scanning the shadows that clawed the streets like withered hands.
And then the darkness carved a man.
“There… look,” Caitlyn muttered. Her eyes locked onto the figure – red cape and a twitchy glance over his shoulder every step he took. Caitlyn couldn’t see his face from here, but without a doubt, one side was lacerated.
“Yeah… that’s him. That’s definitely him,” Vi leaned closer, subconsciously, to Caitlyn as they tracked him.
The figure paused in front of the lab, searching all around him before walking inside.
“What the…”
Caitlyn sighed deeply. She’d hoped it had been a lie, that the irredeemables couldn’t enter uninvited and they had gotten it wrong. But he had just sauntered inside like nothing was amiss. Have the irredeemables evolved to not need an invitation? The notion made her shudder. If he could, it was plausible others were the same.
“Should we go down there?” Vi frowned, staring at the spot where this man had just been standing.
“No. We’ll wait until he comes back out with the blood.”
Despite the gravity of what they had witnessed, Caitlyn’s shoulders relaxed. He had returned. When the light of hope had nearly flickered out and restlessness itched at her limbs, he had returned. Perhaps it would solve nothing, but at least her threat of starvation would be minimised.
After an eternity of held breaths and taut limbs, the man exited the lab and, to no surprise, held four bags of blood under his arms.
Caitlyn was by the door in an instant, only pausing to wait for Vi, who jumped up equally as fast. They descended the marble staircase together, the thumping of their shoes breaking the tense silence that hung over the mansion.
Once at the front door, Caitlyn fumbled with the handle and thrust it open quietly. “Stay back,” she held out her hand to keep Vi behind the door and in the – relative – safety of her house.
His cape hung around his body like a skinned corpse. Caitlyn could only see his back from here, as he descended down the hill towards the edge of the city. She observed too that he no longer stuck to the shadows, instead walking in the centre of the road. However, he never ceased those cautious looks over his shoulder.
Caitlyn grimaced, the stench of burnt metal and acidic blood filling her nose. The smell of irredeemability that conjured horrific images in her mind from the start of the outbreak. This one smelt particularly bad. Stronger than any irredeemable she’d seen before.
“Come on.” Caitlyn stepped outside, forcing the odour to the back of her mind. Now was no time for distractions. Vi followed behind her, stake gripped in one hand.
“Won’t he smell me?” Vi whispered. They stayed pressed to the walls of the houses and continued trailing this monster.
“Not if we’re far away enough,” Caitlyn answered. She did not look back as Vi followed her, her entire focus on the man in front of them.
They stopped once he reached the end of the city and headed down the hill, illuminated by nothing except moonlight.
“He’s going to Zaun…”
Caitlyn clenched her jaw at Vi’s words. He must be going through the city to elsewhere , she told herself. Surely going through the city is a shortcut. But the thought was a weak one that formed mainly because her blood ran cold at the thought he had been living so close to Vi this entire time.
They had followed him about halfway through the city when Caitlyn once again forced them to stop. The streets were darker here, in the undergrowth of the city where buildings crushed against each other, connected by wires and bunting like webs. She held Vi against the wall with one hand and peeked past a wall into the next street.
Vi grunted, trying to push Caitlyn’s hand that was trapping her against the wall. “Wha-”
Caitlyn gritted her teeth and held up her other hand to silence her. “He’s stopped.”
She glanced again. He stood there facing a rundown building, entirely sentinel with his back to them. Caitlyn’s jaw tightened. Did we get too close? Has he smelt Vi and–
But whatever had caught his attention passed, and he headed inside the building, vanishing from sight.
“He’s gone inside,” Caitlyn muttered, stepping back and allowing Vi to come forward from the wall. “Do you recognise that building?”
Vi’s eyes found where Caitlyn was indicating. “No. But I know this area,” she shoved her hand in her pocket and began walking towards it.
“Where are you going ?” Caitlyn hissed, striding to catch up with her.
“Do you wanna catch this guy or not?”
“He’ll smell you, and then what? I’d have hoped you would have more regard for your safety.”
Vi reached the building and tried the door handle, grimacing as she found it locked. “One of us has to go in here,” she looked at Caitlyn pointedly. “And you can’t.”
Caitlyn’s hands clenched in exasperation. The entire way here I have tried to keep her out of smelling distance from him, and now she wants to walk straight into his lair , she thought frustratedly. Yet, part of her knew Vi was right. Caitlyn could not enter this building, and though her skin crawled at the idea of Vi going in there alone, they had not spent 6 days waiting for him to give up now.
Vi headed around the side to where some steps descended into an abyss of darkness, culminating in a thick metal door. To their luck, it was unlocked when Vi tried it, emitting a soft clunk as it opened.
“Wait here for me,” she told Caitlyn and reached into her pocket for a torch.
Caitlyn held her hands behind her back, hoping Vi would not see how much they were shaking. Now that Vi was seconds away from being swallowed alive by the darkness, the mission truly did not seem that important anymore. Your greed, Caitlyn , she reminded herself. Even if you did not drink directly from Vi, your inability to control your hunger is still going to kill her . Inadvertently.
“Be safe, Vi,” Caitlyn whispered, and then she was gone.
·:⛧ ¨༺ ♱✮♱༻¨⛧ :·
Night 342 since the end of the world.
This is what people see when they die , Vi thought, creeping through the dark corridor, the only light being that emitting from her torch. Occasionally, she flicked the light to the side, searching for a door or something that would break the unmovable snow colour of the walls. For a Zaun building, the interior was surprisingly pristine and modern too. But an uneasy cleanliness of a hospital, and Vi could not help but wonder what was housed inside here.
She was also hyperaware of the thump of her boots on the ground and the pounding of her heart, which no doubt the irredeemable was in here somewhere listening to. Again, though, for whatever reason, he had not immediately attacked her.
She rounded the corner, shining her light down it until the light hit something that made her freeze.
In front of her were bars, thick iron bars like a cage. What shocked her more was the way the middle two were dented, curving in a manner that could have only been done through brute force. Vi clenched her muscles to stop herself from shuddering and shone her torch behind the bars.
The cell was almost barren, with only a small cot pressed against one wall and no deviation from the walls that were everywhere else in this area. Her light caught the blood, sickly and dark, staining the cot and the floor like a corrupted bacteria. Vi followed the trail with her torch, tracing it up the back wall, and this time she could not suppress the shudder. On the wall, struck in deep crimson like someone had sliced their hand and dragged it across the wall.
Anima videt quod oculi nolunt.
The words rang in her head, mingling with the noise of her heavy breathing. She had no idea what it meant, and every impulse in her brain was pressuring her limbs to move. To leave before the irredeemable, or worse – whatever was in that cell – could find her.
Vi took a shaky deep breath. For Caitlyn , she told herself. Caitlyn will starve if you do not find this irredeemable and kill him . The images of Cait starving and twitching in pain filled her mind and shoved any fear back into the shadows.
She turned away from the cell and strode through the corridors once again. Eventually, she stumbled upon a staircase, twisting up to more unbroken inky darkness. The next level of hell , she scoffed to herself and took the first step, not stopping to let her rationality save her. At least, she hoped, upstairs would be less creepy.
The room she found herself in was no less eerily sterile, illuminated by one single flickering lightbulb hanging like a corpse from the ceiling. Vi shuddered again.
Though this area of the building seemed, if only a little, more hospitable. Her torch scanned across a desk littered with a mess of paper, notes and folders. But nothing there particularly caught her attention, and she moved on. Through another pristine corridor until she found the room.
Several blood bags sat in a small fridge to one side, but what caught her attention was the machine in the middle, glinting under the torchlight. Multiple vials of blood sat in this iron beast, but Vi could only glance at it with confusion. On the desk alongside sat centrifuges and microscopes with dots of dark red on the sliders.
Behind it all, a large board covered one wall. On it, whoever owned the lab had scribbled numbers and chemical formulas, overlapping from how much he had written. Vi stepped back. Is he… studying the blood?
It made sense; why steal the blood to drink when he could learn to recreate it for himself? Still, it didn’t explain the eerie cell room in the basement.
Vi felt eyes burning into her skin as she exited the room, though she shined her torch to both sides of the corridor, finding it empty. Where did the irredeemable go? They had definitely entered; Caitlyn had seen it. Yet the emptiness of the building proved otherwise. Though something unidentifiable felt off, and Vi kept walking.
Most of the doors along the corridor were locked when Vi tried them, and she kept going until she stumbled across the last door. Her light illuminated the print above.
BIOHAZARD LEVEL 4 – AUTHORISED PERSONNEL ONLY
“What the fuck…” Vi tried the door handle but again found it locked.
Her torch scanned the interior of the room, glinting against several large containment units, each branded with the same symbol that had been above the door. Her stomach churned at the sight of the labels on the metal surfaces.
Vindicta-7
The hand gripping the torch began to shake, making the shadows in the room twitch like irredeemables themselves. What had happened here? What was Vindicta-7? Vi’s mind burnt from the number of questions, and the pungent smell of bleach and faint blood made acid rise in her stomach. Silently, she angled the torch to the back door of the room.
PROTOTYPE TESTING AREA
VINDICTA-7 CONTAINMENT – LEVEL 4 BIOHAZARD ZONE
Vi stepped back, trying to get a hold of her rapid breathing. Vindicta-7. Biohazard. Prototype. The words clawed up like vines encircling her heart.
A door slammed nearby, and she spun, pointing her torch into the darkness. She had seen something that was never meant to be seen. Vi backed away from the door, keeping the light trained on the other end of the corridor where the noise had echoed out.
A whoosh of air broke the silence, and Vi spun around, the erratic flickering of light from her torch in time with the pounding of her heart. She had to get out of there. The irredeemable would live. Her torch caught on a figure in the darkness, one disfigured eye iridescent in the glow. Anima videt quod oculi nolunt.
With everything left in her, Vi ran.
Back through the corridor, past the desk. Her hands fumbled on one of the folders covering the surface and shoved it into her bag as she ran.
The downward spiral of steps caught on her foot, and she slipped. But there was no time to fall, and she pushed through. Past the cell, through the haze of chemicals, and back into the silence of night.
Once the door was closed, she leaned against it, fighting the urge to throw up as her stomach and legs burnt.
Caitlyn was on her immediately with wide eyes. “Vi? What happened? Are you hurt?”
Vi’s brain didn’t even acknowledge what she said. Vindicta-7 . The words were seared into her mind.
“We have to get out of here.”
Caitlyn followed her cautiously, knowing better than to ask any more questions in Vi’s current state. Only when the lab was no longer in eyesight did Vi speak.
“Whoever that irredeemable was… is so much more than a simple thief….” Vi’s hands shook uncontrollably in her pockets. When Caitlyn gave her a confused look, Vi explained everything. The cell with the cryptic message, the room with the synthesised blood…. And finally, the biohazard area.
“I couldn’t kill him, Cait… I’m sorry. I saw him, and I just… I just.”
Caitlyn was staring intensely into the distance with wide eyes. “It’s fine…”
“God… I keep thinking about that damn cell. Anima videt quod oculi nolunt. Don’t know what it means, but it was fucking creepy.”
“It’s Latin,” Caitlyn said, keeping her walk brisk. “The soul sees what the eyes do not want to.”
Vi shuddered. “Somehow knowing what it means makes it worse.”
“You said he appeared to be… analysing the blood?”
Vi nodded. “Yeah, he had it connected to this machine… and there was a board covered in formulas and… other stuff.”
“It’s worse than I had thought,” Caitlyn frowned deeply. “Give an irredeemable some blood, and they’ll be fed for a day… learn how to make the blood and…”
“They’ll never be hungry again…”
Vi continued to look back over her shoulder, expecting each time to see the irredeemable from the lab behind her. Though she did not dislike Caitlyn’s company, in that moment every fibre of her soul prayed for the faint glow of sunrise. What ran her blood the coldest was how damn close this lab was to her house. Just a few streets over and she’d be in home territory.
She knew this area well too. The nausea returned at the thought of how many times she’d been here with her sister and alone, unaware that such horrors sat within viewing distance.
Caitlyn’s face was tight when she spoke next. “When we get back, I need you to tell me everything you saw. Miss out no details.”
Vi nodded, her heart still thumping painfully despite being well away now from the lab. What Caitlyn said next was something Vi never thought she’d hear.
“I think… I think I know what Vindicta-7 is.”
·:⛧ ¨༺ ♱✮♱༻¨⛧ :·
Day 165,364
Caitlyn cursed herself as they walked. How stupid she had been to let Vi go inside that building alone. A biohazard area with an irredeemable lurking around in nearly complete darkness. If Vi had died in there…
She forced her mind to think of something else. The discovery of Vindicta-7 had only made her feel more nauseous that the thief irredeemable continued to live. Yet she couldn’t be entirely sure if it was his lab or whether he had stumbled upon it and noticed it had the tech necessary to learn the formula of the synthesised blood. Since he seemed to not require an invitation, it was plausible.
Part of her envied Vi’s ability to enter any building without explicit invitation. Had things been different, she’d have stormed up there and found a way into the restricted biohazard area. If anything, to confirm the theory that had been building in her mind since Vi recalled what she had seen. Vindicta-7 was…
A bitter acrid smell pulled her out of her thoughts, so overwhelming that she froze, sniffing the air.
“What? What happened?” Vi looked at her, face contorted in concern.
Caitlyn wasted no time, grabbing Vi roughly by the arm and dragging her behind some crates. The grip was one of iron, and she could hear the harsh beating of Vi’s heart like metal against metal.
“There’s another irredeemable here,” Caitlyn muttered, not taking her eyes from the ground they had just been standing on moments ago.
“Another? Are you sure it’s not the same one?”
“They smell different…” Caitlyn gritted her teeth, waiting for the smell to disperse and the irredeemable to leave.
So close they had come to leaving Zaun. Caitlyn could see the hill from here, the corpse of Piltover brushing against the horizon. I will never be this reckless again , Caitlyn thought. I should have refused . It was too dangerous for a human… and yet, how could she?
Those nights with Vi, hearing the soft thumps of her heart as she slept. Her stupid sarcasm and the way those grey eyes burnt Caitlyn’s skin with a feeling more euphoric than fresh blood. Eternity had been an experience. 453 years of watching things burn and something better rising from the ashes like a phoenix.
Oh … Caitlyn sighed. But what was eternity for five minutes with her ?
Steady thumps pulled Caitlyn from her musings, loud noises falling in perfect sync with Vi’s heartbeat. She peeked through the gap in the crates, and her grip on Vi’s arm tightened.
The irredeemable prowled out onto the street, eyes darting around. Caitlyn closed her eyes briefly, praying to the empty sky that Vi would be silent. One small incomprehensible noise and it would be on them. One deeper breath than usual and Vi’s fragile life would be snuffed out.
It stopped in the middle of the street, twitching and sniffing like a wild beast. From here Caitlyn could almost see the dark veins under its eyes. She’d been so wrapped up in observing this monster that she did not notice Vi until she heard the noise.
A muffled noise broke the silence; a soft cry ripped deep from the void in which Vi kept her bad memories. Caitlyn’s hand was over her mouth at lightspeed. What had caused Vi to react so viscerally? She didn’t know. But she’d heard it, and the irredeemable had too.
The irredeemable began stalking over to the crates, fangs already bared in a silent promise of laceration. Vi was shuddering next to her, grey eyes wide and glossy, and Caitlyn could do nothing but press her hand harder. Please …Caitlyn prayed. Whatever Gods exist out there, make it leave. I cannot bear to watch her die .
But the Gods weren’t listening. Of course they weren’t; they’d allowed the outbreak after all.
Before Caitlyn could react, Vi shoved her off and ran out from the crates, standing a few metres apart from the irredeemable.
Reckless idiot, Caitlyn thought, but it was directed more to herself than to Vi. She stayed behind the crates, her hands clenching and unclenching as she tried to think of a way out of this.
Vi stood there with slumped shoulders, hope and despair fighting a war in her eyes that neither could win. Caitlyn was almost going to get up and find some wood to drive through this creature’s heart when Vi spoke.
“Powder?”
Notes:
LOCK IN. LORE CHAPTERRRR
Also long awaited powder reveal...
i wanna add that the caitvi stuff WILL come soon, as u can lowk tell the tension is THERE
ENJOYYY
comments and kudos always appreciated to keep me motivated on this fic, and cause it kinda scares me to put my writing in the world for the first time.
THANK U FOR ALL THE SUPPORT SO FAR <3
Chapter 7: In the wake of crimson skies
Notes:
"But there was no other world. This was all they had"
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Night 342 since the end of the world.
342 days had passed since the world fell silent, but today was the first day its heart stopped.
“Powder?”
Vi’s sister’s name burnt on her tongue like sweet poison, and she could not look away. Oh, Powder… Sweet Powder, I’m so sorry .
She hadn’t died.
Not in the way that Vi thought she had.
Yet her existence now was something way worse. A monster had clawed at her soul, ripping remnants of what was once her sister into shreds, none of which Vi could see.
Powder watched her with bared teeth and narrowed eyes. It was still her sister, though – Vi could recognise those features anywhere.
And she knew if she looked into a mirror, they’d stare back.
“Oh, Powder,” Vi whispered. “What have they done to you?”
Powder tilted her head, and for a brief, flickering moment – one that meant everything to Vi – her expression relaxed.
Momentarily, Vi saw her little sister again, and the world did not seem so cruel and silent. It was humanity in Powder’s gaze.
Faint recognition that could only be her past self seeping through the cracks.
Vi’s heart clenched. Relaxed. Fighting everything to not rush over and sweep her sister up.
How Vi missed that face – not that she’d ever stopped seeing it. In the corner of her eye. In every space she entered.
In her house, trapped in liminal, somewhere between dead and alive.
If Vi pretended hard enough, Powder was human once more. Alive. Giggling in between sips of some too-bright coloured drink and avoiding Ekko’s gaze.
Somewhere deep in those blue eyes – she hadn’t truly been buried yet.
A heartbeat passed, and it was gone.
Powder twitched, bearing her fangs again. Vi couldn’t bring herself to run, her feet rooted to the ground, fearing that any movement would shatter the calm surface of the moment.
Another beat, and Powder lunged at her.
Vi brought the stake up on autopilot. But she’d never hurt her sister – not even if it was simply a monster wearing her skin.
Vi grunted as the ground rose up to meet her. Bringing her hands up to stop Powder from sinking her teeth into her neck.
Whatever small recognition that had crossed Powder’s expression was gone, and she twitched and snarled atop Vi.
The her mouth lunged down again.
Close.
Close enough to bite.
Vi shoved the stake into her mouth. Fangs sinking deep into the wood.
Powder lurched in an attempt to free herself. Shaking. Twitching like a rabid animal.
This is how I die, Vi thought. After almost a year, this is how it ends.
But it was her sister killing her, and truthfully, Vi was glad it would be her.
Out of all the ways it could have ended – alone in some foreign territory.
She was glad it would be here.
Here, where she could lie among her dying memories.
The wood let out a dying crunch – snapping like a matchstick.
This time Vi was unarmed – a split, blunt half of wood between her hands.
In what may have been her last moments, she thought of Caitlyn.
But life was cruel, and they were forced to live two eternities that ran parallel and never crossed.
Life and afterlife.
Her sister lunged again, and the world stilled.
Choking itself on the scent of blood. The weight of grief.
Until a sickly crunch of flesh broke the silence.
Vi didn’t dare open her eyes – waiting for the warm sensation on her neck.
But it was not her own.
When Vi looked up next, Powder was slumped alongside her, a thick piece of metal through her head. A strained gasp ripped from inside her at the sight, her sister’s features drenched in her own blood.
Dead.
Not eternally like a human might be – but enough.
The next thing she saw was Caitlyn standing in front of her with an arm reached out and a strained expression marring her features.
Still, Vi could not bring herself to move. To pull her eyes from Powder’s corpse.
The cold sting of tears ached against her cheeks, though she did not remember crying.
“Vi…” Caitlyn reached her hand out further.
She shoved Caitlyn’s hand away and stumbled to her feet. “You killed her…” Vi muttered, her voice low and choked.
“She’s an irredeemable. She’ll come back.”
Powder wasn’t truly dead; Vi knew that. The monster lurking inside her would not be put to rest so easily. Did it even matter if she died? There was no more Powder. Just a creature wearing her skin like fine silks.
With no further glance back at her sister, Vi began walking in the only direction she knew.
“Vi…”
“I’m going home, Cait. Fuck Vindicta-7. Fuck the lab.
Fuck all of this
,” she snapped, forcing her voice out. “My sister is a
fucking
irredeemable… And there’s – there’s nothing I can do.”
Never had Vi felt so small in her life.
The outbreak had her. In every crevice of her body, the outbreak scraped and tore. The soul sees what the eyes do not want to. Whoever wrote that had been right.
Vi could not kill Powder because her eyes did not see the monster that her soul did.
“You knew she was,” Caitlyn said, halting Vi’s walk once again.
Vi scoffed bitterly. Knew … she knew. But hope was an easier poison to swallow.
“It didn’t change anything,” Vi replied. “It didn’t… hurt any less that I knew.”
Vi sniffed hard, wiping her eyes in the hope that Caitlyn would not see the way grief fell from her eyes.
“I saw her,” she admitted slowly. “For a moment.”
“Saw who?”
Caitlyn was behind Vi now – reaching to touch her shoulder, not quite making contact.
“My sister.” Vi’s jaw trembled. “How she once was… before this fucking virus .” She threw the useless piece of wood with all her might on the last word.
“Oh, Vi,” Caitlyn spun her around so their eyes could meet. “I’m so sorry.”
Vi stared at the floor – unable now to stop the tears. “I was so stupid.”
“I was so stupid to believe she’d be anything other than dead. ”
She scoffed and turned back around. “I’m going home.”
And this time, Caitlyn did not stop her from leaving.
·:⛧ ¨༺ ♱✮♱༻¨⛧ :·
Day 165,367
“It’s okay… Easy…drink up.”
Caitlyn held the blood bag up to the irredeemables’ lips, tilting it slightly. The creature writhed, filling the room with the clanking of chains as it fought to swallow more deep red liquid.
“I’m sorry… I’m sorry I took longer than anticipated. I didn’t want her to see you,” Caitlyn whispered.
Once the irredeemable was done drinking, Caitlyn wiped its mouth with a silk handkerchief, blood staining the pale fabric. No longer did it pull on its chains incessantly, and though its body remained tense, it was sated. For now.
Caitlyn pulled up an armchair and sat in front of the irredeemable, as she did almost every night since they turned. The outbreak really has driven me to lunacy , she thought, lowering herself into the chair. We must never see this . Caitlyn knew what she’d think of her for keeping one of the monsters locked between the four walls of her home.
“I think I know what happened to you,” Caitlyn spoke softly. “If you were… yourself, I’m sure you’d tell me how oblivious I was to the truth this whole time.”
The irredeemable watched her with dazed eyes and bared fangs. Caitlyn dug her nails into her palms at seeing such a familiar face so monstrous. It was cruel, really, how the outbreak reduced people into fragments of themselves but kept the aching recognition of their appearance intact.
“I miss you, Mother,” Caitlyn admitted. “Never did I think I’d know an eternity without you.”
Her voice broke at the word eternity. In the haze of the outbreak and Caitlyn’s pursuit of understanding the irredeemables, never had she entirely accepted the truth. Cassandra Kiramman was gone. Her only constant against the storm of eternity was wiped out like a mere mortal.
“I have become friends with a human. You’d lecture me for that,” Caitlyn laughed ruefully. “Don’t let a human into your heart, because you will outlive them every time… and I will – outlive her – I suppose.”
Caitlyn sighed. “Eternity was never the shield you made it out to be… I’ve found it’s a piece of fabric held together by twigs that I can rip with my own hands.” She paused for a moment. “Even if I won’t die… what’s the point of living in an impregnable room if you have to be there alone?”
Her mother just stared vacantly into the distance, a sheen of blood still coating her lips.
“You should have been selfish,” Caitlyn’s voice cracked. “Why do all of this for one human that… that probably died five minutes later anyway. It wasn’t worth it .”
Except it was. And it had only been once Caitlyn had met Vi that she understood how meaningless eternity was.
Vi was the sunset, beautiful and fleeting, and when Caitlyn was frozen in the warm glow, she forgot about the darkness that would follow.
·:⛧ ¨༺ ♱✮♱༻¨⛧ :·
Day 165,368
Vi was sitting outside with a drink grasped in her hand when Caitlyn arrived at her house. Sunset had been hours ago, yet Vi was still up, staring blankly into her garden.
Seeing her like this – so fragile and lit up by nothing except the flickering golden blur from the lantern – made Caitlyn’s breath catch in her throat.
Vi’s teeth were clenched; Caitlyn could tell from there the weight of grief and silence flooding through her veins.
We bleed from cuts inflicted by the same weapon , Caitlyn thought, wishing painfully that Vi could know that.
Perhaps she’d been insensitive before, telling Vi that deep down she knew her sister was an irredeemable.
But Caitlyn never wasted time on foolish hope, instead – even pessimistically – reminding herself of reality.
Still, she’d always bet her all on a chance, even if the odds were zero.
“Vi…” Caitlyn grimaced as her words broke the heavy quiet, though Vi did not look up.
She let herself into the garden, stopping just before the steps that Vi sat on, walking cautiously like one would approaching a wounded animal.
“I’m sorry about your sister… and that I…killed her.” Caitlyn forced herself to look up as she spoke.
For a moment, Vi did not respond, and the thought that Caitlyn had gone too far and ruined what they had was almost enough to restart her heart.
“You just…weren’t fighting back, and she was going to bite you. She’s not dead, not really… I didn’t stake her or ” Caitlyn’s words came out in a rush.
“I was going to let her kill me,” Vi admitted, after another beat of silence. “I suppose in that moment nothing mattered anymore.”
Caitlyn’s face fell, and though her body ached for it, she did not let herself take a step forward.
“Why?” she whispered. “You know what would have happened to you if she’d-” Caitlyn stopped herself - thoughts of Vi as an irredeemable making nausea curl in her stomach.
Vi stared at the floor for several long moments. When she finally spoke it was choked. Barely a whisper.
“I didn’t want to stake her,” she shook her head bitterly. “I couldn’t.”
“I’d always survived for her. For her memory or whatever. In that moment it felt like everything was for nothing,” Vi scoffed. “I’m hanging out at a monster’s house - tracking some asshole into his lab… I’m not honouring her.”
The term monster made Caitlyn recoil, but she knew Vi did not mean to hurt her. “I think she’d be proud. Not many people can say they’ve survived this long.” Caitlyn relaxed her hands. “She’d want you to live.”
Vi scoffed, “I don’t think she’d want much of anything except my blood right now.”
With a soft sigh, Caitlyn took a seat on the steps alongside her, still maintaining some distance between them.
Silence hung over them for a few of Vi’s heartbeats. One that Caitlyn felt in every part of her.
Except the sliver of her leg that brushed against Vi’s.
“Remember how I told you I learnt the irredeemables can turn the original species too?” Caitlyn asked eventually.
Vi nodded, still keeping her eyes down.
“I found out because they turned my mother,” Caitlyn admitted, the lamp casting moving shadows across her face. “She went out. Wanted to save people. To kill the irredeemables and let – if only some – escape.”
In the faint backdrop of soft crickets chirping, Vi’s pain-filled grey-blue eyes met hers, and for a moment, Caitlyn couldn’t think.
“I watched her die,” Caitlyn said quietly.
‘The irredeemable spat out her blood. It didn’t even want to drink from her, and it –" Caitlyn shoved the words down, refusing to be so emotional in front of Vi. “I fell out of love with eternity after that.”
“I’m sorry, Cait.” Vi glanced away from her.
They both stared out into the darkness, so alone in their fragile bubble of light.
“It’s cruel, isn’t it? how the irredeemables keep the faces we love so much…” Vi brought the whisky to her mouth. “I’m always torn between killing her… because my sister is dead – and that thing is just a monster. But knowing that – that I’d never see her face again.”
“I couldn’t kill my mother.” Caitlyn bit her lip. “I know I should… put her out of her misery. And I know she’ll be a monster forever. But death is so permanent.” She closed her eyes.
“Guess we’re both weak, huh?” Vi laughed softly, but Caitlyn could tell it was forced.
Caitlyn’s eyes found hers again, watching the light dance across the surface, illuminating the humanity inside that lay Vi’s soul bare.
“I’m glad you came to my house,” Caitlyn whispered before she could stop herself. “I didn’t think you’d give me another chance.”
“I’m glad I did too…” Vi’s gaze flickered down and back up. “I don’t… want to be alone again.”
“Well… I’m here for eternity,” a barely there smile twitched on Caitlyn’s face.
“Yeah.” Vi agreed. “You are…”
Caitlyn shuffled closer – letting their shoulders brush.
Then their arms.
Almost close enough to forget.
Vi didn’t pull away as Caitlyn had expected. Instead, she let the moment happen – permitting it to slide over her shattered heart and soothe it.
Not healing. Not yet.
But something.
“Isn’t eternity lonely?” Vi turned to look at her.
Caitlyn’s hands clenched, subtle enough for Vi to miss.
“Sometimes”, Caitlyn murmured, crossing one leg over the other. “I never knew humanity like you did. Never… let myself get close to a human.”
“I must be lucky then,” Vi smirked, but it was half-hearted at best.
“In a way you are,” Caitlyn said. “The last human alive, and – unfortunately – I’ve let you in.”
Vi set her drink on the steps. “I think about it sometimes. Everything that led us here. I just wish it hadn’t taken the world ending.”
“There’s beauty in destruction. My mother told me that.”
“She sounds smart.”
Caitlyn smiled softly. “She was the smartest person I’ve ever met.”
Vi nodded, staring back out at the expanse of her garden.
“So was my sister.”
Neither spoke for a few beats – listening to the still hum of night and the whispers of ghosts who were never truly mourned.
Trying to pretend that neither saw the sparks- bright. And the most alive thing Caitlyn had seen in years.
“Eternity is lonely, though,” Caitlyn finally answered. “I always felt… incomplete.”
Vi raised her eyebrow. “You had forever to find that shit. I only have a week, maybe.”
“Don’t say that,” Caitlyn muttered.
“Say what?”
“Act like – like you’re to die soon.”
Vi sighed. “I’m just being realistic. I’ve already lived 300 days too long.”
Caitlyn shook her head, turning to face Vi. Closer this time – enough to see the faint dusting of freckles on her nose.
“I don’t want realism tonight. I want to forget.”
Vi chuckled. “I’m not good at forgetting.”
Caitlyn leaned closer, driven by an electricity so intense that she was sure it blurred the line between dream and reality. Silver-curtained by the faint moonlight and lit up by a flame that burnt them both.
“Then remember. Remember where the flowers grow in the ashes,” she whispered. “Remember what it feels like to be alive.”
Vi brought her hand up, hesitating.
And then she touched Caitlyn’s face. Gentle. Unsure. Alive. Caitlyn’s skin burnt where her hand lingered, and stung where it didn’t.
“We’re being reckless,” she murmured.
Vi pressed a finger to her lips. “I thought you wanted to forget.”
So Caitlyn did forget.
Pretending that her heart beat in the rhythm of Vi’s name and that the world had ended.
But her world – one of immortality and isolation. One that haunted every silence, every moment alone.
I have always been in darkness , Caitlyn thought.
For once let me bathe in the light.
“Cait… Thank you for being different,” Vi said softly, her heartbeat increasing. “Thank you for showing my soul what my eyes refused to see.”
She paused – holding the moment with gentle hands. Their lips were almost touching now – a whisper apart.
She spoke, finally. A breath ghosting across Vi’s lips. Close enough for something to – for once – be hers.
“I’d never be anything else.”
Her muscles relaxed entirely as Vi’s hand grazed down to her jaw.
Igniting her pallid skin with a fire that she knew would ravage every promise she ever made to herself. What did it matter? Caitlyn thought.
No one thinks of the dark when the sun is setting so beautifully.
In another world, where Caitlyn’s hands weren’t bound by the chains of eternity, she touched Vi’s face too.
And when Vi’s heartbeat thudded in her ears, Caitlyn’s beat with it in sync.
But there was no other world.
This was all they had.
Caitlyn did not hesitate further and kissed her.
·:⛧ ¨༺ ♱✮♱༻¨⛧ :·
Day 346 since the end of the world
Vi came back to life as soon as Caitlyn’s lips touched hers. For the first time in days, the shadow of grief and isolation that clung to her skin like a decay she could not wash off had dispersed.
She kissed Caitlyn back hungrily, pulling her face closer, one hand reaching around her waist. Sparks lit where their skin met; Vi could feel them burning against her skin. A wound she never wanted to heal.
Vi shuddered when Caitlyn touched her, wrapping her arms around Vi’s neck. Isolation did that to her, amplified every gentle touch. Her heart echoed in her head, empty except for the feel of Caitlyn’s touch, the taste of her on Vi’s lips.
When they broke away, Vi’s breathing was rapid, hitting Caitlyn’s face softly.
“You are the sole proof that something good and hopeful exists in this cruel and broken world. Don’t lose that to an irredeemable…” Caitlyn whispered against her lips.
Vi’s heart ached at that comment. Never had someone said something so kind to her. How did I ever think of Cait as a monster? Vi wondered. She has more humanity inside her than half of the people I have met in my lifetime.
There was no response that could compete with the weight of what Caitlyn had told her, and Vi instead pressed her lips back to hers.
Soon the kiss was no longer soft but frantic and starving. Vi was drowning, and it was the most euphoric life had ever felt. The moment sucked every breath from her lungs, leaving her gasping, but she wanted more.
She wanted Caitlyn in every part of her, to fill the void and dull the ache. Vi pulled her closer still, biting hungrily at her bottom lip while they kissed. Caitlyn’s hands traced down, over her arms and back up, digging her nails into Vi’s back.
When they broke the kiss next, Vi immediately pressed her lips along Caitlyn’s jawline and down her neck, the sound of her soft moans only encouraging her further. Every thought Vi had experienced about Caitlyn, the ones that she had shoved far away, were all resurfacing now. All those nights spent imagining the weight of Caitlyn’s body against hers.
Vi’s lips found Caitlyn’s neck again, and she began to suck at her skin, where a pulse would normally be. The sweet sting of Caitlyn’s nails made Vi inhale sharply, mixing with Caitlyn’s soft gasps.
After a moment more, Vi pulled back and stood, her skin already desperate for Caitlyn’s touch on it. She pulled Caitlyn up with her, leading her to the backdoor of the house.
Caitlyn paused when her hand hit the barrier, and she stood there with wide eyes, desire burning deeply against the blue.
“Vi… I can’t,” she said breathlessly.
Vi’s eyes roved over Caitlyn’s body. She was about to make the most reckless choice she’d ever made. But God… Vi had never wanted anything more in her life, and… it was worth the risk.
If she died, at least it would be with Caitlyn’s hands on her.
“Cait…..” Vi exhaled, trying to regain some composure. Her pulse fluttered rapidly, and she knew what saying the next words would mean for both of them. No longer would Vi’s house be entirely safe.
But in that moment, she was willing to go against every survival instinct she had, hardened like metal from months of being beaten down.
When Vi spoke next, there was no hesitation.
“Come in.”
As soon as the words left Vi’s lips, Caitlyn was inside, instantly reaching for her again. Vi pulled her by the waist back into another kiss, unable to get enough of how she felt.
“Thank you for trusting me…” Caitlyn said shakily, holding Vi’s face.
“You’d never hurt me,” Vi replied, pressing her lips harshly against Caitlyn’s once more, leaning into her arms like they were the only thing keeping Vi together.
And in a way, they were.
Vi reached down and found Caitlyn’s hand, grasping it and leading her up the stairs to her bedroom. Once inside, she sank onto the bed and pulled Caitlyn down to lie alongside her.
They were silent, the cacophony of their ragged breathing shattering the fragile silence, both trying to accept the gravity of what had just happened. Vi had never felt so alive, the blood drumming in her ears like waves against a cliff.
“I can still hear your heart racing,” Caitlyn mumbled, leaning their foreheads together.
“Yeah? I mean… shit, is it really that surprising?” Vi’s hand held Caitlyn’s face, rubbing her thumb over her cheek.
For the first time since the outbreak, it was nighttime, and Vi was not haunted by the ghosts of her sister and her regret. Here with Caitlyn in her arms and the dim lighting of the room, she didn’t fear anything, nor consider how life may have played out differently. For only a second, Vi believed everything had gone exactly how it was supposed to.
“I’ve wanted this… you… for so long,” Vi muttered, aching at the coldness of Caitlyn’s forehead against her own overheated one.
“I had thought I ruined things… when three days passed and I did not see you.”
Vi shook her head gently. “No… I was just processing everything,” her hand found Caitlyn’s under the covers, and she squeezed it. “There were times that… I was trying to shove down how I felt about you…. How I still feel about you.”
Caitlyn’s eyes flicked down before she replied. “I did that too… because I’ve always kept myself in check that I would never… care for a human.”
“Why not?” Vi grasped her chin, locking their eyes again.
“Because I am immortal and you aren’t,” Caitlyn told her gently. “And I cannot bear to watch you grow old and die while I’m still young.”
Vi’s shoulders slumped at how strained Caitlyn’s voice was, and she brought their intertwined hands up to kiss Caitlyn’s knuckles. “Don’t think of it like that.”
“How else am I supposed to?”
“We might not even…get that far,” Vi said with a grimace, but she knew Caitlyn had to hear it. “I can die to irredeemables, and so can you. I mean… fuck everything except right now. Both of us could die tomorrow.”
“I won’t let you die,” Caitlyn replied, so pragmatically that Vi’s eyes widened. “If the irredeemables want to hurt someone, it will be me. There are… too many of my species in this world.”
“No,” Vi exhaled shakily. “Don’t die for me. I’d rather become an irredeemable than be alone again.”
“Then promise me something,” Caitlyn said, pulling her hand from Vi’s lips. “Promise me that if I die… or it’s dangerous here… or anything of that sort, you will go to the survivor's camp.”
“Cait…”
“Promise me.”
Vi sighed, but Caitlyn was right. She would not be able to bear living in a place with the ghosts of Powder and Caitlyn. Yet, did the survivor's camp even still exist? They could all be dead or moved elsewhere months ago. Vi had stayed put, and still, none of them had come back to check on her. But she’d do it; if not for herself, then for Cait.
Reluctantly, Vi replied. “I promise.”
·:⛧ ¨༺ ♱✮♱༻¨⛧ :·
Day 1 since the world was reborn (Day 347)
Hours pass in the unaware bliss of feelings. So disconnected from the world and unable to feel anything except the moment. Vi’s skin heated, knowing Caitlyn’s touch was in every pore of her body. Their hands were still locked too; their veins interlinked with a strength past fate.
For it was not fate that carved them into one. It was a choice. Caitlyn could have chosen to not apologise. Vi could have kept seeing the irredeemable a secret. Each time they had chosen each other, decided inevitably to continue on paths that they knew intersected.
Vi remembered the events of the night abundantly clearly. They’d talked and kissed; Vi had slept for a while, Caitlyn holding her to her chest. Then she’d wake up, and they’d repeat it.
Only once the darkness began to wear the signs of being bleached by sunrise did Caitlyn wake her.
“Vi… “ Caitlyn held her face, trying to rouse her.
“Mm…” Vi half-opened her eyes and attempted to clear the sleep-induced haze from her brain.
“I must leave you. The sun…”
Vi sat up at that, the sheets falling around her waist. The sun was not quite rising, but Caitlyn would not have long to return home. I wish it would stay dark, Vi sighed. The thought was so foreign in her mind that it sounded, almost, like the words of another. Daytime seemed a pitiful concept now. The sun so insignificant compared to the light Caitlyn brought.
Vi nodded, “Yeah… I understand.”
“I won’t be gone long,” Caitlyn kissed her after the soft words.
Vi’s hand stayed in hers until the distance forced them apart, willing Caitlyn to stay, to not leave her so empty again. Soon… Vi thought, watching Caitlyn’s back until there was nothing but the barren four walls of her room.
They’d always said hope was silver. Glistening and lethal under the faint morning sunlight. But Vi could taste it in the air. It was crimson, a blaze like the feathers of a phoenix and the last minutes of sunset. A metal stronger than any silver.
Vi climbed out of bed, grimacing at the cold of the floor under her bare feet. Her bag lay discarded on the desk. Vi hadn’t touched it since the day she saw Powder, truthfully because its contents did not matter under the weight of the previous days.
But Vi was so tired of being ravaged by this apocalypse. Without hesitation, she reached inside and pulled out the folder that she’d grabbed on the way out of the lab.
Perhaps only in her mind, the air still reeked of chemicals when her eyes traced the laminated cover. Vi had never been able to truly move on from the events of that day.
She lowered herself back onto her bed, the folder heavy in her hands with the pressure of every unsolved truth about the irredeemables.
“Whatever happened to you,” she whispered to the distorted memories of her sister. “I will find out. And you will never be immune to redemption again.”
With a deep exhale, Vi flicked open the first page of the folder.
Notes:
THE SCENE WE'VE ALLLLL BEEN WAITING FOR.
i was soo excited for this chapter. Both of them stop fighting their feelings bc life's short and the next day either of them could be an irredeemable
also rip powder and cassandra. too good to be irredeemables :(
ENJOYYY AND LMK WHAT U THINK XX
(twt @severxnce_)
Chapter 8: Fake Plastic hope
Summary:
Guilt was a heavier chain than wrath. It was hard not to wonder what came of those who bore both.
Vi supposed she already knew.
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
Day 1 since the world was reborn (day 347)
CONFIDENTIAL – INTERNAL ACCESS ONLY
Subject: Report on initial patient reactions to finalised VINDICTA-7
Vi gritted her teeth at the front page’s words. Whatever Caitlyn’s theory on this that she had not yet told Vi was, she was likely correct. Unable to curb her curiosity, Vi turned the page.
PATIENT 0
NAME: [REDACTED]
AGE: 17 at date of test
SEX: Female
TEST ID: 4628-V7
TIME ELAPSED SINCE EXPOSURE: 300+ days
Preliminary observations:
No health report provided. Pre-existing medical conditions unknown. Subject 4628-V7 administered one dosage of VINDICTA-7 orally. Information on the subject’s immediate response is unknown. NO PRODROMAL PERIOD OBSERVED.
Subject drained intravenously by test ID 1739-V7. Confirmed deceased at approx. 22:56.
DAY 1: Initial Transformation
Observations: VINDICTA-7 activated est 5 minutes after subject was confirmed deceased. High, abnormal aggression noted, particularly towards humans.
Host displayed a significant lack of cognitive control towards the VINDICTA-7 pathogen.
Uncontrollable appetite and strong haematophagous tendencies
NO FURTHER OBSERVATIONS RECORDED
DAY 7: analysis
Able to capture patient 0 and run full diagnostics.
Observations: Cell regeneration at an unprecedented rate. Patient healed from minor cuts in seconds.
Inability to enter properties without explicit invitation from the owner
High ultraviolet intolerance – the subject suffered from third-degree burns after exposure.
Increased motor skills and reflexes
MRI RESULTS
Increased VINDICTA-7 presence in the brain. Virus appears to take control of the host – decreased activity after subject has fed haematophagously.
Erratic aggression and increased emotional instability – does VINDICTA-7 cause misfiring neurological signals?
Subject retains some cognitive functions when fed – can communicate and think.
High schizophrenic and bipolar traits observed in patient 0.
“What the fuck?” Vi’s heart pounded at each sentence she read. This was not a simple notes folder as she had imagined. It was the answer to almost every question that had haunted her. She skipped a few pages to the end of the study on patient 0.
DAY 300
Observations: little deviation from prior records
Subject appears to retain memory and to some extent ‘share’ the brain with VINDICTA-7.
Faint moments of recollection/guilt, but these do not appear to overcome the infection.
NO SIGN OF DECLINE/CONVALESCENCE PERIODS.
Notes:
VINDICTA-7 traits in line with that of starving original species
Irreversible mental decline noted in all patients – neurochemical rewiring of the prefrontal cortex and amygdala?
Vi frowned once she had finished reading. Half of it was almost incomprehensible to her, and she hoped, if not Caitlyn, that her friends would be able to decipher it. There was one thing that the report had made clear for sure.
The irredeemables were no mutation.
She sighed again and turned the page, expecting another long list of notes on patient 1. Instead, what she saw made even less sense.
PATIENT 1
NAME: [REDACTED]
AGE: 22 at date of test
SEX: Female
TEST ID: 7849-V7
TIME ELAPSED SINCE EXPOSURE: 300+ days
Preliminary Observations
Subject administered with VINDICTA-7 at the same time as patient 0. No observations made. Patient has not been seen around any others infected with VINDICTA-7.
STATUS: Missing/Presumed dead.
OVERVIEW
Finalised VINDICTA-7 worked as expected. Monitoring of patient 0 continued, but not required. Appears to have long-term stability.
No currently known methods of reversal.
Vi snapped the folder shut. The missing patient 1 notes sent a shudder down her spine, and she wished silently to know what had happened to them. They were infected, clearly , Vi mused. Unless they staked themselves to avoid turning. But how would they have known until it was too late…
Uncontrollably, she paced around the confines of her bedroom, her head still thick with confusion and the lingering smell of Caitlyn on her sheets. Were they even any closer to understanding the irredeemables? If Vindicta-7 was linked to them… Whoever wrote the report clearly believed there was no way of stopping them – a grim certainty.
Caitlyn would want to know , Vi thought as the soft sunrise cascaded through the curtains, catching her gaze. She debated waiting until nighttime – Caitlyn had just left and likely needed to sleep and process what they had done together. But this new information couldn’t wait.
Vi was out of the house moments later, the bag containing the folder clutched to her chest. Her heart thrummed with the fuse of adrenaline, and she strode up the hill, grass blanketed around her like a sea of emeralds. By this point, she could find her way to Caitlyn’s house with her eyes closed.
The wind carded through the sentinel trees, whispering promises of hope like a forgotten prayer as Vi arrived at the front door of the mansion. She was half-considering knocking, but Caitlyn was likely already asleep. And what did it matter? Vi might as well exploit her ability to enter without permission.
Vi creaked the door open and stepped into the barely lit dimness of Caitlyn’s house. The thick velvet curtains swallowed almost every glimmer of light. Even so, Vi could feel the heat prickling on her skin.
The muffled noise of a door shutting reverberated through the empty corridor, pulling Vi from her thoughts. Immediately she was drawn to it, snaking through corridors back to the kitchen. Memories clawed at her from that day, that war of hunger and restraint in Caitlyn’s eyes that neither side could truly win.
This time though, Vi had no hard anchor of a stake in her pockets. Whether it was idealism or recklessness, it did not matter. Caitlyn wouldn’t hurt her.
Caitlyn froze, her widened eyes mirroring Vi’s own. A bag of deep red liquid elixir clung to Caitlyn’s body, remnants of it trailing down her lips like wine from a shattered goblet. Instantly her hands came up, messily wiping the evidence away.
“Vi… I wasn’t. Expecting you,” she mumbled between frantic wipes to her mouth.
Vi blinked, masking her widened eyes. “No… you can keep eating. I didn’t mean to disturb you.”
She shifted her weight from one foot to the other, restlessness spiking at her limbs. The folder hung in her hands like a sacrifice. Caitlyn’s eyes scanned Vi, clearly seeing the adrenaline – even excitement – thrumming through her body.
“What brought you back so soon?”
Restlessness shoved the words out more than logicality. “The irredeemables aren’t a mutation,” Vi blurted, her jaw twitching.
Caitlyn frowned. “I know – I figured that out the day we went to the lab… you didn’t know?”
“No,” Vi said, outraged. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I thought you knew!”
“Well, now I do,” Vi exclaimed. “When I ran out of that lab… that day. I grabbed this folder from the desk. After seeing my sister, I…forgot about it and –”
“You’ve had that the entire time?” Caitlyn’s mouth fell open.
“No, it magically spawned in my house just after you left.” Vi gave her a deadpan look.
“Very funny,” Caitlyn crossed her arms over her chest. “Let me see it.”
Rustling of paper filled the grand room as Vi handed the folder over. Her breathing came in waves through her gritted teeth, and her eyes never left Caitlyn’s hands as they turned the first page.
“It’s some kind of record… patient 0 and 1 of Vindicta-7 and –”
“I can read, Vi,” Caitlyn interrupted her, eyes never leaving the printed ink that marred the page like a curse.
Vi stood there with twitchy limbs, waiting for Caitlyn to finish reading. Please know what it means, she prayed, hoping this wouldn’t be nothing but another loose end.
“This is…oh my God…,” Caitlyn’s face paled. “Come with me.”
Vi trailed behind her, unable to avoid the way her eyes were glued to Caitlyn’s figure. Not the time, Vi , she reminded herself. Still, her attraction to Caitlyn always seeped through, no matter how strong she caged it.
Eventually, they reached a room of the house that Vi had not been to yet. A room no less opulent than the rest of the house with a board covered in notes and red string covering the entirety of one wall.
“Damn… You’ve been studying those irredeemables real hard…” Vi mused, raising her eyebrows.
In the centre of the board, alongside the drawing of the irredeemable from the lab, Caitlyn had compiled a new list under the heading Vindicta-7.
Caitlyn took another piece of paper and started to scribble hastily, the grating scrape of the pen mingling unpleasantly with Vi’s swirling thoughts.
“I can’t believe I ever thought the irredeemables were a mutation…an accident. It’s so obvious now,” Caitlyn muttered, still writing. “This outbreak was purposeful. And Vindicta-7 is –”
“The irredeemable virus…” Vi finished; the words dissipated into the air, stinging like a stab to the stomach. Her breath came shallow, unable to comprehend that such possible cruelty existed in the world.
Someone had created this virus – spread it willingly into the world. Vi had always put it down to bad luck and unforeseen circumstances. But this scientist had their fingers in every corner of the world, dragging innocents through the blood of their loved ones, the scraping of their flesh against that of the virus drowning out their screams.
Death was too kind for a monster like them. Even irredeemability seemed too sweet a poison to force down their damn throat. Vi’s hands twitched at her sides, her brain conjuring up punishments, each one blissfully crueller than the last.
The demonic eye of the irredeemable stared at Vi from the back of her mind. “Was it the irredeemable, the thief one who did this?” she asked.
Caitlyn paused her erratic scribbling momentarily. “It’s hard to tell… Would he truly turn himself into one knowing how sick what he created was?”
“Unless he didn’t choose to turn?”
Caitlyn tapped the pen against the desk, turning the question over in her mind.
“Plausible… But whoever created this is highly intelligent, with an incredible understanding of biochemistry, psychology… virology and medicine. Surely they’d have figured a way to shield themselves from their creation before unleashing it.”
Vi paced around the room, anger sizzling in her very bones. Powder’s face haunted her mind, this time the twisted, irredeemable version that Vi barely recognised. I’ll kill them, Pow , she thought bitterly. I’ll rip their fucking head off for what they did to you .
The nausea that rose from the corrupted image of her sister made her fist clench with the urge to punch something, wildfire in her body like a match to gasoline.
Caitlyn’s touch on her arm stung, but it doused the flames – only barely.
“Relax…” she murmured, rubbing her arm. “This is good… What you found will really help us.”
“I’ll fucking kill him.”
“I know… I know. But for the first time, we actually understand the factors at play here. We’re a step closer to uncovering the complete truth.”
“How can you be so calm?” Vi wanted to snap, but it was not Caitlyn’s fault, and she settled instead with hissing the words through a clenched jaw. “This asshole is the reason your mother is fucking dead.”
“I’ve lived too long to be angry at this,” Caitlyn said, unable to meet Vi’s eyes. There was something …off about the way she spoke, and Vi doubted 453 years was enough time to curb anger.
She pulled away from Caitlyn’s grasp and paced around the room again, unable to focus on the storm of thoughts in her mind, and no eye to shelter in.
“Why… why would someone do such a thing…?” Vi muttered.
Caitlyn still did not meet her eyes. “I don’t know… unrestricted access to scientific development in the undercity…”
The fire that had been crackling inside Vi sparked to an inferno at that comment.
“What?” Vi halted her manic pacing. “What do you mean in the undercity ?”
“The lab you found this file in is in Zaun, and it’s plausible that –”
“You think that low of us? That someone from my area would do something so fucked up.” Vi’s heart thudded, but it was more hurt than anger. “How would you know that? How do you know it wasn’t some rich piltie prick who rented a lab away from the law to create it?”
Caitlyn stuttered.
“Is that how you see people from Zaun?” Vi snapped, prowling closer to her. “Is that how you see me?”
“Of course not –”
“Oh, but it had to be a Zaunite, right? Cause we’re the only ones capable of doing such fucked-up shit. Only my kind could end the world. Cause Piltover’s too fucking high and mighty to –”
“What reason would we have?” Caitlyn asked sharply.
Vi reeled. The words sliced her already bruised skin, and breathlessly, she could not reply.
“453 years, and I have lived in the highest luxury every day of it. So has every other person who has ever lived here. Why would any of us want to… to change that?”
What reason ? Vi’s entire body slumped like the nerves had been ripped out of her.
Caitlyn was – frustratingly – right.
But Vi so did not wish to believe it. To accept that someone would burn their own people to feel the tongues of heat against their icy palms. Vindicta-7 took no prisoners.
Except perhaps patient 1.
Vi made herself exhale shakily, her jaw still twitching. “And what of… what of patient 1?”
“The notes are vague – either they didn’t turn and just died… or the scientist lost sight of them,” Caitlyn sighed. “Whoever wrote this didn’t seem too preoccupied with finding them, though.”
Vi flopped down into a chair with a huff. The fire within her had been extinguished as quickly as it had started, and now only glowing sparks remained, powered more by guilt than rage.
“I’m sorry… for snapping at you. I just can’t stomach the idea that someone would do this on purpose.”
“No, I apologise for jumping to conclusions so abruptly. That was wrong of me.” Caitlyn looked up at Vi.
“I reckon you’re right though,” Vi muttered. It ached to speak aloud, but there was no room for denial anymore. “It’s likely that someone from this city wouldn’t do such a thing.”
“Speculation on the cause of the outbreak will win us no battles. I find patient 1 more interesting.” Caitlyn goes back to writing, sipping blood intermittently as if it were mere juice. “I’ve thought of several theories for patient 1.”
“That was quick.”
Caitlyn’s cheeks tinged with a rosy hue from Vi’s slight awe. “The most logical outcome is that patient 1 turned, but in the sea of irredeemables, the creator was unable to locate her. But, if patient 0 was infected at the same time, surely patient 1 would have been nearby.”
“You can’t live long once infected. Even if the irredeemable doesn’t kill you, the virus does. I’ve seen it.”
Those early memories were more ingrained in Vi than her shadow. Not long after Powder had turned, Vi had been dragged into a building by others trying to shield from the wrath of the irredeemables. She knew none of them, but they were all burning in sync, connected by the same strings of flame.
Truly, there was something beautiful in shared suffering. Six people donning the same expressions like clones – unnamed except for the title of survivor .
One of them had been bitten, grisly torn flesh on his upper arm. So lacerated that the bite marks were no longer visible. They went for my neck, and I dodged , he had said. Vi’s stomach had clenched with nausea, but she never took her eyes from the wound, his entire arm stained in a waterfall of thick dark crimson.
He’d stare with unfocused eyes, periodically twitching and throwing up, never stopping his low mumbling. My wife… my wife . She was probably the one that bit the damn fool, Vi thought whenever the memory resurfaced. And then he turned.
Five minutes knocked out in which the others confirmed him dead. They were just as clueless as Vi had been. He’d sat up with bared fangs, lunging at the nearest person, and if you’d asked him about his wife, only empty eyes would answer.
That was the first irredeemable that Vi killed.
“What’s. Your other theory?” Vi asked, trying to force her mind away from the painful memories.
Caitlyn’s eyes softened at Vi’s haunted, tight face. “I suppose there is a chance that she was an outlier. Someone capable of dying or…”
“Surviving?”
“I… I mean that would be ludicrous. Surviving a bite or… a straight dosage of Vindicta-7.”
Vi ran a hand through her messy hair, considering it. “It’s a virus… there’s always a chance of someone being immune.”
“It’s too much of a guess. It won’t help us in any way.” Caitlyn shook her head. “An outlier is plausible, but an anomaly with the actual dose given seems more likely than immunity.”
Vi sighed, the small glimmer of hope in her heart dying. The idea that someone could be alive, walking around unharmable with the charm of immunity in their blood, was like a breath of fresh air. Perhaps they could have been useful…to protect survivors or even make an antidote.
But this was wishful thinking. There was no immunity, and there was definitely no irredeemable antidote.
“So patient 1 is either an irredeemable the creator lost track of, a corpse, or an alive human,” Vi mused.
“The first option is the most likely,” Caitlyn said, pragmatic as ever, and Vi had to concede that she was probably right.
“Great. Another dead end.”
Caitlyn stood, pinning the paper she’d been writing on for the last 20 minutes to the board. “We’re focusing on the wrong things. Our main priority isn’t why Vindicta-7 was released or who patients 0 and 1 are. It’s who did this,” Caitlyn turns to Vi. “Who made Vindicta-7? Was it the thief irredeemable or someone else?”
Vi still truly could not comprehend it. Somewhere, someone was sitting like a king atop a throne carved from corpses. What shocked her more was that this person liked the taste of the world’s ashes in the air.
Guilt was a heavier chain than wrath. It was hard not to wonder what came of those who bore both.
Vi supposed she already knew.
·:⛧ ¨༺ ♱✮♱༻¨⛧ :·
Day 165,370
“Seems he’s concerned he flew too close to the sun.”
“Human sees his biggest secret,” Viktor gestured to Vi. “I’d be hunting her down.”
“Yeah, thanks for that,” Vi scoffed.
“We don’t know yet if that irredeemable is even the same person who made the virus,” Caitlyn reminded them, lifting a goblet of blood to her lips.
Caitlyn had brought Vi, armed with the folder and their new knowledge, to Jayce and Viktor’s lab. Guilt clawed at her, for the meeting had eaten ravenously into the night – and Vi’s sleeping time. I napped, cupcake; I’ll live , she’d said. If I've survived irredeemables for this long, sleep deprivation won’t be what takes me out .
Caitlyn noticed her fists clench when they entered the lab, the sterility no doubt echoing that of the other lab. The irredeemable’s lab.
Caitlyn had been here countless times. Once, decades ago, when they’d pushed a bag of new synthesised blood into her arms, told her to try it, and then celebrated all through the day. Memories like that seemed nothing but a fleeting breath now, something Caitlyn knew had happened but was fuzzy around the edges.
The clearer times were the nights she spent in their guest bedroom. The imagined noise of her mother’s blood being spilt drowning out her aching sobs into the pillow. For three weeks Caitlyn couldn’t stomach roaming her house alone, and each night away from it she’d sat in bed with a stake. How easy it would have been to escape eternity once and for all. But what was death except another, no less cruel, form of it?
It never deterred her, though. Lay me in the same grave as my mother and my city , she had thought, so at least in the next eternity I cannot be separated from them . When she finally went home, silence greeted her instead of her mother’s usual lecture about the risks of staying out past sunset, and more than ever Caitlyn wished she’d been brave enough to push the stake further in than just a scratch.
Looking at Vi across the table, Caitlyn had never been more grateful to have not done something in her life.
“If the irredeemable who was stealing from us isn’t the same person who made the virus, then where is the creator?” Jayce asked, pulling Caitlyn from her – rather melancholic – thoughts.
“Maybe he killed himself,” Viktor muttered.
“Coward’s way out is too kind for that monster.”
“The thief is a different kind of irredeemable. One able to enter properties that do not belong to him. Whether it’s his lab or he simply went hunting for one to study the blood in is… hard to tell,” Caitlyn sighed.
Jayce flicked through the folder with a frown. “The last time these notes were updated was several months ago… That coincides with the first time we got robbed.”
“So the thief is the creator?” Vi leant forward to look.
“Or the creator allowed him to use the lab, and the situations are unrelated.” Caitlyn brought her hand up to rub her forehead. They still had gotten no closer, and she was starting to tire from running in circles.
“I think it would be helpful to bring an irredeemable in and study them… See the properties of the virus… how it reacts and if there are any weaknesses,” Viktor added.
“You haven’t done that yet?” Caitlyn’s eyes narrowed.
Jayce shifts awkwardly, fingers curling around his own goblet of blood. “We were distracted…”
“I wonder with what,” Vi muttered, looking between them.
That got a laugh out of Caitlyn, but she covered it with a cough and a hand over her mouth. Vi really had no filter.
“It shouldn’t be hard to get an irredeemable from the streets… Just lure them in with blood,” Viktor said, ignoring Vi’s comment.
Caitlyn hesitated. Her next words may have been the stupidest thing she’d ever uttered in her life. But she’d do anything to further understand the irredeemables.
Her fists tightened and loosened under the table.
“I have an irredeemable.”
The entire table stilled, and Vi choked on her drink, spluttering onto her arm. Jayce understood her immediately, and his gaze was one of sympathy.
“Oh Cait… Since when?”
“Since it happened. I just couldn’t bear to…”
Vi frowned, glancing frantically around the table like they were in on a joke she did not understand. “What? What irredeemable?”
Caitlyn took a deep breath, her hand white on the goblet.
“My mother.”
·:⛧ ¨༺ ♱✮♱༻¨⛧ :·
Day 3 since the world was reborn (day 349)
‘It was real brave of you to offer your mom up for the test,” Vi lifted her head from Caitlyn’s chest to look into those cerulean eyes. Caitlyn’s hand was on her back, stroking gently.
“If it will help us to save her… and your sister. There’s nothing I wouldn’t do.”
Vi leant her head back down, tightening her arms around Caitlyn’s body. “I wish you had told me.”
“I didn’t know what you’d think of me…” Caitlyn admitted against Vi’s hair.
I would never have judged, Vi thought. If you can’t have the real thing, a fake hurts less than nothing at all. In Caitlyn’s case at least.
“No, Cait… I understand it; I do.”
Caitlyn’s hands paused stroking Vi’s back. “Would you have done it?” she whispered. “Would you have kept Powder in your house?”
Vi sighed deeply, eventually shaking her head. “She looks too much like the real thing. It would kill me every time I saw her knowing I could never have my sister back. The way she’d thrash and bite whenever I entered the room,” Vi’s voice was strained, forcing the words out. “Each glance would renact her death in my mind.”
“You saw her die?” Caitlyn pulled back to look at her with a frown. “What was day one like, if you don’t mind me asking?”
For a moment Vi didn’t want to tell her, didn’t want to dig up those memories from where they lay – six feet deep into her soul. But the softness in Caitlyn’s eyes, the hand that reached for hers, so indistinguishable from the silk that entangled them. It made her walls crumble.
Vi sighed. “We were at a bar in the lanes – our dad’s old workplace and our favourite place to go. I’d always take her there in the evenings, and we’d talk for hours under the stars. Everything was going so well,” Vi smiled bittersweetly. “She’d tell me about our neighbour who… she was definitely in love with. And I’d tell her she’s asking the wrong person about guys.”
Her face fell, her voice so brittle and aching. “We left in the evening. Through the park and round – the long way back home. And…”
“I shouldn’t have asked… I apologise,” Caitlyn mumbled, squeezing her hand.
Vi didn’t reply and forced herself to continue recalling it. “An irredeemable found her, pushed her up to a tree and… bit her… and kept…” Vi’s heavy breaths broke up her words. “I wished it had been me. I wanted to pull that monster off her and force my flesh between its teeth instead. But she told me to run.”
Vi made a noise of pain, one that might have been a sob or a yell of frustration.
“I ran Cait… I fucking ran . I left her there to die. I was a fucking coward, and it… damn it , it should have been me .”
“Oh, Vi…” Caitlyn held her to her chest. “Don’t wish that.”
“What good would it do? She would have died whether you went with her or not.”
Vi’s throat stung from the lump that had formed; perhaps that was where her guilt lay.
“It could have been me – it should have been. If I had walked on that side or if we had gone the quick way home.”
“There are more what-ifs than realities. I’m so sorry, Vi.”
Vi nestled against her chest. Never before had she spoken about Powder’s death aloud; she supposed it was because she’d never trusted anyone enough to do so. But Caitlyn understood. They bled from wounds inflicted by the same weapon, and when Vi smelt blood in the air, she could never tell if it was hers or Cait’s.
Or Powder’s .
Notes:
SHE LOOKS LIKE THE REAL THINGGGGGG
Lots of lore in this chapter, and everything is beginning to unravel!!
I hope the reports are accurate too I spent so long googling the medical terms for everything to be accurate lmaoo
ALSO im home for easter now so hopefully I'll have more time to write
SEE U ALL NEXT TIME XXX
and hmu on twt @severxnce_
Chapter 9: Songs for dancing between sunlight (and death)
Summary:
See you in the light..
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
Day 3 since the world was reborn (day 349)
“Aren't you concerned there'll be irredeemables here and I'll get…slaughtered in front of you?” Vi grinned, shining her flashlight between the boughs of the thick forest that bordered their right.
Three days had passed since Caitlyn had kissed her, and still, they had not discussed it. Vi didn’t know what to think. The action was inevitable, an action driven by isolation and grief rather than love. Formed in their bubble of loneliness, where every action happened in triple speed and was remembered in slow-mo.
It had lit her up inside. Of course it had. But whether that was because of Caitlyn herself or because it ached too much to be alone, Vi wasn’t sure. If Caitlyn had bitten her, which so easily could have happened, in that moment Vi would have pushed her neck further into Caitlyn’s mouth if it meant she’d stop being isolated.
Now, Vi wasn’t sure how to feel. Destruction could only be seen once the storm had calmed, and in the wake of the kiss and the discoveries on Vindicta-7, she truly had not had time to think.
Vi snuck a glance at Caitlyn out of the corner of her eye. They hadn’t kissed again since then, and even when they cuddled, Vi couldn’t be certain what it all meant. Only a fool would develop feelings with death right outside. If the world hadn’t survived, how would they?
“There are no irredeemables,” Caitlyn said, and Vi blinked from how abruptly she’d been ripped from her thoughts. “I’ve been this way quite often; I’ve seen two at maximum.”
Vi masked her confusion with a grin. “Yeah, but… imagine today’s our unlucky day.” The beam of her torch chased the shadows again. “I get swarmed by them, and there’s nothing you can do –”
“Vi, stop it,” Caitlyn muttered and stopped walking to glare at her.
She smirked behind Caitlyn’s back as they walked. Up the hill further, behind Piltover, where the dense grasses gave way to soft-centred flowers tinted in purple and blue. Vi could still smell them in the dark, strong and intoxicating.
“Where are you taking me?”
“You’ll see,” Caitlyn replied smoothly, not needing to glance back at her.
They passed a field of sunflowers, their canary colour like miniature suns in the darkness. Each one faced east, chasing the glow of sunlight, so unaware the rest of the world lay burnt below them. Vi smiled; it was always refreshing to see nature rise above humanity’s corpse.
“It’s beautiful here…” Vi commented with wide eyes.
Caitlyn agreed. “Mm… just down there by the lake, my parents got engaged… five hundred something years ago now.”
“Shit… I think mine probably did at my dad’s bar,” she chuckled.
“Well… each to their own, I suppose.”
Soon a tower rose up in front of them, atop the hill like a castle with one point reaching for the stars. An old wooden thing, coated in metal beams like an exoskeleton. From here Vi’s ears picked up the music, plaintive and sonorous, luring her in. Though it was muffled and distorted from age, silence was not a difficult opponent to defeat.
They stopped at the base of it.
“There’s definitely some ghosts up here,” Caitlyn smiled.
Vi’s eyes narrowed. “What is this place?”
“It’s an old radio tower. They used to broadcast survival messages to the cities when the outbreak first happened. Now it plays these slow songs on repeat. I’ve never been able to find out their origin point, though.”
Vi’s heart ached to imagine someone alone out there, watching the stars with their radio and hoping its frequencies reached something other than hard concrete. I’m here , she wanted to tell them. I’m here, and I’m listening .
Caitlyn took the first step of the staircase, the wood creaking under her shoes. Vi grinned, cracking her neck, and climbed effortlessly up the side.
The metal beams groaned under her weight as she jumped from one to another, but Vi had climbed many buildings with lower structural integrity than this in Zaun and never fallen. She paused, staring down at the cities below, clinging on to the wood. So lifeless , she sighed. The wind blew her hair from her eyes, flowing down the hill between the ribs of Piltover.
Past that lay Zaun. Vi couldn’t see her home, not when every light in the city had been extinguished, but she knew it was there. Up here it felt a lifetime away, like she’d been sent into the oblivion of space to watch the world through reinforced glass. She reached one hand out to it, imagining how the curves of the roofs would feel under her fingertips.
The melody was still playing out in the silence. With a final reluctant glance, she hoisted herself up and swung into the top room of the radio tower.
Caitlyn was waiting for her with a frown, her long legs stretched out from the table she leaned on.
The inside was just as run-down as the outside. Broken radio equipment flickered in one corner, nothing but a ghost weighed down by a thick coat of dust. Wires tangled together, connecting the devices, crawling up the walls to the antennae on the roof.
Vi trod carefully over the wires, grimacing at the faint odour of rust and mould in the air. She could hear the music better now, distorted and faint, broken up by the permanent low murmur of static.
“You come here often?” Vi asked, sweeping her eyes over the desk where a singular violet wilted, hunched over in a grime-covered vase, littering petals on the desk. She picked one up, watching it crumble under her gentle touch.
“Sometimes… It has great views, and I know these songs.” Caitlyn’s eyes never left Vi as she spoke.
Vi placed her torch on the desk, illuminating them like a spotlight. “I can see why you would.”
Her shoulders slumped, but it was with relaxation, not despair. Caitlyn was still watching her, perhaps to gauge her reaction or to admire her. Against the distorted tune, they held eye contact, the gentle melody catching on the static. Why is it that I fear this connection, yet cannot bear to break it ? Vi wished at that moment to understand.
When the sound of the next song playing reached the corners of the room, Vi held her hand out to Caitlyn.
“Dance with me… nothing matters anymore.”
Caitlyn rolled her eyes in mock annoyance, but she took Vi’s hand anyway. Death against life. Not that Vi knew which way around they were. The floor creaked again, holding them up to the starlight.
They danced awkwardly, each step an unspoken word swallowed into the wood. Vi touched her gently – cautiously even – and for once it was not powered by grief.
“Two left feet, huh?” Caitlyn teased her.
Vi’s eyes glinted. “I’ll have you know I can dance.” Her voice was low, barely audible against the music.
Caitlyn laughed, her hand tightening and loosening in Vi’s. In here the world seemed so distant. The irredeemables didn’t matter; neither did Vindicta-7. There was nothing but them and the gentle urging of the music.
Vi spun her around, grinning like a fool. Caitlyn’s feet stumbled against the floor, but Vi would not let her fall.
“This is ridiculous,” Caitlyn whispered, still smiling.
Vi laughed with her, holding eye contact as the music began to fade into static. Caitlyn was so close now. It would take almost no movement to lean in and kiss her. But Vi didn’t.
The moment was more intimate than a kiss. Worth more than every moment they’d spent together until now. Vi wanted to keep it, hang the memory in a frame from the veins in her heart. Move others aside to make space.
Several distorted songs sounded out through the radio over a span of ten minutes or so. They danced against the noise, in tune with the low frequency, laughing and whispering.
When they finished, Vi led her to sit on the windowsill, legs dangling outside the space where glass may have once been. Neither spoke. Perhaps the weight of the moment would cover their mouths if they tried.
After a while of staring down at the barely visible cities below them, Vi spoke.
“Are we ever going to talk about what happened between us?”
Caitlyn directed her focus from the cities to Vi. “About what?”
“When we kissed… and everything after that.”
Caitlyn opened her mouth and closed it again. “Mm… I suppose it would be beneficial.”
More silence, broken by the faint music.
“Do you regret it?”
“No… no, of course I don’t,” Caitlyn replied, no hesitation underlying her voice. “Why would I regret it?”
“Because the world moves so fast when it’s dead. We didn’t think… or consider any consequences. I let you into my house… I mean…”
“Isn’t it better that we didn’t think? That could have been our last day alive.”
“That’s why we should have thought about it. Cause we both know it's only a matter of time before…” Vi couldn’t bear to finish the sentence, her heart already aching.
Caitlyn nodded silently. “I apologise if I… rushed things. I don’t know…” She stared back towards her city, her frown deepening. “When you’ve watched eternity die like I have… fuck taking my time.
That got a small laugh out of Vi, a bitter one nonetheless.
“Do you want to go home? Forget that it ever happened?” Caitlyn asked.
“No… God no,” Vi sighed. It was too late to go back. Too painful to brush everything under the rug and pretend it never happened. Sure, the nights atop the windowsill were long over, but they’d borne something new. In Vi’s eyes, something better, and not even fate itself could drag her back to the tepid waters of loneliness.
“So what do you wish that we do?” Caitlyn asked softly.
Vi leant her head on her shoulder, both looking into the empty horizon. “We keep going… and treat every day like it’s our last one. I don’t want this fucking regret all the time.”
“And whatever this is… we just,” Vi turned to her. “Let it happen.”
If not for eternity , Vi thought. At least for today . And if it did end awfully, at least she’d have blood to spill for Caitlyn.
Vi lost track of how long they sat there bathed in starlight, her breaths evening out. So what if their circumstances were forged with grief and desperation? To Vi, it was the only real thing left in a world of irredeemables.
The crackling of static grabbed their attention.
The music had stopped, replaced by the grating noise of tuning – and then a voice so painfully familiar that Vi’s heart broke.
“...This is Firelight Outpost… day… Uhh, three hundred and forty-nine, I believe. If anyone’s listening…”
A deep sigh picked up through the mic.
“I’d considered giving up on this… once the radio broke. Because…” the voice scoffed. “Ain’t anyone out there anymore.”
“But… the radio’s fixed, and here I am. If anyone’s still alive, come to the other side of the forest, south of Zaun,” the voice echoed out, flat and emotionless.
Vi stood with glossy wide eyes fixed onto the little radio atop the desk. Months had passed since she’d heard that voice. The voice that spoke of her childhood, of better times and salty air. Of running barefoot through the streets of Zaun, being chased by sunlight.
“It’s been tough… shitty for everyone… though we have a good place here… a good thing going,” he continued. “We have food and… people – a community in all this bullshit.”
Vi stepped forward, her eyes locked onto it like Ekko had crawled through it and appeared in front of her.
“It’s a long shot, but. You’ll be safe here and… not alone.”
Static cracked, and Vi panicked that he’d be gone. But his voice sounded again, wrenching her heart worse than last time.
“Vi… I hope you're still kicking it somewhere. Hope the lack of women didn’t kill you before a blood-sucker did,” Ekko laughed bitterly, muffled by the static.
“Um… you said you’d find a radio… Maybe you did, and you… still chose not to go. Or maybe I’m talking to a fucking corpse right now.”
“You’d like it here… And the people really want a boxing instructor. Something about feeling safer, though… Gods know a punch won’t do anything to the monsters.”
Vi laughed despite the sting of tears obscuring her vision. Caitlyn was standing now too – just behind her.
Ekko’s voice became more solemn.
“It’s been a long time since I’ve seen you. And I know Powder’s death killed you… shit, it killed me too. Just… just consider coming… even a visit.”
And then. A voice of almost regret.
“I miss you, Vi. We all do.”
“....”
“See you in the light.”
The static of the message ending filled the small tower, and then silence.
Vi exhaled, her jaw trembling from the effort of not crying. Ekko was still alive, and his camp was thriving. That was the only wish Vi truly wanted to be granted since the outbreak.
“I had hoped he’d speak again today. I wanted you to hear it yourself.”
Vi wiped her eyes with her sleeve and spun around. “You’ve heard it before?”
Caitlyn placed a hand on her shoulder. “Vi… I didn’t bring you here just to stumble over our feet dancing.”
The words caught in Vi’s throat. Caitlyn had brought her here to listen to the message, to fill the void that Vi had barely discussed. That Caitlyn somehow knew, like it was her own body.
“Thank you,” Vi whispered softly, pulling Caitlyn into a hug, for there were no words to express her gratitude.
When they pulled back, Caitlyn was watching her with a small frown.
“You will go, won’t you? To the survivor’s camp.”
Vi nodded with wide, glistening eyes. “I’ll visit.”
“Will you stay… if you love it there?”
The music had resumed in the background, somewhat more distorted than before, but Vi did not acknowledge it. Perhaps she’d avoided the survival camp like the virus itself because going there would sting too much. Or because she doubted if she’d be able to leave Ekko again.
“I… I won’t stay,” Vi sighed shakily, but she knew it was the only truthful answer.
“He wants you to…”
“What about what I want, Cait?” Vi rubbed her forehead, which had begun to ache from the pressure of holding back tears. “I can’t… fuck, I can’t leave you after you kissed me like that.
Vi continued. “If I heard this a couple weeks back when you were just a monster that tried to kill me… yeah, maybe I would've. But I won’t leave us… not when this has just begun.”
Caitlyn nodded, perhaps reluctantly. “I understand. Still, visit him.”
Vi’s eyes found her home out of the window again. Past that, somewhere in a field of corpses and discarded dreams littered like autumn’s leaves, her family had risen a fortress from their pain.
One made of blood and reconciliation that donned white flags. Not of surrender, but of peace. One where Vindicta-7 crawled up the battlements like ivy, shied away by flame and entirely weak to breach the walls. Vi would go. She wanted her hand to grace heaven before she fell.
·:⛧ ¨༺ ♱✮♱༻¨⛧ :·
Day 165, 371
Vi had still not slept.
Hours had passed since they’d returned home from the radio tower, and though Caitlyn could smell the salt of Vi’s tears in the air, she had done what was intended.
Ekko’s radio messages always had the same premise. He’d begin it general, calling to all survivors to meet him behind the forest on a whim of hope. She always wondered how many truly went, but nonetheless, it was honourable. He’d then address Vi.
Sometimes it was quick – a fleeting word of greeting. But sometimes he spoke to her, recalling fond memories and stories from the camp, talking to her like one would to their own journal.
Vi was slumped on the sofa, hand shielding her eyes from some invisible brightness. Though she sat up when Caitlyn re-entered the room.
“Where’d you go?”
“I was eating,” Caitlyn replied, sitting on one of the deep green velvet sofas and smoothing out her dress. She could always smell the euphoria of Vi’s blood, so enticing it made the synthesised blood taste like the acrid one of the irredeemables. Yet, being around her for this long had helped, taught Caitlyn to ignore the urges.
Vi didn’t reply momentarily, stretching her legs out and leaning, subconsciously, towards the glow of the fire.
“What can your kind… do?” Her words slipped out like she hadn’t meant to say them, soft and weighted by sleep.
“I assume you mean abilities, Vi?” Caitlyn’s eyes glinted at Vi trying to coherently speak. It was always endearing.
“Mhm.”
“I can heal myself and others. I can move extremely fast, mind control and… telepathy, but I've never tried it.”
Vi sits up straighter now, her eyes wide. “Mind control? That’s awesome.”
Slowly her face contorted into a frown. “Have you used that on me?”
Caitlyn reeled. “No... no, I’d never force you to act like that… it's immoral.”
“Can you? I wanna see it,” Vi smirked. “Nothing serious, just something stupid.”
“I don’t… like using it.”
“Seriously? What’s the point of having all these cool-ass skills if you won’t use them? C’mon… just once. I know you’d never use it to make me do something serious.”
Caitlyn bit her lip, not enjoying the idea of using mind control… especially on Vi. “I don’t even know if I can still do it; it’s been a while since I have.” But the pleading look on Vi’s face made her cave.
“Okay…uh,” Caitlyn held eye contact, and then, subtly, both of their eyes began to glow. “Go and put another log on the fire.”
Immediately, Vi got up, her body moving under Caitlyn’s control. She tossed another piece of wood onto the fire, the flames spitting and morphing, climbing up the stone fireplace. Vi blinked, glancing around in confusion.
“Damn… that was… that was fucking cool.” She sauntered back over to the sofa.
Caitlyn had the grace to blush. “It’s rather rusty, I admit.”
A silence filled the room, broken by the crackle of fire. Vi’s eyes traced over Caitlyn’s entire form again, gently like a knife carving a sculpture.
“What’s telepathy?”
“Uh… I can speak to you… in your mind, even if we are apart.” Caitlyn looked at her hands. “I’ve never done it before, though.”
“Huh… why not?” Vi asked, her eyes never leaving Cait.
“You can only do it with someone whose blood you’ve drunk, and since I’ve never drunk from a human…” Caitlyn cleared her throat. “Jayce and Viktor have done it, though… back before Viktor turned.”
Vi smirked a little, but she covered it up with a frown. “They’re doing it right?”
“Doing… it?” Caitlyn dug her nails into her palms to not laugh at Vi’s phrasing.
“You know what I mean. This outbreak may have taken my family or whatever… but my gaydar is still intact.”
Caitlyn giggled. “Yes, Vi… they're ‘doing it’.”
Vi lay her head back against the pillow, “Knew it.”
Trust Vi to make that observation , Caitlyn laughed internally. Those memories were fond ones, Jayce meeting her under the cherry-blossom tree and introducing Caitlyn to what he phrased as ‘his new lab partner’.
Within a month Viktor had turned.
A rather large, selfish part of Caitlyn wished that for Vi too. Permission to turn her so mortality would no longer be a problem for them. But Vi had never brought it up, and Caitlyn knew better than to ask.
“Would you ever wanna do telepathy… y’know… With me?”
This snapped Caitlyn from her thoughts. “What? Vi, no, that’s…” She shoved the words out. “I’d have to feed from you…”
Vi smirked and shrugged her shoulders. “Yeah, so? Don’t you want to try telepathy once in your life?”
Caitlyn blinked, half-convinced that Vi was kidding. “Vi, you’re sleep-deprived. There is no way you’re actually considering –”
“You’ve thought about it,” Vi said, muffled against the pillow.
Caitlyn blushed furiously. “I… I mean. Maybe I have… once or twice.” But I’d never actually do it. Drinking from a human was a solid line that Caitlyn had never crossed. Perhaps she had learnt self-control and could drink from Vi without killing her.
But it was not something she wanted to risk.
When Caitlyn went to speak again, Vi had fallen asleep, snoring softly against the plush velvet cushion. She was painfully beautiful like this, her features entirely peaceful, pressed against the fabric.
Caitlyn brushed a strand of deep pink hair from her face, trailing her fingers down Vi’s jawline. Back up over her face, across the scar on her lip. Let it happen , she thought, recalling Vi’s words. Death would wait for them. Caitlyn would force it to.
She draped a blanket over Vi’s body and hesitated, her eyes roving over her sleeping figure. Without thinking, she pressed a gentle kiss to Vi’s forehead and left the room.
·:⛧ ¨༺ ♱✮♱༻¨⛧ :·
Day 165, 372
Watching her mother tied up to machines like a vicious beast was the hardest thing Caitlyn had ever watched.
“I’ll keep her safe, Cait, I promise you,” Jayce had said into her hair. “It’s the least I can do for giving her all that hell when I was on the council.”
Caitlyn had allowed herself to bury her face into his shoulder for seconds before pulling back. She knew Jayce wouldn’t kill Cassandra, not intentionally at least. They’d grown up together, and in a way, Jayce was the closest thing to a brother that she’d ever had.
Her eyes found the bed where her mother lay again, blood pooling from her veins into a bag to be analysed. Cassandra twitched occasionally, her glazed eyes darting around the room, her fangs drawn like a sword.
Jayce had informed Caitlyn to starve her so that they may run tests and identify any differences between starving and well-fed irredeemables. Here under the glaring white light of the room, she looked more like a corpse than ever.
“You can see her when she’s talking again… when she’s fed,” Jayce told Caitlyn and ushered her out of the lab. He too knew how brave Caitlyn was being to have offered her mother up like that.
Vi was waiting for Caitlyn when she stumbled the small distance back to her house.
“How’d it go?” Vi asked, leaning against the wall.
Caitlyn fought multiple wars trying to not break down right then and there. Grief was a cruel master, and at times Caitlyn felt she was nothing but its dog. Sometimes she thought herself free of it when the sun set and she pictured her mother before irredeemability took over and did not cry. Or better, when hours passed and she did not consider Cassandra at all.
But these were no more fleeting than the gentle kisses of rain before a storm. Caitlyn would be eating, or sleeping, or out by the radio tower, and grief would creep up on her. It was never merciful either, dangling her mother’s body right up to her face and enquiring what she was doing with a light heart. Grief would hold her chin and make her look.
You will never have her back , it would say, cold bony fingers scraping at her skin. Even when Caitlyn had barred the doors and demolished the key, it still found a way in, ripping away the curtains and making her burn.
Caitlyn sighed. “Well… she’s starving, which is always hard to see. They’re collecting her blood in a bag to test it.”
“Hopefully they don’t get the bags mixed up,” Vi joked, but her smile fell when Caitlyn’s did not accompany it.
Vi stepped closer to her, slowly, like any movement would make Caitlyn shatter – which wasn’t an abyss from the truth. “I’m sorry… for all of this.”
At those words, Caitlyn fell into her arms, tears clinging to her lashes and the taste of salt between her lips.
“I keep telling myself that it’s getting easier. That each day is a step closer to me accepting her death.” Caitlyn’s breath caught, and she choked on it. “But it’s not. It’s not easier, and every day feels like the day she died.”
“It never gets easier, Cait… never,” Vi rubbed her back soothingly.
“I wish I wasn't so weak. It pisses me off,” Caitlyn muttered, the lump in her throat making her voice strained. “She’d hate that I let her turn into an irredeemable. That I didn’t… didn’t stake her as soon as she was bitten.”
“Why would you?”
“Because she would have done it to me.” Caitlyn pulled back. “And I would have wanted her to. I’d rather die than be an irredeemable.”
Vi hesitated, her wide eyes downcast at Caitlyn’s pain. “Me too…”
When Caitlyn couldn’t bear to hold eye contact anymore, Vi held her face, drawing their gazes back together. “You’ve got to take grief outside and… rock its shit. That’s what I did.”
Despite the ache in her chest, Caitlyn laughed ruefully. “One day I’ll learn.”
Vi wrapped an arm around her shoulders and pulled Caitlyn back, her eyes closing at the warmth of Vi's body.
“Stay with me tonight?” The words left Caitlyn’s mouth in a flurry of grief and desperation, out before she could hold herself back.
“Cait… of course I will.” Vi kissed her cheek.
Of course I will , she repeated. They stood like that in the pristine corridor, the warmth of Vi’s body seeping into Caitlyn’s bones. She could see grief, its claws on one of the doors, digging into the wood. I am immortal, Caitlyn thought.
And you are not .
Notes:
CUTEST AND MOST FAVE CHAPTER EVER.
They're so cute dancing in the radio tower ahhh
Hope u enjoy guys!! lmk what u think of the chapter
much love xx
@severxnce for updates on twt
Chapter 10: The ache of humanity
Summary:
If home was warmth, a shelter from the pelting storm that fell like fire arrows. Somewhere she was not quite the demon of herself but not quite the stranger of someone else. Four walls of true safety.
Then she supposed Vi was her home.
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
Day 165,373
Vi had brought her breakfast in bed.
Not that it was the most exciting thing ever – a blood bag as always. But the world seemed a little lighter when Caitlyn blinked her eyes open to Vi’s proud grin and the chill of blood against her fingers.
“This is unexpectedly sweet.” Caitlyn smiled and brought the bag to her lips. Typically she turned away when feeding, enjoying silence’s company and nothing more. But here, with Vi’s eyes grazing her skin, there was no urge to flinch away. Vi watched her eat, tucking some navy hair behind Caitlyn’s ear.
“I felt bad because I’m going today.” Vi rubbed the back of her neck awkwardly.
“Going?”
“Yeah… to the firelight outpost. To see Ekko.”
Caitlyn’s eyes widened. In the chaos ripping through her from the tests being done on her mother, Vi’s visit had almost slipped her mind. “Right… Of course you are, yes.”
Vi sighed. “I’m sorry, Cait… I don’t want to leave you alone when your mom is –”
“I’ll be okay, Vi.” She wiped her mouth. “I want you to do this.”
Vi climbed back into bed beside Caitlyn, her hand encircling her waist. Immediately, the tension poured out of Caitlyn’s muscles.
The sun was rising. The curtains swallowed any direct light, but the room was tinged with brightness – enough so that Caitlyn could see Vi’s outline against the silk.
She could feel the press of Vi’s muscles against her back, making her skin prickle. Caitlyn would never admit it, but she’d always sneak glances, imagining Vi using them to pin her to the bed and…
Caitlyn shook her head, trying to clear her thoughts – and the subtle heat between her legs. Get a grip , she told herself, crossing her legs over and taking another large swig of blood.
Caitlyn, despite having outlived entire species, had experienced little intimacy with women. A hundred years back, when the chill of winter had crept through even the most blazing of fires, Caitlyn had - intermittently - slept with some girl called Maddie.
Looking at Vi now, Caitlyn thought she’d been more a bed-warmer than anything else.
“Are you nervous to go?” Caitlyn asked, desperate to rinse the dirty thoughts from her mind.
Vi shrugged, her thumb rubbing Caitlyn’s waist. “Nah… I mean. I’m more nervous that Ekko will be upset with me than anything else.”
“He’ll be grateful that you’re alive. Seeing you? In the flesh? Nothing else will matter at that moment, I’m sure of it.”
Vi stared into the dimness of the room, her eyes locked on nothing in particular. “I reckon I’m scared too of what I won’t see.”
When Caitlyn’s eyes met hers, encouragement glinting amongst the vibrant blue, Vi continued.
“Like… what if my brothers aren’t there? What if they died at some point and I never knew 'cause I was too damn stubborn to go with them?”
Caitlyn took Vi’s face in her hands. “They’ll be there… and just as excited to see you.”
Silence draped over them like a thick veil, broken by Vi’s rapid heartbeats.
“I never knew you had brothers,” Caitlyn admitted after a pause.
“I mean, technically we aren’t related. My dad… not my real dad but the one who owned the bar, he was an angel. Adopted a bunch of orphans. I grew up with them. Argued with them like siblings do.”
Caitlyn’s jaw dropped a little. “Your adopted father sounds so kind.”
Vi looked away with a clenched jaw. “Yeah… he was. I think he’d have liked you. He was always telling me I should find someone to balance me. To hold me back when I’m about to drunkenly bar-fight someone. To calm my temper or whatever.”
Caitlyn laughed. “I do stop you trying to go outside when there are irredeemables wandering. If that counts.”
“Oh, it counts,” Vi grinned, but it did little to disperse the weight of loss in her pale eyes.
Caitlyn’s hand drifted down, pressing against Vi’s chest and feeling the soft thump of her heartbeat. It had become, of late, the only noise that could bleed her anxious thoughts dry. The ache of humanity. Perhaps that was what made Vi so special, that anchor that dragged her through the fabric of their timeline to be with Vi in the next one and the next.
Remembering something, Caitlyn stood from the bed, ignoring Vi’s puppy dog eyes at the loss of touch.
“I’ve gotten you something.” Caitlyn crossed over to the desk on the other side of her extravagant bedroom. Uncontrollably, she hesitated, only for a moment before returning to the bed. When the gift was placed in Vi’s hands, she just frowned.
“A vial of… blood?” She grinned. “I’ve always wanted this; how did you know?”
“Shut up." Caitlyn rolled her eyes, but her lips curved into a smirk. “It’s not just blood. It’s my blood.”
Vi’s eyebrows raised. “Damn… that's freaky. Am I meant to wear it around my neck to-”
“No,” Caitlyn said pointedly, her cheeks heating. “My blood will heal you; it’s for if you get injured badly somewhere… you can heal.”
Vi’s expression relaxed. “Thank you; really, that’s… thoughtful,” she replied, the joking gone from her voice.
She’ll think of you as strange , Caitlyn had thought, her eyes tracking the droplets of her blood merging together in the vial. But the idea of Vi injured and alone, unable to heal the way Caitlyn took for granted, was enough to shove her embarrassment back into the shadows.
“I just want you to be safe going to this camp.”
Vi chuckled. “Cait, it’s daytime.”
“I know… I know. But that would be prime time for other humans to attack you.”
“Right, because they’ll desperately want the…” She checked her pockets. “One stake and one tin of food I have.”
Caitlyn sighed, embarrassment already burning in her veins. Though she attempted to mask it, Vi was perceptive.
“I’m messing with you. I’m very grateful.”
Caitlyn’s eyes never left Vi, glued to her body as she glanced outside. “Shit, sun’s risen. I should probably go.”
“Mm…” Caitlyn brought the red-stained bag up to her lips to cover the slight pout.
“I’ll be back soon, promise,” Vi mumbled, reaching out to hold Caitlyn’s chin.
They stayed like that, eyes locked, the feel of Vi’s hand on her face like ice to a bruise. Vi’s eyes darted down to Caitlyn’s lips, and with no hesitation, she kissed her.
It was soft, their lips barely brushing together, but it sent electricity through Caitlyn, almost enough to start her heartbeat. Her hands tangled in Vi’s hair, not allowing her to pull away yet.
When they broke apart, Caitlyn exhaled shakily, attempting pointlessly to soothe her breathing.
“See you soon, cupcake. I’ll be homesick,” Vi grinned and then left.
Caitlyn flopped back down onto the silk where the outline of Vi’s body remained on the other side. The ache of emptiness already ebbed under the surface, like someone had ripped part of her out. Homesick , Caitlyn mused.
If home was warmth, a shelter from the pelting storm that fell like fire arrows. Somewhere she was not quite the demon of herself but not quite the stranger of someone else. Four walls of true safety.
Then she supposed Vi was her home.
:⛧ ¨༺ ♱✮♱༻¨⛧ :·
Day 5 since the world was reborn (Day 351)
The sun’s warmth was devoured by the sharp breeze that ran through the forest. Even with the leather jacket on, Vi shivered. Though the feeling of the vial in her pocket burnt her skin. A small reminder of Caitlyn.
The crunch of twigs underfoot spoke of her childhood. Once, Vander had brought them on this route, makeshift fishing rods clasped in their untouched hands. He’d been so proud of Vi when she finally caught a fish, though it was no bigger than her palm. And that moment, the backdrop of Mylo and Claggor throwing bait at each other and the gentle rustling of trees, was one Vi would die clinging to.
Eventually, the forest broke, giving way to an empty expanse of rich plains and rolling hills, unbroken by not even a shadow of trees. The camp was nowhere to be seen, the only thing visible being a small shack.
Smart to keep the camp hidden , Vi thought, heading over to the shack. She inhaled deeply, the breeze thick with dirt and pollen, a drastic change from the reek of pollution that seeped up through the earth itself like poison. Or it had, before the outbreak.
The door creaked open, and Vi crept inside, stake in hand. It appeared to be some kind of temporary safehouse. A bed in one corner with fresh sheets, stakes on the desk, as well as various tins. There were candles too; wax hardened on the sides. Pinned to a board was a note, the ink smudged a little. Vi recognised the handwriting immediately as Ekko’s.
Firelight safe zone 3
.
Stay until you are escorted to camp. And help yourself to supplies.
- Firelight Outpost.
Vi grinned, sinking down onto the bed. Ekko had really thought this through, ensuring new people were safe without jeopardising the safety of those already at camp. The Firelight outpost was lucky to have him.
Ten minutes or so passed. Vi was about to kick off her dirty boots and lie down properly on the bed, perhaps even nap to catch up on the sleep she’d missed staying up all night with Caitlyn, when a noise broke the silence.
A knock at the door. So simple yet out of place that it made Vi jump.
She crossed the threshold and threw open the door. And then her breath was sucked from her lungs.
“Vi?”
Every word was stolen from her upon seeing the face carved in memories. A face she never thought she’d see again, outlined by the glow of late morning sunlight.
Vi wrapped Ekko in a hug, almost knocking him back from the force. He still smelt like her childhood; perhaps that was why his absence truly ached.
She pulled back, holding Ekko’s shoulders. “
Damn,
you’ve gotten ripped. I’d say you have a… 1% more chance of beating me in an arm wrestle now.”
“Cocky as ever, Vi. Seems the apocalypse didn’t take that from you,” Ekko chuckled.
“It’s so good to see you again.” Vi shook her head, clenching her shaking hands by her sides. His hair had grown, tied up behind him in a ponytail. Around his neck were chains of silver and the unmistakable glow of the necklace Powder had made him.
Ekko scoffed, staring back at the hills. “We thought you were dead. Added you to the memorial and everything.”
“Well… there’s still time for me to die,” Vi grinned, trying to lighten the mood. But the set of Ekko’s jaw made her focus.
“Look. I should have come with you. I
know
that. It was just so hard for me to part with Powder’s memories and… I didn’t know where you were.”
“Vi….Vi,” Ekko said, attempting to stop her. “I’m not mad… I’m fucking relieved to see you.”
A smile graced his lips, a half-one at best.
“I want to show you the camp; I think you’ll like it.”
They walked side by side past the shack, down through the expanse of open plain. Occasionally, Vi would glance at him from the corner of her eye, her heart half perceiving him as a hallucination.
“Ekko… Do Mylo and Claggor… are they?”
Ekko’s features softened. “Yeah, they’re still alive. Still pulling pranks and brawling like brothers,” he turned to Vi. “They think of you a lot. Whenever something happens, they always say, ‘I wish Vi was here.’”
Vi’s heart ached, guilt pressing her into the grasses with its thumb. Had she been too selfish in staying in the house? Her brothers needed her, and in a way she needed them. Perhaps it would have made coping with Powder’s death easier.
“I wish I had been there.” Vi closed her eyes bitterly. “I don’t know why I couldn’t handle Powder’s death like you all could.”
Ekko shrugged. “Trust me, there’ve been crazier reactions to grief than yours. And we didn’t handle it… I still… think of her every day.”
They continued walking in the haze of silence, the soft ruffle of the grass underfoot. It would have been damn awful for him too , she mused. Ekko had loved Powder, and they were balancing on the edge of something achingly beautiful. If the outbreak had spared them two weeks, he may have gotten everything he wanted. Vi knew regret flooded through both their veins as inevitably as blood.
“I saw her,” Vi admitted. The words stung to say, but Ekko had to know.
“You saw her?”
That expression – twisted in agony – was one Vi knew would haunt her.
“She’s…” The words would not come, caught in the net of grief cast from her heart to her throat. Dead wasn’t the right word, and Ekko did not know the word irredeemable to describe them. Monster was too cruel, and Powder wasn’t a monster. Not entirely.
“She’s one of them.”
Ekko’s face fell, and his eyes bore into the ground. A few seconds passed before he spoke again, between trapped breaths.
“I figured. God… I’d rather you told me that you found her body.”
“I wish I did. It killed me to see her like that.”
Grief encircled the rest of their walk like fog – silent and suffocating. Only when they’d ascended a hill and the countryside of outer Zaun spread before them like a blanket did Vi relax – partially. From here the Firelight outpost was visible. A town almost, with houses reaching back and enclosed in a makeshift wall carved from stone, wood and scraps of metal.
“Damn…”
Ekko grinned. “Yeah… it’s been a lot of progress to get it this far.”
They stood for a moment, absorbing the sight. Pride lit up in Ekko’s eyes, and Vi took it all in with an open mouth.
Ekko spoke again when they descended the hill. “Do you know about the rest of the world?”
Vi shook her head. “I’m gonna guess – everyone’s dead.”
“Probably. At the start, they did some evacuation thing – took the rich to some of the islands. I’d gamble that many of the leaders from other cities are still alive.”
“And they never came for you?”
“Fuck no. We were left to die. I reckon they tried Piltover, but most had already turned.”
The gates of the outpost rose up in front of them, a mess of wood and chain. Even behind the barrier, the noise of life reached Vi – a balm to her ears, bled dry by silence. The gates creaked open, and Ekko glanced back at her with narrowed eyes before entering the outpost.
Vi looked around in awe. The streets were buzzing with life, children too running past them, under the bunting and decoration that crowned the top. Houses were stacked in the organised chaos of a well-lived home. Colour and light everywhere, and Vi could’ve sworn she heard the outpost’s heartbeat.
“You… did all this?”
Ekko exhaled. “We all did… It’s a community. There are people from all over here.” He continued leading her through the streets.
“I’m guessing you heard the radio?”
“I did… two days ago. This girl I’m… with. She showed me.”
“It took the world ending for you to finally get a girlfriend?” Ekko laughed. “Why didn’t you bring her here?”
Vi sighed. She had not intended to tell Ekko about Caitlyn, for he’d likely not understand. The plague’s hands over his eyes, just as Vi had been at the start. But for Caitlyn’s sake, she’d try.
“She’s not exactly human.”
Ekko reeled. “You’re with a monster?”
“No, she’s not a monster… not one of those. It’s like a third thing… I can’t explain it.”
They passed the enormous tree standing proud in the middle, its branches bending over the town in a shield. Under its shadow, Vi opened her mouth, and the truth spilt from it. From the first meeting with Caitlyn in her house to the thief irredeemable to the lab. Ekko listened silently until she had finished.
“You call them…irredeemables?” He gritted his teeth to suppress a laugh.
“They do. The original species. I just picked it up from her –” Vi scoffed. “That’s all you have to take from my story?”
“No. It sounds good – I’m happy for you. It’s just… can you trust her?”
“Yes,” Vi answered immediately. “She’s not like the others – the ones that started this damn plague.”
Ekko opened his mouth, but something made him hold his tongue. “If you say so. I just don’t trust any of those monsters.”
They rounded a corner, more streets opening out before them – so beautifully alive. Several people waved to Ekko as they passed. None bearing the scars of the outbreak.
“They love you here,” Vi commented.
“I wasn’t always the leader, but I’ve done good with what I was given.”
“Huh… what happened to the old leader?”
Ekko stopped her just outside a building, thick smoke and the scent of roasting meat filling Vi’s nose and sparking the twinge of hunger in her stomach. Ekko sat her down and returned a moment later with two plates full of honey-glazed meat and roasted vegetables – real food that Vi thought she’d never taste again.
“The old leader… we had an issue in the outpost,” Ekko began, through mouthfuls of food.
“Shit… what happened?” Vi shoved food into her mouth, but the diet of potatoes and tins for almost a year straight had brought out a more feral side – and she was starving.
“There was this woman – struggling badly with the outbreak. Apparently, she watched her whole family turn.” His face darkened, yet he donned neutrality. “She… invited the monsters inside.”
Vi paused her eating, looking up with wide eyes.
“We lost a lot that day. The leader too died trying to protect everyone. When things calmed down, they elected me to lead.”
Someone let the irredeemables in ? To Vi that sounded insane, but the image of Powder’s face, unchanged until she opened her mouth and bared those fangs. In a way she understood. Grief left no trace of a past self.
“We’re coming up to 270 days incident-free, though,” Ekko announced, but Vi could read the anguish under the cracks.
‘I’m glad… truly.”
They sat together for hours. Two people in the shine of delicate afternoon sunlight, torn apart by fate, sewn back together by hope. Vi only noticed how hard she was beaming when her cheeks started to ache. She’d leave half her soul in this camp, tucked against Ekko’s heart and adjacent to Powder’s necklace.
If only Caitlyn could be here , Vi mused between mouthfuls. I could invite her… they’d never know, and she wouldn’t attack anyone . But looking at Ekko, sunlight glowing on his skin, Vi’s stomach turned at the notion of betraying him in such a selfish manner.
When Vi had eaten until she was sure her stomach would explode, Ekko took her to the waterfront, through another set of gates that outlied the docks from the rest of the outpost. The silence found them again here, yet it was a comforting one, of two people who had so much to say and no words to express it.
Atop the calm water, rippling slightly from the breeze, sat three boats. Born from wood and anchored like falling trees – oars down, searching for water. The final one was named Blue-haired Angel , Vi read the vibrant writing on the side.
Crouched down alongside it, two figures, repairing a tiny hole in the boat’s side. They didn’t need to turn around for Vi’s heart to rise to her throat.
Vi broke away from Ekko’s side and sprinted down to the docks, her boots sinking in the mud. The Firelight outpost was a dream. One Vi would wake from, sticky with sweat and a gripping loneliness that would force her eyes shut to relive it – if sleep was generous.
And it was. Only in the depths of nighttime, where sleep clung to her like a lover, did she see her brothers. Perhaps now would be no different, and they’d disintegrate in her arms.
But here, alongside the tepid waters, spun like glass with sunlight and the taste of salt in the air, Vi knew she could never recreate this in dreams.
Her feet thudded against the planks of the dock, and she hugged Mylo and Claggor with every part of her left.
And if it was a mere dream, Vi knew they’d be waiting for her tomorrow night.
- :⛧ ¨༺ ♱✮♱༻¨⛧ :·
Day 6 since the world was reborn. (Day 352)
For the first time in weeks, Vi did not wake with the sun.
She barely remembered the soft-tinted edges of last night, the drinks and stories shared with her family under the canopy of a million stars. They told her each one represented someone fallen to the monsters. Powder was the brightest one, the furthest from the moon, so minute that Vi could block her light with a finger.
They’d drunk too – fine whisky, but not as bitter as that she’d taken from Caitlyn’s estate. Vi had stumbled back to the house they’d told her was home in the early hours of the morning.
Home felt foreign now. Caitlyn was her home; Vi had spoken those words prior to her departure, and truthfully she did feel the chill in her side where Caitlyn’s body should have been. But here, where life sprang like a fountain from cracks in the ground, the ache of homesickness hadn’t lingered as she wished it to.
Vi pulled herself into a sitting position, grimacing as the sunlight attacked her eyes. She’d leave soon – today or tomorrow – to return to the future and Caitlyn’s open arms and gentle kisses.
At least that’s what Vi had promised. But how could she rip herself from the arms of her family again? not when they’d only just gotten her back. Vi was caught between two homes, one built on memory and one on hope. The past and the future. Whatever option she chose would destroy her, and if she picked nothing, she’d drown alone.
The logical choice would be to remain with her family, bruised with mortality just as Vi was. But her heart ached for Caitlyn. For the ridges of immortality under her fingertips and the untamed open waters that burnt her blood the crimson colour of hope.
Vi sighed deeply and stepped into the haunting glow of morning.
She’d promised Mylo and Claggor that she’d go fishing with them today – to escape into tranquil uncharted waters and relive her childhood. Vi’s head pounded slightly, and the ghost of whisky still burnt at the back of her throat, but she found the docks regardless.
The icy breeze had dissipated from yesterday, and sweat clung to Vi’s forehead by the time she arrived. Mylo and Claggor stood beside the boat, their faces breaking into wide smiles when they caught sight of her.
“Vi… recovered from last night yet?” Mylo grasped her arm, helping her atop the smooth wooden deck, bleached by the blurred hand of ultraviolet.
“I wasn’t
that
drunk,” Vi muttered, rolling her eyes. She seated herself alongside the makeshift fishing rods. “So you two are… sailors now?”
Claggor hoisted himself up to the driver’s seat, his hands finding the oars. “Ekko reckoned we’d enjoy it, and we have… truthfully.”
Vi leant back, the gentle sunlight closing her eyes as the boat set off across the calm expanse of water. “Is this your boat? The name…”
“Blue-haired angel? Yeah… Ekko named her. Said Powder always dreamt of sailing away from this place. Now she can, I suppose.”
Vi’s shoulders slumped, their words sinking her heart like an anchor. She pictured Powder, her hair thick with salt, blown out by the wind. How her laugh would mingle with the cries of birds and the rush of water, perched on the bow like a figurehead shielding them from the wrath of storms.
“But we enjoy it – the fishing and the sailing,” Claggor said, quickly changing the subject.
He anchored the boat once the shadow of the outpost had faded into the horizon, and nothing but still water enveloped them. The three grabbed the fishing rods, casting the bobbers into the glistening water, watching as they drifted lifelessly from the boat.
“We can do this more now you’re here. If you don’t end up sinking us,” Mylo said, ducking as Vi swung at him weakly.
Now I’m here , Vi thought sadly. Oh, how she wanted to freeze this moment, crawl between its fibres and sleep for eternity – trapped in a space where the weight of decision would evade her. But she’d already decided – rather her heart had.
Amidst the gentle motion of the waves, the world rocking her with arms of forgiveness, the truth slipped out.
“I’m not… staying here.”
Vi couldn’t bring herself to witness how their faces crumbled.
“What do you mean you aren’t staying?” Mylo asked sharply.
“I have to go… back home – back to Caitlyn.”
“Her? You’re leaving again to go be with a girl you barely kn-”
Claggor silenced him with a quick elbow to the ribs. “Shut up, Mylo,” he sighed. “Vi… I want to understand. I do. It’s just… you only just came back.”
Vi shoved her head into her hand, the other one going white on the fishing rod. “I know. I’m fucking awful for doing this. I’ll come back here. I promise.”
“Right. Because your promises mean so much,” Mylo stared out at the horizon, missing Claggor's silent glare and Vi’s grimace.
“You don’t understand ,” Vi muttered. “You two have each other… You have Ekko and everyone else here. Cait…Cait has no one.”
“She’s a monster; who
cares
?”
“Shut
up
, Mylo.” Claggor turned back to Vi. “We want you to be happy. If that’s with her, then…” He cut himself off with a shrug.
“I’m happy here. But Cait needs me – more than you guys do. And this time will be different – I will come back.”
The truth had crushed them. Vi forced her eyes to their fallen expressions – brows furrowed together. Yet she could not argue with her heart, wrapped up in Caitlyn’s pale hands. The outpost still reeked of grief, unshakeable, not even by the noises of life.
What Vi had grieved most was the person she’d been before the outbreak. Here, in the Firelight outpost, was the closest she’d come to touching her own ghost.
And that may have been the final reason her heart willed her to leave. This was Vi’s ghost’s home. But not hers.
Notes:
IM BACKK
This took a while bc i was away for a bit and also bc i kept rewriting the middle section.
Also yeah im gonna add some happy caitvi stuff soon but the depressing lore and family scenes are NEEDED
HOPE U ENJOYY
im still in awe that this is my first fic and my writing is out there, thank u for all the support so far!
Chapter 11: Salt water and open wounds
Summary:
“A monster?”
“A fucking force of nature that I am captivated by.”
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
Day 165,374
“...Caitlyn?”
A soft gasp escapes from between her parted lips like a wisp of smoke at her mother’s words – fleeting, pained. Caitlyn clung to Cassandra’s hand, pallid like that of a corpse, staring into her glassy sapphire eyes. Unable to tell if it was her or Vindicta-7 that stared back.
“I’m here… I’m here. I promise,” Caitlyn whispered. “How are you feeling?”
Cassandra dug her fingernails into Caitlyn’s skin, but she didn’t wince. Between clenched teeth, the virus forced out one simple word. “ Starving .”
Still? Caitlyn’s face fell. The knife of starvation was one she’d sliced herself on too many times, and knowing her mother was stuck, bleeding from it perpetually, made her stomach tighten.
An unfathomable level of an unknown pathogen in her bloodstream, Jayce had told her, with a clinical disconnection only spoken by a true scientist. Caitlyn hadn’t cried.
Nor did she cry when the break of dawn carried her – alone – to the grand bed, and she reached for Vi’s ghost in the darkness.
Cassandra gulped down the crimson liquid as soon as it was handed to her, blood coating the front of her stained shirt.
“I’m sorry… It must be awful,” Caitlyn murmured, still gripping onto her mother’s arm.
“I can feel it. In my bones,” Cassandra bared her teeth, and Caitlyn flinched back.
“Feel what?”
“What are you doing? Locking me up here like a monster,” she snarled between gritted teeth, fangs like needles in her gums. “Trying to pretend you’re any different.”
Cassandra’s hands twitched, her eyes wide and darting around – unable to focus on anything. Caitlyn kept her distance.
“You always struggled with controlling yourself. Or was it you? Or someone else,” Cassandra laughed manically, her teeth stained red.
Caitlyn’s hands trembled, but she returned to her mother’s side. “It’s me. Caitlyn, your daughter…” Gently, she reached to brush her mother’s icy forehead.
Cassandra stilled, her expression relaxing in what may have been recognition. For a moment she said nothing, and silence hung over them, mingling with the soft static of the sterile light over them like a dying star.
“My daughter… You always had such beautiful blue eyes…. I remember that.”
Caitlyn’s heart leapt, despite being eternally silent, and she blinked away the sting of tears. “Yeah… you recall me.”
She froze, refusing to risk breaking the flicker of her mother’s past self that had glowed in her eyes.
Cassandra began to twitch again. “No… I don’t have a daughter… I don’t…”
She lunged at Caitlyn, fangs aiming straight for the thin skin of her wrist, which was barely pulled out of the way in time for Cassandra’s fangs to sink into nothingness.
Caitlyn stumbled back to the door, her hand clutched to her chest. That flicker of recognition had been everything, the brief sighting of dry land before the current sucked her under once again. Caitlyn had quickly decided that talking to her mother ached, somehow more than silence.
With a final glance back, she left the lab, grief at her heels.
Silence felt more visceral back inside the four walls of her mansion. Vi had barely been gone a couple of days, and Caitlyn already stung from the part of her Vi had taken to the camp.
Vi’s stable, transient presence that spoke of hot espresso and sunrise at the tower. Of survivalism and crimson wrapped in the silken shield of spring’s first blossoming. Vi’s smell still lingered on her sheets, and like a fool, Caitlyn would hold them between her arms and her chest to feel something.
But Vi was home, and Caitlyn would not let the selfish part of her stop the prayers. Let Vi stay there. Caitlyn would take the apology, cherish it perhaps. At least then, Vi would be safe.
Day 165,375
Caitlyn’s prayers had been ignored.
With sunset, and Caitlyn’s awakening from a shallow, broken sleep, Vi returned, leaning against the wall with her hands in her pockets. Momentarily it was like she never left.
“Why are you back?” The words left Caitlyn’s mouth before she could come up with a calmer response. Frustration tightened her hands into fists, partially from her own joy that Vi had come back for her.
“I thought you’d have been happier to see me than that,” Vi said with a grin, though her eyes remained dull.
“I am,” Caitlyn replied indignantly. “I missed you tremendously… but—”
“But what? You look like I’ve just… betrayed you or something.”
Caitlyn looked away, shaking her head. “I had thought you’d stay there.”
“Cait…” Vi sighed and gently touched her arm. “I… I thought about it. But I couldn’t leave you. Not after everything.”
“Why not?” Caitlyn said coldly. “That’s your family. You belong there – with the other survivors. Not here playing house with a monster.”
Vi flinched, and Caitlyn’s fists loosened at the sight. Yet she did not retreat.
“You aren’t a monster. And trust me – leaving that camp was the hardest fucking thing I’ve ever had to do. I just –” she scoffed. “It didn’t feel right.”
“How can it not feel right? It’s your family,” Caitlyn grimaced. “At least some of them survived.”
Vi blinked – silenced by the weight of hurt before the heat returned to her voice. “You wanted me to visit.” She stepped back, outraged. “I never asked you to bring me to that radio tower, and honestly? It made my life a whole lot fucking harder.”
“I didn’t want you to visit,” Caitlyn snapped. “I wanted you to stay .”
“That’s not your decision to make!”
Caitlyn said nothing.
From her peripheral vision, Vi was pacing, hands clenched in her pockets. The silence that stretched over them was an uncomfortable one – so different from that of their quiet nights wrapped in each other’s arms.
Eventually, Vi sighed deeply and shattered it. “I’m not leaving you, Cait. No matter how much you think that’s what I should do.”
Caitlyn’s shoulders relaxed, but she could only meet Vi’s gaze when those strong hands turned her chin. “I just can’t bear to see you die here… or regret it somehow…”
Vi shook her head. “I could never regret being with you. Never, do you understand?”
She nodded, laboured breathing hitting Vi’s face from how close they were standing together.
“This is my home. You are my home… and I can’t ignore what my heart keeps pulling me back to,” Vi muttered.
Caitlyn fought the shiver that ran up her spine at the proximity; Vi was so close that her words ghosted over Caitlyn’s lips like a kiss. The sound of her heartbeat, a war cry and a lullaby luring her up past the myths, the battlefields that Caitlyn had been borne from.
Vi said nothing else. Perhaps there were no more words capable of expressing what they’d found in each other. She leant in, slowly – achingly – and pressed her lips against Caitlyn’s.
The kiss started gentle. Caitlyn’s chest lifted at the final piece of her slotting back into place, Vi’s skin against hers fated as prophecy. She truly did taste like hope. The smell of home after months away and sleep in your own bed, draped in a blanket an old friend made lifetimes ago.
Caitlyn wrapped her arms around Vi’s neck, pressing their chests together. No sooner, the kiss intensified. More than a merciful brush of lips, and instead, hungry, longing.
They backed each other up against walls and doorframes, breaking to lead each other up the marble staircase they’d ascended together uncountable times. Caitlyn’s skin prickled where Vi’s hands grasped – her waist, her hips and back up again.
They made it to Caitlyn’s bedroom, and Vi pulled her down roughly, seating Caitlyn on her lap.
Instantly, Caitlyn kissed her again, pulling at Vi’s hair. The heat built between her legs again, and she shifted – purposefully against Vi’s lap. The intoxicating fragrance of Vi’s blood clung to the air, encouraging Caitlyn’s head down.
She left Vi’s mouth, kissing harshly along her jawline and down the length of her neck, the smell only intensifying. Caitlyn took a moment, pressing her nose into the skin and inhaling deeply.
She’d never thirsted for anything more in her life.
But she wouldn’t. She wouldn’t drink from Vi.
Yet the words blurred from the depths of her hunger. The urges, barely restrained, that she’d been at war with since they’d met. Fading until Caitlyn couldn’t recall if she’d promised herself to drink or to not.
The kisses slowed down, light presses against Vi’s neck, and Caitlyn’s nails dug into the rigid muscles of her back in a foolish attempt to hold back. Don’t let her realise. Don’t let her know what you’re thinking, Caitlyn reprimanded herself.
But Vi knew Caitlyn better than she knew herself, and her next words tied Caitlyn’s heart like a curse, whispered under crimson skies and swords poisoned with desperation.
“Do it.”
Caitlyn blinked, ripping herself from Vi’s neck to look into those hauntingly beautiful grey-blue eyes.
“Wh…What?”
Vi’s hand tangled in Caitlyn’s silky hair, guiding her head back to the rhythmic drumming of her pulse. “Do it. The thing you’ve been wanting to do since we met.”
Fuck.
“Don’t tell me that,” Caitlyn whispered, for it only heightened the urges. “I won’t… I won’t drink from a human.”
“It won’t change how I feel.”
Caitlyn’s jaw twitched from the labour of restraint. Fight, Cait. Don’t show her that side of you. But what was a war with no casualties?
“I’m not a monster,” Caitlyn said, telling herself more than Vi. Her face was still buried in Vi’s neck, inhaling the sweet smell of her blood.
“What’s a monster except a label for things people don’t understand?” her voice lowered – possibly from desire. “And I understand you. Every part of you.”
Caitlyn’s fangs graced Vi’s skin. Not quite pressing in, but they both knew she’d already crossed a point of no return. Hunger massacred thoughts, and to an outsider, she may have seemed irredeemable.
“Tell me to stop. Vi, tell me to stop …” Caitlyn pleaded, so painfully close to collapsing.
We didn’t.
Instead, she took a shaky breath, steadying herself.
“Cait. Do it…”
That was the last words needed. The flag of surrender went up, nothing but white in Caitlyn’s vision. Her entire body trembled, and her thoughts froze. Nothing mattered, nothing except the life under her teeth. Consequence was an illusion.
Caitlyn sank her fangs into Vi’s neck.
Never had she tasted something so divine. Heaven in liquid form flooding her mouth, and she drank with all she had. Euphoria. Pure, uncontrolled desire spilling from her lips like poison.
Vi hissed, but she tilted her head back, granting Caitlyn this moment. The bite was grief, love, soul ties – humanity. Wrath, guilt and love – the same emotion wearing different faces. Not even death could rip this from her hands, moulding Vi’s skin into Caitlyn’s own.
“Cait…” Vi stroked her hair, encouraging her to stop. Caitlyn barely felt it.
She sank her fangs in harder, drinking like she’d been starved for centuries – and in a way she had.
“Cait… Cait…” Vi’s voice rose, but there was no tinge of fear expected.
She’ll die. Caitlyn’s inner voice drowned in the hunger. Perhaps she heard it, faintly. An echo far in the distance in the tone of a stranger.
She tasted Vi’s memories, her emotions. Every thread of life – and it did not scream. Her blood did not fear or hate. It tasted like forgiveness and redeemability. The white in Caitlyn’s vision faded to memories, bleached at the sides. The first time her eyes had laid on Vi, the nights atop the windowsill. The first time they’d kissed, Vi’s taste on her tongue.
Forgiveness was what made Caitlyn pull back, shaking and gasping for breath.
“What did I do? What did I do? Why did you allow me to do that… Wha-” Caitlyn clasped a trembling hand over her mouth, staring over the top of it at the gaping wound in Vi’s neck and her glassy eyes.
Monster.
Caitlyn repeated it over and over like a broken record.
“I knew you’d… stop,” Vi grinned weakly, with skin almost as pale as Caitlyn’s.
“Oh my God,” Caitlyn choked on her own weak attempt to breathe. Vi’s blood lingered in her mouth – the acrid flavour of selfishness, not euphoria.
She wasted no time, sinking her teeth into her wrist, fangs piercing the veins. Instantly she shoved her arm out to Vi. “Drink… drink now.”
Vi complied, after a quiet scoff, drinking from Caitlyn’s wrist. Silence stretched over them now, Caitlyn’s muscles unclenching as Vi gradually returned to her original state. Her eyes met the wound again, the bloodied sides reaching for each other and closing.
When Vi was done drinking, it was almost impossible to tell anything had even happened. Yet Caitlyn remembered, her heart stung from where the shattered edges of her self-promise dug into it.
“C’mere”, Vi whispered, wrapping Caitlyn in her arms. She relaxed into the embrace, resting her head against Vi’s chest, still attempting to regulate her breathing.
After a while, Caitlyn found her voice – still shaky. “Why did you let me do that?”
Vi shrugged. “I don’t know. I guess I wanted to show you that there was nothing you could do that would make me view you as a monster… as irredeemable.”
“I could have killed you… And now I’ve just broken the one promise I vowed to myself to never break,” Caitlyn sighed deeply.
“Nah, you wouldn’t kill me. I’m all healed now, aren’t I?” Vi crossed her arm over Caitlyn’s chest. “Your blood tastes awful, by the way.”
“I wish I could say the same about yours,” Caitlyn muttered, shaking her head fondly. Her breathing had calmed down, mostly thanks to the balm of Vi’s embrace.
“I taste that good, huh? Y’know what else –”
“Don’t start.” Caitlyn rolled her eyes, resting her full weight against Vi, wrapped around her in a shield. Vi shifted, pulling Caitlyn to lie on top of her.
After a beat of silence, Vi spoke again.
“Cait, look at me.” She only continued when their eyes met. “It’s okay. It didn’t change a thing.”
Vi’s words should have been ice water on her burnt tongue, but Caitlyn still tasted Vi’s blood in her mouth. The taste was sickly now, bled down to her bones – staining them red. How she wanted to purge in that moment, forcing her stomach to rid itself of what she’d craved so undeniably.
“I’m so sorry,” Caitlyn mumbled, pressing her cold forehead against Vi’s heated one.
“No… no… Don’t ever apologise to me. Not for being what you are.”
“A monster?” Caitlyn smiled, though half her soul meant it.
“A fucking force of nature that I am captivated by.”
Caitlyn’s heart melted, and though she was centuries away from forgiving herself, Vi had granted her redemption before Caitlyn had even earned it. That, she supposed, would tide her over until the next time she betrayed herself.
Smoothly, Vi changed the subject.
“How’s it been with your mom? While I was away.”
“Difficult. She’s… infected. We already knew that, but the virus seems stable.” Caitlyn rested her cheek on Vi’s shoulder. “She can’t get any worse.” Not that there was a worse; her mother’s life continued, by pure Vindicta-7 was truly rock bottom.
“Did you talk to her?”
“Mm…she’s not herself. One moment she’ll act like she recognises me.” Caitlyn’s voice grew sharper. “The next, it’s like… we’re strangers.”
Vi squeezes her, one hand coming up to stroke her hair. “Oh Cait… I’m so sorry.”
Caitlyn gritted her teeth, but she eluded the chance of the moment being crushed under the fist of grief. “There’s also been increased irredeemable activity since you left.”
She turned over, resting her chin on Vi’s chest to look up at her. “I don’t understand why. They seem to have all migrated here together.”
“Have you seen that irredeemable? The one from the lab?”
Caitlyn shook her head. “I believe whatever happened in the lab might have spooked him. Jayce and Viktor have reported no further break-ins,” Caitlyn said, and then chewed her lip. “I saw your sister again, though.”
“You saw Powder?” Vi gasped.
“She was with this irredeemable woman. Just walking around with the others.”
Vi sighed, a deep mournful noise. “Did she look… okay?”
“Infection aside, yes.” Caitlyn chose her next words carefully. “This new wave of irredeemables was…different.”
“How?”
“Fed,” Caitlyn stated, watching Vi blink wide eyes. “All Zaunites and all… fed. They aren’t wandering aimlessly either. It’s… strange, to say the least.”
“Do you reckon all the other cities have been infected, and now they’re… returning to familiar grounds?” Vi asked, a frown creeping onto her face.
“I considered that had it been in Zaun. But half these people have never been to Piltover in their lives, not to mention the hatred they likely have for it. Had it been human instinct resurfacing, wouldn’t they be in Zaun?”
Vi didn’t respond, and Caitlyn could see the fall of her gaze from this new information.
“Aren’t they… hive-minded?” Vi asked after a few of her rough heartbeats passed.
“To the virus, yes.”
“No… I mean. Someone created this, infected people with it. Maybe the irredeemables are bonded in some way to the creator or… patient 0.”
Caitlyn sat up, though Vi didn’t quite allow her to escape the cage of her arms.
“Telepathy… when drinking.” Caitlyn’s eyes widened. The irredeemables hadn’t appeared to possess the powers that the original species did. Either that or the virus screwed up their brain enough that they didn’t understand how to use them. Yet their congregation back at the starting grounds implied otherwise.
Caitlyn sighed. “Irredeemables are psychotic. I don’t know if it’s plausible for them to obey a leader like that.”
Vi’s grip on Caitlyn’s waist tightened. “Unless they’re getting something in return too good to ignore.”
And what was the one thing irredeemables desired more than anything else? The one thing they’d entirely purged the planet of?
“They’re being fed,” Caitlyn whispered, daring the words to slam down as truth. They were speculating; she knew that. Any claim about the irredeemables without proof tasted the same as a lie.
“And…we know someone who has likely learnt how to make infinite amounts of blood…”
Their eyes met, revelation sparking between them like a live wire – prickling at their skin.
The irredeemables weren’t just existing – they were being organised. The creator, a smart irredeemable – someone was conducting them. What they wanted in Piltover Caitlyn couldn’t comprehend. But she’d seen them.
Filling the streets like wolves draped in sheepskin, searching – talking. A handful had locked eyes with her from the upstairs window where Vi’s scent lurked on the curtains. But none of them had entered a building. Whatever mutation the thief irredeemable had obtained – naturally or through scientific divinity – the others hadn’t.
Caitlyn sighed, pulling herself from her musings. “Damn it. This just brings us back to square one. Are the thief irredeemable and the creator the same person?”
“Would someone truly make a fucking bioweapon only to die or leave before using it fully?” Caitlyn locked eyes with her, shivering at the feral gleam of adrenaline in Vi’s eyes. “It makes sense – the creator became an irredeemable by choice to… to control them or something.”
“And what better way to have unchecked power than to control an entire army leashed by something he architected….”
Silence fell over them once again, heavy from the weight of their theory, pulsating in the air.
“Holy shit…”
Caitlyn bit her lip. “It’s a theory… and we could be awfully wrong… but—”
“No, no… Cait. I feel it in my goddamn bones. We’re… onto something here. I know we are.”
Caitlyn’s stomach clenched in unease. If they were right… if the irredeemables were being orchestrated under someone’s iron fist, whoever it was needed something in Piltover – or rather was hunting for it.
Her nausea rose, clawing at her stomach like Vindicta-7 had bloomed from the litres of Vi’s blood that sat deep. Caitlyn wouldn’t listen to it, wouldn’t speak the theory into reality.
But she was almost entirely sure she knew what the irredeemables were sent to locate.
And if she was right, the entire world would cave in on itself. Again.
:⛧ ¨༺ ♱✮♱༻¨⛧ :·
Day 165,376
“I can’t let you, Vi.”
“Relax. It’s daytime; even if there are irredeemables, they can’t reach me.”
As usual, she was leant against the doorframe, hands thrust in her pockets like nothing at all was wrong. Sometimes, to Caitlyn, it was infuriating.
“You don’t know that. What if you have to walk somewhere entirely in shadow? What if the thief irredeemable?”
“The creator.”
Caitlyn sighed. “You’re still sure about that?”
“Yes! He even looks like a stereotypical villain,” Vi scoffed.
Admittedly, Caitlyn had awoken unsure of last night’s revelation, putting it down to rampant emotions and loss of security. High on the taste of each other’s blood and reaching – because the light of a theory was better than pure darkness.
She sighed, a noise ripped from deep within her. “I’d just… rather you stayed here. Until they leave at least.”
“Aww. Won’t I survive five minutes without my knight in shining armour?”
Caitlyn rolled her eyes, aiming a mock shove at Vi’s arm. “Don’t joke about this. I know you’ve killed many of them, but… now really isn’t the time for recklessness.”
“Fine, fine,” Vi grinned. “I’ll stay here if it will make you happy.” Vi sauntered over to Caitlyn, snaking her hand around her waist and pressing a kiss to Caitlyn’s forehead. “How are you feeling about last night?”
Caitlyn shivered at the memory. How beautiful Vi’s blood tasted, and how, despite everything, she wanted more. “I… don’t quite know how to feel. I wish you hadn’t let me. That was the first time I've ever drunk from a human in my entire life.”
Vi turned her head until their eyes met. “Have you ever gotten this close to a human before, someone who let you drink?”
“No, but—”
“Exactly. There’s a difference between murdering innocent people and drinking consensually from someone who cares for you. I know you feel you’ve betrayed yourself, but… Vi squeezes her hands. “I promise you that you haven’t.”
Caitlyn forced herself to nod solemnly. Vi is still here, she told herself. Vi did not leave you, did not view you as a monster. Truthfully, Vi’s blood still tasted of forgiveness. Of redemption and clear water, she’d dunk stained hands in.
And Caitlyn had grown tired of scraping bloodied hands against the wall to clean a stain only visible to her soul.
:⛧ ¨༺ ♱✮♱༻¨⛧ :·
Day 8 since the world was reborn (day 354)
Vi knew fear. Sacrificed herself to it like a God and served it like a religion. But mostly she knew what fear wasn’t.
It wasn’t love-inflicted wounds, or sunset, or the ache of missing something you already had. Nor was it the softness of silk against her calloused hands that might have been the sheets, might have been Caitlyn’s body.
Fear wasn’t Caitlyn. And in that moment with her neck split and life fading from her, Vi recognised the scent in the air of longing.
Part of her desired to go home. If only to reconcile how she burnt for Caitlyn with how she had once again abandoned her family. But for Caitlyn’s comfort, she stayed.
Evening fell like always. Vi had retrieved another bottle of whisky from the cellar, no different than the one that had fated them together. Both had passed it between them, enjoying the sweet burn at the back of their throats.
An hour later they were stumbling, giggling over nothing and unable to part from touching each other for even a moment. Vi decided that moment would be apt to teach Caitlyn how to fight.
“You’ll struggle since… mgh… you don’t have much muscle.”
“I’ll have you know I’m plenty strong,” Caitlyn objected, her words slurring together. She stumbled and grabbed at Vi’s arm. “These don’t have anything on me.”
Automatically, Vi flexed under Caitlyn’s touch, earning her a mumbled ‘show off’ .
“C’mon… Hit me, like I… like I showed you.”
Caitlyn threw a weak swing towards her. Vi barely dodged it, tripping over her own feet and laughing. “You’d be disqualified for those abilities, y’know.”
“What? Jealous because I’m fast?” Caitlyn threw another mock punch at Vi, who grabbed her hand and pulled her in.
“Mm… but I’m fast too…” Vi murmured, spinning Caitlyn around to press her back against her chest. “Turn your hips and punch from your shoulders…” Vi guides her positioning, holding Caitlyn against her body.
Caitlyn punched the air, her form somewhat better under the guidance of Vi.
“Good girl. You’re getting the hang of it,” Vi said quietly, and they stumbled together against the roaring glow of the living room fireplace.
Whether it was from the name Vi had just referred to her with or the alcohol mingling with the blood that tunnelled through their veins, Caitlyn’s next hit was clumsy. She stumbled back, falling against Vi onto the sofa, sparks and laughter harmonising in the air.
Vi held their bodies together, trapping Caitlyn with a firm grip but allowing her to turn around until her nose filled with the scent of whisky – and possibly her own blood on Caitlyn’s breath. Despite being thoroughly out of it, Vi’s heart leapt at every point where Caitlyn’s skin graced hers.
“God, that was-awful of me,” Caitlyn hiccuped.
“Eh, I reckon I like seeing you less uptight.” Vi brushed Caitlyn’s hair from her face, earning her a smile. Her heart always melted at the sight of Caitlyn’s tooth gap, something that Vi adored.
“Uptight, huh?” Caitlyn grabbed Vi’s wrists, holding them loosely above her head. “I’ll show you uptight.”
Vi stared deep into her eyes – ethereal in the light like sunlight-glinted waters. The blue flame of desire and something Vi had been missing her entire life. Alcohol fuelled those desperate three words, ignited on her tongue until the pain of restraint was unbearable.
But Vi didn’t dare. Not like this.
The world spun around them, every outside noise fading into oblivion until only they remained, bleached by fire. A moment half reality and half a memory, buried deep in every ridge of her brain.
Vi freed her hands, reaching for Caitlyn’s face, holding the moment when their noses touched.
“I…”
Not like this.
Instead, she gently lowered Caitlyn’s face and kissed her deeper than scientifically possible, pushing her tongue into her mouth.
When they broke apart, Vi was already panting. “You’re fucking awful at boxing, by the way…” She laughed breathlessly.
Caitlyn grinned, one hand on Vi’s chest, right against the fluttering of her heart.
“Shut up,” Caitlyn whispered and kissed her until the world went dark.
Notes:
HAPPY 1 MONTH TO FMTSIRAIMG!!
Thank u smm to everyone that supported me so far. I love u all
very cute and fluffy chapter. I hadn't intended for cait to drink her blood yet, but it kinda wrote itself. I love them chilling and being geniuses together omg
hope u loved this chapter like i did xx
Comments and kudos always appreciated :)
Chapter 12: Resonance
Chapter Text
Day 9 since the world was reborn (day 355)
Caitlyn Kiramman was going to murder her.
Well, that was if she could locate Vi’s body after the creator was done with it. There was no knowledge without the fuel of recklessness, sparking even dry logs of theory into a wildfire. Vi reckoned Jayce and Viktor would agree with her.
Somehow 453 years had not made Caitlyn any less of a lightweight, and she had not noticed Vi’s small sips – or the fact her glass never seemed to empty. Vi didn’t allow herself the punishment of guilt.
What she was going to do was for the greater good, and surely Caitlyn would understand.
Compelled by the soft tint of sunrise, shying nighttime into the shadows, Vi had left Caitlyn’s arms and retraced the familiar route back to Zaun. It had to be daytime, the security of light where neither irredeemables nor Caitlyn could reach.
Soon, the sterile wooden side of the lab reared its head, and Vi could only pray the creator had left. She’d stolen a gun from the mansion, a small pistol whose rough metal edge was a stranger, and so far from the warmth of a wooden stake.
But it was better this way. Vi did not wish to kill the thief irredeemable, not yet at least. Knowledge spilt in blood was worthless.
Both doors were locked, weighed down by thick iron chains that creaked under Vi’s futile attempt to prise them open. But she’d come prepared, and Vi was going to enter the locked biohazard area even if her life was the key.
Vi jammed a stray piece of metal – old discarded piping that would serve as a makeshift crowbar – against the lock. Nothing happened at first, the metal clanging like it recalled screaming from pain. Vi sighed deeply, stepping back.
The outline of the pistol weighed heavy in her pocket, but she didn’t dare shoot, not out here where the creator or his irredeemable army might hear. So she whacked the lock again.
Each clatter of metal on metal, like two mountains colliding, was a step closer to achieving entry to the lab. I spooked him enough to lock the door this time , Vi thought. More than anything, she hoped the lock was proof that the creator was not here.
Her arm swung, hitting the lock again, the force of it almost knocking her over each time. Sweat clung to her body, the pressure of the blaze morning sunlight brought. She’d almost considered giving up and wrecking the lock with a bullet when a loud clunk filled the air.
The lock collapsed, clattering to the ground, curled in like a corpse. Vi grinned, wiping the beads of sweat from her forehead.
“Nice try, asshole,” she muttered, loosening the chain and thrusting the doors open.
Vi found the locked door quickly, retracing the same path as last time, past the cell and up the stairs. For the most part, nothing had changed; dust was still coating most of the objects in each room. Vindicta-7 tasted acrid in the air, in Vi’s imagination if not reality.
The taste of ash and blood that spoke of her sister’s possessed eyes and burnt corpses. Her feet dragged her back to the corridor, where the haunting eye of the irredeemable had stared at her from the shadows.
Even the sight of shadows made her shudder, her skin prickling like their dark claws had touched her. Vi’s eyes fell on the containers of the virus, behind the door, unable to comprehend that the mere contents of the white metal had ended the world.
Obviously, the door had remained locked. Vi glanced around the dark corridor, reaching for the gun. If the creator was not aware of her presence, he was about to be.
Vi’s hand aimed the gun steadily at the glass of the door, below the BIOHAZARD – LEVEL 4 sign. The gunshot rang out, piercing into the silence, glass falling to the ground like blood. Carefully, Vi pushed her hand through the shards, fumbling with the lock on the other side.
A few moments later she’d crossed the threshold, desiring to not linger in the storage room of the apocalypse. She’d cut her arm on the glass, the warmth and the sting only background noise in her mind. Vi wouldn’t flinch. There was no time to.
PROTOTYPE TESTING AREA
Finally .
Vi shoved the first door open, expecting to see medical equipment, perhaps a cell reminiscent of the one downstairs. Instead, she was met with a pristine desk, paperwork stacked in one corner, and a small, dust-coated screen. She took a moment, reining in her breathing and scanning the room.
And then she found the tapes. Tens – even hundreds – of tapes dated back to before day one. Vi lingered, tracing her hand over their smooth surfaces. Clearly this was the wrong room, yet Vi would not permit herself to leave, the tapes glinting in the dim light of her torch.
She selected one, fragile like a relic she was never supposed to uncover. But she’d come here to prove her theory – to confirm that the thief irredeemable was the creator. The orchestrator of the world’s end who wore humanity's corpse like a regal gown.
The screen lit up once the tape was placed, flashing Vi’s vision with pure white, and she shielded her eyes from the sudden - jarring brightness.
Half of her ached to leave. A strange feeling of desiring something with your entire being – until it is placed into your hands. A voice lurked in the depths of her mind, screaming over and over.
Is it worth it?
But she had to know. Everything came back to Caitlyn; the thought that never truly left, hovering in the background. Caitlyn was the reason Vi had found the lab – and why she’d returned.
Vi was pulled from her thoughts by the tape starting; her eyes met the ones belonging to the man on screen, and her heart dropped.
“...Day 429 since I began this little project of mine.”
“Unfortunately we lost test subject A today. A shame. The prototype destroyed his brain from the inside out.”
Vi’s hands fell to her side, surrendering to the scene playing out before her, barely able to make out the voice over her rapid breathing.
“I think insanity makes us human. Test subject A had lost himself, and yet,” the man stared directly into the camera. “Insanity tethered him to a past self. Anima videt quod oculi nolunt. A smart observation.”
“I knew it…” Vi whispered, perhaps to herself, perhaps to that deformed eye socket that watched her from the screen, so close he could reach past the glass and wrap his stained hand around Vi’s throat.
“But he has offered some important insight. Some necessary changes to perfect my project, and hopefully, patients 0 and 1 will not suffer so.” The creator leant forward, intertwining his hands.
Vi stood with slumped shoulders, his words ringing in her mind. There he was. The thief irredeemable. The creator, the man they had designated the word monster to. The beginning, the end.
She didn’t punch the wall, nor feel her blood prickle with a rage uncontained by a fragile shell of skin. Some would call it maturing, but to Vi it was dejection.
The creator dared her to spark, his gaunt face whispering through pixels, I know you .
And in this world, where you were a monster or you were dead, perhaps he did.
Vi aimed her gun at the screen, picturing his brains splattered over white pristine walls, cruelty and knowledge painted in red against chunks of memories. But there were more tapes, and Vi was no fool.
The video played in the background as Vi paced the confines of the room, searching for something more. Confirming her theory was supposed to be a victory; Vi had meant for her heart to rise, to leap around and scream to Caitlyn that I told you so .
Yet she felt empty.
The creator was the creator. Life was the same, and Powder was still an irredeemable. There was no point to anything.
Her eyes locked onto a note atop one shelf, tattered from age, worn at the sides where months of fingers had brushed against the fragile surface. Vi lowered it into the light.
For V,
I could not give you the world. Instead it shall be your daughters’.
Not to hold, but to rule.
What is power but a facade? You always thought so, and I have not forgiven myself.
- S
Vi scanned it over, letting each word carve into her brain. Was V the creator? Was S?
Whoever it was had not needed the virus to be irredeemable. Vi folded the note and placed it into her pocket, ignoring the weight of unease that had settled in her stomach.
Whoever’s daughters the letter entailed, Vi doubted they truly ruled the world. More likely they couldn’t even remember it – or anything really that wasn’t the irredeemable virus.
The video buffered, and the flickering light dragged Vi’s attention back to it. She hadn't thought it possible for her stomach to plunge any further, but there was someone else in the video.
Another man seated next to the creator. A face Vi saw in every nightmare, one she’d killed in every brutal way under the sun. Even asleep she smelt Powder’s blood on his breath when he’d leant in and whispered to Vi.
It should have been you .
Vi couldn’t look away. He was behind them, the shadow to Powder’s light, for only a truly bright light could cast such a demented shadow. Vi saw him at the tree, ripping into Powder’s neck, one eye like a bullet in Vi’s back as she ran.
If she had hated the creator, what she felt for his accomplice was unfathomable.
“...And what we have created is extraordinary. An incredible display of –
Vi slammed her fist into his cruel face. Glass shattered, spraying across the floor and embedding itself into her knuckles. His face distorted under the cracks, his calm expression morphing into a sick grin. Vi didn’t ease up. Her fist slammed into the screen again and again. Blood poured into the gaps. The sting barely registered, drowning in every emotion that had coursed through her since the start.
The light extinguished, nothing but anguish staring back at her, pink hair and pale eyes dripping with tears. The face of weakness that she’d long tired of seeing.
Vi swung her fist harder than she had when Powder’s murderer had been displayed.
She could slaughter the creator, crush him under her boot. The other man lived in ideas, in revolutionary bioweapons that were not truly immortal. He too would perish.
But that reflection, her soul. A being no stake would wipe out. Reflections in glass from shattered mirrors. Vi would live with it for eternity.
There with the screen fizzling and her blood thumping in steady droplets to the floor, Vi wished to the entire universe that it had been her.
:⛧ ¨༺ ♱✮♱༻¨⛧ :·
Day 165,377
The empty bed roused Caitlyn from sleep before the sun could, and she grabbed at the silk, trying to find Vi. When her hand met nothing but fabric, she opened her eyes, attempting weakly to blink the pounding headache away.
Never will I drink so much again, Caitlyn thought bitterly, surrendering to the onslaught of alcohol-induced wounds, her stomach coiled to throw up at any moment.
Yet her aching body would not relax. Vi was gone, and that thought alone was enough to pierce through her hazy mind.
“Vi?” Caitlyn called out weakly. When silence met her words, she forced herself to sit, leaning her entire weight against the bedframe.
She must be downstairs or throwing up somewhere… she wouldn’t leave. Caitlyn pondered it for a moment. She promised me that she wouldn’t leave. But Vi’s blood only lingered in the air, instead of filling every corner of her mind as it did when Vi was in her arms.
Caitlyn collapsed back against the sheets. I’ll sleep for another half an hour, and I’ll look for her. I will. For Caitlyn was in no state to leave, and she knew better than to try.
When she awoke next, it was the slam of the front door that yanked her from a deep sleep. Caitlyn jumped out of bed, hissing at the dull throbbing of her head, immune to even her healing powers.
She ran downstairs, tucking a silk nightgown over her body as her bare feet padded on the cold staircase.
Vi did not look at her. Even from her place halfway down the stairs, Caitlyn noticed her tense frame. How she ignored blood like spilt wine dripping from her hand. She’d gone out. Vi had broken the promise, and Caitlyn’s heart sank.
“Where have you been?” Caitlyn crossed her arms over her chest, glaring at Vi.
“It doesn’t matter,” Vi walked past her, and Caitlyn flinched.
“Of course it matters. I told you to stay in the house, and you’re injured. What happened—”
“I went to the fucking lab, Cait. Okay? I went back there even though you told me not to. Happy?”
Caitlyn’s jaw fell open. She’d already been twitchy from Vi’s absence and the heady smell of her blood dripping to the polished floor and making her head spin.
And now Vi had risked everything, gone back to the one place banished by whispered promises at sunset. The birthplace of the irredeemable virus and the one place Caitlyn insisted Vi would have to step over her dead body to access.
“You did what?”
Vi paused, turning back to face Caitlyn. “I took your gun too.” She chucked it to the floor, and it skidded, stopping at Caitlyn’s feet. “And, my theory was correct, by the way.”
Caitlyn’s heart sank. Inadvertently, Vi’s simple act of crossing the threshold outside of the mansion had solidified the idea that had formed in Caitlyn’s mind days ago. It was truly a cruel act. One that no deity would forgive Caitlyn for.
At her strongest, she’d say Vi forced her hand. That she had done a brave thing. At her weakest eternity would outrun her. But wasn’t anguish just the parts of herself she’d cut off to protect something sacred? And if Vi was the deity, trust was a worthy sacrifice.
“Vi. Where are you going ?”
“To eat. I got up at the crack of dawn to go back there,” she continued to the kitchen, Caitlyn trailing behind her. She grabbed at Vi’s arm but was promptly shaken off.
“Vi." Caitlyn grasped her arm, gripping tightly so Vi would not be able to free herself. “You’re injured at least… at least heal from me.”
“I don’t give a shit about healing right now,” she sighed deeply, fumbling in the cupboard for a tin and slamming the door closed.
“Was he there?”
Vi turned to face her, eyes narrowed in a steely glare. “Who?”
“The thief irredeemable.”
“ The Creator , Cait.” Vi slammed her injured fist onto the countertop. “He’s the fucking creator. And no. He wasn’t there, but that doesn’t mean I didn’t goddamn see him.”
Caitlyn flinched at the sharp bang, grating against the roar of tension in the air. Her next words were spoken from gritted teeth, for Caitlyn knew better than to spark a wildfire. Especially when answers were what it would burn.
“Where did you see him?”
“In my nightmares, in every damn corner of the city I once knew as home. In my sister. On the screen in the lab.” Vi ran her hands through her hair. “And I destroyed it. I fucking destroyed it.”
This time Vi did not wrench her arm from Caitlyn’s gentle touch. Tears glinted in her eyes, and Caitlyn’s heart sank at the grief reflected in them, aching to spill over into the preserved parts of herself love had resurrected.
“I went behind your back, stole your weapon and broke into the place I’d promised you I’d never return to. So be mad, Cait; kick me out. Call me a liar.” Vi was losing, and the tears had fallen like an outnumbered army. “It was all for nothing anyway.”
Caitlyn did not reply further, brushing her hand over the shards of glass embedded in Vi’s hand. “I’m not mad,” she said simply.
A lie. They’d come as naturally as breathing to a human. Vi would understand , Caitlyn thought, her fingers stained deep red. It was for the greater good after all.
Caitlyn was mad. But at herself, for letting it pass a point of no return. Of laying her damn loyalty on the altar to take Vi’s place.
“I saw him – the irredeemable who killed Powder. He was alongside the creator on the tapes,” Vi muttered.
“Oh, Vi…”
Caitlyn pulled her into a tight hug, and her heart shattered from the way Vi buried her face into Caitlyn’s chest.
“I hate him. I fucking hate him ,” Vi said, her voice more strained than Caitlyn had ever heard it. “If I had known he helped create the virus too…”
“But I had to go, Cait. I had to see if I was correct… Those locked doors have been on my mind since I found the damn file the first time.”
“I know… And you’re going to be safe now. There’s not a line I wouldn’t cross to keep you safe,” Caitlyn whispered. She’d forewarned Vi now, the truth thinly veiled by what may have been perceived as a saying. Vi could not say she ‘hadn’t seen it coming’.
“Come on.” Caitlyn bit down hard on her wrist, blood immediately finding the light and pouring out like venom. “Heal, please.”
Vi hesitated with a clenched jaw and trembling lips. But eventually, she lowered her head and drank from Caitlyn’s wrist. The wounds disappeared, pushing out the glass from her skin.
“There…” Caitlyn stroked her hair until Vi was done, pulling back and harshly wiping her mouth.
But Caitlyn’s hand lingered, moving from her hair down to hold Vi’s face and tilt it up to meet hers. Their eyes met, betrayal, hope and desperation electric in the air. Both moments away from falling into each other or falling apart.
Today was all they had. Caitlyn glanced at the old wooden clock in the corner, ticking down to the world’s end. Sunrise.
Written in a language only read by Caitlyn’s gentle touch against Vi’s skin – selfishness on the surface and something purer, uncontrollable that may have been love carved under her fingers.
Caitlyn crashed their lips together, grasping at Vi’s body until it was pressed against hers and she was whole again. Vi messily kissed her back, and Caitlyn moaned softly at the brush of their tongues.
Vi spun her around, pushing Caitlyn’s back into the side of the counter, hands gripping at her waist.
Caitlyn held Vi’s face, drawing her closer, attempting to merge their bodies into one, to never be separated. Caitlyn moaned again, louder than before – entirely unashamed when Vi’s knee slotted between her legs and pressed gently between her thighs.
If this was truly the final chance, Caitlyn would worship Vi, kissing every part of her body like she’d dreamt of since they met. All of Vi, holding the lingering euphoria of her blood.
But Caitlyn refused herself the luxury. Greed meant nothing when the sky’s brightest star had blinded her.
So, like always, Caitlyn was lured down, pressing heated kisses to Vi’s jawline and down her neck. Fleetingly, Caitlyn hesitated with her lips attached to the rapid beat of Vi’s pulse. She’d never ached for anything more. To sink her teeth in and lick the elixir that dripped out in steady bursts.
But Caitlyn fought the urge. Vi’s blood, masked by sweetness, and yet Caitlyn still tasted the poison underneath. Perhaps for once she wished to be the antidote and close every wound Vi had bared to her.
She continued down, softly sucking faint marks into Vi’s neck and ensuring her fangs did not even grace her skin. Vi inhaled sharply, tilting her head back and granting Caitlyn access to do whatever she wished.
Driven by a feeling worse than hunger, Caitlyn touched every part of her, digging her nails into the solid planes of Vi’s back muscles.
I’ll never stay away from you
, rang out in Caitlyn’s mind, and more than anything, she wished to speak it into reality. How this mortal human had metamorphosised Caitlyn’s life, shouldering the weight of eternity alongside her.
You have brought me back to life, and it will be your grave I lay in .
So she told Vi with her mouth closed, with rough touches and desperate clinging, so Vi would not hear the piercing noise of her lies. Caitlyn then switched their positions, pinning Vi in the same place she had been moments ago – against the counter.
The rush of heat between Caitlyn’s legs spurred her on, and she fumbled with the fabric of Vi’s tight shirt, ripping it off over her head.
Achingly beautiful .
Caitlyn engraved each word into Vi’s skin, following it with harsh kisses where her fingertips had been moments ago.
One hand slipped down to trace circles over the defined muscles of her abs, and Caitlyn shivered at the way Vi reacted, her muscles clenching. Her hand found the skin with such familiarity – from each night they’d slept in Caitlyn’s bed, and her hand had drifted to Vi’s stomach.
Her lips followed, kissing across Vi’s chest, stopping to suck at her nipples, leaving hot, desperate kisses all over Vi’s body. Down past her stomach until Caitlyn’s knees collapsed against the floor.
No hesitation. No restraint.
It had been a long time coming, and here, in the taste of finality, Caitlyn was going to give her everything.
“Cait… Cait,” Vi mumbled from between gritted teeth when Caitlyn began to fumble with Vi’s waistband to pull her - rather tight - pants down.
“Don’t you want me to?” Caitlyn tilted her head, moving her hands up to rub her thumbs over Vi’s hips, partially to stop her hands from trembling – barely keeping herself from falling apart.
Vi only needed to utter one word, and Caitlyn would shatter.
“Fuck… more than anything but…” Vi’s eyes fluttered closed. “Are you sure?”
Caitlyn didn’t answer, undressing Vi down to her underwear and pressing her finger against the growing damp spot on the fabric. Vi groaned, her hands finding Caitlyn’s hair and guiding her closer.
“You look gorgeous like this…” Vi murmured, watching Caitlyn with glazed eyes.
The sight of Vi so hauntingly beautiful, eyes pale with desire, Caitlyn wasted no time. The need to taste her in any way made her breathing rapid, and she pulled down Vi’s underwear, pressing her tongue between Vi’s legs and flicking against her clit.
Vi moaned softly, the sound drenching Caitlyn’s underwear. Her taste was addicting, and Caitlyn thrust her tongue deeper, grasping Vi’s thighs to keep them apart.
“ Cait … oh my God…”
Her name spilling from Vi’s mouth like a prayer shattered and restarted Caitlyn’s heart all at once. Her tongue sped up, flicking and sucking at Vi’s clit, determined to fill the air with the insatiable noise of her pleasure.
At least when their final night was over, perhaps Vi would recall how amazing it felt to cum on Caitlyn’s tongue.
Caitlyn knew that’s all she’d be thinking about.
From how soaked Vi was, it wasn’t surprising that her gasps quickly turned to moans of ' yes ' and Caitlyn’s name over and over until it rang in her head. Vi was so close, and Caitlyn’s need rivalled that of the urge to drink.
“Fuck… fuck …” Vi filled the air with loud moans. Her legs trembled, buckling from the force of her orgasm – ripping a rasped moan from deep inside her.
Caitlyn kept going.
She licked Vi’s clit in time with the grinding against her tongue, drawing her through the rough waves of pleasure.
God, it was better than any dream. Better than the sunsets where Caitlyn had woken up drenched, aching for Vi’s tongue. Even when Caitlyn pulled away, Vi’s taste remained in her mouth.
Caitlyn glanced back at the clock.
12 hours.
At least she’d be occupied, the way Vi tasted, the smoothness of her body under Caitlyn’s lips. And now she’d just eaten Vi out in her kitchen, inches away from the very spot they’d first locked eyes.
:⛧ ¨༺ ♱✮♱༻¨⛧ :·
Day 9 since the world was reborn (day 355)
Whatever had possessed Caitlyn with such feral need, Vi never wanted it to leave. The image of Caitlyn on her knees, mouth pressed against Vi’s clit was burnt into her memory, and it had been a long damn time since Vi had orgasmed that hard.
She lost count of how long they had sex, time slipping away with each moan, lost in each other. They’d left the kitchen hours ago, finding their way back to Caitlyn’s bed, and resuming.
Vi had torn Caitlyn’s clothes off, pulling her down until her wetness coated Vi’s face, eaten her out for hours. Every position, every possible way of merging their souls under the dying light of daytime.
And Caitlyn truly was insatiable.
Even when Vi had flopped back, goosebumps tingling on her skin - oversensitive from cumming so hard, Caitlyn would settle back between Vi’s thighs. Truly, Vi never wanted to lose the moment either.
We have tomorrow, Cait. We have the rest of our lives , Vi had told her. Yet she never loosened her tight grip in Caitlyn’s hair.
Caitlyn hadn’t responded to that. Not with words at least, but Vi noticed the subtle way she tensed, diving back to eat Vi out, hungrier than before - erasing the subject from memory.
Only when they’d both driven themselves to exhaustion did Caitlyn collapse onto the silk, kissing Vi messily, and whining at their mingled taste when their tongues met.
Vi passed out after that. Drifting off to sleep deeply, with Caitlyn’s body around her like a cloud.
Her last thought was how feverishly Caitlyn had pleased her. Almost bordering on frantic, touching Vi like it was her last night alive. Was it no different to the promise they’d forged at the radio tower?
To treat each night like it was their final?
If Vi’s mind had been less hazy, perhaps she would have realised it was.
:⛧ ¨༺ ♱✮♱༻¨⛧ :·
Day 165,377
Caitlyn’s entire body sank against the sheets, her limbs weighed down and her mind blank except for Vi’s bare skin heated against hers.
Oh, how she made eternity shatter. Two people wrapped up in each other, a painting in the colours of the world’s corpse. Fleeting – transient and yet, the most fucking immortal thing Caitlyn had ever kept.
Proof that something cruel could die,
And its ashes would still form something beautiful.
Winter’s barren branches, the half-conscious glow of sunrise preluding vibrancy and renewal.
Caitlyn hadn’t lied. Not truly. Her fingertips had inscribed each word like prophecy on Vi’s skin, speaking into existence the noise of her soul. Flushed in red and glowing like a dying star.
She tilted Vi’s chin up, inches from her own face, pink hair clinging to her sweat-coated forehead. Caitlyn’s lips twitched into a smile at Vi’s half-lidded, entirely pleased expression.
“I want to take you somewhere,” Caitlyn whispered against Vi’s lips.
“At night time?”
Caitlyn’s eyes flicked to the window, noticing the way the darkness had faded to a deep blue. “Sunrise’s soon. I won’t let anything happen to you.” She sat up, pulling Vi against her. “We aren’t going far.”
Vi sighed deeply – likely at the idea of having to move her exhausted, sated body. But she clambered out of the bed, clumsily redressing.
Caitlyn grabbed her clothes from the floor too – watching Vi from the corner of her eye and grieving the loss of her full body on display.
One more hour.
That was all she had. Time demanded her an answer. Was it worth it?
Will I be irredeemable?
Caitlyn had since made peace with her fate. The taste of grief heavy on her tongue. All she could hope was that regret tasted sweeter.
They stepped out into the silence of night a few moments later, Vi’s strong grip on Caitlyn’s hand.
“Stars are out tonight,” Vi observed. Caitlyn followed her gaze, the millions of deceased flickers of light melting into the blue – lit by the upcoming sunrise.
“Mm… there were many the day of the outbreak too…” Caitlyn led them past Piltover’s still form, down to the join where mansions fell into cramped, dirty Zaun streets.
Vi squeezed her hand. “I reckon it’s all the dead, y’know. Their souls go up there and shine.”
The two reached the hill. The rise of land Caitlyn had sat upon every night watching the steady glow of Vi’s light.
She hadn’t needed to now. That very light was inside her. Slaughtering each shadow, each demon of who she was. A monster. A fucking traitor.
And this time, when Caitlyn whispered goodnight, the light whispered back.
Goodnight, Cait .
Caitlyn pulled her down, the grass ruffling under their combined weight. Vi leant her head on Caitlyn’s shoulder, staring into the empty veins of her home.
Vi stared for a while. Here, wrapped in a bubble of silence, no irredeemables, no eternity, maybe Caitlyn’s wrecked heart would be able to accept the label of weak.
But heaven had been under her fingers, wrapped around her limbs, thick in the air. The fall would be worth it, and she’d never stop clawing through the dirt separating their universe from a kinder one.
“I used to come up here,” Caitlyn admitted, for she did not want to waste the moment lost in her own mind.
Vi smiled. “That’s depressing as hell.”
“Shut up. I’m serious.” Caitlyn held her tighter. “And there was a little light, right… here.” She pointed until the tip of her finger rested above Vi’s house.
“And I’d watch it every night until it disappeared.”
Vi turned to her with wide eyes, and for a moment Caitlyn’s heart clenched.
God, she’ll think I’m a stalker. She’ll think I’m insane, Caitlyn thought. But she shoved it aside; Vi’s opinion on her wouldn’t matter anymore.
She blinked, expecting Caitlyn to laugh and call it a joke, but noticing the neutrality on her face, Vi spoke.
“You watched my light? Before we met?”
Caitlyn nodded. “It was comforting, I suppose. Both of us were alone in this mess, drowning together.”
“Damn… We were that fated?”
Fated? Caitlyn wanted to laugh. Fate cowered behind what they had. Their start, their end, both forged from choice. Light had drawn them together.
Caitlyn looked away, tears already stinging in the corners of her eyes. Her heart lurched in the cage of her ribs, straining to stop her from ripping everything apart.
“Vi…”
Vi frowned at the way Caitlyn’s eyes glistened.
“Oh, baby… Are you okay?”
Caitlyn gritted her teeth, willing her hands to stop trembling. She exhaled deeply, not trusting herself to speak without breaking down. Oh, Vi.
30 minutes.
The sky was close to blooming into dawn. Caitlyn didn’t have long, and each moment she took whole like oxygen.
“Vi… I wish you had not trusted a monster.” Caitlyn’s voice cracked under the weight of her choice.
“What? Cait, no… You’re not a monster. I swear it.”
“No… I think monster is too kind,” Caitlyn’s lip trembled, tears spilling like a wave break. I have ripped myself apart for you , she met Vi’s soft eyes.
She’d ache for them. Dreaming of lying amongst violets, turning her head and breathing them in. Not quite able to close her eyes and see Vi, nor able to open her eyes and see herself.
One part of her was there, one in the radio tower, and another in their bed. Another nestled behind Vi’s heart. Another, Caitlyn had massacred.
Vi wrapped Caitlyn up in her arms. She memorised the way this human felt – how her smell clung to Caitlyn’s mind. How it felt to taste every part of her.
10 minutes.
“I want you to be safe, Vi. Please understand that,” Caitlyn mumbled after what felt like hours in her arms.
“Cait… What’s this about? What’s gotten you so upset?” Vi pulled back, gently wiping Caitlyn’s tears.
“I told you. There’s nothing in this world I would not do to keep you safe. I’d sacrifice eternity for you.” Caitlyn grasped Vi’s face, pressing their lips together messily, pained.
Caitlyn pulled back, choking against Vi’s lips, her breathing catching from how desperately she sobbed.
“Forgive me.”
5 minutes.
Sunrise crested behind Zaun, sparking it with a ghost of life. Caitlyn’s skin already prickled – the start of a deep burn.
It was now or never.
Shakily, Caitlyn wiped her eyes, holding Vi’s gaze with an intensity bordering on psychotic.
“There are too many irredeemables here, Vi. And it’s you they want.” Caitlyn smoothed down the cracks in her mask of indifference.
Vi’s eyes narrowed.
“Forgive me…damn it. Forgive me, Vi… please,” Caitlyn rasped, loss tearing at her voice.
Caitlyn’s heart gave a final, silent scream and shattered.
“You never left Ekko’s camp. You… you never… you never.” Caitlyn forced herself to calm down, but the tears were too rampant.
“You never… chose me. You never came back .”
Vi was entirely still, each of Caitlyn’s words threading through her brain and rewiring her memories.
One minute.
Forgive me.
“Go back to the camp. Forget you… ever chose me.”
Vi’s expression went entirely blank. Caitlyn tore her eyes away, bleeding out from her heart. The noise of her sobs echoed in the air, but everything rang out in silence.
“Forgive me, Vi.” Caitlyn whispered. “The sun is rising, and I must go.”
She only permitted herself one last look – any longer and she’d cave and keep Vi’s heart intertwined with hers for eternity. Her eyes memorised everything – Vi’s soft face, the scar on her lip. Her strong arms that Caitlyn couldn’t sleep without – her heart, her fucking soul.
Mine , Caitlyn’s mind screamed. Mine, mine .
Mine in all eternity, in every lifetime. My light.
She’d tucked half her heart in Vi’s before leaving, the grass clinging to her legs, begging her to stay.
She’d let the sun burn her, grasp at the resonance and scream into the silence.
Mine.
The words died on her tongue.
Caitlyn left before Vi could reach for her. Dispersing back into the shadows like she’d never existed at all.
0 minutes.
There with the world burning around her and her soul vanishing into shadow, Caitlyn’s heart bled dry. The hill was empty now, haunted by two ghosts – one in eternity, one in stasis.
Both in hell.
Caitlyn made it back to her house before the sun could burn her skin, regret lining her face where tears journeyed down the ridges. Soon it gave way to emptiness – a cruel cold feeling that gnawed at her heart.
Watching the sky’s heart stutter to life, painting the world in watercoloured pinks, Caitlyn knew she had done a brave thing.
Her feet grounded her back in the kitchen – the spot where she’d almost drunk from Vi – then the immortal ground where Caitlyn had kneeled.
Away from the light, her thoughts found darkness. But eternity had taught Caitlyn that nothing lasted forever.
What did it matter if Vi was gone?
The sun would rise again.
And so would they.
Notes:
OHMYYGOD
This chapter was genuinely insane to write, and kept reading through scared to post. I don't know if the ending or the smut was harder to write.
Unfortunately, their good thing could not last forever, it's angst time now xx
I rly hope yall like this long-ass chapter bc I lowk poured my soul into it.
LOVE U ALL and see u in chapter 12
Chapter 13: Love, and its many faces
Summary:
Light always did seem brightest before it died...
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
Day 10 since the world was reborn (Day 356)
“Vi?”
If there had ever been a moment Vi had wished for the ground to split open and devour her, it would be now. Vanished was the Ekko she knew, her best friend who had swept her up into his arms several days ago.
Instead, he maintained the few metres of ground between them, bathed in scorching heat, expressionless – save for the slight crease in his forehead.
Was I always here? Vi wondered, gazing across the reinforced walls and stacked houses, sparking faint impulses of memory.
Distorted images flickered through her mind – atop the boat with her brothers, Mylo’s sharp words. What she’d done to upset him had evaded Vi, but she assumed Ekko was struck by the same fist.
Caitlyn drifted through her head too, her sharp face crumpled by grief – possibly frustration. Vi couldn’t recall anything after that.
Each moment collided, grating together but never quite slotting in sequence. Pieces of a puzzle that refused to interconnect, despite the various orders Vi tried to arrange them in.
“Ekko…” Vi said, taking a few careful steps forward like the ground would lurch from under her if she moved too hastily.
He flinched back. “Why are you back, Vi?”
What?
Vi laughed aloud, shaking her head. “Why am I…back? Back where?”
“Back here. Back in the outpost.”
“ Back here? I never left here.” Vi shook her head, taking another shaky step towards Ekko.
Ekko blinked, staring her up and down. “Did something happen to you?”
“No? You’re acting strange as hell right now.”
“Vi, you visited the outpost for one day and left. Mylo’s still pissed at you for it,” Ekko sighed. “What? Do you think if you pretend it never happened we’ll forget?”
They think I left? A frown made its way onto Vi’s face now too. Though her memories of the last week were hazy, she’d bet all she had on one statement.
I never left.
“Ekko…what reason would I have to leave? My family is here.” She ran a hand through her hair. “I know I stayed away to…deal with Powder and all that bullshit…but once I came here, I stayed.”
He scoffed, but Vi noticed the way his eyes narrowed harshly. “No. You left to be with that girl you told me about. Mylo told me she ‘needed you more’. Ekko raised his hands. “Whatever the hell that means.”
“What? Cait?” Vi laughed. The Ekko she knew would have laughed with her; whoever this stranger was before her wore no expression.
“Why are you laughing like… like I’m spouting lies right now? You did leave for Cait.”
Vi recoiled, stinging at the accusation. “I’d never leave my family for her… I mean, I miss her. Damn it, I miss her. But you’re my family.”
Ekko didn’t reply, the noise of the outpost filling the gaps in which neither spoke. A good few minutes, Vi was held under his scrutiny, washing over her like ice water. When he next spoke, his voice was scarily low.
“Come with me.”
Vi followed, a strange icy feeling settling deep in her stomach. The five or six days she’d been here had slipped away like a mere 24 hours. One of the days they had gotten drunk – yesterday? Perhaps the day before.
Vi could still recall the taste of Caitlyn – of yesterday. Separated by mere hours and yet, entirely out of reach. Where was Caitlyn? Vi mused, trailing behind Ekko as he led her through the bustling camp. She knew its noise – that of nostalgia.
I must have told her I’m staying here , Vi realised, remembering the way Caitlyn’s heart had bled through her face that night atop the hill. Or did I end things entirely? Surely she would have visited me otherwise?
Vi shook her head, attempting to clear the dark spots in the tapes of her memories. Yet the cold weight in her body remained – a confusing sensation that everything was fabricated. That she’d touch Ekko and he’d disintegrate.
They entered a building barred to the outskirts of the camp, makeshift and echoing something Vi couldn’t quite place. Ekko hadn’t replied when Vi had asked where he was taking her. Neither when she’d joked if he was locking her up in some ward when they journeyed through yet another pristine corridor – the whiteness making Vi’s eyes sting.
“Dr Heimerdinger?” Ekko tapped his knuckles against a thick grey door.
Vi’s stomach twisted uncomfortably, and she grabbed Ekko’s shoulder, spinning him back.
“Stop fucking with me, Ekko. You’ve been acting strange all morning… What is up with you?” she hissed.
Ekko fought out of her grasp. “ What is up with you? He’s going to check you over. For amnesia.”
“Amnesia? I don’t have fucking
amnes
-”
The lock clicked, and the door swung open, revealing a small, creature-like being that Vi could only assume was the doctor. Immediately, Ekko captured Vi’s arm and dragged her into the room.
“You have to check her over. Please,” Ekko said tightly, his fingers digging into the muscle of Vi’s bicep.
Dr Heimerdinger blinked, startled by the sudden intrusion into his lab, but he smoothed out his expression.
“She’s acting all odd and forgetful. Saying she never left the camp when we all watched her leave five days ago.”
Vi rolled her eyes – mainly to mask how twitchy her body felt, unease thick and oppressive in the air.
“I see… Have you hit your head at all?” Heimerdinger asked after forcing Vi to take a seat on the medical table.
Of course not , Vi wanted to snap, her patience running thin from the odd way Ekko had treated her. Truthfully, Vi couldn’t remember. If her memories were already vague, it was likely others were in total darkness.
No… I’d remember hitting my head. I’d know , Vi told herself. But no matter how hard she pressured her mind to dig it up, the ground returned empty each time.
“I don’t… I don’t think so,” Vi muttered.
“You don’t think so?
“I don’t remember, okay?” Vi said, colder than she’d perhaps intended. But reacting was easier than admitting she had no idea what had happened the past few days in the outpost. That her last memory was of Caitlyn’s shattered expression – stuck in an untraceable timeline.
Was that before I came here? Or after?
“Can you tell me what you do remember?” Heimerdinger asked, his frown matching that of Ekko’s, who stayed hovering in the doorway.
“Uh… I came here… I fought with my brothers,” Vi sighed. “And my…girlfriend.”
“Do you recall what you argued over?”
Vi scrunched her eyes trying to grasp at the memory slipping away into the far corners of her mind. Is this what the irredeemables feel? Vi wondered. Always watching memories flicker and never quite seeing the light.
“I was going to leave the outpost… And my brothers wanted me to stay. I guess they convinced me or something.” Vi fiddled with a string on the inside of her jacket. “And Cait…”
“I don’t know why I was arguing with her.”
Ekko’s deep sigh broke the silence after the words left Vi’s mouth. Her heart was starting to race now. Half-convinced she’d concussed herself and would lose her memories to its void forever.
“I see.”
Dr Heimerdinger held Vi’s head, tilting it in various directions under the sickly glow of the light. Vi grimaced, but she endured it. For Ekko’s sake.
“Strange…”
“What? Did you see something?” Ekko jumped forward from the wall.
“No… It’s just…” Heimerdinger stepped back from Vi. “Had she experienced trauma to the head resulting in amnesia. From a fall or a weapon of some kind, the damage would still be visible.”
“She has no injuries.”
Vi’s body tensed. She’d hoped he’d have told her that something was wrong; at least an explanation might have knocked the world back into focus.
Heimerdinger proceeded to ask her several more questions, prompting her memory of the past, if she could recall basic facts like her name and where she grew up – all of which Vi responded to with ease.
Her hands had fully unclenched by the time he had finished. Vi remembered everything, the past dancing in front of her eyes, Powder’s features, the dirty thick Zaun air still staining her lungs.
Everything except the events of the past 5 days at the outpost.
Vi inhaled the fresh morning air deeply once they were outside again. Her hands were no less empty, and her mind was still thick with a dense smog. Ekko remained a few feet away from her, gritting his teeth so intensely it must have been painful.
“Ekko…”
He hesitated, slowly turning to lock eyes with Vi. The words bubbled inside her, none of them quite right. Could she truly atone for something she had no recollection of doing? She wanted to ask it of Ekko. To stay with her in the storm until it cleared and she could remember.
See you in the light. Ekko had told her that.
Vi could only hope he’d still be there next time.
“I don’t know what happened to me either. I’m not lying; I want you to know that,” Vi said, forcing her voice as solemn as it would go.
“I know Vi,” he sighed. “I’ll always trust you.”
Vi stood there sheepishly, attempting her mangled brain to come up with a response that would both redeem and purify her. Ekko spoke before she could.
“I just… wish I knew what the hell happened to you.”
“Me too. I want to remember. I want to understand so badly why you claim I left. Why I can’t fucking recall it.”
“I’m not mad at you. There’s no point being mad about something you can’t remember. It was just… shitty of you. Really shitty of you.”
Ekko turned back around, lured back to the main area of the outpost by the screams of life.
“I gotta think this over. Talk to Mylo and Claggor.” He glanced back at her one final time. “I’ll catch you later, Vi. If you’re still here.”
Vi didn’t let her eyes wander from Ekko until he was out of sight, slumping back against a tree. Her shoulders fell at the thought of Caitlyn. Where was she? Vi was almost glad she couldn’t recall the past few nights at the outpost, struggling to sleep without her arms around Caitlyn’s waist.
She’d know what's wrong with me, Vi thought. If only I could see her again.
But Caitlyn was gone; her brothers had not forgiven her, and Ekko was suspicious. The way it seemed, Vi might as well have been an irredeemable.
:⛧ ¨༺ ♱✮♱༻¨⛧ :·
Day 165,378
Caitlyn had always kept her garden in shape since Cassandra had turned. Lifetimes ago, her mother would instruct her, explaining how to pull the weeds and burn them at the roots so they would not grow back.
She’d never particularly enjoyed it. Shrugging at the mundanity and the fact it never spiked her veins with adrenaline like hunting or solving a mystery.
Now she did it to keep her mind off of Vi.
With each root she burnt, Caitlyn would conjure up a memory of Vi, holding it with a grip of iron in her arms and then incinerating it, imagining the scene shrivelling and dying under the blaze. Quickly she had discovered there were more fond memories of her than weeds in the garden.
Sometimes too, Caitlyn would stand in the shadow of the patio, her skin heating in the sun, inches away and choking in the air. At times she detested the sun’s burn, wishing to bathe in the light for hours.
At her worst, she’d stick her hand into the light, watching her skin prickle, then blister. Then melt. Only when pain prevailed over whatever was haunting her mind did she tear it back into the blanket of shadow, staring at her skin as it paled and the wounds closed.
Today she fought the urges. Perhaps for Vi.
So Caitlyn watched, absorbed the fleeting sunlight, bleeding through the gaps in the trees like a deep wound. Always within reaching distance, and yet her stubborn arms would not move to hold it.
To feel its delicate kisses against her palm, marking pale skin in red.
And the darkness was approaching. Minutes away from flooding her manicured garden that she’d grown from the roots, watered with her tears and waited alongside when it wilted.
The darkness Caitlyn would hold. With outstretched arms, so it may not sit close enough to curse her or prickle the hairs on her arms. Hoping into dry clouds for the sun to pour through and drip the darkness between her fingers.
Perhaps one day she would stop waiting for the sun.
It was never hers to hold anyway. And rootless plants never grew back.
“Sprout!”
Caitlyn’s head whipped up at the familiar voice, quickly withdrawing her hand from where it was – inches from the divide where light met darkness.
Jayce was lent against her house, arms crossed over his chest. Initially, his voice had been light – jovial even. But that had dimmed once he caught a glimpse of Caitlyn’s face.
“Jayce?… It’s daytime. You shouldn’t be here.”
“I could ask you the same thing: why aren’t you asleep?”
He sauntered a few steps towards her, remaining in the shade. “What? Did Vi leave you already?” His laugh echoed around the vast garden, but he hastily stopped when Caitlyn did not grin with him. “That was a joke.”
Caitlyn didn’t respond, staring at the floor and trying to swallow down the growing lump in her throat.
“I just came to drop you off more blood; I didn’t know it was a bad time.” He ran a hand through his hair. “Is this about your mom? I promise, we’re doing all we can; it’s just –”
“Jayce, Jayce,” Caitlyn held out her hand to silence his rambling. “It’s okay.”
Despite the heat metres away from them, goosebumps flooded Caitlyn’s skin at the icy chill of the shade. Her eyes found her garden again; the wilted weeds diminished to ash where the sunlight did not reach.
“I’m just pissed, I suppose,” Caitlyn admitted.
“At who?”
“At myself,” Caitlyn stated indignantly and then sighed. “I did something truly awful.”
Jayce continued moving, stopping inches away from her. Gently, he reached out and clamped a hand on Caitlyn’s shoulder.
“How about I fix us some blood and you tell me about it, hm?”
Caitlyn still could not meet his eyes.
“For old times sake, like we used to centuries back.”
What will Jayce think of me? Caitlyn wondered, tears stinging in her vision once again. But he always knew just how to rip her walls down – centuries of heating blood up for them both and waiting until Caitlyn crumbled and recounted everything.
Without meaning to, she’d conceded.
“We found out that the thief irredeemable was the creator – or… Vi did. By the way,” Caitlyn said as Jayce clattered around her kitchen heating the blood.
He froze at her words, almost dropping the blood bag on the floor. “What?”
“I’m sorry I hadn’t informed you sooner; just… A lot has taken place.”
Jayce sighed. “He hasn’t stolen any more blood. There goes our secret formula, I suppose.”
Caitlyn smiled, but her eyes remained heavy with loss. “Mm…”
There seemed nothing else to say. Caitlyn still could not bring herself to glance at the spot she’d made love to Vi on. No longer did it evoke a sweet feeling deep in her heart; instead, the ground was corrupted – betrayal leaking through the gaps in the tiles.
Jayce set the cup down with a soft clatter in front of her. “Cait… tell me.”
The rush of warm red liquid down her throat did little to numb the ache. Though her mind cleared, and it was only then she realised how hungry she’d been. Guilt did not grace Caitlyn with an appetite.
“Have you ever… used mind control on Viktor? Before he turned, I mean?”
A grin twitched at Jayce’s mouth, but his eyebrows furrowed at her question. “Only for dumb things like… making him go to bed when he was falling asleep but ‘needed to finish his equation’.”
Caitlyn sighed deeply. The admiration lighting up Jayce’s eyes almost made her break down; how she missed staring at Vi like that – eyes wide with something humanity had designated as love.
“But nothing… serious?” Caitlyn asked reluctantly, for she knew the answer. Of course Jayce would not have abused his power like that.
“I couldn’t. It’s morally wrong, Cait. I never would want Viktor to think he was below me.”
Caitlyn dug her nails into her palm, praying that the sting would soothe the way her mind attacked herself, no white flag.
Jayce brought the cup down, wiping his mouth where some deep-red residue clung to his beard.
“What did you do?”
A brave thing , Caitlyn told herself. A brave, difficult fucking thing for the greater good. Perhaps Jayce wouldn’t understand, but she knew guilt warped her in front of the mirror.
The word monster had a face – and it was Caitlyn Kiramman.
So she told him. Spun her truths out like silk for Jayce to touch. From Vi returning to the lab to the irredeemables and her theory – to how they fell into each other – and how they fell apart.
Her cheeks were drenched by the time she’d finished, but salt water would not purify her.
“Oh, Cait…” Jayce just shook his head, making no move to soothe her.
“Do you understand why I did it?” Her voice sliced through the air, calm and even. “Tell me you understand. Jayce.”
He ran his hand through his hair, smoothing it back. “Shit. Cait… I get why, but—”
“But what?”
His eyes met hers – narrowed from where his grimace forced them up.
“You can’t just… wipe her memories because you wanted her to make a different choice.”
“No… I saved her. I did what was necessary ,” Caitlyn stated, but no matter how she dressed the words up, the lies still burnt her tongue.
“Caitlyn. She survived this outbreak for almost a year. Doesn’t she deserve more credit than that?”
“It’s different now. We shouldn’t have ever started digging…” Her words trailed off, suddenly unsure.
“It doesn’t change anything. God, haven’t you spent your entire life trying to seem human?”
“She would have died, Jayce. I know it. I’d rather she perceive me as a monster, alive, than not be able to perceive anything because she's… she’s dead.” Caitlyn’s voice lost all spark on the last word, her hands unclenching.
Jayce was silent for a few minutes, drinking slowly, staring into his glass of blood like it held the answers. “What if your theory is wrong?”
Caitlyn opened her mouth and closed it again. “Then…then I'll go back for her. But I’m right on this, Jayce. I know I am.”
Would Caitlyn go back? Sometimes she wondered if she’d always intended this. Why she’d brought Vi to the radio tower, why she’d been so upset when Vi had only visited – long before the mass irredeemable movements.
True, the surface showed the irredeemables, the need to keep Vi safe. But deep under, amongst the darkness that Caitlyn refused to acknowledge, a part of her soul wondered if Caitlyn had done it because Vi deserved better than a monster.
Jayce had slipped away shortly after that, leaving just before the shadows could point clock hands into completing the hour. He’d wrapped Caitlyn up in his arms before going – habitual, not comfort.
From there Caitlyn haunted her own house like a ghost. Roaming between rooms, never quite staying in one place long enough for grief to find her. At some point she’d collapsed into bed – a guest room with stainless, untouched sheets.
She couldn’t bring herself to sleep between the sheets where Vi’s scent clung. In fact, she’d thrown open the curtains, containing the light between four walls, and watched it pool under the door. The light would live there now, barring Caitlyn away.
Time slipped away in the haze of sleep, darkness flooding every corner of her home. Caitlyn clung to Vi’s jacket, draped over her shoulders, inhaling deeply. One last memory, risen in a physical form and just enough to settle her subconsciousness.
Five hours later, Caitlyn awoke to Vi’s heartbeat.
Perhaps it was a dream. A cruel concoction of her mind to cope with the loss of the one person Caitlyn needed to live. Painted in the colours of sunrise, against the steady drum of life that had rocked her to sleep so frequently.
Instantly, she threw Vi’s jacket from where it lay over her shoulders like a tarp and sprinted out to the landing. The steady beat thrummed beneath her, in time with the padding of her bare feet on the floor.
Caitlyn inhaled deeply, her soul begging to be soothed – drugged by the intense smell of Vi’s blood. What met her instead was pure bitterness.
The acrid smell of chemicals and burnt flesh that wrinkled her nose and broke her heart. She knew that smell – the odour of hatred and loss clung to a visceral being, the stench rolling off him in waves and slamming through Caitlyn’s body.
“I’ve gone rather mad, Caitlyn muttered to herself.
The heartbeat still rang clear through the silence, so clear it may have been real. Caitlyn crept down the stairs, her hands starting to shake silently. The smell only intensified, and she knew it painfully well.
Her hand fumbled on her glass from earlier at the side – it was no stake, but she supposed it was better than nothing. The cold object pressed into her hand as she made her way through the house. Silence.
Nothing.
Except the slow rumble of a heart.
She turned a corner, holding the glass above her head, waiting for any indication of life. Caitlyn could barely breathe now, holding her breath to not choke on the pure smell of irredeemability.
The creak of the floorboards echoed from behind her, jolting Caitlyn’s arm. Her grip loosened on the glass.
:⛧ ¨༺ ♱✮♱༻¨⛧ :·
Day 10 since the world was reborn (Day 356)
“I’ve been looking for you everywhere.”
Ekko grimaced, but he fought the expression from his face. He’d returned to the outskirts again, surrounded by a group of tough-looking survivors, all wrapping their wrists and sheathing stakes.
“Where are you going?”
He sighed deeply, closing his eyes. “Supply run. There’s a town a couple of miles away with some unraided houses and a hospital.”
“And you didn’t think to tell me? I want to come.”
“No.” Ekko didn’t even look up, strapping a large stake to his back.
Vi reeled at the unshaking directness of his statement. “You know how many irredeemables I’ve killed? I can help, Ekko.”
Ekko sighed again. “You’re in no state to come on a supply run.”
“Because my memory’s a bit fucked? That’s bullshit, Ekko. I’m still capable.”
“Sure. And what happens when you pass out or forget again while we’re out? There’s no room for error on these runs.”
Vi stormed closer, her jaw twitching. “Stop treating me like I’m glass just because I can’t remember a few things. I’m coming.”
“Vi, just—”
“Make me Ekko.” Her furrowed expression morphed into a smirk. “You can’t stop me. Would you prefer I come with you? Or go alone into a building full of irredeemables?”
Ekko pinched the bridge of his nose, looking – briefly – like he was to argue back. When he chose not to speak further, Vi grinned.
Within the hour they’d reached the city. Ekko wouldn’t even glance at her, but Vi was glad to have won the discussion – possibly because her stomach clenched at the thought of Ekko risking his life while she stayed cooped up in the outpost.
“Hospital first?” One of the firelights asked, raising his stake in questioning.
Ekko debated it for a second. “Yeah. Get the worst out the way.”
Vi hung slightly back from the other members of the group, her stake gripped until her hands turned white from force. On their journey here, she dared not say anything, instead going over every fact she could recall, forcing it to remain glued in her mind.
If there was any time to forget, it would not be now.
“I heard stuff about these big hospitals,” one of the firelights began, her purple hair catching the light. “Apparently the monsters stormed them – must’ve been all the blood bags.”
The group shared grimaces, bated breath mingling in the afternoon heat. “Anyway, the doctors locked all terminal patients up in there, hoping it would be better for them to die naturally than… be a monster.”
Vi didn’t even shudder. She had seen and heard enough irredeemable stories that this one barely scratched the surface.
The group pushed the door open and stood in the main reception area – entirely empty due to the light that poured in – glowing like the heavens had opened for them.
But blood coated the floor and walls – a sickly trail turned black from time detailing each person who’d been here and who’d died. Chairs lay overturned, and paperwork was flung in each corner. Though the air was thick, it was silent.
One torch caught on a corpse slumped in the middle of the corridor ahead. Vi struggled to make out their features – half a face chewed off by desperate irredeemables. Though perhaps the poor fool had been spared – death was kinder, no matter how mangled it seemed.
“Jesus…” A firelight muttered, stepping over the body.
The smell poured through the air, so choking that Vi’s eyes almost watered. Death’s stench – the blood and gore plastered on the walls like wallpaper. Is this what Cait smells around irredeemables? Vi wondered, flicking her torch at the walls.
After some more uninterrupted walking, the group arrived at the in-hospital pharmacy. Ekko stepped forward, yanking on the handle, but it refused to budge.
“Locked.”
“I knew it.” One of the firelights threw their arms up.
“I might be able to kick it open?” Vi stepped towards the door, but Ekko held his arm in front of her.
“Are you insane? We’ll attract every damn monster in the building.”
“So? We’ll be in and out.”
She tried to move again, but Ekko held an iron grip. “This is not how we do things, Vi."
Some of the firelights frowned, but none questioned Ekko’s judgement. Even Vi found herself relenting.
“We’ll have to look upstairs.” Ekko stared towards the other end of the corridor, where darkness hid like a monster, reaching out with clawed hands. “ICU, surgery rooms… shit like that.”
Some of the firelights shifted on their feet, but again, none spoke up. All held trust for Ekko – for he had not gotten them killed.
Vi sighed deeply, trailing behind them. Her eyes found the locked pharmacy door again, tempted to leave the others behind and force it open. Still, she wouldn’t dare do anything to risk Ekko’s life.
Only in the dark did she miss Caitlyn’s light so painfully. Light that paled fire, that she’d extinguish the sun to glimpse at just once.
I’ll come back for you, Cait , she thought.
And for a moment Vi’s heart clenched with a strange certainty that there was no timeline where she’d have chosen the outpost over Caitlyn.
:⛧ ¨༺ ♱✮♱༻¨⛧ :·
“Caitlyn Kiramman…”
The glass hit the floor, shattering on impact and spraying glass across the wood at that voice. Her head whipped around, driven by the drop of her stomach and the chilling unfamiliarity that rose the hairs on her arms.
The imagined noise of Vi’s heartbeat drilled thick in her mind, steady – luring Caitlyn in and as far away from this figure as possible.
Her grief had risen up, amalgamating with each pallid drop of her nightmares to form the being in front of her – it stood half in shadow, one deformed eye clawing over her skin. Run, her mind screamed, yet her feet would not cooperate.
So she stood, defenceless, something akin to fear like a dead weight in her veins.
“From your expression, it seems you know me,” he said pointedly, taking a step towards Caitlyn.
The words caught somewhere inside her, choking and icy against her throat. She didn’t give him the power of her stepping back, but her hands shook mercilessly in fists at her sides.
When she found her voice, it came low – barely a whisper.
“Get the fuck out of my house.”
“Don’t make this difficult. I just wanted to have a… talk.” He ambled around the room, touching various items. Caitlyn would burn them like weeds when he was gone.
“I wonder, is there anything so depraving as love?” he murmured, lifting an old painting of Caitlyn next to her mother. Both wearing long-forgotten smiles, and the vibrancy dulled with age.
When Caitlyn refused him a response, he continued.
“We kill for it. Die for it. End worlds and… betray ourselves…”
“What would you know about love? You’ve only ever
hated
,” Caitlyn seethed, ice dripping from her words. Momentarily, she cursed herself for granting him under her skin – fuelling the fire already consuming her.
“No one is born with hate. In fact…” He steps closer to her. “Most hate was once love.”
This time Caitlyn moved away, digging her nails into her hand – behind her back so he would not see how they trembled.
He turned his back to her, glancing up at the ornate, expensive decorations that covered her home.
“What do you want from me?” Caitlyn hissed, lowering herself down silently and running her fingers over the glass on the floor until they brushed over a larger shard.
The figure turned around, just as Caitlyn had risen from her crouch on the floor. For a long moment, he just stared, and Caitlyn’s blood ran cold at the thought that he may have seen her hands at the glass.
But his face smoothed over, and his eyes left her.
“I want you to do a favour for me. Think of it as penance.” His footsteps echoed on the ground until he was in front of Caitlyn. But she fought down the fear rising as bile in her throat – this time she was protected.
If she could aim just right, strike him through the heart or the side of the head, he’d be out for a while – enough for her to locate the stake, at least.
For Vi.
For your mother.
For everything this monster has taken. If he wished to watch your dreams pour like congealed blood onto ashen ground – he too will suffer an equal fate.
With all her might – each piece of a life that had been ripped from her – the glass swung towards his cruel, cold face.
Freedom already hung – thick and ripe in the air. Caitlyn had never known revenge as a fool’s endeavour; revenge was simply grief in disguise.
And what better way to soothe it than with enemy blood?
But Caitlyn should have known nothing came with no price.
He grabbed her hand just before the glass could enter his face, twisting it until she cried in pain. She stared up, wide-eyed and choking, but the irredeemable met her face with neutrality.
And then the metal pressed to her temple, ripping her back into the moment. His breath washed over her face, in every pore like a disease – Caitlyn could do nothing but watch, Vi’s face open and jovial in her mind.
“I did warn you not to make this difficult.”
The creator’s gaunt, half-deceased face staring into Caitlyn’s soul and shredding it was the last sight Caitlyn saw.
She wished for the light – flickering and alive. Wished to devour it, holding it behind the cages of her ribs.
Wished for her garden – roots blossoming and watered by hope, not tears. To sit under the cherry blossom tree and tilt her head for the sun’s heated kisses.
Light always did seem brightest moments before it died.
A sickly crunch filled the air, her mind screaming for Vi.
And then nothing but silence.
Notes:
had a bit of a crisis w the fic recently, but I'm still locked in xo
and angst time is upon us. I did warn yall
LMK what u think and hmu on twt for fic stuff and art (@severxnce_)
ENJOYY
Chapter 14: The burn of her name.
Summary:
A voice she loved and hated and yearned for between every breath.
Cait.
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
Day 10 since the world was reborn (Day 356)
Lights flickered at the highest point, sickly and yellowed. Illuminating the corridor – barely.
Upstairs wore the same battle-fatigued appearance, blood staining a once pristine floor. Dripped from corpses, hung like ornate decorations against the ocean blue ICU sign.
How these people would have cherished what it meant to live. The promise still on their lips, one breath away from stating their survival.
They stood no chance. Whatever they’d been dying from could not outrun what killed them.
An Irredeemable hung flat against the wall on one side. Waking, shifting at the luring smell of fresh blood, a stake embedded in the centre of their chest. Close, but a futile attempt.
The Firelights flicked their torch over its face, watching it grimace, struggle and relent. Too long it had been starving to reverse its fate now.
They spared it no more thought and continued walking.
Vi glanced back, stake held tight in a fist. She almost hesitated, her feet catching on the floor at the thought of putting it out of its misery. Vi knew better though; Vindicta-7 likely followed them into their next lifetime too.
“ICU, through those doors,” a firelight muttered, gesturing with her stake.
Ekko peered through the glass – the fragile barrier separating them from the darkness on the other side, unfurling like toxic fumes.
“The emergency lights have failed in there.” Ekko stepped back, brows furrowed.
And then he sighed. “But we can’t return empty-handed.”
The Firelight that had spoken nodded her head in concession. “Stakes up,” she whispered, like the monsters were already listening.
The double doors swung open, a dying groan resounding through the darkness. Several lurking Irredeemables snapped their heads up, already locked onto their targets.
Vi pushed forward to stand amongst the Firelights – human and monster scent mingling under faint light. The irredeemables stumbled forward – emotionless. Nothing behind dim irises. No humanity.
Vi’s hand did not shake as one monster lunged for her, so close she could almost taste the lingering human flesh on its breath. Once this irredeemable had been a doctor – her name tag obscured by thick, dark blood.
Everything she’d ever done was for nothing. Every patient, every hour, and piece of her soul poured into resurrection or changing lives. None of them had survived.
Perhaps it was frustration that forced Vi’s hand sharply down against her chest. More than fear or survivalism. Though almost a year had passed, and Vi knew irredeemables like she knew herself, the aching sonder stuck in her chest. A cruel reminder that every irredeemable had – truly – wanted to live.
The doctor crumpled against Vi’s body, shuddering to the floor when she ripped the stake from her heart, blood splattering the walls.
Silence flooded over the group once the monsters had been slaughtered, a quiet understanding that each encounter was luck.
Ekko sighed, wiping his stake on the shirt of the irredeemable that he’d killed. “Let’s keep moving.”
Vi watched him, attempting to catch his eye, but Ekko refused to spare her even a look. She shook her head – half frustration, half understanding. But he’d come around eventually.
He had to.
The group continued down the corridor – torches piercing through the fog of darkness. Fearing, maybe hoping, to catch an irredeemable in the light.
They turned a corner. Stepping over a fallen IV drip, the metal shining like armour. Vi shone her light down the opposite end briefly, illuminating another set of double doors.
Blood coated them, sickly. Uneven. Resembling something akin to soaked hands shoving against the doors with a primal desperation only forged by adrenaline. And then her light caught on the chain. Wrapped like a coil tight around both handles.
Only when the clanking began did Vi’s hands tremble subtly.
The doors screamed, unrepentant, as the chain slammed down over and over. Threatening to give. For the dam to burst and flood the darkness with something worse.
How many irredeemables were behind there? Fifty? One hundred? Certainly enough to almost cave the doors in.
And now with the scent of humanity fresh in the air, they had motivation too.
“Shit…”
The firelights turned in unison, five torches. Five glimmers of life, so vulnerable in the abyss.
“I think they’re—”
Vi.
Vi’s hands flew to her ears – attempting to drown out the deafening scream of her name. Haunting, desperate.
Something pure and animalistic ripped from deep within. Something dying.
Not memory. Not an illusion.
Real.
Ekko’s hand was on her immediately, yanking her back with the rest of the firelights – torches trained on the rattling chain.
Somehow it echoed louder now, Vi’s name still ringing alongside it in a dissonant chorus.
Vi knew that voice.
She bled for it, playing it over and over like a broken record on the grooves of her brain.
A noise of war, of ripping worlds apart with bare hands to reconstruct fate. A voice she loved and hated and yearned for between every breath.
Cait.
God, Ekko had been right.
Vi shook her head desperately – trying to clear Caitlyn’s scream from her mind, but the anxiety had settled deep.
The clanking was louder now. Bodyweight against metal sparking fires in the air.
Not now. Please, not now.
The door gave one last heaving sigh and collapsed, the chain giving way entirely.
“Fuck…”
“Run. Oh my God.”
Their torches clattered to the floor, spotlighting the storm of irredeemables pelting against the ground.
The firelights stumbled – tripping over their own feet in a bid to flee. Vi remained frozen for a moment, watching the irredeemables pour like a tidal wave into the corridor.
Ekko dragged her with him. Vi saw the fleeting, pure horror in his wide eyes.
And then they were moving.
Feet slamming against the ground. Heavy breaths filling the air.
The world spun. Vi’s head still foggy and pounding with that dying scream embedded into every nerve.
Visceral. So visceral it might’ve come from within the corridor.
But the firelights hadn’t reacted.
Ekko’s expression was tight – a mix of concern and deep frustration lined his face. Neither had he heard it.
His grip on Vi’s arm never loosened – tight enough to sting as they sprinted through the corridors. Shoving aside irredeemables. Multiplying the horde.
And then a desperate scream.
The world lurched, and Vi stumbled, tearing herself from Ekko’s iron grip. Crashing into the wall and covering her ears in a weak attempt to drown the noise.
But it pierced through her, throbbing behind her eardrums.
Caitlyn.
Vi writhed on the floor – unable to move. Nor able to focus on the ocean of irredeemable metres away. Her vision blurred. Monsters merged into one shifting shape.
The next screams were her own. Pained, almost fearful, clashing abrasively with that of Caitlyn.
With laboured gasps, Vi got to her feet, fingers pressing into her ears with so much pressure she could barely hear the thudding of footsteps.
Or Ekko’s distant screams for her.
Vi stumbled after them, weak knees driving her into the walls as she ran. Desperate to stay on her feet – a metre in front of the monsters.
Caitlyn’s scream drove her on, bouncing roughly between the walls of her brain.
Vi was choking now. Her own breaths catching in her throat, agony seared into her skull.
This was it. After almost a year, this was how Vi would die.
Which way had the Firelights gone? Either direction echoed back nothing but emptiness.
Not even a flicker of faint torchlight remained to guide her.
Vi grasped at the wall for stability, wiping sweat from her forehead. The irredeemables were close enough now to taste her blood in the air.
And then the screaming stopped. Instantly. Cut off like a gutted animal.
Vi’s ears still rang, though the fog had cleared. Adrenaline lit up her veins now. A burning, weightless sensation.
She thundered on, taking lefts and rights, careering into blood-soaked walls. The Firelights were a lost cause now. Or maybe she was.
Anxiety still hung low in her body, but there was no time to consider Caitlyn now. No time to untangle the fibres of her scream.
Vi shut herself into a room, leaning her entire body weight and collapsing against the door. Pain riveted in each fold of her mind, blood pounding through each barely inhaled breath.
Cait. Oh God, Cait. What happened to you?
Vi leaned her head back, forcing her shallow breaths to even out. But she only permitted herself five minutes – one to panic.
One to grieve – one to curse herself. One more to panic.
One to build the foundations of a plan.
The smell struck her once her mind had cleared. Overpowering, flooding up her nose and enough to make her gag into her arm.
It didn’t take her torch long to lock onto the corpse laid on a hospital bed, and her initial instinct was to spring up in panic.
But they were no irredeemable.
Poor soul, Vi thought, the light catching sickly blue skin. Her thoughts drifted back to the firelight’s words. The worst patients were left to die.
There, alone with no company – bar a corpse – Vi’s stomach lurched with the strangest sensation that something was truly wrong in the world. A shift of energy, past the virus springing like water through parched ground.
Something permanent.
The irredeemables continued shuffling outside – some occasionally pressing against the door – guided by Vi’s blood, intoxicating in the air.
Vi wasted no time, scanning the area around the corpse for any supplies – there was no way she’d return to the outpost empty-handed after surviving that.
And if Ekko hadn’t-
No. Vi wouldn’t think of that. Not now – Ekko had made it, the firelights too.
Yet the image of him, humanity drained like poison deep in his eyes, lingered in her mind. The curse of survival. It seemed no matter what Vi did, it was always destined to never be her.
Vi glanced back to the door. Leaving that way would be too risky – irredeemables still lurked like a living being behind the metal. Wherever the firelights were now, there was nothing she could do.
Instead, she found herself at the window, the cool breeze on her sweaty skin. Vi was three, maybe four, floors up, too high to jump.
Climbing was the only viable option. Ekko would’ve told her it’s too risky – and truthfully, if that piercing scream sounded again, Vi would fall. But something deep inside her recalled the sharp cut-off – how unnaturally it was silenced.
Vi knew she’d never hear it again.
With a steady hand, she swung herself out the window onto the ledge.
The journey down was a long one – sweat gripping to her forehead, hands shaking from the effort of holding herself up. Some leaps came dangerously close to yanking her to the ground – her feet slipping on thin ledges.
But eventually she was down, back where air was crimson with hope. Back amongst the green haze of trees and pitiful silence.
The hospital towered behind her, windows like eyes shaded by the monsters lurking within.
Silence was deafening now. A mental reminder that Ekko was gone, and Caitlyn too. That once again Vi was fated to haunt the world – watching love cascade down reinforced glass. Proof, she supposed – that it was even there.
Her breathing hadn’t slowed. Each one forced and gasped with the force of not breaking down right there and then.
What could she do? Return to the outpost alone and inform them all that their beloved leader was dead? Check on Caitlyn? And if she wasn’t in her house, then what?
Vi’s mind spun, throbbing from the events of the last hour. She lowered herself down onto the cracked ground, resting her head on her knees. Sunlight still pierced through, draped over her like honey.
Tears spilt down her cheeks, grief bubbling to the surface. Minutes away from shattering her right there.
And then the silence broke.
Not monsters or more loss, but sweet, simple familiarity.
“Vi!”
:⛧ ¨༺ ♱✮♱༻¨⛧ :·
Day ???
“... somewhere. But we’re one step closer.”
“The Piltie will cave. Three days max.”
“I’m not so sure. Desperation is always rife in her kind. Perhaps…”
Her eyes fluttered. Somewhere floating between alive and dead – only present in subconsciousness. Perhaps this was the afterlife they spoke of. Eternity in limbo.
Wrung dry by those who handled fate – controlling her at their will.
When her eyes opened, the light pierced her. Sterile, cold.
Hands shifted at her sides in a weak attempt to shield herself from the penetrating light, the noise of jangling chains mixing with a faint hum.
“Boss…”
Footsteps sounded, increasing in volume until rough hands grasped her chin.
“Good. We were wondering when you’d wake up. Miss Kiramman.”
Caitlyn blinked again, not granting her eyes time to adjust. When they met the dead ones of the creator, she reeled back, tugging her arms to move with no avail.
“Don’t struggle. You aren’t going anywhere.” The creator’s voice came low, almost the same frequency as the hum of the light.
The heartbeat came again. The same one she’d heard in her house – steady.
Resounding.
Before she’d convinced herself it was madness. Guilt taking audible form in her mind, reminding her of what she’d done.
Now she wondered if it was telepathy. Vi’s heartbeat, miles away and yet – so devastatingly close that she might’ve still been wrapped in Caitlyn’s arms.
But there was no sweet smell of Vi’s blood – only the corrupt, sickening one of irredeemables.
The creator.
And another one. Tall, incredibly built, brown skin- black hair.
Caitlyn’s eyes widened with recognition. She’d seen this irredeemable – pacing the streets of Piltover next to Vi’s sister.
And if she was here then –
“Don’t be distracted,” the creator muttered, shaking Caitlyn’s head from his tight grip on her chin. “Sevika is simply here to assist in our conversation.”
Caitlyn turned her head away from his cruel gaze – glancing at the stone walls. The room she’d been brought to remained entirely unfamiliar. Deep grey – too clean to be Zaun… too empty to be Piltover.
Instantly she searched for a way out, a crack in the wall. A weakness in the thick chains that bound her hands. Silver-plated – unmistakably.
There was no escaping those.
How long had she been here? The creator had killed her – Caitlyn still recalled the rough kiss of metal against her forehead. The sharp sting of pain like a shift in the fabric of the world. And then nothingness.
Bleak – snuffed out like a dying star. One last flare of light – proof, perhaps, that she’d ever existed.
Here dangling – held up like a doll by the rough hand of the creator – Caitlyn wasn’t sure she still did.
Eventually Caitlyn found her voice – low and strained.
“Why have you brought me here?”
The creator laughed. Not a soft, caring one but cruel – maybe mocking.
“Revenge, perhaps. Frustration. Why does one do anything?”
Caitlyn exhaled sharply, but she did not reply. Her captor continued pacing in front of her.
“How do you know Violet? I couldn’t help but notice how frequently she visited your home.”
“You know Vi?”
The words slipped from Caitlyn’s mouth before she could stop them.
But there was no surprise – Vi knew too much. She’d seen the lab, every virus-stained surface, and breathed in the chemicals. Taken the goddamn folder.
“I did. I wasn’t aware until recently that I still do.”
The creator paused in front of her, eyes like claws against Caitlyn’s pallid skin.
“I’m going to ask you a question. An easy one to get us started,” the creator murmured, inches from her face.
It took all of Caitlyn’s willpower to not spit in this asshole’s face – but this, she had to play safe.
“Why would I tell you anything?” Caitlyn scoffed, staring straight into the creator’s deformed eye.
He stood back, resuming his pacing – footsteps on the floor in time with the constant drum of a heart.
Proof that Vi was always with her.
“Tell me what I need, and I’ll let you go. To me that seems… rather fair,” the creator paused, waiting for her response.
“What’s the question?” Caitlyn asked, forcing her voice steady and neutral – though her heart rose with hope.
The creator’s lips twitched in a smile, a sliver of decayed teeth exposed. And then he asked.
The one thing Caitlyn had begged the world not to hear.
“Where is Violet?”
:⛧ ¨༺ ♱✮♱༻¨⛧ :·
“Vi! Vi… Oh my God, you’re alive.” Ekko swept her up into his arms; all previous resentment or frustration disintegrated in pure, uncontrolled relief.
“Oh, you’re alive. I was so worried. So worried.” He buried his face into Vi’s shoulder, the warm sensation of tears on her skin.
Nothing else mattered – she hugged him tight, whispering her own sweet words of relief. Ekko had made it, and Vi’s entire body relaxed at even the sight of him.
The firelights too had crowded around – a little shaken, dripped in sweat, and not wearing the relief she expected from survivors who’d yanked themselves up from the brink of death.
“What happened?” Vi asked, releasing her choking grip on Ekko – partially.
None of the Firelights seemed willing to answer, faces tight with an emotion Vi knew all too well.
Grief.
“We lost one,” Ekko explained, strapping his stake onto his back. “Tripped and… the irredeemables were on her before we could…” His voice faded off into a sigh.
“Shit… I’m so sorry.” Vi’s face fell, despite her relief.
“No. We should never have gone in there; it was far too risky. I just hoped…” Ekko shook his head. “We’d have been lucky, I suppose.”
“Ekko, it’s not your fault –” one of the firelights reached out, resting a hand on his shoulder, but he promptly shook it off.
The firelight flinched in surprise – hurt, even. But he didn’t push Ekko further, knowing that each fallen weighed in his veins.
“Let’s head back,” the firelight said, turning to leave.
The rest followed, casting an unreadable glance back at Ekko before walking away.
He stood, dappled sunlight from above trees casting gentle, flickering shadows across his face. Staring – unmoving with gritted teeth towards the hospital.
“Ekko, you can’t blame yourself for this…” Vi’s expression softened, and she reached out. But she should’ve recalled how grief was masked so often by rage.
He snapped – shoving her back roughly. “ Fuck you, Vi. I thought they fucking killed you.” Each word came strained, forced up past the guilt in his throat.
Vi stumbled back, and her eyes widened at his sudden frustration before narrowing.
“What is your problem?”
“What did I tell you before we left? Don’t fucking come. I told you to
stay
, Vi. And you couldn’t even listen to that,” he turned away, wrinkling his nose. “And you’re one to
goddamn
talk about blaming myself.”
Vi did not follow him as he left, unable to move from her spot. Typically she’d have shoved someone back for speaking to her like that. But not Ekko.
Never Ekko.
Only when her expression melted at his rigid walk did she hurry back to his side, determined for him to understand.
“I didn’t know that shit was going to happen to me, okay? And…and I’m just as confused. But you can’t keep pushing me away because you’re scared.”
Eko just scoffed, continuing his tense walk.
“I’m fine; I made it out of there. And whatever’s happening to me… we’ll figure it out.”
“You almost got yourself killed,” he muttered, unable to look her in the eyes. “What even happened to you back there?”
Vi hesitated. How would she explain that she heard Caitlyn scream for her in her mind? It would only confirm that Vi was just as insane as Ekko presumed.
“I… uh. I heard this… piercing noise in my head. A scream, I guess.”
Ekko raised his eyebrow, his tense face morphing to one of confusion. “A scream, inside your head? Whose scream?”
Caitlyn’s
“I don’t know, just… a scream.” Vi looked away, knowing how easily Ekko saw through her bullshit.
“You’re lying to me.”
Vi sighed, shaking her head. “Fine.
Fine,
it was Cait’s. And… I’m worried about her.”
“Worried about her? Vi, you imagined it,” he frowned. “There’s something really wrong with you.”
“No… no, I didn’t imagine it…”
Had she? A noise that piercing was surely impossible to recreate from her fragile imagination. Caitlyn’s scream, at that moment too…
It was real.
So real Caitlyn might’ve been right there, nestled between her brain, screaming right into her eardrum.
And then it hit her. Caitlyn’s prior words, the way she’d swallowed Vi’s blood like it was her last meal. She hadn’t imagined the scream. Not even close.
Vi froze. “Telepathy”.
Ekko gave her another slightly concerned look. “What?”
“Telepathy. It wasn’t my imagination… She was communicating with me through telepathy.”
He scoffed, continuing the walk – his feet against the ground the only noise. “How hard did you hit your head?”
Vi grabbed his hand, halting him. “Can you fucking take me seriously? Please?”
Ekko’s expression darkened again, yanking his arm from her grasp. “I’m going back to camp. I have more important things to deal with than your bullshit. Believe it or not.”
Vi reeled, frustration sparking through every vein.
But she let him go this time. For the war she was fighting was truly only against herself.
:⛧ ¨༺ ♱✮♱༻¨⛧ :·
“It saddens me that you’ve chosen the difficult route, Caitlyn. Again.”
Caitlyn’s eyes widened, despite her attempts to mask her panic. Sevika stood, just before a worn control panel, her fingers dancing over a large lever in the middle.
She’d refused to answer the creator’s question. First with silence, then with lies – neither had sated him.
Why Vi? Was this about the folder? Something else? The questions riveted in her mind, throbbing to be freed into open air. But she didn’t dare.
“I’m going to ask you again,” The creator smiled at her. “Where. Is. Violet?”
Caitlyn stared deep into his eyes and remained silent – jarring against the hum of the lights.
The Creator shook his head, tutting. “Very well.” He gestured to Sevika, who gave him a side grin and yanked hard on the lever.
Instantly the room flooded with sunlight, pouring down from a now uncovered window in the ceiling .
Harsh, scalding – draping the two irredeemables deep in shadow.
And enveloping Caitlyn in a blanket of agony, in every inch of her skin – ripping into her with hands like fire. Blood filled her mouth, a rancid metallic taste drowning her tongue from where she sank her fangs into her lip – desperate not to scream.
Yet the scream slipped out – mingling in a cruel cacophony with the sizzling of her skin. Caitlyn forced herself to focus on the noise – on the heartbeat she’d claimed as Vi’s – or perhaps as a ghost of her own.
But nothing could diminish the pain. A sharp, agonising feeling on every piece of skin, slipping down like wax from the incessant ultraviolet. Blanching out – each wound a canvas, carving Vi’s name into her body.
Vi. Think of Vi. Think of what you’re saving.
The sound of the shutter closing echoed around the room like gospel. Caitlyn had never been more grateful to see the light vanish.
Until the creator’s face cleared back into view – watching her with an almost sickly fascination as her skin lifted, rejoining and paling.
Caitlyn’s chest heaved, and her wrists jerked weakly trying to loosen the chains.
“I apologise for that. But it seems you need a little motivation to answer my question.”
He leant right into Caitlyn’s healing face, tracing a finger over the burn wounds – his lips twitching up when she flinched.
“Hopefully now you’ll have less trouble answering,” his voice lowered into a menacing whisper.
“Where is Violet?”
This time, the universe itself couldn’t hold her back.
“ Go to hell,” she muttered.
And then spat directly into his face.
Notes:
ANGST BRRR
sorry that this chapter is a little short. next ones will be longer i think!
LMK what u think and find me on twt (@severxnce_) to never miss an update
see u all next time mwah
Chapter 15: Anatomy of a Monster
Summary:
I think that’s the point.
Live until… something’s worth dying for.
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
Day ???
Her screams ripped through each cursed silence. Guttural noises, dragged far up from deep, embedded roots in her soul.
Pained, almost dying. Screams that ignored the ache in Caitlyn’s throat and the way her mind clung to hope like an anchor.
And she’d tried – shoved them down, over and over. Refusing to please the creator with cries of weakness. Yet somehow they always slipped through, past each defence she put up – folding neatly into the creator’s open palm.
When the shutters slammed closed again, Caitlyn barely breathed – too scared. Too wary of the light.
He stared at her for a moment, expressionless except for the twitch of his jaw, and then his eyes found Sevika.
“Go. That’s enough for today,” he said, dismissing her with a wave of his hand.
Caitlyn’s head hung low, attempting weakly to catch her breath, but she forced it up – refusing to show even a crack in her armour.
Somehow relief never found her when the torture had ended. Instead, a cruel knowledge that she’d never truly be free. As long as Vi stayed safe, Caitlyn did not.
But that was all she could ever hope for.
“Has it ever occurred to you just why I created Vindicta-7?” the creator asked, leaning against the control panel and lighting a cigar – the light almost making Caitlyn flinch.
Caitlyn faltered, unsure of how to reply to such a question. When she replied, her voice stung to produce – bled dry from screaming.
“In what world would there ever be a reason justifiable for doing the evil that you did?”
He raised his eyebrows, smoke clouding around him from each rough exhale. “There’s always a reason. I thought you, of all people, would understand that.”
When Caitlyn found no words to reply with, he continued.
“Would you end the world for your precious Violet? It seems there’s a lot you are willing to do for her.”
“I would ne-,” Caitlyn bit the words back. “I… no.”
“I could never murder billions of innocent people. No matter what… or for whom.”
The creator tilted his head back, exhaling a thick stream of smoke. “But you’re willing to burn for her? To… die for her.” He pursed his lips. “Forgive me, Caitlyn. But I find your statement hard to believe.”
“I’m not a monster,” she stated, locking eyes with her captor directly.
Something flickered in his eyes – silent rage perhaps – and his hand tightened on the cigar, ash dropping to the floor.
“But you are. The sensitivity to sunlight, the way you bleed, and then heal. You’re a monster, no different from me.” The creator sauntered over to her – his steps measured.
“And you have something to fight for. To end every world for. A love so fragile, so easily converted to hate,” he murmured. “How easy it would be to fall.”
“Is that what made you create the virus? For love?” Caitlyn’s eyes flicked up to him at the last word, not missing the way his hand clenched and then loosened.
“Not love.”
The creator’s shoes thudded on the floor between every harshly spoken word.
“Hatred”.
“Something so visceral and alive, something you could never come close to understanding, how much I. Hate.”
Caitlyn’s eyes widened, taking in this being. Draped in the scent of irredeemables – pallid skin, haunting under bright fluorescent lights. Every point the anatomy of a monster.
And yet, so knowing.
So aware.
Perhaps this was the shape fed irredeemables took. Alive, in a different sense.
Someone who’d not fallen into darkness but jumped. Willingly – marks of choice, not fate.
“I suppose I do understand hatred ,” Caitlyn muttered through gritted teeth.
The creator chuckled, smoke escaping from parted lips. “Undoubtedly. Rather tactlessly, I’ll admit – you do not attempt to hide how you feel about me.”
“Of course not –” Caitlyn cut herself off. His words already pressed like maggots under her skin. But she would not snap.
At least not until the creator did.
“You still have not answered my question, Caitlyn,” he said, blowing a stream of smoke directly into Caitlyn’s face. “Why did I create Vindicta-7?”
“I don’t—” Caitlyn snapped before reining herself in and responding in a calmer tone. “Know.”
The creator tutted. “Think harder. I cannot grasp that you’ve never considered once why one may do such an unforgivable crime.”
Caitlyn did know, truthfully. The world’s blood stained her too, if only her fingertips – and the creator somehow knew that. Knew each surface that his virus had spread over like bacteria.
But God, she’d never show even a sliver of guilt to the creator.
His face tightened at her lack of response, but he moved away – facing back to the wall again.
For a fleeting, hopeful moment, Caitlyn wondered if he’d drop the subject. Grant her the pained relief of not having to resume conversing with him.
In those few seconds, it almost seemed feasible. Until the creator’s voice sliced through the silence again.
“I wonder…. Did my creatures taste your mother’s guilt when they tore her neck open?”
Caitlyn yanked herself forwards, sending an uncomfortable rattling noise crescendoing through the air. Her eyes darkened with a feral intensity bordering on psychotic.
How could the creator know her so well? Know exactly where to stab the blade and when to turn – enough to cause discomfort, not full-fledged agony.
“Shut the hell up,” Caitlyn seethed, her hands twitching to wrap around the creator’s throat until he begged her for mercy.
Her captor’s eye twitched, yet he kept himself restrained – ash dropping like blood to the stone floor.
“I’d suggest you keep your anger in check, unless, of course, you want more sunlight. It is rather dark in here…”
Caitlyn met his gaze. “Do it. Burn me again.”
Again, the creator did nothing but laugh. At what Caitlyn wasn't sure – her anger, her barely veiled urge to snap and inform the creator exactly where he could stick his sunlight.
Again, she didn’t.
“Think of it, Caitlyn. I created something beautiful. A mirror of your kind and yet… so much better. Something strong… that embraces the darkness. That committed the acts your kind could not.”
The creator ashed his cigar on the wall. “I did what no one from Zaun ever dared to do.”
“I levelled the playing fields.”
:⛧ ¨༺ ♱✮♱༻¨⛧ :·
Day 11 since the world was reborn (Day 357)
Sunset came quicker than usual – muddy in the air where every colour merged. Dripping down between buildings, atop the citizens of the outpost.
Vi always marvelled at how alive it was. Even past sunset, when night crept up from the horizon, fear never came with it. People still mingled around the outpost’s centre – where the tree of life stood proud beside the memorial.
Her feet carried her past, down oddly paved streets, the drum of a pulse under each step. Down to the harbour, where life faded into silence.
Somehow she knew – anticipated – the figure sat on the dock staring out at empty horizons.
Or perhaps the soft frame of Blue-haired angel , tugging gently on the ropes, begging to be freed.
“I didn’t know you smoked,” Vi murmured, ambling down the dock- half unsure if her soft words had made it to Ekko or had disintegrated like ash in the breeze.
But eventually he shifted over, making room for her to sit alongside him, icy water lapping at her boots.
“I don’t,” Ekko said solemnly, staring past the lake deep into the horizon. “But the world’s ended. Who cares anymore?”
Vi bit her lip, unsure of how to even begin what she wished to say. Luckily, Ekko spoke again.
“Want one?”
She hesitated, watching the smoke curl into the sky, before conceding.
“Fuck it.”
The silence broke from the sharp noise of a match against a matchbox and then the gentle voice of flame.
“Ekko, look, I’m sorry—”
“Don’t apologise, Vi.” He shook his head gently. “I should never have snapped at you like that… just seeing that firelight fall.”
His eyes found hers under the emerging glitter of starlight. “It scared me. Because, goddamn it, what if that was you?” He inhaled deeply. “And it could have been.”
“I don’t know why I didn’t go back for you.”
Vi sighed, watching smoke unfurl against the blood-stained sky. “I don’t blame you. I was a lost cause… and there was no point in both of us dying.”
“In here – you almost forget the apocalypse is still out there… still breathing,” Ekko scoffed, flicking some ash into the navy waters, gazing as it was ripped deep below the surface. “I mean, is this it? We stay here for the rest of our lives… and in a century or so there will be no more humans.”
“What’s the fucking point of any of it?”
What was the point?
Vi had always questioned that. Survival had no reward.
And anyone who’d say survival was the reward clearly hadn’t lived long enough to reap empty spoils.
“Maybe that’s the beauty of it. That there is no point – no goal, no pressure. Nothing really matters.”
“Is that why you fucked a monster?”
Vi rolled her eyes, taking another long inhale. “Don’t be an asshole.”
But his words lingered, and honestly? Being here had taught her that Ekko possessed the blessing of always being right.
“Maybe it was. I never thought with Cait. Never considered consequence.” Vi’s heart thumped at the memory of Caitlyn, a wound that refused to close.
Her light. Forced to be kept at arm's length. Between her bones, but only in dreams.
“I guess when we… First kissed… Just after I’d seen Powder for the first time since – y’know,” Vi’s voice trailed off, shoulders slumping. “I didn’t care if she ended up killing me. At that moment, I was the happiest I’d ever been since the outbreak.”
“I think that’s the point. Live until… something’s worth dying for.”
Ekko’s lips twitched into a smile, but his eyes remained downcast. “I’ve already lost my thing worth dying for, Vi.”
Vi’s gaze softened, her heart aching at the reminder of Powder like a knife to her stomach. “I know. I know you have.”
A moment of silence passed between them, soft like the break of dawn. A silence that spoke of forgotten promises and a shared understanding that only came with surviving.
Ekko’s gaze found hers again, speaking gently against the backdrop of rustling tides.
“Tell me what you meant by telepathy.”
“Really? You don’t still think I’m insane?”
“A little," he grinned. “But tell me anyway.”
“Her kind are... different from the irredeemables. They can do cool shit the irredeemables can’t, like telepathy,” Vi explained, her cigarette collecting ash, smoke still seeping through.
“Telepathy… like speaking to you in your mind and stuff?”
“Mm…” Vi gave a barely-there smile at the fond memories.
“Can she only do that with you?”
Vi hesitated. “Yeah… she drank my blood. The height of romance, I suppose.”
Ekko audibly laughed at that. “What?”
“Shut up, it was the heat of the moment. But I guess you’re right about me being insane.”
He sighed in disbelief, bringing the cigarette back to his lips. “That was incredibly fucking dumb, Vi. What if she was infected?”
“She's not.”
“Yeah, okay, but you didn’t know that entirely when she bit you.”
Vi shook her head, desperate for Ekko to understand. “Her species has existed long before the irredeemables. Trust me, she hates the creator as much as I do.”
Ekko’s eyes narrowed. “The creator?”
Shit.
“The guy who made… the virus… You know about that, right?”
He blinked. “Yeah… Heimerdinger discovered that ages ago… You know the asshole who made it?”
Vi’s lips curved up awkwardly. “I wouldn’t say I know him. But…”
She stopped herself.
Telling Ekko she knew who the creator was would sign his death warrant. The way Powder’s love still bled from his heart – plausibly too, the entire outpost would go searching for him, swords forged from every loved one the creator had crushed.
“Is the creator of this goddamn virus alive? Tell me the truth, Vi.” Ekko’s eyes were locked onto her now, scrutinising every slight shift of her body for the presence of a lie.
“No… I don’t know. I’ve never met him.”
For a moment, Vi grimaced, praying she wouldn’t hear an accusatory bullshit slip from his lips. But Ekko, for reasons unknown to her, did not push any further.
Crickets chirped softly in the silence, enveloping the two - sat on the dock. Ekko flicked his cigarette into the water, staring with slumped shoulders.
“Are you leaving again?” he asked, almost reluctantly.
Vi opened her mouth and closed it. Caitlyn’s screams still rang in her ears – waking her before sunrise. Pulling sleep from her tired grip.
“I don’t know. I don’t know what to make of any of it,” Vi gritted her teeth, stars staring back at her from an inky sky. “Her scream… the way it cut off so suddenly. I’m scared of what I'll find if I return to her house.”
Or what I won’t find. Vi thought, but she snuffed that notion out immediately.
“I won’t be pissed if you go.”
“I know. I just… What if she’s not there? I wouldn’t even know where to look.”
Vi sighed, deeper than before, and forced her aching limbs to stand. “I’ll think it over.”
Ekko nodded, his focus remaining on the horizon, even when Vi began the motions indicating her leave.
“Ekko?”
She waited until he found her gaze.
“Look after yourself.”
Back in her room, Vi slumped against the sheets – her mind craving Caitlyn more than ever. What had gone so wrong? The way Caitlyn had knelt between her thighs – eating like it was her last meal.
And then nothing.
Cursed to flicker out and die the moment darkness eased.
Hadn’t they had something stronger than that? Vi always thought nothing could tear Caitlyn from her arms – even in death, intertwined in the same grave. Names blurred on the tombstone.
Vi exhaled until her lungs ached with emptiness, closing her eyes until darkness peeled at her vision.
For there was only one way to find out if Caitlyn was alive.
:⛧ ¨༺ ♱✮♱༻¨⛧ :·
Day ???
Caitlyn.
She shot up from her curled position on the floor, eyes darting around the cell. All stone walls and bleak darkness – enough to drive anyone insane.
And when Caitlyn would see the walls close in on her, Vi’s voice echoed from the mouth of her damaged psyche.
Caitlyn blinked, half expecting silence to betray her again. But Vi’s voice continued – soft, yet frighteningly real.
“I don’t know where you are or… if you’re okay. I heard you scream and… I’m worried.”
Her breath hitched, aching to tell Vi what had happened. What the creator had done to her – how Caitlyn couldn’t tell which day would be her last.
But she wouldn’t. Not with the danger it would bring – not when Vi was finally, finally safe.
“I know that you’re gone, and I don’t know why you’re out there somewhere and I’m still at the outpost, but...”
Shit . Caitlyn cursed herself. She’d never intended to use telepathy that day – desperate for Vi to stay safe and out of the creator’s path. But somehow she knew – understood Caitlyn’s danger. Understood each component of her scream.
It tore her heart to lie. She could only hope the creator would spare her long enough for it to be worth it.
Caitlyn inhaled deeply, forcing her mind to blank except for the thought of Vi – gentle like an embrace to her fragile mind.
“I’m fine. I never meant to share that scream with you.”
The silence that came after dragged Caitlyn down, past thick stone, deep into darkness. Vi’s voice truly was the only light she had.
“What happened?”
Caitlyn froze, tapping her fingers against cold stone – hoping it would probe her mind for a reasonable response.
“Cait. Please. Is it the creator? Are you safe?”
She bit her lip. Even through their thin connection – pulled taut from each lie Caitlyn weighed onto it – Vi’s emotions still surged through her veins.
Reading her. Not a simple act of listening, but feeling. Every emotion bleeding through into Vi’s psyche.
Miles apart, and yet the closest they’d ever been to being whole.
Eventually, Caitlyn’s reply slipped out.
“I’m okay, Vi. I burnt myself – accidentally. I’m fine.”
She sighed, praying Vi wouldn’t push her further. But there really was no escaping the voice of telepathy – interlinked down to each other's very thoughts.
For a few minutes, Vi said nothing further – her gentle voice replaced by that of Caitlyn’s panic. Would she die here? Lacerated into nothingness by the claws of the creator. But she knew one thing.
If that night on the hill was the last time she saw Vi, Caitlyn would never forgive herself.
“Why am I here?”
Caitlyn dug her nails sharply into her palms. Half of her was tempted to – for once – grace her with honesty. Perhaps Vi would keep away if she knew how Caitlyn had twisted thoughts that were never hers.
Yet the image of Vi’s face twisted sickly in betrayal and anguish made Caitlyn’s heart ache.
“Why are you where?” She replied.
“In here. Back at the outpost.”
“You chose to go. I was hurt by it… But looking back, it was the right choice.”
“Bullshit. Ekko said I left the outpost for you. Suddenly I’m back here with no recollection of ever leaving. I don’t buy your excuse.”
Caitlyn didn’t reply.
Of course Ekko would tell Vi the truth – in fact, the more he spoke, the more likely it was for Vi to uncover what Caitlyn had done that night atop the hill.
Yet she’d been correct. Somehow, righteousness was the only antidote for guilt – and foolishly, in the creator’s questioning of Vi’s whereabouts, Caitlyn’s consciousness was no longer stained.
The creator
had
been looking for Vi – and Caitlyn might have just bought her some time.
If only for a week.
“You didn’t leave the outpost. You chose to stay there with your family. I was informed on the hill that night.”
“Cait. I barely remember that evening.”
Vi’s voice sounded louder now – more strained.
“I thought I never left too, but Ekko’s been acting like I’m insane.”
Caitlyn took a deep breath – lies spilling like blood.
“Maybe Ekko is the insane one.”
Vi communicated nothing to her, and nausea coiled in Caitlyn’s stomach from each second that slipped past without the soothing tone of Vi’s voice.
“No. He recalls whatever the fuck happened the last few days, and I… I don’t, Cait.”
“I don’t know; I don’t know what to say.”
Caitlyn could almost taste Vi’s confusion, hazy like static in her mind. Oh, how she wanted to hold Vi pressed right into her chest and vow to never leave her side again.
The noise of her voice burnt worse than the sunlight. A reminder. Of Caitlyn’s lies, her loss. What the creator had done.
What he was fated to do.
Silence came again – swallowing Caitlyn in a choking feeling similar to drowning. When Vi’s voice sounded, her heart almost broke.
“Are you pissed at me?”
Caitlyn almost laughed out loud – grief-tinged, not genuine. God, if only Vi knew it was never her fault.
“No. No, of course not. I’ll see you again…soon.”
“Just promise me you’re okay.”
A whisper. Barely there, but regretful – spoken softly like a kiss goodbye. The quiet after a funeral, or the shared knowledge that something wasn’t right – but never said aloud.
So Caitlyn raised her chin high, picturing Vi in the outpost – surrounded by light and heartbeats and humanity.
Safe. Safer than she’d ever been in each heated night at Caitlyn’s house.
And then she replied. Half a goodbye, half a promise.
“I’m fine.”
:⛧ ¨༺ ♱✮♱༻¨⛧ :·
The creator had two faces.
One of a monster, the orchestrator of an unprecedented bioweapon that bled the world dry in under a week. The cruel mask. The irredeemable burnt Caitlyn daily until she was sure the next time her wounds wouldn’t heal.
And one of indifference – almost vulnerability. One who’d probe her, encouraging her to snap. Or maybe to be rebuilt. A face that stayed, conversing with her in a manner Caitlyn couldn’t grasp.
Hatred framed as curiosity. Perhaps even admiration.
Yet didn’t Caitlyn also wear two equally flawed faces?
A monster, an immortal creature of the night who used her very nature to bend Vi’s mind.
And another.
Weak. Almost human in perception, if nothing else – and capable of caring.
Capable of desiring, and she supposed the most human feeling – capable of fear.
And nothing ignited a more blazing fear in her bones than the creator. How he’d drag dirtied nails along the bars of her cell, sending a grating ringing noise straight to her ears.
Caitlyn was never sure if he’d come there to execute her or tear her skin off with ultraviolet.
Blood mingled with the rough noise this time – so heady, Caitlyn almost rose to the bars. However long she’d been here, the creator hadn’t graced her with food once.
Except perhaps now.
“Good, you’re still here,” the creator murmured, his voice low against the quiet of the cell.
Caitlyn didn’t reply, eyes flickering between his cruel face and the blood bag nestled in his arms. Telepathy had taken it out of her – the last remnants of her strength used to suffocate in Vi’s voice, instead of survival.
But Caitlyn refused to stand – refused to gift the creator with the knowledge that she relied on him. Though her hands already twitched – mind clouding at the scent, flooded deep into her mind.
“Are you hungry?” The creator swung the cell door open, sharp footsteps on bleak stone.
“No,” Caitlyn muttered, hanging her head low – despite her body’s pleas to rip the bag straight out of his hands and feed until thoughts evaded her.
“Another lie,” the creator tutted, dropping the bag at her feet, standing tall above her hunched figure. “Drink up.”
Caitlyn’s eyes flicked up to him – hunting for deception in his eyes. But the creator wouldn’t poison the blood. If he wanted Caitlyn dead, she’d already be.
With trembling hands she reached for it, forcing her twitchy body to wait.
“Is this… human blood?”
The creator’s lips twitched into a sneer. “Of course. I had it specially farmed, just for you.”
She bit her lip, turning her head away from the overpowering scent. A battle of wills, if nothing else – unsure how to gain an upper hand over the creator.
If she drank, he’d win. Caitlyn would be reduced to a monster – one who enjoyed a human’s life under her tongue.
And yet, if she didn’t – she’d be weak. Unable to fight back when it mattered most. Proof handed straight into the creator’s hand that she did truly view herself as a monster.
Then her thoughts drifted to the pitiful human laid down for her benefit. She’d free them. Once this place was nothing but ash clinging to her skin, she’d go back for them.
If they had even survived.
Somehow the bag was to her mouth before Caitlyn could think otherwise – driven by a thick fog in her mind. Another world, where even the creator’s presence smelt like the euphoria of human blood.
No sooner was it gone. Sunk deep into Caitlyn’s body, crimson remnants like guilt lurking at the bottom of the bag.
Nausea coiled inside her from the taste – so painfully pleasurable it almost felt right. The creator said nothing – watching her with the same grim satisfaction that he’d donned seeing her skin heal.
It wasn’t quite enough – only half a bag. Barely taking the edge off and doing nothing to disperse the haze lingering in the corners of Caitlyn’s mind.
She almost wanted to purge – the taste of humanity bitter now in her mouth. Though Caitlyn wouldn’t dare to show disgust. Not with the creator observing her like she was patient 0.
He spoke again after a subtle raise of his eyebrows.
“Good. You may be a prisoner here, but that does not mean I wish for you to starve.”
Caitlyn fought the urge to scoff. Hatred masked with duplicitousness was only the other side of the same coin. The creator invited himself into her cell, closing the door with a loud crash, and only speaking once the noise had dissipated.
“Are you not curious why I am requesting Violet’s whereabouts?”
Caitlyn’s eyes flicked up to him, towering over her hunched frame. She had wondered, somewhere between the end of one pained scream and the start of another.
But the creator wasn’t torturing her for that.
“I don’t know what you want from her,” Caitlyn responded coldly, eyes piercing into his skin.
“You don’t? And yet I burn you. All day, every day with something you adore and fear for that simple answer.”
Caitlyn gritted her teeth. “I don’t fear the light. Especially not now.”
The creator lent against the cell door. “You fear it will destroy you. But… there is a certain fascination you seem to have,” the creator murmured, tilting his head. “I would have thought each burn you inflicted upon yourself might have taught you not to scream.”
Without realising, Caitlyn’s eyes had widened. An uncomfortable feeling that each positive memory was stained by the creator’s presence.
Never entirely there – but subtle. Background static, or the ache of loving something that was never yours.
And now, six feet deep in the grave the creator had made for her, Caitlyn had come to realise this was never about Vi.
“You don’t need me for Vi,” she whispered, daring the creator’s mask to slip. “But your other motives are vague.”
His lips curled into a sneer. “Clever girl. But I admit it has taken you longer than I anticipated to come to that conclusion.” The creator stepped away from the bars and towards Caitlyn.
“I asked you how easy it would be to fall… But you already have. Violet will come for you. Eventually. When your mind is too fragile to protect your secrets, when her fear outweighs your lies.”
“You don’t know that,” Caitlyn forced out through tightly clenched teeth.
“But you’d do the same for her, no? Search every corner of the earth for you. Love, but I’d call it stupidity,” the creator shook his head. “Too blind to understand that you were simply… bait.”
Caitlyn dug her nails into her palms until blood pricked at her skin, desperate to mask even a slight reaction.
The creator carefully opened the door again, never quite taking his eyes from Caitlyn.
“The sun will rise soon. Try not to scream this time.”
:⛧ ¨༺ ♱✮♱༻¨⛧ :·
Day 12 since the world was reborn (Day 358)
“That’s the last of them.”
Vi chucked the irredeemable corpse onto the growing pile, grunting from the effort of it. By the time she’d stepped back, her muscles ached.
“Damn… That's a lot.”
Ekko sighed, wiping sweat from his brow. “I know. We never used to have this many so close to camp.”
“What’s going on with them all migrating back here? Cait noticed it too.”
He stared down at the pile – so heaped it was impossible to tell where one irredeemable ended and another one started.
“They’re long out of food, I guess. And this camp is like one giant bag of blood.”
Vi agrees, putting her hands on her hips and observing the pile. “Thank God they can’t enter without invitation.”
“Wouldn’t have made it this far if they could,” Ekko muttered, grabbing a gas can and chucking it to Vi.
A few moments pass of them dousing the corpses in the liquid – the scent of her home heavy in the air. Vi tilts the container again, oil like water on their corrupted bodies.
“God, this smell…reminds me of Zaun,” Vi sighed, inhaling deeply.
Ekko grinned. “I know, right? It’s been too damn long – there’s no pollution anywhere now.”
“I suppose that’s a benefit of the world ending… Fuck knows how my lungs look now.”
Eventually, the gas cans ran dry, and the irredeemables glistened with the sheen of death. Ekko lit a match, the flame sparking to life, and both of them locked onto it.
Such an insignificant thing – incomprehensible that it would bloom to life a roaring flame.
Vi watched it fall, connect with the pile and unleash a fire so intense that they stepped back, heat prickling at their skin.
“I hate this part,” Vi said, though she couldn’t bring herself to tear her eyes away. “Laid out like that, they almost look like…”
“Like people? Humans? Yeah…” Ekko laughed ruefully.
Vi glanced at one of the irredeemables, skin melting into the crimson tongues of flame. It tugged at her heart every time – how fragile they looked once the virus had seeped out of their bodies.
He was someone. Once.
A father, a friend. A man who wanted above all to live.
How he would have loved Ekko’s camp, tucked away in its heart with his family under his arms.
Vi couldn’t bear to look anymore, turning her attention to a random spot on the horizon, trying to ignore the stench of burnt irredeemables drilled into her mind.
“I spoke to Caitlyn… last night,” Vi began, pushing other thoughts from her mind.
Ekko turned to face her, sunlight catching on his silver jewellery. “Is she okay?”
“Who knows…” Vi said through a deep sigh. “She said that she ‘accidentally burnt herself’. I don’t buy it.”
The fire spat, ash rising to the sky in the heated afternoon light. Ekko shrugged, fiddling with a ring on his finger.
“At least you heard from her…”
“Yeah, but it was all bullshit. I told her about my memory loss too, and she said I did stay at the camp, and you were the insane one.”
Ekko frowned. “And you believe her?”
“No… I don’t know… We can’t both have memory loss,” Vi scoffed, running a hand through her hair. “I mean seriously, with all the shit she can do – telepathy… mind control… superspeed – you’d think honesty wouldn’t be too hard.”
His eyes widened, blinking to recall what Vi had just said. “What?”
“What?” Vi narrowed her eyes.
“What did you just say?”
Vi scoffed. “That being honest shouldn’t be so goddamn hard –”
“No, before that… Vi, did you just say ‘mind control”?
“Yeah? So?”
Ekko blinked like he’d been punched in the stomach, grabbing her shoulders. “Mind control. Oh my God…”
The fire blazed behind them – roaring and spitting, fuelled by Vindicta-7’s corpse. Several seconds passed before Vi understood what Ekko was implying.
‘Holy shit…”
Vi’s mouth fell open, but she quickly shook it off. “No… No. Ekko, that's insane. Cait would never—”
She’d never . Vi begged that somehow speaking into the world could solidify it as truth – that Caitlyn cared enough to trust her.
But everything slotted into place with a feeling like weight in her stomach. Why everything was blurred except the night on the hill and why Caitlyn had been so passionate with her.
Why Caitlyn’s lies lined up in perfect symmetry with Vi’s memory.
And each one, something so intrinsically hers – tainted and reordered by a cruel hand she once mistook for care.
“I’ve been so stupid…” Vi choked out eventually, and her entire body slumped.
Ekko’s hands dug tighter into her shoulders. “No, don’t think that… You couldn’t have known.”
No words came when Vi tried to speak – shock clinging to every part of her. Half in denial that Caitlyn could ever do something so manipulative.
Vi finally found the words, yet they came low.
“She promised me…” Vi whispered, her heart shattering more with each word forced up. “How could she do that to me?”
Caitlyn had never truly wished for her to leave the Firelight outpost – desperate enough to drape herself in the colours of a monster she promised Vi she’d slaughtered.
And Vi had believed her wholeheartedly – of course she had.
When one is in darkness for long enough, they’ll believe anything is a light.
Notes:
sorry that its been a little while!!
i love this chapter sm, i hope you guys do too!!
the angst is hereee but trust me, this is just the beginning
ENJOYY XO
Chapter 16: Five Days Before the Fall
Summary:
If loving Caitlyn was what fuelled that belief, her fragile hope was doomed from the start.
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
Day 14 since the world was reborn (Day 360)
“It won’t hurt… Just a little more…”
Whispered, gently against Vi’s neck. A stinging pain that might’ve been the bite, might’ve been the sharp point of her lie.
The feeling of loss – nothing more than a ghost, watching her life spill like red wine down her skin.
“Cait…” Vi’s hands found her shoulders. Half pushing her away, half keeping them there – together on the edge.
But Caitlyn didn’t stop. Sinking her fangs in deeper to draw more blood and swallow it. Not even the bittersweet taste of forgiveness would pull her away.
“Cait.” Vi pleaded harder now, arms flailing for the last inches of her life, hanging somewhere blurred above her.
When Caitlyn did pull back, those breathtaking cerulean eyes held nothing. And they morphed – into Powder, into the creator, and back again.
Vi flinched away, distancing herself from this being that wore Caitlyn’s face like a mask. Bathed in ethereal light, just enough to cast the shadow of a monster.
She almost believed – tasting hope like thick smoke in the air. But Vi had worn the lies into the ground.
She wouldn’t do that to me.
When Caitlyn sank her teeth deeper than before, Vi jolted up.
Alone. Somewhere far in a stranger’s bed with her name on it. Sunlight filtered through the curtains – soft and whispering and not quite strong enough to reach her.
Vi brought her hand to her neck, feeling for a wound that only existed in her imagination, still shaking from the irredeemability in Caitlyn’s eyes.
“Just a dream… Get a fucking grip, Vi,” she muttered to herself, swinging her legs over the side of the bed.
But even sleep was no escape from Caitlyn’s crimes, and her face – infected, irredeemable – lurked in Vi’s subconsciousness. Had Vi ever felt anything for her?
Or had Caitlyn just told her she did?
:⛧ ¨༺ ♱✮♱༻¨⛧ :·
Five days before the fall.
Blisters still marred her skin. Gruesome things that refused to close though the sunlight was long gone.
Caitlyn didn’t even have the energy to scream – her head lolling back and taking whatever the creator gave her – waiting until the ultraviolet blessed her wounds with five minutes of peace.
How many days had passed since she’d eaten? Enough so that The Creator blurred in front of her, and Vi’s face was mere flickering static that drained her last drops of energy to conjure up.
Vi. Oh, how Caitlyn missed her – missed healing kisses against deeply wounded skin. Ached for Vi’s body in her arms – translucent. Half a ghost, half alive.
The Creator stood in front of her, watching like always with the same fascination as when her skin used to heal.
“Look at you. If I didn’t know otherwise, I might’ve thought of you as … irredeemable .”
Caitlyn forced herself to meet his cruel expression with half-lidded eyes. She probably did look irredeemable – the emptiness of starvation darkening her eyes, pallid skin ruined by blisters.
The Creator chuckled, his voice low. “I always found that label rather humorous. Labelling people as beyond redemption is just a mere way to absolve your own guilt.”
“I have no guilt,” Caitlyn forced out through a hiss of pain.
“Don’t you? I always thought the higher you stand… the more you fall.” The creator ran a finger over a particularly bad burn wound on her face, smiling at her wince. “The only reason you mourn – your mother, your city – is because you had it in the first place.”
Caitlyn scoffed, but it came out sounding more like a pained exhale. “Don’t you also mourn? Mourn Zaun, mourn the world?”
The creator’s eyes flickered with an unidentifiable emotion before he pulled back. “Not at all.
Watching Zaunites slaughter those who condemned them to misery… watching them finally have the power to stand tall.
His hands trembled gently at his sides with each word. “You see it as an infection; I see it as
evolution
. The final form of a great power.”
“They’re dead.” Caitlyn spat, spurred on by blinding hunger. “They aren’t fucking powerful or strong. They're corpses who remain dogs serving a different, worse master.”
Anger flashes in the creator’s one working eye, but he merely laughs. “Yet, you call them irredeemable – a monster . If they are truly nothing but corpses, why must they comply with moral rules?”
Caitlyn hesitated. She could barely think through the hunger, not nearly enough to respond intelligently to the creator.
Why
had
they labelled those monsters irredeemables? She’d always reminded herself of the distinctions between them. That Caitlyn could be salvaged… and they could not.
But that was what the creator had wanted. Skinning her alive to form the mould – pouring Vindicta-7 and solidifying into his own creation.
Caitlyn's kind – the original species – were never different from the irredeemables.
They were the blueprint .
“They’re monsters. Killing machines… and I am not.” Caitlyn raised her head to look directly into the creator’s eye – hoping he’d see the flickers of humanity she’d spent eternity trying to light.
“You aren’t? The creator raised his eyebrows. “I’d argue the opposite. The irredeemables cannot control their actions, nor their infection. You, however. You can control it, and yet…”
“You're still a monster.”
Caitlyn shook her head weakly, each slight movement aggravating her blisters and sending sparks of pain throughout her body.
Fed, she might’ve argued – professed her humanity like law and showed the creator how her heart bled like a human.
Starving, she was fated to be a monster. A demonic thing wounded by soft light, bleeding black like an infected. The whisper of Vi’s lips on hers seemed nothing more than a dream now.
And she’d sent Vi away with powers unpossessed by humanity. Perhaps that made it worse – that owning a conscience did not stop it from being stained the deep red of irredeemability.
The creator leant down at her silence, stopping when their eyes met level.
“I know you think so too,” he whispered. “Caitlyn… stop fighting what you are.”
“What you’ve always been. A monster. The original irredeemable.”
Caitlyn wanted to scream from dry lungs that she had no evil – that she played no part in lighting the pyre the world burnt on.
But the words would not come.
Instead, others did – in a familiar cadence. Pain shot through her veins from where they were interconnected with Vi’s. Black blood pouring into crimson.
I know what you did.
She almost flinched at Vi’s voice, mingling with the steady heartbeat she’d sworn hadn’t ceased since she was taken here. Caitlyn blinked, once… and then again, listening hard into silence.
“You seem spooked…” The creator commented, observing her with a cold gaze.
Caitlyn relaxed her expression, but her blood had already run cold. Vi knows… not about the night on the hill. Surely not.
“I thought monsters wouldn’t possess the cognitive functions to be scared?” Caitlyn narrowed her eyes, tuning out Vi’s words as nothing but a hallucination.
“You hear her, don’t you? Noises in the back of your mind… phantom touches on your wounds. The heartbeat.”
Caitlyn’s breath caught in her throat at his final words. The heartbeat . Of all things, there was no way he could know she heard that.
“How…?” The question choked out from her damaged vocal cords before she could realise she’d confirmed his observation.
The Creator lent against the control panel. “Didn’t Violet ever tell you about my accomplice?
Her face fell, recalling Vi’s haunted expression and bloodied knuckles after returning from her second trip to the lab. Vi despised him; Caitlyn knew better.
His evil was merely a projection of the creator’s.
“He killed her sister.” Caitlyn’s jaw tightened, absentmindedly tracing her fingers over the burns until they stung.
The creator tilted his head. “More than that. My accomplice taught me all I know about your kind. Your strengths…” The creator dug his nails into a burn on her hand until Caitlyn cried out. “And your weaknesses.”
Caitlyn hissed at the grating noise of Vi’s voice in every corner of her skull. Again.
You betrayed me, Cait.
She fought against the chains – each noise, each spark of pain heightened by her starvation. Words screamed on repeat, distorted. Merging until Caitlyn couldn’t tell if it was Vi’s voice or her own.
Traitor. Liar. Monster.
Each one inscribed into the grooves of her brain – labels of truth.
“It’s okay.”
Caitlyn trembled as the creator pushed her shoulders back.
“Violet does not understand the world like we do. She does not understand why you must lie,” the creator whispered, almost soothingly, if Caitlyn couldn’t smell the stench of the virus on his skin.
She shuddered. “You were there… You were there on the hill.”
The creator stepped back, a grin flitting across his face.
“I am everywhere . Where her heartbeat echoes in the back of your mind, where the light bleeds through the setting sun, know the darkness is never far.”
:⛧ ¨༺ ♱✮♱༻¨⛧ :·
Day 14 since the world was reborn (day 360)
“You can finish mine,” Vi said, pushing her plate across the table.
“Really? Vi, I brought you here to make amends. I know how much you missed fish… and it’s not Jericho’s but –”
Vi sighed. “I know, I’m sorry. It’s not you, I'm just…” She shook her head – for not even the aroma of spiced fish could rouse an appetite.
Claggor’s eyes flicked up to her before he took a slow mouthful from her plate of food. “Is it Mylo? Cause that’s not your fault.”
“No, he has every right to think I’m an asshole,” Vi let out a noise that might’ve been a laugh. “I mean, I am an asshole. I wouldn’t be back here if Cait hadn’t…” she hesitated, unwilling to speak the words into existence. “Forced me to.”
“He doesn’t think that; he’s just… hurt,” Claggor said gently. Mylo looks up to you, and right now… He thinks you’re being a little selfish.”
“Oh, really?” Vi scoffed. “That makes two of us.”
She clenched her hands under the table. “Well… I may never see Cait again, so I guess you all got what you fucking wanted.”
“That’s not what I wanted. Or any of us,” Claggor protested and then sighed. “That day when you visited was the first time since the outbreak that there had been light in your eyes. If being with her is… what makes you happy, then Mylo will understand.”
Light
Perhaps Caitlyn had brought out her light – brought it just to light up her own path and snuff it out once the brightness hurt her eyes. Happiness had healed her so bittersweetly that Vi almost wished she’d never felt it at all.
“She won’t even speak to me.”
“What did you say to her?”
“That I knew. That she betrayed me.”
Claggor chewed slowly. “Maybe the telepathy didn’t work… or she didn’t know what to say.”
“I just want to know where she is… what happened… if she knows something I don’t. It’s goddamn driving me insane,” Vi said, exhaling sharply.
Even in dreams, Vi couldn’t escape Caitlyn’s shadow behind her eyes. The face of an irredeemable, biting her, twisting her thoughts.
Not that she’d ever tell Claggor that.
“Look… I’ll come to her house with you; maybe seeing her there will give you some peace of mind. I just can’t stand seeing you like this, Vi.” Claggor’s expression softened gazing at her.
Vi scoffed under her breath. “I’ll lose my shit at her if I go. I don’t want to drag you into this mess anyway.”
Somehow, her body refused to leave the safety of the outpost – a gnawing feeling that Caitlyn’s house would be stained with sunlight and silence.
A fear, or perhaps hope – that Vi would never see her again.
So Vi stayed, sharing her bed with the stranger – the ghost of who she used to be. Tuning her mind into damaged frequencies to hear the hum of Caitlyn’s voice.
There truly was no place for her. No safe corner where a part of her soul didn’t lurk. Her home, Caitlyn’s, the outpost, each one haunted by regret.
Claggor spoke again, the gentleness of his voice pulling her from cruel thoughts. “Do what you wish, Vi.” His eyes left hers, staring down at the plate. “I care about you… and seeing you? Alive? Nothing else matters.”
“I—”
Vi’s head spun suddenly, agony and confusion splintering her thoughts. Caitlyn’s pain, not hers – all too reminiscent of their conversation several days ago.
She waited. Holding her breath for Caitlyn’s words. Her apology – to bleed through the fog.
Stillwater.
Vi froze.
Stillwater? The prison? That was all she had to say?
“Vi?” Claggor reached out to touch her arm, but Vi barely felt it.
Is that where she is? Was it a cry for help? Some damaged SOS signal drawn in blood. And why now?
Vi stood shakily, the scrape of the chair echoing through the background hum of the outpost’s restaurant.
“Vi-”
She glanced at Claggor, staring past him with unfocused eyes. “I gotta go… I gotta-”
Without another word, Vi was gone – almost running through the outpost back to her room, feet catching on uneven stones.
Caitlyn’s words rang in her mind – a distorted loop akin to that of the radio tower’s melodies.
Stillwater. Stillwater.
:⛧ ¨༺ ♱✮♱༻¨⛧ :·
Stillwater.
She’d been a fool not to notice it sooner. The bleakness of the stone, designed to drown prisoners in loss – deprived of every basic commodity a human required.
Caitlyn’s mind jolted with the realisation, hoping not to shift the creator’s grip like a chain on her arm. Instead, she spoke it aloud in her fragmented mind – praying the connection was too distorted for Vi to make out her words.
Her cell was lower down. Two, maybe three, floors underground – but her mind was too hazy to be sure.
Floor one reeked of irredeemables, so intense that Caitlyn almost gagged on her descent down. Somewhere further, past darkness and oblivion, the sweet, faint scent of humanity drifted up through cracks in the stone.
Perhaps only her starvation allowed her to make out such a distant and hopeless smell.
I will free you , Caitlyn thought as the creator slammed her back into the depths of a cell. Though they were likely criminals, Vindicta-7 seemed to eradicate justice. No longer was it guilty and innocent, but instead infected and survivor. Monster and human.
Of which category Caitlyn fell under, she couldn’t be sure.
Alone, housed in a place of sin and evil, her mind drifted back to Vi.
Eternities might’ve passed in the short span of time from when they’d sat on her windowsill. Time moved differently then – lit up and ethereal. Before Caitlyn had learnt the taste of irredeemables from licking her own wounds.
And Vi. How open and hopeful she’d been. Believing for once since the world ended that perhaps it could be reborn.
If loving Caitlyn was what fuelled that belief, her fragile hope was doomed from the start.
:⛧ ¨༺ ♱✮♱༻¨⛧ :·
“Vi… “What are you doing?”
Ekko’s voice cut through the silence of the room, loud enough to make Vi pause – though only briefly.
“I have to go. I have to go to Stillwater,” she muttered, in between throwing a few of her possessions into a bag.
“The prison? Why? That place will be crawling with monsters.”
“Cait needs me. She’s there… The scream was never an accident. It was him, and he’s hurting her, and—”
“Him?” Ekko’s face tightened enough so that Vi halted her manic packing immediately.
“The… creator,” Vi admitted, shoulders slumping.
Ekko blinked – silenced momentarily by Vi’s revelation. A few seconds filled with his heavy breathing passed before he recovered his voice. “You know the guy who did this? The one who…”
He paused, and it seemed time had not made saying her name aloud any easier. “... killed Powder?”
Vi gritted her teeth, unable to hold his gaze.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“What, so you can walk straight into your fucking death? You think one stake and some anger are enough to kill the creator?”
“It wouldn’t be just me,” Ekko said indignantly and then sighed. “I could rally the outpost. We could all come –”
“And all of you would die,” Vi cut him off sharply. “Is that what it will take? Watching everyone you lead turn into irredeemables?”
Ekko scoffed, but his face quickly fell. He always did wear responsibility like a crown – and the outpost too followed him like royalty. His eyes narrowed now, staring at a random point on the opposite wall.
“Why haven’t you killed him? All this time… you knew… You did nothing.”
“What was I meant to do? We weren’t looking for the creator to kill him – we were looking for him to understand. He’s nothing if he’s dead.”
“ Understand ?” Ekko almost laughed. “Understand what? He’s a sick, manic asshole who needs to be fucking put down.”
“Understand how to help Powder. If – if there’s a way to… fix her or…” Vi’s voice trailed off, the idea sounding like mere delusion now spoken.
Ekko scoffed, a noise born from hurt, not anger. “There is no saving her. You’re delusional if you think otherwise.”
“I won’t give up on her,” Vi shook her head. “I… can’t give up on her.”
Deep down, Vi knew he was right. A sickening feeling that had weighed in her stomach since the day her sister turned. Irredeemability – the virus – was a curse. Thick chains of unbreakable metal that Powder would never escape.
When Ekko had no reply, she turned and slung her bag over her shoulder.
But he’d never let her walk to her death so easily. Not when her ghost had already haunted his mind for so long.
“You can’t save her if… the creator kills you at this prison.”
Vi almost broke down right there and then, Ekko’s hurt expression and the choking knowledge that she may never see him again clawing at her heart.
But she ran a hand through her hair and pulled herself back together. “I have to go… I have to.”
“No. “No, you don’t,” Ekko snapped, anger returning as quickly as it had left. “She controlled your thoughts, Vi. How do you know anything with her was ever real – and you’re willing to risk your life for a feeling you might never have truly felt?”
Vi faltered, for she couldn’t argue with the logic in his words – a haunting truth she refused to consider.
Yet the way she felt about Caitlyn – the way her voice rang in her mind and her touch clung to Vi’s skin. How the world never seemed quite so dark and desolate when illuminated by her light.
“I know how I feel. It’s human… genuine. "Too strong to be fabricated." Vi met Ekko’s wounded expression again, stepping closer – into the light. “And even if it was fake. Isn’t it worth it to be happy for a bit?”
“Oh, Vi.”
Ekko pulled her into a tight hug, one that spoke of every silent word that had died on his tongue. All the things he’d take to the grave – reaching for her in empty dirt.
“I’ll come back,” Vi whispered into his shoulder, low so he wouldn't hear how her voice broke. “I promise. I promise, Ekko.”
“Let me come with you.”
Vi pulled back to meet his eyes. “You can’t die for this. You have people here – scared, traumatised, grieving people who need you.”
“You told me your thing worth dying for was lost,” she shook her head. “But it’s here. This outpost. This community – that’s your thing worth dying for.”
“And if I die at this fucking prison… at least it’s for Cait.”
Ekko pulled her back into the hug, holding her tight like it was their last moment alive. He truly did understand every part of her – how they fought different battles for the same war.
And Vi would keep her promise, wearing it like a badge of honour over her heart. She’d see him again, if not in person then in death. In her life flickering before her eyes just before she turned.
In Zaun, the familiar streets – in Powder’s dead eyes. In community and hope and the way the light crept through her window.
When Ekko moved away, Vi’s hands fell to her sides.
“See you in the light, Vi.”
A small smile graced her lips, and she was touched somewhere under the thick layers of grief and guilt. But she’d be there. Wherever he looked.
“I’ll be there.”
“I promise.”
Notes:
SORRY FOR THE MINI HIATUS
I was soo busy, but now i've finished my first year of uni!!
This is also a little shorter than normal, but bear with me, the next chapter is insane
Cant wait to hear what u all think:))
Chapter 17: Genesis of the Irredeemable
Summary:
Do you still doubt me, Violet?”
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
Day 16 since the world was reborn (Day 362)
The prison rose up before her – all stone brick and despair, enclosed in a thick mist that not even the sun seemed able to penetrate.
Her boat had made steady progress across the lake surrounding it. A dark, deep thing like spilt oil that her boat drifted across lifelessly. Vi had never been more alone – it seemed the world had ended here more than anywhere else.
If she thought hard enough, she could picture blue-haired angel sailing out across sun-stained waters to home. Her real home. Nothing now but ash – marked somewhere with a headstone 361 days ago in the timeline of her life.
The trip had also given Vi time to think. Think of Caitlyn, her betrayal, and the way Vi had never longed for anything more in her life. At first she’d been furious, and a sting like that never truly went away.
But nothing stung more than knowing Caitlyn was rotting somewhere under this building, wounded and afraid with nothing but the creator’s demons for company.
The boat docked with a soft noise – the only thing to touch unbroken silence in hours. Vi touched its wooden surface gently as she disembarked, perhaps in a silent promise that she would return.
Entering would be no issue – any security this place might’ve had was nothing but a corpse now.
Surviving the horde long enough to locate the creator would be her biggest challenge.
Outside was entirely desolate, the sun shielding Vi from any monsters that may have once lurked. Empty – except one.
A lone irredeemable clung to the shade of the citadel-like building. Snapping. Snarling. Alive enough to know better than to meet her in the light.
Vi’s veins were too empty to feel the spike of adrenaline – or much of anything anymore. So, silently, she approached it, stake bared – cool in her hand like a blade.
Within minutes it had been slaughtered.
She stepped back, observing its corpse and the way thick, dark blood pooled from the wound in its chest.
Even from here, the stench rose up into her nose, overpowering and enough – surely enough to mask a sweeter scent…
A suicide mission , Vi thought bitterly, eyes still locked on the deceased irredeemable. Even if it worked, wouldn’t the creator slaughter her in minutes?
But Cait.
It was all worth it for her. The only thing that allowed Vi to feel the world’s pulse on her skin once again. And if Vi were to die in here?
Her ghost knew where to haunt.
Vi’s arms shook slightly as she reached for the irredeemable, but she forced them still, slicing a deep gash right down its body. Blood found the light immediately, covering long-stilled organs in a thick coating.
She dipped her hands into the gash, hauling out thick, sludgy swathes of blood. Cold against her fingertips – not icy, just wrong . A half-solidified form of Vindicta-7 that clung to her skin, dripping down in clumps.
The smell forced up a visceral gag, but she didn’t stop.
If Caitlyn could see me now . Vi shuddered, smearing the irredeemable blood over her face and clothes. She’d be almost unrecognisable – more monster than human with each layer of blood coated upon frail skin.
The ground floor was heavy with silence akin to outside. Desolate. Silent. Almost impossible to picture the creator lurking below.
Vi could almost feel the phantom touches on her skin of each soul haunting the prison – perhaps because there was nowhere else for them to go. Irredeemable in both life and death.
The next floor was lit up by nothing but a flickering yellow glow, casting deep shadows on bleak stone walls.
Below that, the light found the horde. Masses of irredeemables, packed together into nothing but a dark mass.
Vi held her breath as the door creaked closed behind her, waiting for the inevitable. Waiting for them to sense that she wasn’t truly one of them.
A few came close enough to smell their own scent reflected off her. Vi’s heartbeat thundering in their ears – and yet – undeniably a monster.
She’d almost reached the end – so close to feeling the cold metal of the door against blood-soaked fingertips – when a flash of blue caught her eye.
Quick like a jay flickering between trees. So brief she might’ve imagined it.
But that colour. The exact shade of Powder’s laugh. The hue of their childhood and sun-spun oceans. Half her soul was stained with it.
The weaker half that had stayed at the house. The half of her that had died the day Powder did.
And God, if she was here. Perhaps things would go differently.
So Vi hesitated, one hand on the door, the other unconsciously clenched as her eyes darted from monster to monster.
The horde morphed and moved as one whole being. Leashed by the virus. By the creator . Meeting and parting together like a dense wave.
And then it cleared.
“Powder”.
Vi’s heart dropped, the world fading to nothingness behind her, and she ran.
Forgetting the irredeemables, forgetting Caitlyn, and the way guilt’s fist had pressed her into the ground.
The thud of her feet on the stone mixed with the steady rhythm of her heartbeat as she shoved past disoriented irredeemables. Stopping close enough to see the virus behind Powder’s eyes.
Powder’s head tilted, narrowed eyes zeroing in on her sister’s blood-soaked frame.
Half monster, half human.
Fated to survive, but never to live.
Vi waited, choking on barely taken breaths, hoping with a damaged soul that Powder’s humanity would prevail.
She was still in there – a faint light, flickering and bitterly close to dying out. But Vi could see it.
Her dear sister, the same girl whose faint, vibrant handprint was etched onto the cupboard door. The same Powder who looked at Vi like she could end worlds.
The same one who’d watched Vi leave her for dead.
“Vi?”
A deep, guttural sob escaped from between Vi’s lips – every word she’d wanted to inscribe on her sister’s dead soul forming into one haunting noise.
Words could never be enough to change the course of fate. Vi pulled Powder into her arms, holding cold, dead skin against her own. Tight. Aching like her blood still ran warm.
“Oh, Powder. I’m so sorry. I’m so… fucking sorry.” Vi muttered, her voice thick and choked against her sister’s shoulder.
“It should’ve been me… I should have never let—”
Vi pulled back with shaking hands, staring into Powder’s distant, unfocused eyes. Gone was that soft blue – glowing like a heated spring day and enough to light up any room.
How cruel life truly was.
And oh, how Vi wished it to be her. Powder deserved to live – to breathe in the outpost’s humanity, lying atop the sun-bleached deck of the boat between Ekko’s arms.
Strong, alive, hopeful – everything Vi wasn’t.
“I see you everywhere,” Powder whispered. “I see all of you.”
Vi cupped her face, gritting her teeth to hold back long-overdue sobs. “I never left. I’m… always right here.”
Powder pushed her back, exposing red-tipped fangs. “I hate it. I hate… the voice in my head. I hate what I am.”
“No…no.” Vi’s voice broke hard, but she pushed the words out anyway. “You’re still you. I never saw you as a monster. Never , you understand?”
“I’m going to heal you. I’m going to bring you back, I promise.” She grabbed Powder’s face, rough hands stroking her cheeks. “I’ll find a way.”
Perhaps that was the only promise Vi would truly keep.
The world had faded to black around her – still and silent. Red stained with hope and the gentle noise of Vi’s heartbeat.
For a moment, nothing had ever happened. They’d go back to the bar, all soft laughs and faint memories. Dancing in sync to the backdrop of Zaun’s noise.
The scent of home thick in the air, clinging to Powder. Watching the sunset from half-lidded eyes – not because it was the final light, but because it promised a new day.
And Vi would die one day. In several eternities, long after she’d stopped wishing for it.
Looking into Powder’s lifeless eyes, it almost seemed real.
But her small, flickering light was powerless against the abyss of darkness.
And then –
A low rumble. A whisper from the darkness.
“I’ve been waiting for you.”
Vi’s stomach dropped at the cold voice, ripping her from her sister. No footsteps. No indication.
She spun around, shielding Powder with her body, though she was almost a year too late.
“Where are you?” Vi muttered, her hand shaking on the stake – anger, not fear.
When her words met nothing but silence, she continued.
“You fucking coward. You know why I’m here,” her chest rose and fell rapidly with each word. “You know what I want.”
“Do you know what I want?” The creator appeared next to her, forming from the horde like he was always there.
Vi almost jumped, but she fought to keep her feet rooted into the ground, one crimson arm still across Powder’s body, the other aiming a stake directly at the creator’s heart.
“Get the fuck back.” She emphasised the last word with a sharp thrust of the stake. “Where’s Caitlyn? What have you done with her?”
The creator didn’t flinch, taking in her body draped in irredeemable blood with a hard gaze.
“I’ve been waiting for you, Violet. I assure you that the monster is safe. You may see her if you wish.”
Vi stepped back, blinking in shock. He wanted me . Her heart plummeted further with each word she understood more. Caitlyn was safe; it was never about her.
She was merely bait. A lure the creator knew Vi was unable to refuse. For a moment her arm holding the stake almost fell to her side, but Vi knew better than to trust the creator.
He was close enough to kill. To end this nightmare once and for all. One sharp thrust of her stake, and perhaps her guilt too, would be slaughtered.
But Powder still lurked behind her – a grounding presence, still and painfully cold. For her, Vi would spare this monster. Would trust him – not openly like she trusted Caitlyn, but understanding.
Knowing that Vi needed the creator as much as he needed her.
After all, destroying the root would do nothing when the entire garden is corrupted.
Vi took a shuddering breath, forcing echoing pleas to massacre him down to the pits of her stomach. When she next spoke, her voice came strangely level.
“What do you want from me?”
:⛧ ¨༺ ♱✮♱༻¨⛧ :·
Three days before the fall.
“Wake up.”
Caitlyn’s eyes barely opened as the creator shook her face from his hold on her chin. Bright lights pierced behind her eyes, almost making her wince.
The creator’s visits – though becoming increasingly less frequent – always meant something. Sunlight. Another cyclical conversation. Neither of which Caitlyn had the strength for anymore.
What will come of me if Vi does not arrive? Caitlyn had wondered before the hunger became too blinding. Would the creator slaughter her? 453 years vanished into nothingness or irredeemability.
Or perhaps he’d leave her here – trapped in eternal torment. Not infected, but close enough to taste the virus in the air.
Caitlyn didn’t have the strength to care anymore. For it was not a transformation – not a change of her physical state, but rather a reversion. Everything slotting back into place. Back to being a monster.
Like she’d never known a love so human.
“Something significant has changed.”
Caitlyn locked onto his cruel face, blurring in front of her.
“I won’t be using ultraviolet on you anymore.”
His tone was low – almost soft. Comforting if Caitlyn didn’t know better.
But this was no mercy. It was a victory.
The creator had no use for her anymore, casting her away, broken and alone, to locate the pieces of her old self, scattered by the breeze.
And only one thing could grant such a sure victory.
“Vi…” Caitlyn whispered through a cracked voice. Hunger had rendered her numb days ago – too thick to feel the way Vi’s corpse already weighed her down.
“How easy it was to fall. I will not forget the favour you have done for me, Caitlyn,” the creator almost grinned, still gripping Caitlyn’s chin to stop her head from falling back.
Tears formed in her eyes, but Caitlyn couldn’t feel them. Automatic instead, like some part of her understood what the creator meant. Like her body recalled what it was like to be alive.
Everything was for nothing. That part she understood – weathering the storms of ultraviolet against her skin. Letting the creator destroy her if it meant her dead body would shield Vi.
None of it had changed their fate.
The worst part was that Caitlyn had believed her humanity might’ve prevailed. That hunger might’ve freed her, and grief would not lurk so uncomfortably by the door. Had she not drunk from Vi. Had she not sent her away.
Had she been human .
The world might’ve been merciful.
The creator stepped back from her, letting Caitlyn’s head fall back against the cool metal of the chair.
“Answer one question. A simple thing, and perhaps I will consider freeing you.”
Somehow Caitlyn found the strength in her to meet his gaze, not quite daring herself to believe him.
“I don’t want to be freed… Not if Vi is the one who takes my place,” Caitlyn muttered, glassy eyes falling from the creator’s.
“I will not inflict on her what I have to you,” he answered. “She wishes to understand me. Have you considered that I may wish to understand her too?”
Caitlyn scoffed weakly. “Understand what?”
“The price of loss, of survival. What cruel hand of fate has permitted her to live?” The creator’s voice faltered – subtle enough to be missed. “An error in the machination. How the inevitable has escaped her. Time and time again.”
“It’s not inevitable. I won’t… I won’t let it be.”
“What could you do? Wounded. Starving. Half-lucid. Irredeemable in all but blood,” he stepped forward again, muffled footsteps riveting in Caitlyn’s skull. “Answer me.”
“What separates monster and human? What makes my creations cursed – disconnected from who they were?”
Caitlyn didn’t need to think. The answer was already on her tongue – the thing she longed for. The only thing that would unmake her as a monster.
“Humanity”.
:⛧ ¨༺ ♱✮♱༻¨⛧ :·
Vi had washed the irredeemable blood from her skin, changed into clean clothes and been given food all at the will of the creator.
Initially she’d refused to eat, glaring at him from the other side of the room, Caitlyn’s name never far from her lips.
What good will you be starving? The creator had asked her, and reluctantly, Vi had eaten.
He only spoke again once the entire plate had been finished, sitting across from her at a desk. Smoke poured from a lit, half-finished cigar, billowing up between them.
“Forgive me for summoning you here in such a cruel manner. I did not intend to burn the monster.”
“She summoned me here. Not you.” Vi muttered coldly, unable to hold his gaze for long.
“Is that what you believe? That she wanted you here, only a metre from me?” The creator’s eyes narrowed. “Or was her mind too fragmented by hunger to avoid revealing her location?”
Vi blinked, faltering. But she quickly regained her narrowed glare.
“Does it matter? Whether it was a trap or not, I would never leave her here. Starving and with you ,” Vi scoffed, digging the stake into the wood of the table. “Take me to her.”
The creator’s eyebrows raised at her demand, and he crossed his arms over his chest. “That will come. If you comply with what I require.”
Her eyes flicked up to him before looking back at the table.
“Why did you let me keep my stake?”
“I don’t fear it.”
“I could kill you,” Vi pressed the tip harder into the table to emphasise her point.
“What good would that do you? You need me alive… just as I need you alive.”
Vi exhaled bitterly. It will come , she reminded herself. Not yet, not until she’d bled every piece of information about Vindicta-7 dry from his body. But soon.
She didn’t want it to be merciful or quick. Nothing like the sharp strikes used to kill other irredeemables. Vi wanted him to bleed – to suffer. To look into her eyes and see every part of herself he had stolen.
More than anything, she wanted remorse to pour through the cracks in his mask. For him to die, not gleefully but hanging from the chains of his regret.
And that, she supposed, was worth a wait.
Vi conceded, leaning back in her chair to lock eyes with him again. “What do you need from me?”
“I saw you trying to shield your sister – from me. A noble act, though I admit you’re too late.”
Vi visibly tensed, her hand tightening now around the arm of the chair. “What is she doing here?”
“Being fed. They all are.”
“Why?”
“You think I wouldn’t provide for my creations? That I’d be so heartless as to cast them aside once they’d done what I wished?”
Vi almost scoffed. “How fucking kind of you.”
The creator leant forwards. “You may disagree with my methods, Violet. But would I truly have infected myself if I believed that Vindicta-7 was a weakness?” A slight grin flicked across his face.
“Your sister is powerful. Immortal, untouchable –”
“Irredeemable.” Vi snapped, her heart still clenching from seeing Powder once again.
“To you. But not all think as you do.”
Vi shook her head – not sadness. Not even anger anymore – instead, resignation. Bitterness perhaps. “So that’s it? You ended the world because it was fucking weak?”
He considered her words momentarily, eyes softening then narrowing. “Too long have we been human. Too long we have struggled under those born monsters.”
“That’s your excuse? Revenge? Hatred? No bullshit reasoning can undo what you’ve created.” Vi paused, speaking again in a low, cold voice. “I grieve her. Every day I grieve her. And I fucking resent the monster that did it.”
“There is a lot you don’t know about your sister’s circumstances, which is strange. I thought perhaps the file you stole would have given you some insight.”
Vi’s stomach plummeted, fingers going slack from where they’d gripped the chair. Her mind spun. Confusion. Disorientation. All she could muster was a stifled, “What?”
“Violet, I know you are not stupid. Didn’t it ever cross your mind? You saw no infected before your sister.”
She swallowed hard, pushing down the lump in her throat. The sick feeling in her stomach. “No…no…” she whispered and then found her determination again.
“No. Powder wasn’t the first irredeemable. Your accomplice was. I watched him kill her.”
“Must all monsters be infected? My accomplice was a monster, yes. But not an irredeemable.” The creator stared directly at her, something akin to excitement lighting up in his eye.
“Not until he drank your sister’s blood.”
Vi froze. The air itself grew thicker. Silent. Choking on the revelation.
That one sentence rang in her ears as the world shattered into nothingness at the edges.
Was Powder patient 0?
The first irredeemable. The start to all this. Not a mere victim, but the catalyst. The corrupted root splitting out from the seed the creator planted.
For a moment she almost believed him. But would he truly win through honesty? Instead, he seemed to want to shatter her from the inside out – holding up a mirror to the version of life Vi only saw in nightmares.
“You’re lying,” she spat, though her hand still shook on the armrest. “Powder isn’t patient zero. She … couldn’t be.”
The creator gave her one final look, lips curling into a grin – a sick thing that could only be of satisfaction. And then he spoke. Haunting words – so gut-wrenchingly sincere, each one ripping Vi into pieces.
She’d hoped once – meeting it in the light. Praying for a day free of guilt. Free of irredeemables. To return to her home and forget.
But the creator had proved, painfully – that once the world ended, it could never be reborn.
“The bar in Zaun, 361 days ago. Whisky on the rocks and some sweet fruit concoction.” He paused, soaking up her reaction, and then spoke.
Do you still doubt me, Violet?”
No…
Vi’s hands shook vehemently now, blood running cold through her veins.
“No… no, you weren’t there. You…” Her words trailed off into a shaky inhale. Lungs burning like all the oxygen had been sucked from the room.
“You saw some of my tapes, correct?” The creator stood, sorting through the top drawer of his desk, pulling out a tape – identical to the ones at his lab. “I kept this one for your arrival. I wanted to be present.”
Run , she told herself. Smash the screen. Do not let his rot under your skin. But her stubborn body refused to move.
For Caitlyn, she’d watch. The image of her mother – alive and healed – and Caitlyn’s genuine happiness were enough to keep Vi restrained.
The screen flickered, harsh white light blurring with the memories of that day that spun in her mind. Silence. Brief, only broken by rough breaths that scraped her throat raw.
“... Today is a monumental day for my project. Vindicta-7 has passed all preliminary tests and is ready to be released. After the failure of the prototype, I had my reservations about the success of this virus, and yet…”
Vi dug her nails into her palm hard to stop herself from looking away.
“Within a week, the world will be overrun by infected. No longer will there be such oppressive divides.” The creator seemed almost manic – eyes blown wide with excitement and a sick sense of righteousness.
“Both patients have been monitored closely in the recent days – young, healthy. Everything ideal for the survival of my virus….”
The creator fast-forwarded the tape – scenes blurring together and stopping on the two drinks. Frozen up there like a relic – untouched.
The whisky burnt on her throat; Vi could picture it now without trying. The sharp sting. A strange chemical aftertaste – one she’d attributed to a dirty glass or low-quality whisky.
“Our drinks…” Vi whispered, so painfully silenced it might’ve come from another.
The noise of the tape resuming filled the air, but Vi could barely pay attention anymore, staring through glassy eyes as the creator held up a syringe on the screen.
“...the optimum dosage of the virus.” The creator said, ejecting a pale, almost translucent liquid into Powder’s drink.
“I should hope the taste of this drink may be strong enough to –”
“Turn it off,” Vi demanded, hissing through clenched teeth. “Fucking turn it off.”
Her breathing came rapid now. Heavy. Unconstrained. Thick breaths that hurt her lungs on each strained inhale.
“Don’t you wish to know?” the creator asked, turning back to face her.
“Don’t make me watch this. Don’t make me watch you goddamn kill her,” Vi muttered. Low – perhaps angry, but the crack of her voice undermined that.
“You can’t? Or are you more concerned with what you will witness next?”
Vi shook her head – it couldn’t be true.
It wasn’t.
The tape was so hauntingly similar to the ones from the lab. Sterile. Scientific. But so achingly raw. Irredeemability hadn’t changed the creator – hadn’t darkened his soul further.
And Vi knew what was next – what guilt would refuse to let her see.
“I want you to understand . You of all people.”
“I’m not… I’m not. Goddamnit—”
The creator stepped forwards, stopping just in front of her.
“Say it, Violet. I know you understand.”
“Patient one—”
Her voice cut off, giving way to a guttural sob that not even a shaking hand to her mouth could muffle.
The creator’s face remained a mask of indifference, perhaps only subtle satisfaction slipping past.
“Finish watching,” he murmured. “You’ll thank me.”
So Vi watched.
Tracing the liquid with her eyes as it merged with the contents of the drink. Her drink. Deep amber liquid that held too many memories to fit such a cruel poison.
With each sip she’d recall that bittersweet night. Powder’s laugh – the soft glinting nights and gentle Zaun breeze that promised no change. The world’s final night alive.
Her final night alive.
Hopelessness came next. The disintegration of that crimson colour so dear to her. For so long Vi had wished it had been her, that perhaps fate would allow her to take Powder’s place in the grave of the irredeemable.
No longer did she need to wish. It was her – it had always been her.
Never fated to survive.
Never fated to live.
The tape ended, the creator’s voice giving way to a dense, suffocating silence. Every emotion had bled from her; nothing now but a dull emptiness.
A weight of the information her body refused to process.
Patient one. The anomaly. The missing data in the file. Her grave had already been dug, alongside Powder’s with matching headstones, Vindicta-7 running through her blood, deep enough to be in her bones.
And Vi had evaded death. Evaded the same fate bestowed on her sister. Reaping spoils of survival that were never truly hers.
But she could only outrun her fate for so long…
:⛧ ¨༺ ♱✮♱༻¨⛧ :·
One day before the fall.
“Humanity”.
“Is that your final answer?”
The creator blurred in front of her, his words distorted in her mind. If only Caitlyn could eat – feel the warmth of blood on her tongue – she’d be able to think.
Humanity made the most sense.
The only thing able to separate the darkness from the light, her, the creator, from Vi.
Shakily, Caitlyn nodded. “That’s my final answer.”
He stepped back, crossing his arms and leaning against the cell wall. A familiar sight – but one Caitlyn had grown long tired of seeing.
“Mm… not what I would have answered with.”
She gritted her teeth to not slam her hand down in frustration. “What does that mean? Are you keeping me here?”
The creator gave her no reply, turning away as if to leave.
“Are you going to kill me? Leave me to starve?” Caitlyn said coldly.
“I could kill you,” he began. “You’ve served your purpose.”
“But you won’t. Vi would destroy you,” she hissed out, words low and sharpened by hunger.
“Oh, Caitlyn.” The creator laughed, but it came out more as a scoff.
“No one mourns a monster.”
Caitlyn's eyes stayed fixed on him. Unfocused. Cold stone dug into her arms, probing her for a reply she didn’t have.
“Do you believe Violet will forgive you so easily? Not when your manipulation has placed you both in such an unfortunate situation.”
“I did what I had to do,” Caitlyn said. But her words lacked the sharp certainty she’d intended.
“Is that still how you see it? A noble sacrifice?” The creator shook his head. “Whatever you wish to excuse it as does not mask that it was betrayal.”
Caitlyn’s stomach clenched uncomfortably at his words, but she steeled her gaze. “I have no regret.
“Perhaps not. But your nature will kill her. Human and monster, light and darkness,” the creator said. “It was never meant to be.”
His eyes raked her form. Hunched. Trembling from the coiled hunger in her stomach.
“Don’t you wish to eat?”
Caitlyn gritted her teeth. More than anything, she desired the sweet relief of blood. To yield to the creator and demand it.
But she’d fight. Fight with every last part of her strength.
Fight the creator. Her hunger. The label of monster.
Even with the world swimming in front of her, Caitlyn clung to the last remnants of her identity.
“No.”
The creator gave no reaction, turning back to the darkness beyond the cell door.
“A lie.” He stilled just before it could swallow him. “But don’t worry. You’ll be fed soon.”
“Very
soon.”
:⛧ ¨༺ ♱✮♱༻¨⛧ :·
Day 18 since the world was reborn (Day 364)
Vi jolted awake.
Not from natural sunlight or the shift in Caitlyn’s body, but a jarring clanging noise.
A sharp sound proclaiming the end and the creator’s arrival.
Her body protested as she sat up, running a hand over tired eyes. Still clinging to the remnants of the little sleep her body had granted her.
Vi had spent most of her time considering her fate – her infection . But there was no dead weight of fear in her stomach, only a coiling frustration.
An inability to understand why cruel hands had ripped Powder from her, whispering life back into infected blood.
Why her?
Always the sun, the light – forced to stay alone and bright while choked breaths dropped into silence around her.
The creator lurked in the open cell door, waiting for her to meet his gaze before speaking.
“I wanted to give you some time to process.”
Vi scoffed, shaking her head. “I don’t understand it.” She leant her head back against the stone with a dull thud. “If you really infected me, why haven’t I died? Why haven’t I turned ?”
“There are many mysteries in death. That is a question I’ve been wondering too.”
“So that’s why you brought me here? To find out why your damn virus didn’t work on me?”
“Don’t you wish to understand too?”
Vi had no response. Truly, a part of her did, to finally understand the very thing she’d been seeking since the beginning.
The other part had long grown tired of knowledge. The part that craved home, and Caitlyn, and an end to this darkness-stained nightmare.
With a deep exhale, she replied.
“I do.”
For if the world were to stay dead, she’d die with it knowing why.
Notes:
HEYY
one of many plot twists, and the final build up to where the angst peaks in the next chapter.
I thought it best to just upload the chapter and edit it more later, as i've been overthinking it and wanting it perfect, but i RLY hope that twist hit.
Also ik its rather plot focused and angsty rn but its worth it for their reunion trust.
I hope u all like the way the plot is unfolding :)
Catch me on twt @severxnce_
Chapter 18: Grave of the Irredeemable
Summary:
The shadow of a monster cannot exist without the light of humanity.
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
Day 19 since the world was reborn (and one year since it ended)
Vi had always known this day would come. The end, as the broadcast stations had called it, once the first traces of Vindicta-7 had spread through Zaun’s veins. One year had passed since then. Vanished in a haze of grief. Guilt. Desperation.
A year of ghosts. Ashes. Missed funerals.
A collective grief-stricken cry that echoed through every empty street and abandoned house. Still painted in the colours of life – half-empty coffee cups that once had been promised a return.
Vi wondered if Ekko would hunt for her – not alone, but amongst the horde of the outpost. Armed with lit torches and sharpened stakes.
Pretending that anger was enough to do any true damage.
More likely the world would end with Vi.
Just as intended when that first bitter sip of whisky burnt her throat 365 days ago.
Somehow she’d fallen right into the creator’s open hand. Eaten as he wished – something rich, strong enough to mask whatever drug he’d slipped in.
Sedating her. Not for long – but enough time to trap her here. Bound by silver chains and the thick scent of blood lingering in the air.
Vi’s eyes fluttered open, shifting the chains gently as her disorientated mind attempted to understand through the fog.
Bleak stone. Greyness, and an overbearingly bright light filtered through first.
Vi yanked the chains – gentle, breaking the silence. Then feverish. Panicked. Pulling with all her strength to be freed.
“Settle down.”
Her heart plummeted. An odd sensation that she’d refuse to acknowledge as fear.
Vi tore her head up, locking onto the creator.
He stood a few feet away from her, lit cigar between his lips, his working eye seeming to stare right through her.
Down to the vulnerable, weak parts of Vi’s body.
Different from the last time they’d spoken. Nervousness conveyed in the shake of his hands he couldn’t quite hide.
Vi stared at him for a moment – half convinced this was a wild dream or a sick hallucination.
But it wasn’t.
The creator was here. Truly here.
And Vi was still trapped.
“Get these fucking chains off of me,” Vi snapped, tugging at them again to emphasise her point.
The creator continued to stare at her – a fascinated sort of gaze that made Vi’s skin crawl.
She almost wondered if he’d looked at the prototype this way. Maybe he did, for the prototype too was flawed.
Vi felt strangely that she understood the prototype more than anyone, how he must’ve watched his humanity drip into sterile tubes. Counting down the minutes until his thoughts spun to the hum of Vindicta-7.
Alive.
Barely.
The creator interrupted her thoughts with a low voice.
“I have to do it this way.” He exhaled a thick cloud of smoke. “For so long I had wondered what came of you. And now…”
He crushed his cigar under his boot. “I cannot let this opportunity pass me.”
Cold sweat prickled on Vi’s skin, and her gaze fell to her lap. Never had she felt so trapped. Suffocated. The metal restraints dug painfully into her arms – a reminder of her weakness.
Her inability to escape.
“What are you going to do?” She said. Low, but not missing the sharpness.
“I had once thought of my creation as perfect. But you – you change everything,” he murmured, eyes blown wide. “The anomaly… the only one to be infected and – and not turn.”
Vi almost shuddered, each manic word the creator spoke like knives to her skin.
This was the true creator, the one he masked through a facade of calm. The voice of a sick, manic individual. Unpredictable.
The real anomaly, in a sea of morality.
Vi lifted her chin to meet his gaze, refusing to break.
“Am I going to turn?” She snapped. “Does your virus still run through my goddamn veins?”
When he gave no reply, Vi yanked the chains again, clashing abrasively with her yell:
“Tell me.”
The creator stepped over to her, boots clattering on the stone. “I don’t know—”
“You don’t know? You don’t fucking know? It’s your virus.”
“Is it?” The creator tilted his head. “Or is it you?”
Vi blinked.
Her mind began to replay Caitlyn’s words. Anomaly with the sample… or immunity.
Either was plausible.
If she was here, Vi thought angrily. Caitlyn would know… she’s devoted everything to understanding this.
She’d say something calm. Factual. Too intellectual to be false. More than anything, something to hold Vi together.
But she was breaking.
And Caitlyn wasn’t here. In fact, she likely had no clue that Vi was patient one.
Nor that she had been this entire time.
Vi exhaled deeply. Clenching her fingers against the chair and then relaxing them.
“Immunity”, she said, ignoring the sweat dripping down her back.
The creator laughed, tossing his head back. “Oh, Violet. No one is immune from Vindicta-7.”
“How do you know?” Vi asked, and this time he had no direct response, choking on his own lies.
Only momentarily – a slight slip of the mask.
“Because I dedicated years of my life to this virus. To understanding it… modifying it. Building it up until nothing would be able to withstand it,” the creator said, voice thick with pride. “And nothing would be able to reverse it.”
Vi fell silent, clenching her jaw until it ached. Something, at least, to ground her, remind her that life was still hers.
Immunity was always a fleeting dream. Something they’d clung to since the folder because hope seemed the only thing to live for in the remnants of this world.
The creator continued.
“I have now come to believe that the sample was an anomaly. That somehow… the virus slipped into your drink did not work as intended.”
She scoffed. “So you don’t need me anymore. Let me go now.”
The creator tutted, shaking his head. “If only it were that easy. Unfortunately I cannot let you go.
Vi’s hands tightened again.
“You see… It bothers me incredibly that you have evaded turning. Proven a weakness in my virus.”
“So?” Vi scoffed with narrowed eyes.
“So…”
The creator gave her a long look. Impossible to read any emotion playing out on his face.
Maybe there were none.
And then he continued. Low. Refusing to break the eye contact.
“I’ve decided to try again.”
No.
Her body tensed, skin prickling at the idea.
Luck. That was all her survival had been – embers that kept burning by chance and nothing else.
This time she doubted anything would be enough to pull her from the grave.
Every movement of the creator seemed to echo around her skull. His boots scraping against the stone, the clink of glass on the table.
And then silence.
The creator turned back to her with a syringe of liquid.
Not clear like Vindicta-7 but dark. Thick.
Vi understood from one simple glance that it was blood.
Irredeemable blood.
And if she hadn’t recognised it, her body, her soul certainly had.
“No…No,” she tried to back away, but the chains held her firm.
“Get that shit away from me,” she choked out – half demand, half plea.
He ignored her, stepping closer.
The room spun a little more with each purposeful step – reverberating loudly in her head.
“Relax—”
“No. No, I won’t let you. Get the fuck away.”
Vi fought.
Yanking at chains. Yelling. Praying. Anything to end this nightmare.
Her chest heaved, aching, until she felt her lungs had run dry.
“Why fear, Violet? You’ll be perfect… immortal. A carrier of my creation. Everything slotting back into place.”
Somewhere she heard him.
Quiet. Muffled.
“You can’t do this to me… You can’t. You-” Vi’s voice cut off to ragged inhales, the noise of the chains almost deafening now.
The creator held her arm firmly – digging his nails in. Not enough to hurt, but to restrain. To calm her, even, like one would a rabid animal.
Light hit the syringe, lighting up deep black to glow red in some places.
“It won’t hurt,” the creator murmured over her desperate pleas. “I’ll take care of you – just as I have done to your sister."
Vi looked away – breaths catching. Unable to watch her slow decay for even a moment.
This truly was the end.
The end of Caitlyn, Powder too. Never again would she meet Ekko in the light or lie between Caitlyn’s arms.
Never would she be anything anymore. Nothing but another number. A carrier of the irredeemable virus, her brain wiped clear.
She thought of Caitlyn. The way she’d speak Vi’s name like a prayer. Or perhaps a curse.
Vi. Vi.
Playing over in the hopes it might drown out the faint noise of her skin breaking.
The sharp point of the needle pricked her skin, past each remnant of love like gentle whispers that still lingered.
It almost felt like Caitlyn. The way she’d kissed her – and the way she never would again.
Tears fell freely – flowing like that of her dearest moments, each one rotting away.
Irredeemable blood amalgamating with Vi’s humanity.
To drown is to once have breathed.
Vi chose to linger on that – each final exhale a memory.
And she had lived. Had felt the breeze on her skin and love igniting her veins. Had feared. Yearned.
Humanity had killed her.
And yet it was the only thing that kept her alive.
Vi made herself watch – the way the thick, irredeemable blood slowly dispersed from the syringe.
He did always like to take his time. Draw out the moment until it was engraved in Vi’s mind.
After the injection came silence.
A thick, deafening kind where Vi’s limbs tingled with numbness and the virus already bloomed in once-pulsing veins.
It could be that which Vi would keep as her final memory.
The creator stepped back once the end had begun, but Vi couldn’t look at him.
“This time… I’d hope you won’t be so lucky.”
Luck.
Vi bit the inside of her cheek hard to try and curb the way her voice caught.
“Are you going to kill me? Lock me up until I fucking die? Cause I’d rather you make it quick.”
The creator grinned, nothing in his eyes but cruelty. “It will be quick, I assure you.”
“But I won’t kill you.” He turned away, lips curling up.
Vi met his gaze for a final time.
Holding her breath in case it was to be her last, waiting for the final noise of the creator’s voice.
And then he looked – somewhere distant behind her, speaking in a drawn-out tone.
“She will.”
0 days before the fall.
No one mourns a monster.
Caitlyn could hear those five words now. Close.
Too real to be imagined.
Spoken in a low voice and distorting from the creator’s voice to Vi’s to her own.
And a monster was all she was. Irredeemable without ever being infected, driven half-insane from the hunger that riveted in her stomach like something alive.
The heartbeat thudded between her ears. The background noise to every minute of torture the creator had subjected her to. A reminder of humanity. It’s delicacy. Something she should’ve never touched.
The creator had taken her to some sort of pit. A flat open space, devoid of all natural light and closed off at the sides. Caitlyn had looked, fleetingly, for an escape, but her starvation would hinder any attempt.
She didn’t even have the strength to stand, hunched up instead against the wall. Flat against the darkness, like she was never there at all.
Silent, for what might’ve been eternity, broken only by the voice in Caitlyn’s head.
Monster. Irredeemable.
The creator had been right in a way. Professing her fall, burning her until she couldn’t recall what she’d screamed for. Understanding the thoughts that stuck in Caitlyn’s mind like a part of her.
She wanted to think of Vi. Picture her strong arms and dirt-covered jacket, or the way she’d kiss the top of her head and promise the world was still theirs.
But Caitlyn wouldn’t let herself.
Not when that dear human had long grown to be her biggest weakness.
Somewhere she could hear a steady drip of water – a few floors down perhaps, but it provided an attempt at distraction.
More silence. More waiting.
And then, the creaking open of heavy doors.
The smell hit her immediately. Intoxicating blood, enough to whip her head up in its direction.
Not just any blood.
Vi’s blood.
She’d remember it anywhere.
The taste of healing. Paradise. Forgiveness.
Her mouth already watered, tasting the memory of the red liquid on her tongue, for somehow drinking from Vi could never chain the urges. Caitlyn trembled, clasping a hand over her mouth and digging her nails in.
Vi’s footsteps echoed on the stone. Careful – but not afraid. Stopping just in front of her, though Caitlyn didn’t look up.
“Cait?”
No…
Vi spoke so softly, carrying her name like it still meant something. Whispering, just as she had done when the light was still theirs.
Caitlyn’s heart sank.
The creator had done this, graced her with everything she wanted, because he knew she’d destroy it. The starvation made sense, his words too – each one a dagger to the foundations she built herself on.
He had brought back her light – so faint. So gentle.
And completely powerless to Caitlyn’s darkness.
“Don’t – don’t look at me,” Caitlyn choked out, muffled from the hand still clasped over her face.
“Oh my God – Oh, Cait… What did he do to you?”
The words trickled through. Foggy. Background noise against the roar of her hunger – sparking in every part of her.
She couldn’t bring herself to answer, to bare her weakness for Vi’s gaze, to surrender to that heartbeat that almost felt part of her.
Alive.
So alive it mocked her.
This was always fated to happen. Since that first day in her kitchen, Vi’s blood luring her to drown. To fall.
No one mourns a monster.
Caitlyn cried out, slamming her hands over her ears to drown out the noise, the voice. Vi’s heartbeat.
“Cait…” Vi stepped closer, reaching out to her.
For a moment, Caitlyn wanted to grasp her hand, to pull Vi deep into her arms where nothing could touch them again.
Back to the windowsill or the radio tower, when they were merely two silhouettes that did not truly know evil.
But Caitlyn knew herself. Knew that love could never outweigh hunger.
She spoke again, choked out and desperate.
“Stay back. Stay –”
Her fangs were already out – the smell of Vi’s blood too intoxicating. Everything she’d ever wanted.
Shakily, Caitlyn found herself rising to her feet.
Whether to go closer or to flee, she didn’t know. Drawn to Vi in every lifetime. Every eternity.
Moving forward – more instinct than anything else, her steps preordained centuries ago. Vi didn’t flinch, didn’t cower. Just watched her with soft, hurt eyes.
“I know you won’t do it… You won’t hurt me –”
“I already have,” Caitlyn snapped, clawing at herself to restrain her hunger. “I could never change what I am.”
“No.” Vi moved closer again, close enough for Caitlyn to smell the odd acridness under the heaven of her blood. “Fight it. Fight the bullshit he’s told you.”
“You should’ve never involved yourself with a monster,” Caitlyn choked. “This was always going to happen. I was always going to hurt you –”
“Cait,” Vi murmured, almost pleading. “I don’t care. I will never see you as a monster… as an irredeemable.”
She was silent for a few moments. Trying somewhere in her shattered mind to listen and believe for once in her life that she could be redeemed.
Through blurred eyes she looked at Vi. Her pale eyes held nothing but love; Caitlyn could almost see it.
Exactly as it had been the first time Caitlyn had drunk from her.
The stillness held for one more beat before her hunger took over and she stepped back.
Frenzied, disconnected from her soul – watching from above as she destroyed it all. Another prototype.
Another life lost at the hands of the creator, dismantling her from the inside out.
Caitlyn turned away, inhaling deeply to hold herself back. Somewhere, the creator’s eyes burnt into her – studying her fighting a war she’d already lost.
The world darkened and blurred. Nothing tangible except the smell of blood. Vi reached out to her. Steady, not shaking.
Not afraid.
For a moment time froze. Caitlyn would find her humanity, buried under too many layers of starvation to still be real.
Perhaps they’d go back to places they once loved, before their time knew to expire and when Vi’s blood still tasted like forgiveness. Or back to Vi’s light and whispering silent goodnights under starlit skies.
Close enough to see the soft glow – too far to destroy it.
Caitlyn shut her eyes tightly. Clinging to the final moment of stillness. Silence.
Restraint slipping from her until her hands bled from clawing at it.
One more heartbeat. Then another.
And then she lunged.
Moving forward at lightspeed. Leashed by the creator in a body that wasn’t truly hers.
They hit the floor with a dull thud that shattered the silence. Not clean, but desperate. All fangs and regret.
“Cait, please—”
Vi fought – pushing her back, life hanging between them.
But the creator lived in every part of her. In her mind like a virus, dragging her head down to Vi’s neck where life thrummed steadily.
“Cait… I’m infected. I’m infected.” Vi yelled through scraping breaths.
Infected.
She pulled back.
Only momentarily, enough to register that one word. But Caitlyn was already infected. Already irredeemable.
Darkness sank deep into a body never hers, bleeding from wounds the creator had reopened, not given.
Oh, how she wanted to fight. Sink teeth deep into her own flesh, over half-healed burn wounds and Vi’s touch in every pore.
Punish herself. Not for betrayal, nor grief. But for believing the light could ever be truly hers to hold. For letting that heartbeat play on loop, distorted in her mind.
How was it they found each other in every grave? In each battlefield of ash and corpses, together even when the world willed them apart.
Caitlyn found Vi’s eyes one final time – a sea of pale blue. A softness only reserved for her, pleading. Knowing that this was the end.
She could have fought. Maybe in better conditions she might’ve; that was possibly the worst part. Because Caitlyn wasn’t infected, and once she had controlled her hunger.
But what more fitting of a punishment for a monster than eternity in the grave of the irredeemable?
Swiftly, she sank her teeth into Vi’s neck. Tears fell, like part of her deep somewhere was aware. Alive.
Tearing into skin she’d once kissed, feeling as Vi continued writhing under her, heated skin now cold.
Tasting it all – regret, guilt. Forgiveness. Even now.
Drinking, not controlled like before. Instead feral. Fuelled by regret and Vi’s pleas dying down to whispers.
She tasted the night at the radio tower. Flickering memories dancing before her eyes. Vi’s hands on her skin just as they were now.
And their first kiss lingering on her lips. Laughing breathlessly between warm sheets and Caitlyn’s soft words.
You are the sole proof that something good and hopeful exists in this cruel and broken world.
Perhaps it had taken the bite to truly understand that.
Caitlyn had destroyed it. Their transient, sweet, eternal connection. Their red-stained hope. Their sunset. Their gentle whispers carried down to where their homes met.
Where their souls connected.
Nothing now but emptiness. A thick fog that suffocated Caitlyn under the weight and promised the end.
Vi was still now, Caitlyn too.
Both infected and half dead in the quiet of a pit that too seemed to whisper funeral rites.
Darkness, for a too-stretched-out time period.
And then the light caught up to them.
Streaming in like knives to wounded skin, and enough to send Caitlyn back into the shadows with a loud hiss. piercing behind cerulean eyes so accustomed to darkness.
Caitlyn brought a blood-stained hand up to shield herself.
Pure white light filled her vision, too intense to locate Vi. She scanned the pit they’d been imprisoned in, nothing catching her gaze.
Except a small flicker of blue above them. Illuminated for seconds before it too returned to the darkness.
Powder.
Caitlyn recalled that same split – the slip of the monster’s skin worn over Powder’s own. How she’d hesitated when Vi’s eyes had met hers.
Irredeemables hadn’t had the functions to understand, to reason with the virus that operated their mind. Yet Powder seemed to know. To recognise how it felt to burn.
And how Vi must not have the same fate.
When the darkness returned, both were gone.
The haze in Caitlyn’s mind had somewhat cleared. Enough now to taste the acrid, irredeemable blood on her tongue. To feel regret so deeply in red-stained bones.
She’d doomed them both.
Kneeled to the hunger and obeyed it – nothing more than a wild beast laid to rest in the grave of the irredeemable. Thick dirt in her lungs from pretending to be alive, tuning in to the lingering noise of the heartbeat.
Caitlyn sank to her knees, curling up against the cold stone and aching for the warmth of Vi’s arms. Wishing to lie close enough to feel Vi’s soul against hers.
Footsteps came instead. Steady, too familiar. Each one conjuring a memory of the four stone walls and the ultraviolet.
She didn’t look up. Not yet.
“I knew you’d fall, Caitlyn.”
His words made something coil in her stomach, and her eyes stayed stuck to the floor.
“You don’t know anything about me,” she said, though her voice lacked any bite.
“Would I have placed you here with her if I thought you were strong enough to fight?” The creator stopped in front of her, but Caitlyn could not look at him.
She had no answer, words running dry against the remnants of the virus on her tongue.
“Infected now. The monster you were always supposed to be. You and Violet both.”
“You’re lying—” Caitlyn muttered shakily.
“She was always infected. Patient one… and now you…” the creator laughed. “But you were always a monster. Unable to control your urges for even a minute.”
Patient one?
Caitlyn froze, whipping her head up to finally meet his gaze.
Her blood had run cold at that – Vi as patient one. The missing data from the folder.
“She couldn’t be,” Caitlyn muttered – more to herself than the creator.
The creator watched her, hunched on the floor and staring daggers at him.
“But she is. That is why I needed you to bring her here.”
Another few seconds of silence passed. Enough time for Caitlyn to process – to turn fear into pure anger. Something new sparked in her veins at his words. No longer thinly restrained fear or hatred.
Instead something alive.
Perhaps it was born from the end. A pained knowledge that Caitlyn truly did have nothing left to lose.
And she was so tired of being the creator’s puppet. Drinking down the poison he spoon-fed her like it was her last meal.
The creator had taken everything.
Caitlyn truly had nothing left to lose – perhaps nothing to gain either.
She got to her feet in a blur.
Holding herself strong, no longer shaking.
“It’s not humanity,” she said, meeting his gaze and this time holding it.
“What?”
“You asked me what separates monster from human. It’s not humanity.”
The creator’s eyes widened – only briefly, something glowing inside them.
“You’re correct. It isn’t,” he admitted eventually.
“Yet Vi isn’t a monster.” Caitlyn took a few steps towards him, holding her chin high.
“But you are.”
The creator’s mask shattered, calm demeanour dropping to frustration. Sharp thuds against cold stone as he took a few steps back from her.
“What’s wrong? Aren’t I the monster you always willed me to be? Irredeemable in blood too now.”
He said nothing, watching her form. Half-healed burns littered her skin, and Vi’s blood still dripped like poison from her lips.
The true original irredeemable.
“You said this would be my fall. But to fall is to once have looked down on the world,” she said, stopping in front of him.
Letting the air thicken. Letting the creator fear.
“I wonder,” she said slowly. “When will you fall?”
His jaw shook now, though he gritted his teeth in a futile attempt to hide it.
The heartbeat still rang clear in her ears, spurring her on, the background chorus of a true monster.
How ironic it was to see a monster drape another monster’s skin over his own. To absolve some far-fetched sin – standing amongst the shadows of his irredeemables to don the facade that it was his.
To embody the darkness. Live with it – draped like a regal gown and cast blame onto what? Creations? Idealisms of monsters painted in guilt?
Caitlyn understood now – and the creator had been right. The irredeemables were never truly monsters. No.
Instead a reincarnation. An echo from deep within – rumbling like that of the beating of a heart.
Humanity did not mask evil.
And one monster can cast a very large shadow – enough to submerge the world – sinking the virus deep like roots. Blooming into a creature – composed in each molecule of half blood, half decay.
Such a shadow the creator had architected. So grand you’d almost never notice the weakness at its centre. A barely-there glow.
Only now had Caitlyn noticed.
The shadow of a monster cannot exist without the light of humanity.
Caitlyn stared straight into his dead, unrepentant eyes – searching deep for the light.
A harsh glow.
Never like that of Vi’s, her soft, sunlight glow warming Caitlyn’s heart from the inside out.
And there it was. Buried deep, flickering – just enough to spin a dark shadow. The steady heartbeat continued in the silence.
Not guilt. Not telepathy.
The noise of humanity.
He had never been an irredeemable - not infected by the virus as they once might’ve believed.
Instead the creator was weak. Alive. Mortal. All he hid behind a facade because it was easier to pretend to be a monster than admit he was always one.
How wrong Caitlyn had been to ever think that precious heartbeat was Vi’s.
So she met his gaze again, speaking low, strong. No longer hesitant. Because she’d never understood the creator more in his life.
“Let me go.”
Notes:
HII
This is kinda a follow up from the last chapter, but i chose to do two shorter chapters bc i like ending on a cliffhanger.
I had this scene in my head since i started writing, and even struggled to write it bc it felt like crashing a car.
But it's necessary, and the angst will all be worth it.
With this chapter i will likely edit it later on, but i wanted you all to see it bc this pit scene has been in my head for so long.
Pls let me know what u think xx
Chapter 19: Until the sun rises, my love
Summary:
Everything I have ever done was because I will love you longer than I will know you.
Chapter Text
Day one since the end of the world.
The silence came first.
Finding her somewhere amidst rolling hills bruised by sunlight. Too far from the outpost to be saved, too far from the prison to return, filling every inch of a void once home to Vi’s pleas and the creator's prophecies.
The world hadn’t ended in a bang. Not the first time, and not now.
Instead it slipped away, lingering by the door and pretending it might’ve lasted. Corpses dressed as humans, under the pretence that survival would ever grace them. Vanishing in a whisper – a silent one.
The kind with teeth and regret in the same tone Caitlyn had used before the bite.
Vi couldn’t tell if it had killed her.
The pain came second. A stinging sensation brought on by the loss of adrenaline poured down her neck where the half-healed bite marks were engraved.
Perhaps she had died – there in the pit with Caitlyn’s body curled around hers, the irredeemable virus dripping from open veins.
And God, what a way to go.
Powder had freed her; the remnants of humanity in her mind that were unable to watch her sister burn on the same lit pyre.
Not that Vi had seen much – just the same flicker of blue illuminated for seconds.
But it was her. Vi would recognise that silhouette anywhere.
Vi flopped down against the trunk of a tree, letting the shadow’s coolness wash over her aching body, waiting to turn.
Several hours at most. Vi could already sense the humanity slipping from her. Knowing that if she closed her eyes, they’d never open to view the world the same.
Yet she succumbed to sleep anyway, too exhausted from each lengthy night lying awake in that cell, unable to soothe her rampant thoughts.
Vi awoke to the face only seen in dreams. Perhaps nightmares – in recent days they’d all blurred together. The sharp cheekbones she’d stroked with callous fingers so many times and those piercing eyes that drowned her like wild oceans.
Blurred, hardly there. A hallucination – for this version was unharmed. Almost human.
“Cait?”
She didn’t move, standing where she was, lit up by dying sunlight that didn’t quite touch her and silent. Searching somewhere for words enough to fill the distance.
“I’m sorry I killed you,” Vi whispered, her voice still thick with sleep and longing. “I’m so sorry.”
“Why apologise?” She asked, and Vi blinked – half-expecting her to stay silent. “I brought this upon us.”
Vi blinked through bleary eyes so Caitlyn’s figure would come back into focus.
Here she almost seemed real, the Caitlyn that Vi had grown to love deeply, and a stranger to the monster that had bitten her.
“I controlled your mind. I bit you… infected myself.”
Vi gritted her teeth. Caitlyn's words were true, achingly true, and briefly, Vi could think of no reply.
Eventually, she spoke, low and rough. “Why didn’t you fight?”
“I was starving—”
“No. No, don’t give me that bullshit. You were starving the first time we met, and you still didn’t-” Vi stopped herself, unable to replay what Caitlyn had done again.
“This was different. You don't know what he did to me.”
Vi got to her feet – fuelled by frustration, grief and the virus running between her skull.
“What did he do? Burn you? Tell you some half-assed bullshit ?”
“The same bullshit I’ve been telling myself for eternity,” Caitlyn snapped back, though hurt lingered behind the sharpness in her voice.
“So what?” Vi sighed with exasperation. “Weren't you strong enough to fight? To fight for—” VI’s voice caught. “For me.”
Caitlyn looked away, face contorted in what could only be anguish.
“We’re both gone. We’re both going to turn, and it was all for nothing ,” Vi continued at Caitlyn’s silence.
“My sister. Your mother. They’re never going to be free. We're going to die with them, Cait.” Vi ran a hand through her messy hair. “We’re going to fucking turn . Don’t you understand?”
Caitlyn’s expression – soft for a moment – hardened again.
“You chose to come to Stillwater. I never wanted you there. I never wanted you to leave the outpost.”
“What the fuck was I meant to do? Leave you there to die?” Vi grimaced, shaking her head. “I can’t stay away from you, Cait. No matter what you do.”
“Why?” She stepped forward; a frown cut deep into her face. “What will it take for you to realise being with a monster will only get you killed?”
“This was never going to work. We were always doomed, Vi; from the day we met, we were doomed.”
Vi scoffed, but it held no scorn. “Is that what you think? We never stood a chance?”
Caitlyn hesitated – only for a second – before she held her head high and spoke one word.
“Yes.”
Vi reeled like it had stabbed her. They’d been so many things – eternal. Fleeting. The light and the darkness. They’d yearned and hurt. Died and been reborn.
But doomed ?
They were never doomed.
Vi’s muscles relaxed, the last scraps of her fight bleeding out from her. “I’d never think that about you,” she said quietly. The words of finality and a silent understanding that things could never return to how they were.
She turned to go – back to the light where Caitlyn couldn’t reach her. Perhaps the warmth would soothe the part of Vi’s heart she’d ripped out.
“Vi-”
“What?” Vi spun back around to face her.
“I never wanted you to stay away.”
“But—”
“I know,” Caitlyn said softly. “I was selfish. I thought if you were at the outpost… this shit wouldn’t have happened.”
“The only monster was the one you made of yourself. I never saw you as that. Never.” Vi turned away from her. “No matter what you did.”
And then quietly.
“Even now.”
Caitlyn was silent. Vi could feel the burn of her eyes on her back, watching as Vi was unable to move, frozen by the half of her that couldn’t part from Caitlyn again.
“Don’t go,” Caitlyn said eventually.
Vi dug her nails hard into her palms, fighting with every last part of her strength not to run back into Caitlyn’s arms and stay there until death came for them.
But seeing her hauntingly beautiful face. One she’d see in every dream, every virus-induced hallucination, knowing that their time was running out.
Caitlyn would go first. Born dead, with no humanity for the virus to fight, slipping out of consciousness and waking up an irredeemable.
Vi would sooner die than watch that.
“I have to,” she said solemnly and looked one final time at the hope her world had been reborn with.
And then, with the heaviest heart she’d worn since the outbreak, Vi left.
:⛧ ¨༺ ♱✮♱༻¨⛧ :·
Day 3 since the end of the world.
Vi’s house was exactly as she left it.
Sheets still thrown back from where she’d left in a hurry one day to see Caitlyn, unknowing that she’d never return the same.
Sunlight still poured through in soft golden waves through half-drawn curtains, catching on the pile of stakes that still overflowed from her desk.
It was preserved in its entirety. Still. Silent.
Untouched, like something she was never meant to return to.
But Vi had returned. Probably because there was nowhere else for her to go.
She’d slipped back into her old routine – eating mediocre tinned food on the back porch and watching the sunset – wondering each time if that day had been her last.
It never felt quite like it had for the version of Vi who had once lived here; grieving Powder had too died one day. Perhaps when she’d been infected or before that, when Caitlyn had first burrowed deep into her soul.
The sun had set now, transforming into a deep blanket pierced by dim stars, marking the end of Vi’s third day infected. A tin sat discarded next to her, only half eaten, and lit up by the golden hue of the lantern.
In the quiet hum of night, Vi’s mind drifted to Ekko.
Would he search for me
? She wondered. Several days were undoubtedly enough for him to grow restless and worried. But she’d say nothing – it was better that Ekko never found out.
One day he might see her, infected and lurking outside of the outpost – because the faint, alive part of her mind would remember.
And he wouldn’t kill her. God knows he didn’t have the strength for that. But he’d go back to his room. Alone. Playing their last conversation on repeat and wishing he’d have fought harder for Vi to stay.
A soft noise broke her thoughts. A familiar one that often caught up to her on silent nights like this.
And yet Vi’s breath still caught, heart still clenching as it had every time.
“You haven’t turned,” she commented quietly, as the golden light hit Caitlyn’s figure, casting deep shadows on the contours of her face.
“Neither have you.”
Vi laughed. Bitterly, a scoff more than anything. “Any day now.”
Caitlyn was silent for a moment, eyes locked onto Vi’s hunched figure, and then she brought her hand out from behind her back.
Whisky.
Another bottle aged in her estate – identical to the one that had brought them together.
It seemed to all come down to this one drink – the burn of a million memories that had spun every piece of fate that had led them here.
“What’s this for? Reminiscing?”
Caitlyn grinned, though it didn’t reach her eyes. “I suppose. Maybe I simply wanted to bring you something.”
“You said that the first time.”
“Mm,” Caitlyn agreed. “And I was lying then too.”
Vi shook her head in exasperation but shifted over anyway.
Caitlyn seated herself alongside her, not quite close enough to touch, but enough that their elbows would brush each time the whisky bottle was passed.
“Last drink, huh?” Vi joked, her face faltering when Caitlyn didn’t laugh with her.
“Don’t say that,” she sighed deeply. “I want to pretend we’re back at the beginning again. That it’s the night we met, and nothing has happened yet.”
“But things…have happened, Cait. And we…” Vi stopped herself, clenching her fists briefly.
What did it truly matter?
Nothing could change. Nothing could undo the virus blooming in their veins and the way the air burnt with unsaid words.
Perhaps it was better to pretend, for once, that they still had a chance.
“Go on then,” Vi said.
“You left this at my house.” Caitlyn held out the whisky, echoing her words from the start.
“Did I really?” Vi grinned, taking it from her. “Well, I was a little distracted.”
“That’s not what you said the first time.”
“It’s what I was thinking.”
Caitlyn raised her eyebrows, but the smile never left her face. “Distracted with what exactly? I remember you were quite scared –”
“Was not,” Vi protested, leaning back on one hand. “I was distracted by those eyes. Even then, they drew me in.”
Caitlyn rolled her eyes, but Vi noticed the faint blush that crept onto her cheeks.
“Why did you bring me this? I never asked you that before,” Vi said at her silence.
“You were too busy being wary of me –”
“Yeah, yeah. Answer the question.” Vi uncapped the whisky and took a long sip, hoping the conversation would distract from how bittersweet the memories tasted.
Caitlyn sighed but caved. “I suppose… it pleased me to know I wasn’t alone. That one city over, you were suffering just as I was.” She paused, thinking of her next words. “And you intrigued me… how the world had ended, and you continued living.”
“I wasn’t really living… just surviving.”
“Perhaps not. But you made something out of the wreck. A life.”
Vi tilted the bottle, watching as the amber liquid caught on the glow of the lantern, shining almost gold.
Silence filled the space. Warm for once, and so achingly different from the cold emptiness that Vi had grown used to.
But she knew, somewhere past the facade that it was the start, that the end had already passed.
That this moment was nothing but a dead memory dug up from a long-stilled grave.
Vi clung to it anyway. They both did – holding it like it still had a pulse.
Everything seemed too familiar. The whisky, the way Caitlyn looked at her. The softness of the night, looking out into her garden.
Like nothing had changed at all.
Too late, Vi had come to know that life always did shine the brightest before it died.
“Do you ever wonder how things might’ve been if we met before? When the world still breathed and no one was infected,” Vi asked softly.
Caitlyn bit her lip, thinking before she replied. “I don’t think we would have. The apocalypse brought us together.”
“Yeah,” Vi conceded. “I guess it did.”
She took a slow sip. Stalling. Not quite ready for them to move past the life they could have had.
“But I wish you could have known me without all…this.” Vi gestured to the silent darkness around them, devoid of each steady noise of life it had once known.
Caitlyn shook her head. “There’s something about borrowed time that…lights everything up. Would we have really known each other without the end of the world? Knowing the worst parts of each other – the grief, the anger… and regret.”
“But I would have wanted to see you happy, not… fuck … not like this.”
“Oh, Vi,” Caitlyn said softly, eyes filled with genuine care above the deep grief. “Never was I so happy as with you.”
Vi stopped then and looked at her through glassy eyes. Really looked – taking her in like it was the last time.
Each feature, those eyes, Vi had lost herself in too many times. The grief that lingered behind them. The way love and humanity still shone through.
And God, she would miss that face – miss Caitlyn.
Her Caitlyn.
More than the world, more than her past life.
More than anything Vi had ever had.
And if the world ending was what brought them together.
Vi would end it in every lifetime.
:⛧ ¨༺ ♱✮♱༻¨⛧ :·
The hours slipped away in a haze – disappearing with the whisky – until they had nothing left but an empty bottle and bittersweet memories.
At some point, they’d found themselves lying down and watching the stars. Shoulders touching in a final promise of connection.
Ghosts more than people now, haunting a place they once knew.
Silent. Not because they had nothing to say, but instead that they had too much.
And not nearly enough time.
“How did you escape?” Vi asked eventually. A simple question, likely to evade saying the painful things she wished.
“The creator was never what we thought. Never an irredeemable,” she said quietly, glassy eyes meeting those of the stars.
“What was he?”
“A human,” Caitlyn sighed. “I should have known… The heartbeat was always there.”
“And you didn’t realise?”
“I always thought it was you… My mind conjuring something sacred. Some hope for me to cling to when everything was in ruins.”
Vi paused for a beat, staring into the sky like the stars knew something she didn’t. “I should’ve known too. Only a human could do something so fucked.”
Caitlyn smiled sadly. “Nothing we ever thought was real. The irredeemables were never monsters… and the creator was never one of them. I used mind control on him to leave.”
Perhaps it might’ve saved us , Vi thought. Had they known.
Had things been different, maybe the creator wouldn't have gotten so close in a mortal body.
But Vi knew one thing. One sacred, truthful thing that nothing could change.
“You were real,” she said gently. “We were real.”
“For a bit, we were,” Caitlyn agreed.
Silence stretched over them again – each word a countdown to their last. Caitlyn’s words ran in Vi’s head.
Were.
The past tense gutted her, deep in an already wrecked heart.
But they had been real.
Imperfect and messy and so – so painfully real.
Vi turned over to look at Caitlyn, reaching a hand out to touch her cheek, pretending for a moment that the soft grass was the silk of Caitlyn’s sheets. That they were lying in her bed instead of their graves.
“I’d always thought I would stake myself if I got infected,” Vi admitted, tracing over the softness of Caitlyn’s jaw.
“Will you?”
She shook her head. “I can’t live with never seeing you again. Even if we’re dead. Infected. Somewhere… I hope our paths will meet again.”
Caitlyn leant into her touch – so close now their foreheads almost brushed.
“Promise me something.”
“Anything”, Vi whispered.
“Don’t look for me. If I turn… and you don’t. Don’t go back here; don’t try to meet me in the radio tower.” Tears spilt from Caitlyn’s eyes now, but she continued – through a choked voice. “Don’t hold onto a life you aren’t living anymore.”
Vi said nothing, instead kissing Caitlyn’s forehead softly – finding the words, because she could never, never promise to not search for her.
“I can’t promise you that, Cait. You know I can’t.”
Caitlyn squeezed her eyes tight, but the tears leaked past anyway – each one a part of herself that Vi had loved.
Once.
A timeline different to their current one that no longer intersected.
“Don’t cry,” Vi said softly, brushing the tears from Caitlyn’s face with a gentle touch.
“ Please , Vi. Promise me. Promise you won’t waste your life on a ghost.”
Vi bit her lip hard, now to hold back her own tears and the
stinging
lump in her throat.
“I…”
She didn’t want to say it. To lie. But for Caitlyn, she’d give a final piece of hope.
A final anchor to cling to until the virus came for them.
“I promise.”
Yet Vi’s hand lingered on her face, and their breath still mingled under dying starlight. Neither able to pull away.
Both trying to convince themselves that they could ever survive apart.
Caitlyn laughed bitterly, blinking back pained tears. “I always knew we’d never make it. That sooner or later we’d burn.”
Vi didn’t speak – knowing that nothing would come out except a raw, broken sob.
“I just… thought we’d have longer. A couple of decades, maybe. I think that was…too generous, though.”
“I thought we’d have eternity .” Vi’s voice caught on the last word.
Caitlyn chuckled again – bitter. Broken. “Eternity is too cruel a life for you. I’d never wish that.”
“Eternity with
you
,” Vi said, eyes wide with grief. “Even in this broken,
fucked-up
world. I would spend eternity with you.”
Caitlyn pulled back to look into her eyes, and Vi’s breath caught.
Even tear-stained and dying, Caitlyn was the most beautiful thing she had ever seen.
And then she spoke. So final. So sincere that Vi’s heart shattered.
“It’s too late.”
It was too late.
Perhaps that was why the words spilt from Vi’s mouth as freely as her tears.
“I wish I’d told you sooner,” Vi began, her words coming out in a rush. Aching. “Before the bite and the creator. Before the world truly ended.”
“Tell me what?”
Vi pulled her closer until their foreheads touched and their tears mixed on warm skin. Pausing. Savouring the feeling.
“That I loved you,” she said. Her voice caught, coming out choked. Yet Vi spoke.
She wanted Caitlyn to know.
“That I still love you. That I always will, in every universe, in every version of us.”
:⛧ ¨༺ ♱✮♱༻¨⛧ :·
Caitlyn’s jaw trembled, tears slipping past half-closed eyes.
I love you too , she thought.
Everything I have ever done was because I will love you longer than I will know you.
But the words didn’t come.
Vi’s heartbeat rang in her ears – a death bell now, a reminder of what Caitlyn had already lost.
Somewhere under a thousand glimmering lights and death’s gaze on them from the shadows, Caitlyn couldn’t bear to say it.
Not because she didn’t feel it.
But because it felt too much like a goodbye. A whispered one dressed up as a declaration of love.
And saying goodbye felt too real.
So Caitlyn pressed her lips to Vi’s, hoping that she'd taste the longing on her lips. Understanding, without the need for words so empty.
Words that couldn’t even scratch the surface of what Caitlyn had come to feel for this human.
“I’ll miss—” Vi began once they broke apart.
“ Don’t. Don’t say it like this is goodbye.”
Caitlyn rested her head on Vi’s chest to feel the steady pulse of life beneath her. “Just stay with me… until the sun rises.”
Vi was silent, letting the soft hum of the night speak for her briefly. Holding Caitlyn tight against her body.
And then she spoke – strained, but gentle.
A promise. A goodbye.
“Until the sun rises, my love.”
“Until then.”
:⛧ ¨༺ ♱✮♱༻¨⛧ :·
Dearest Violet,
I’m writing this six feet deep in a room inside Jayce’s lab. Too far for the sun to reach, too close to truly forget it, bleeding dark red down one arm from where they sliced my irredeemability out.
Eternal and mortal all at once. Drifting like a trapped breeze. Hoping, for once, to reach for the sun.
Perhaps they’ll ask if I remember you – in a century or two, when I share my bed with corpses and monsters.
I’ll tell them I recall the warmth. A gentle thing lingering between the chill of March and the prickling heat of August. I remember the light too, how nothing ever stung so sweet.
With that I’d remember the darkness – eternity. Irredeemability. How I laid that beast down to sacrifice it – to what God I can’t recall.
It may have been you. Your star was the only one I ever directed my prayers to.
Perhaps they’ll catch us, two fleeting beings cursed by the virus, locking eyes where my home meets yours. Maybe I’ll remember then.
Let the virus pull me apart one final time so in that moment I can cling onto how it truly felt to love you.
If that is remembering.
Then I suppose I do.
Do you recall the radio tower? Alone up there, the world seemed to stop and play music only for our ears. Perhaps we’ll come back as two sunflowers, dancing to gentle melodies.
Facing each other, because there is no stronger light than you. Roots touching under parched soils. Cursed to stay frozen – not quite close enough to touch.
I was once told that to love is to bleed. To sacrifice, or to taste your humanity thick on my tongue. Have we truly loved if our veins are not empty?
And so the sun sets for one final time on the light I named you. Dispersed into nothingness, falling from star-scattered skies.
What an honour it was to love so deeply. So humanly. So alive.
I could almost forget that the only monster was the one I made of myself.
To love is to bleed, and if I cannot have you in the eternity of life,
I will have you in the eternity of death.
- C
Notes:
I admit I teared up while writing this.
They were so doomed, they always knew it and still tried.
The callback to chapter 3?? The way it's cyclical.
This chapter is one of my bittersweet faves, and I hope u guys like it x
Chapter 20: The sun will rise and we will rise with it
Summary:
I wonder, will you still look for the light when it has gone?
Notes:
HIII - just wanted to say I rewrote some of my earlier chapters and added a new ch5 to fix the pacing and things. There are still more rewrites i wanna do, but I will wait until the fic is done.
Find me on twt @severxnce_
xx
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Day 165,393
“I don’t understand.”
“Come out of the cell, Caitlyn,” Jayce sighed from the doorway. “At least talk to me properly upstairs.”
Caitlyn bit her lip, half tempted to give up and follow him. But the stubborn side of her kept her anchored – the side that would sooner die than see Jayce infected.
“What if I turn? It’s too big of a risk.”
“ Turn? ” Jayce almost scoffed. “It’s been six days, Cait.”
Reluctantly, she had to agree.
It had been six days since she’d bitten Vi – six whole days since she’d seen the creator, looking deep into dead eyes and commanding him to let her go.
And he had.
Stepped back from her, under an unbreakable spell, and watched as Caitlyn simply… walked out.
Part of her burnt at how preventable it all was. Had she known sooner that the creator was nothing but a mortal – not even weighed down by eternity – perhaps life might’ve taken a different course.
But it had taken the torture, the words – to truly understand him for what he was.
A sick, deranged individual, smart, painfully losing.
And a goddamn human.
Caitlyn stood, ignoring the way her legs protested from being sat for so long.
“Serves you right if I turn,” she muttered, following Jayce back up the stairs into the sterile main room of the lab.
Papers littered the table in a thick blanket, surrounded by various glasses and cups, coated in the dark remnants of blood. The room was barely lit up – only flickering lanterns and candles broke the darkness.
“Ignore the mess… we’ve been ” Jayce took a deep breath. “Working on a cure.”
Caitlyn took a seat at the table, pushing the mess of papers away slightly to create a space to rest her elbows. “There’s no cure, Jayce. That’s lucr-”
“There is a cure. I know there is… I just – haven’t figured it out yet.”
“You’ve been studying the virus for over a year now,” Caitlyn sighed. “Even the creator did not think there was a way to reverse it.”
“Really, Cait? Or did he just not want you to know?” Jayce went over to the fridge, throwing it open. “Are you hungry?”
“I could eat,” Caitlyn said, eyes flicking over to him before settling back onto the table.
He fixed them both a large glass of blood, and Caitlyn took it from him graciously – though guardedly.
“The results came back… for your blood test.”
Caitlyn sat up immediately, hand tightening around her glass. “And?”
“You’re not…” Jayce paused. “You’re not infected.”
“What?”
The information should’ve lifted every weight from Caitlyn’s shoulders, but it didn’t.
Instead, her stomach dropped – a lingering sort of feeling that came with pure, uncontrolled confusion.
“No… I bit Vi; I drank from her. How am I not infected?”
Jayce exhaled sharply. “I don’t know. Are you sure she was?”
“Yes –”
“Did you see her get infected – bitten or anything?”
“No… not exactly—”
“So she might not be infected at all. That’s what you’re saying.”
Caitlyn exhaled deeply through her teeth. “She knew she was.”
Jayce brought the glass to his mouth and took a slow sip. Steady, because for the first time in a week, Caitlyn would be okay.
“I think you should go see her.”
“I-” Caitlyn swallowed roughly.
Oh, how she wanted to see Vi again – human, alive Vi. Hear her gentle pulse running through Caitlyn’s ears and tell her – honestly – this time.
That Caitlyn Kiramman truly did love her, and her final act of love was not saying it if it meant goodbye.
“I can’t bring myself to,” she admitted, drumming her fingers against the polished wood of the table.
“Cait…”
“What if she’s dead, Jayce… or turned?” And then softer, “I can’t see her like that.”
Jayce rolled his eyes – somewhat affectionately. “Or she could be alive, just as you are.”
When Caitlyn said nothing, he continued.
“Look… I’ll go, as soon as it’s dark.”
Eventually, Caitlyn nodded. Relaxing her hand on the glass.
Jayce would go.
And Vi would be alive, sitting there on her back porch like usual with her dim lantern and stupid jacket. She’d be there.
Because Caitlyn couldn’t survive anything else.
Silence filled the room, only broken by her steady tapping on the table and the occasional sigh from Jayce.
“Stop doing that,” he muttered after a few seconds.
“Doing what?”
“Tapping on the table.”
She gritted her teeth but withdrew her hand, placing it instead back onto the glass.
“I know you’re worried about her, but there’s nothing we can do until I go,” Jayce said, softly but firmly.
Caitlyn let his words hang in the air before she found the strength to reply.
“Do you think I was wrong to pursue her?”
Jayce opened his mouth and closed it again.
“God… I don’t know… maybe ,” he mumbled eventually, running a hand through his rather messy hair.
“Maybe?” Caitlyn repeated coldly. “Do explain.”
“Don’t look at me like that. What did you think was going to happen, Cait? She’s a human, and you’re…”
“I’m what? A
monster?”
“You know that’s not what I was going to say.”
Caitlyn’s voice was rising now, driven on by the coiling fear that Vi was dead. The same one that riveted through her veins and had driven her to hide in the darkness of the cell.
“Then what were you going to say?”
“You’re… not a human. You’re immortal; she’s not,” Jayce replied frustratedly, his voice too rising. “Tell me how that was ever going to work.”
“It worked for you,” Caitlyn retorted.
“That’s different.”
Caitlyn’s voice lowered - cold now instead of blazing. “It’s the fucking same. I don’t know why you can’t understand that.”
“It’s not, Cait. Viktor was always going to turn,” he sighed deeply. “Did you ever even ask Vi that? If she’d turn for you?”
“No-”
“No? Exactly. And you pursued her anyway knowing you’d have maximum forty years – likely less.” Jayce stood abruptly, making Caitlyn flinch. “That is not my fault, and it’s not my fault you killed her.”
Caitlyn reeled, each word like knives. Unable to do anything but stare at Jayce with thinly hidden hurt.
“Fuck…Cait… I’m sorry.” He rubbed his forehead. “I didn’t mean—”
Caitlyn stood, the chair moving back with a screech.
“Don’t tell me if she's dead.”
·:⛧ ¨༺ ♱✮♱༻¨⛧ :·
Day 5 since the end of the world.
Vi awoke to a quick succession of thumps.
She’d not been asleep long – a few hours at most – and a respite from frustrated tossing and turning.
Mainly because Vi had been unable to stop thinking about Caitlyn for even a minute. She lived in her brain now, flickering behind her eyes and close enough for Vi to believe she was still alive.
Vi rolled over with a low grumble, choosing to put the noise down to a lurking irredeemable on the street below.
But it came again, three steady knocks, and this time Vi sat up sharply.
Someone was out there.
At first her heart rose with the idea that it was Caitlyn – her Caitlyn. Alive. Not infected.
But that was wishful thinking.
Vi stumbled downstairs blearily, gripping onto the bannisters to not fall headfirst, managing to reach the door and throw it open.
Her breath caught at the sight. A ghost more than anything that she never thought she’d see again.
“Loris?” The word slipped from her mouth in a breathless whisper.
He was just as she’d left him, beard overgrown and eyes heavy with sleep deprivation.
All the air left her lungs from a sick gut punch she knew as guilt. Guilt for leaving, for getting lost in the whirlwind of the irredeemables and forgetting where home truly lay.
“Vi”.
He rushed forward, wrapping her in a tight hug. “I thought you died,” he muttered against her shoulder.
“I nearly did,” she replied, eyes glazed and focused on a far point.
She remembered her infection. The cruel way irredeemable blood stained her veins and pushed Loris back.
“Don’t. Don’t.”
“Vi?”
“I’m infected. I don’t – I don’t know when it will take hold, but –” She swallowed hard.
“Shit. Fuck, Vi…” He gave her a quick look over. “I don’t see a bite.”
Vi hung her head. “It was injected. Irred-” she hesitated. “Monster blood”.
Loris blinked, but he made no move to step away from her. “How long ago?”
“Five days? Give or take.”
“Bullshit.”
“I’m serious.” Vi held his gaze.
“Not possible. Five days? You’d have turned by now,” Loris said.
She threw her hands up. “I don’t know; clearly I haven’t.”
He gave her a long look again – at her overgrown hair and the deadness of her pale eyes. When he next spoke, it was low. Strained.
“What the hell happened to you?”
***
“God… that’s-” Loris shook his head, mouth hanging open.
They had sat under the shine of the late night moonlight. Cigarettes providing a flicker of an amber glow. Bitter – but Vi had grown to miss the taste.
And Vi had told him everything. Of Caitlyn. Of the creator. Of the few days in the cell, she could barely recall.
Choking up at the pit and Caitlyn’s bite. But Vi forced it out, for Loris had to know.
When she’d finished, he had no words. For there were no words capable of conveying each emotion Vi had ripped up.
Vi brought the cigarette back up and took a deep drag, leaning heavily against her back door where everything had once begun.
“And now I’m stuck here. Waiting to turn – wondering,” she took a deep breath to push the lump in her throat down. “Wondering if Cait is still alive… or –”
Loris thought for a moment, tapping some ash onto the damp grass below. “If you haven’t turned, there’s a chance she hasn’t either.”
Vi shook her head. “I can’t think like that. I can’t… get my hopes up.”
She took a long drag, letting silence fill the air. But she was glad Loris had come – her one constant. The one who truly understood how the world hadn’t screamed when it ended.
Eventually, Vi spoke. A ludicrous thought, but one that had lived in her mind alongside Caitlyn since she’d been infected.
“Do you think—” she took a deep breath. “That immunity is possible?”
“Immunity?”
Vi nodded, tapping some ash from her cigarette. “That I – or someone – could survive an infection. A bite or…an injection.”
Loris blinked, turning fully to face her. “What? Vi.” and then more incredulously. “Do you think you’re immune?”
“It’s not that fucking crazy of a suggestion.”
“I-” Loris shook his head in disbelief. “I’ve never known anyone to be immune.”
“I was infected. Day one I was infected – and I never turned.” Vi almost cringed at how absurd she sounded. Immunity?
It had always been a joke – a cruel theory dressed up as hope and entirely implausible.
“And then, several days ago, I was infected again.”
Loris shook his head. “Maybe he didn’t infect you? Or… it’s taking a while to kick in.”
“Bullshit,” Vi snapped. “You’ve seen people get infected; they lasted two days max.”
“Immunity”, Loris said again, testing the word on his tongue – perhaps to see if it tasted like betrayal or hope.
Vi sighed, burying her face in her hands. “It’s stupid. It’s stupid , I know. I just can’t understand this.”
“I don’t think it’s stupid,” he finally replied. “I think it’s hopeful.”
“Hope is a dangerous thing.”
Loris gave no reply, the noise of him shifting atop the stairs filling the air. One beat passed. One inhale.
“I think you need to see Caitlyn. See if she’s –”
“Don’t say it,” Vi muttered, gritting her teeth.
Because Vi felt it gnawing in every part of her Caitlyn had touched. The urge to go – to know for once if she was chasing the kisses of a ghost.
She’d promised Caitlyn not to look for her. But somehow out here with the air heavy from confusion, Vi felt that her promise had grown rather empty.
More than anything, Vi truly believed she would not live if Caitlyn hadn’t.
Burning on the same serpent tongues of the virus seemed a fitting way to go. Interconnected down to their last moments.
“I thought you were brave, Vi.”
She blinked. Once – enough to pull herself from her own mind. “Asshole.”
Loris chuckled. “What happened to Vi, the survivor with three hundred irredeemable kills under her belt?”
Vi smiled, but the ache still hid behind it. “Cait’s made me weak.”
“Love does that,” he said simply.
They stared out across the empty darkness for a few seconds.
“Didn’t you ever want to turn? After… y’know?”
Loris sighed – a deep kind of noise that sounded in the same rhythm as grief. “After my wife turned?” he frowned. “For a bit.”
“Or I thought of just… killing us both.”
“But you didn’t.”
He shook his head. “I couldn’t bear for us to go to the afterlife or if there’s nothing after we die and I either never see her again, or I do and she’s still – still infected.”
He took a long drag, accompanied by a shaky exhale, and continued. “I thought about turning too – it seemed damn peaceful.”
“Like stasis.”
“Exactly. You’re alive, but you’re not.”
Vi bit the inside of her mouth. “Yeah, but constant starvation, eternity.”
“Well, that was why I didn’t turn."
Vi thought for a moment, leaning back on one arm. “I’m glad you didn’t, in a way.”
“In a way? Fuck you.”
Vi grinned. “Poor word choice, I admit.”
He glanced back over to her, a softness in his eyes that hadn’t been there before.
“I missed you, kid. More than I thought I would.”
They stayed like that for a while under the canopy of stars, laughing and smoking. And Vi allowed herself to forget.
Not forever.
She knew the shadows would return once Loris had left and she was no longer illuminated by happy memories.
But for now, Vi would be something other than infected. Something gentle.
·:⛧ ¨༺ ♱✮♱༻¨⛧ :·
Day 6 since the end of the world.
Caitlyn was alive.
Vi could still feel her every emotion in her veins – her tears, her blood.
The way her body coiled at Caitlyn’s anger and couldn’t rest until somewhere, she had. Perhaps that was why she could barely sleep or feel anything other than fear prickling her skin.
Her mind had stayed with that final day – lingering on Caitlyn’s silence – her love spelt out with a kiss instead of words.
Cait , she thought quietly, wondering if their connection would still be able to hold the weight of her grief. It once had.
Back when it hadn’t been stained by the plague of the creator or irredeemability.
At some point, Vi had found herself out of bed, thoughts spilling like blood onto a page.
I miss you, more than anything.
Not in the way I missed Powder or the way I mourned myself – but somehow a way more painful.
I know I’ve never been good with words or expressing how I feel. And you’d know exactly what to say.
You always did.
I still feel you. In the silences, and the dark corners of my room and the late nights when I have nothing but cold sheets.
But more than that, I feel you when I’m alive. When I was in the outpost, when I sleep and do not dream of the world’s end.
I think you lived the most where the world did. Interconnected in a strange way – I have always felt the world died when you were not in it.
One day I will kill the creator. I’ll tell myself it was for you, but we both know it is because that has grown to be the only way to let go.
And then I will wash my hands and bury you so that this time my blood can touch you before his could.
I wonder. Will you still look for the light when it has gone?
After that, Vi put the pen down. Not because she had nothing else to say, but because the words would not come.
So she curled back up in a bed too big – too cold. Pretending that the pillow pressed against her chilled skin was Caitlyn’s body.
And if she tried hard enough, Caitlyn’s scent still haunted her sheets.
Later on, three knocks sounded again. Not the heavy ones of Loris, but different. More hesitant.
Vi jumped from her bed, already down the stairs and reaching to throw the door open.
Because Caitlyn would come back for her. She’d be there.
She’d be alive.
“Jayce?”
Oh.
Vi’s shoulders slumped, taking him in and trying to read his expression.
It was tight – not quite grief. Instead cold, almost expressionless, and Vi had no clue what it told of Caitlyn’s fate.
“Oh.”
This time, panic spiked in her veins, and she stepped forward.
“Is Cait alive? Is she okay… Did—” Vi stopped herself, unable to speak the words into reality.
“She didn’t turn.” His eyes flicked over her. “And neither did you, apparently.”
“She didn’t turn?” Vi repeated breathlessly, leaning against the door to steady herself.
Thank God.
“Are – are you sure?”
Vi wouldn’t let the spark of excitement in her veins bloom into an inferno. Not until Caitlyn was alive and back in her arms, and this period was nothing but ash.
“From the way she was having a go at me earlier, I’d say she hasn’t.”
Vi exhaled deeply, leaning heavily against the doorframe, because she wasn’t sure if her legs could still stand under the weight of this information.
“We didn’t turn… Neither of us turned,” Vi whispered breathlessly – more to herself than to Jayce.
“Can I see her? Now?”
“I thought I woke you up—”
“Now, Jayce. I can fucking sleep later.”
He blinked a little at the sharpness in her voice but stepped back from the door.
“Okay, okay . She’s at the lab.”
Vi bit her lip to not break out in a massive grin.
This was it.
Her Caitlyn would be back in her arms, and this time, nothing would separate them. For a moment – Brief. Faint. They had won.
They had something stronger – more than fate. More than the virus. Something alive in every silence.
In every part of Vi’s soul.
·:⛧ ¨༺ ♱✮♱༻¨⛧ :·
Day 165,393
Caitlyn had spent the thirty minutes or so since Jayce had left pacing around the expanse of the lab.
She couldn’t sit, not even for a moment, without her limbs twitching and forcing her back to stand.
Every vein in her body, it seemed, was burning with anticipation, and the unblinking white of the lab’s walls did little to soothe her. She’d drunk a few sips of blood – a distraction more than anything, because Caitlyn wasn’t hungry.
If only she’d known before that nerves were enough to curb her appetite.
Then Caitlyn lay in bed – on her side. Then spread out. Trying to think of anything except Vi’s fate.
Only when the door to the lab opened did she stop her frantic movements.
Please be alive. Please. Please.
She hurried across the expanse of the kitchen, through another corridor. Not running – but quick.
She saw Jayce first, barely acknowledging him. Because her heart had already restarted.
Vi.
Her Vi.
Caitlyn choked on nothingness, frozen in place. Scared, almost now that Vi was here.
Their eyes met, and a few of Vi’s heartbeats echoed in Caitlyn’s mind, both staring at the other like they’d imagined it.
Vi still looked the same. The same survivor worn rugged charm. The same dirty leather jacket. And the soft beauty of her face that made Caitlyn’s body thrum with love.
Yet it was different too – from the beginning, from the end. A sort of liminal haze captured from the afterlife.
Because Caitlyn would have her in the eternity of death.
And perhaps now the eternity of life too.
“Cait,” Vi said quietly. Speaking her name softly – like it was the only word that mattered.
Caitlyn’s hands were shaking, her jaw too, watching as the world faded to darkness.
And it was Caitlyn who shattered the moment first, moving in a blur and pulling Vi into her arms.
“You’re alive… you’re alive ,” she whispered, tears already blurring her vision.
Vi held her for a few moments, letting Caitlyn’s tears fall onto her skin.
“I missed you more than anything,” Vi murmured.
And Caitlyn had missed her too.
She buried her face into Vi’s neck – inhaling the smell of her blood, feeling the low hum of her heartbeat. Relaxing for the first time in what might’ve been months.
Because Caitlyn had been in many places – her house. The prison. Jayce’s lab.
But this was the first time she’d been home.
***
At some point Jayce had left them. Caitlyn couldn’t recall when, or if, he’d said anything.
For her entire mind was utterly consumed by Vi.
They hadn’t broken apart for even a moment, fused together by a touch of hands or Vi’s body pressed to hers like they were one. At first neither had spoken, instead basking in the moment and letting rapid breaths bleed out in relief.
Caitlyn had taken her back to bed, and like always, Vi had pulled her back into her arms. Rubbing circles on her back and occasionally kissing her forehead.
Soft. Slow.
As it was always meant to be.
Caitlyn reached up to turn Vi’s face, looking into those pale eyes again. “I was so worried about you. So worried.”
Vi captured her hand, pressing soft kisses on her knuckles between each word. “I know… me too.” And then she grinned – the cocky sort that Caitlyn adored. “One us, Creator zero.”
“Don’t say that,” Caitlyn whispered. “Don’t jinx it.”
“Jinxing it seems to be my speciality,” Vi laughed, running a hand through her hair.
Caitlyn didn’t reply, pressing her body further against Vi’s. The three words lingered on her tongue.
The words she’d failed to say when they had meant goodbye. And yet, she wouldn’t say them now. Not spurred on by relief.
Caitlyn wanted Vi to feel each word in her bones.
“How have you been?” Vi asked eventually – in the sort of tone that came after a moment painted as a goodbye.
“I don’t even know,” Caitlyn admitted. “It felt as though I’d already died. And I was just… haunting this place.” She leant her head against Vi’s chest. “I thought about you every day.”
A small smile flitted across Vi’s face, but it quickly faded. “I know.”
“And I blamed myself for it. Every day. I should have never brought you into this mess with the creator –”
“Don’t”, Vi said quietly. “You can’t blame yourself for what he did.”
Caitlyn closed her eyes to not cry again, but the tears still burnt behind them.
She did blame herself. For every wound Vi had bled from and the unmoving presence of their infection.
But when her eyes met Vi’s, there was nothing but forgiveness.
The same as how her blood had tasted.
“I’m scared, Vi,” she said eventually.
“Me too,” Vi sighed. “But we can get past this. We can kill the creator and make something for ourselves past loss .”
Caitlyn wanted to laugh. If only it was that simple.
“All we have is loss.”
Vi tilted her head, and her expression softened as it always had when she looked at Caitlyn.
“There is beauty in destruction.”
Caitlyn’s breath caught at hearing her words spoken back to her. A token, a memory taken from the first time their lips had touched outside Vi’s house.
She reached up to cup Vi’s face and feel the warmth of her skin seep past her fingertips. “I suppose there is.”
Vi leant closer. Close enough for Caitlyn to see each freckle that covered her nose and to feel the ridges of the scar on her lip.
Close enough for them to be alive again.
To be something other than doomed.
“I won’t ever let anything happen to you again,” Vi whispered against her lips.
They hadn’t quite kissed, perhaps because something about the moment felt fake – rose-tinted like a dream.
Almost too good to be true.
“Vi…” Caitlyn began. “Is this worth it?”
She pulled away – only an inch or so – to look at Caitlyn with a frown. “I’d never not think you were worth it.”
Caitlyn shook her head, one hand still holding Vi’s face. “I can’t survive losing you again…” and then choked. “This isn’t forever. You know that.”
“Then let it be for now.’ Vi insisted, reaching up to cover the hand on her face with her own. “I will never – I will never let you say goodbye to me again.”
“I won’t go back to that prison . Or – or look the creator in his eye and watch him hurt you.”
“Cait—”
“No,” Caitlyn muttered, swallowing the thick lump in her throat. “Why are we acting like this is different? Like this isn’t just another moment that we
lied
to ourselves – the world wasn’t ending.”
Vi pulled back completely, but her hand kept Caitlyn’s in place. “This is different.”
“How—”
“Because for once I have hope,” Vi said, so sure that Caitlyn almost relaxed. “For once it feels like we have the upper hand.”
When Caitlyn didn’t reply, Vi squeezed her hand. Gentle but enough to convey every thought.
That it was going to be okay.
“Cait,” Vi murmured, letting go and cupping her face instead. “Do you trust me?”
“Vi, I—”
“Do you trust me? Tell me.”
She smiled, eventually. Soft. Almost bittersweet.
“Of course I do. I’ve always trusted you.”
“Then trust me when I say that it’s going to be okay.” She leaned in to emphasise her point. “That we are going to survive this. Because we’ve fucking survived everything else, and this is –”
She exhaled. “This isn’t going to be what destroys us.”
Caitlyn stilled at her words, spoken in the certainty of hope. Allowing herself, for once, to trust.
To lay her soul bare and allow time to pass – eternity to pass – without clinging onto a distant memory.
Vi leant closer again – slow, allowing Caitlyn to refute her. But Caitlyn’s throat was raw from fighting herself.
“I love you,” Vi said softly. “For eternity, if you’ll have me.”
Caitlyn laughed – genuine in a way that warmed her long-stilled heart.
Vi’s hands were still on her face, and Caitlyn allowed herself to have it all. The stillness, the ache, and the fear.
And what did it matter? She wondered.
The sun will rise again. Warmer. Brighter. And this time?
They would rise with it.
Caitlyn met Vi’s lips in a gentle kiss. One that tasted of rebirth and hope. A soft brush of lips that raised the world from its ashes.
The end had passed – a week ago, maybe a year. Caitlyn wouldn’t let herself remember.
Because this wasn’t the end. Here, lit up by a faint glow of burnt-out candles, Caitlyn knew.
This was the beginning.
Notes:
This is kinda the start of the final section of the fic, I'm not sure how many chapters are left, but soon.
Neither turned, neither know why. But for a bit they will just be together.
ALSO
I rewrote a lot of the beginning including adding a new chapter 5, and giving 5 a friend, in case u were confused where loris came from.
Thank u all for ur support always <3
Chapter 21: Ghosts of memories
Summary:
I have never been anything except yours.
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
Day 165,393
“I want to take you somewhere.”
Vi lifted her head up from where she’d been lying on Caitlyn’s chest. She’d almost fallen asleep, eyes slightly bleary when they met Caitlyn’s.
“God, don’t tell me you’re going to use mind control and send me away again.”
Caitlyn’s smile fell, and she looked away. “I wouldn’t.”
Vi grabbed her chin to guide Caitlyn’s eyes back to hers. Gentle, but with enough of a grip for Caitlyn to listen.
“I know you wouldn’t.” Her hand drifted down to stroke Caitlyn’s cheek with her thumb. Comforting. Familiar. A gesture that soothed every wound in Caitlyn’s heart. “Where do you want to take me?”
She shrugged, leaning into Vi’s touch. “Radio tower?”
“No-” Vi said immediately. Enough for Caitlyn to blink a little. “Not – not the radio tower.”
“Why?”
Vi shook her head bitterly. “I can’t bear to hear Ekko’s messages for me. Not now.”
Her heart fell at Vi’s expression – torn in regret. A line creased between her forehead.
“Do you think he’d have said anything?”
“Of course he has,” Vi admitted ruefully. “I bet he’s back to sending me messages every day in the hopes that –”
She didn’t let herself finish.
Caitlyn sighed, lying back against the soft pillows. “Didn’t you ever think about going back?”
“To the outpost?”
“Mm.”
Vi laughed, shaking her head. “Too big of a risk. Imagine I turned while I was there.” She frowned deeper. “It’s better they think I’m dead.”
Perhaps it was better, Caitlyn thought. Too many had been crushed by the creator, and the outpost was the only place – it seemed – that you could stand tall without falling.
She shifted, guiding Vi’s face up to hers.
“Then we go somewhere else.”
Vi considered it, staring at every inch of Caitlyn’s face. Leaning in to press a slow kiss to her forehead.
Then she replied. A gentle whisper.
“Surprise me.”
:⛧ ¨༺ ♱✮♱༻¨⛧ :·
Day 6 since the end of the world.
Caitlyn’s house rose like a fortress on the horizon. Here, lit up by nothing but moonlight, it seemed more a ghost than ever.
Because too much had happened here, and Vi had lived a thousand lifetimes since her feet had last dirtied its immortal floors.
“God,” she muttered, taking it all in. Its size. Its grandeur. “It feels like damn years have passed since we were here.”
Caitlyn agreed with a soft hum, reaching to take Vi’s hand. “I’ve missed it.”
“Me too. I suppose.”
“You suppose,” Caitlyn raised an eyebrow. “Don’t you like my home?"
Vi squeezed her hand, stopping at the ornate wooden doors to the mansion. “Only when you’re in it.”
A smile tugged at Caitlyn's mouth. “Charmer."
They headed upstairs in the darkness of Caitlyn’s home. Different now – for the stillness held a strange sort of comfort. Safety. Not how the outpost might’ve been, or her house before the outbreak.
But steady. The eye of a storm.
Vi’s feet caught outside Caitlyn’s bedroom, stopping their walk rather abruptly. “Aren’t we going in here?”
Part of her needed it like oxygen – to take Caitlyn to bed and make love to her. Properly this time, kissing over every expanse of pale skin. Slow, not rushed or desperate like their first time had been.
The thought of Caitlyn pressed beneath her against the sheets. Gasping. Moaning Vi’s name like a prayer was enough for heat to rush between her legs.
But Caitlyn flashed her a small smirk and simply whispered. “Later.”
“Is that a promise?” Vi murmured, following just behind her as they passed the room.
Then another.
Finally stopping outside a door to a room written in Vi’s heart. The focal point for every dream. Every hallucination she’d had under the control of the creator.
“Reminiscing today, huh?” Vi teased.
“I wouldn’t say that.” Caitlyn threw the door open. “I remember you perched on the edge, quite terrified of me.”
“And I remember how you’d glance at the stake in my pocket,” she retorted.
Caitlyn tilted her head, leading Vi into the room. “I guess we were both cowards."
The windowsill sat like a relic. If Vi looked hard enough, she could still see their silhouettes cast against the pitch black outside the window. Sitting too far apart – two shadows pretending it was nothing.
It had never been nothing.
Not when they’d tracked down the thief. Not now, either.
They’d pass the whisky across the distance, letting their fingers brush and pretend they hadn’t felt it. But Vi could still remember how Caitlyn’s touch lingered on her hand long after they’d broken apart.
And they’d talk. About life before. Life after. Never quite able to settle on the in-between.
How naive they’d been , Vi thought to herself. Lying to ourselves that we were not born to die.
Vi shook her head softly.
And how stupid had she been to think she could ever find it in her to hate Caitlyn?
Once it had been the easier choice, back when fear was the only weapon she drew.
But she had quickly learnt that love defeated it in every battle she’d fought.
Caitlyn sat on her usual spot on the windowsill, pulling Vi to sit closer than they ever had on those nights. Staring down onto the pavement, the tree bleeding violet blossom onto the cobbles.
“I think we should talk about what happened,” Caitlyn said eventually, eyes fixed outside.
Vi sighed deeply, leaning against Caitlyn’s chest. “We didn’t turn. I think we should just… count our blessings and not worry.”
“How can we not worry? Caitlyn’s grip tightened around Vi slightly. “Do you really think the creator would… mess up like that?”
“Maybe it was intentional.”
“That’s worse. That’s so much worse.”
“How?”
Caitlyn threw her head back against the wall with a soft clunk. “Because it means something worse is coming for us.”
Vi raised an eyebrow. “Worse than being an irredeemable?”
“You tell me. You were the one he infected.”
“Did he?”
Caitlyn blinked, arms loosening for a moment around Vi, speaking in a low tone. “You said he did.”
“Yeah, well…” Vi leant her head back against Caitlyn’s chest – perhaps in defeat. “I don’t know what he did anymore.”
A few beats passed before Caitlyn spoke again.
“Why did he infect you?
Vi hesitated, gritting her teeth enough to make her jaw ache. “Because I was patient one. The flaw – the anomaly. Guess he was pissed the virus hadn’t worked.”
Caitlyn froze; Vi could feel her whole body grow rigid underneath her.
“What?”
I never told her.
Vi hadn’t meant to keep it a secret from Caitlyn, but when was the right time to reveal she’d been the start of the irredeemables? Fated to die since they met.
She exhaled slowly, picking apart the words to find ones that would work. Caitlyn would worry. She always worried.
“The patients… from that folder?”
Caitlyn didn’t react. Just nodded, already sitting up straight – for fear ran through her body like electricity.
“Powder was patient 0, and I…” Vi didn’t need to finish. From Caitlyn’s wide-eyed expression, she already knew.
“Oh God.”
“It’s a lot to take in; I’m sorry.”
“Vi…” she shook her head. “I knew. The creator told me and… I thought he was lying.”
She reached for Caitlyn’s hand, holding it close to her chest like something sacred.
“I can’t make sense of it,” Vi said quietly. “How could I be infected twice and – and never turn? No one is that lucky.”
“Vi…” Caitlyn began, her tone almost sympathetic. “I don’t think the creator infected you in Stillwater.”
“He did,” Vi exclaimed, sitting up rather suddenly. “He used irredeemable blood because a straight dose of the virus hadn’t worked. He
wanted
me to turn.” And then lower, more defeated. “And he wanted me to turn you."
“Well, we haven’t turned.”
“No shit,” Vi muttered, lying back against Caitlyn’s chest.
Immediately, Caitlyn’s arms encircled her, and she spoke, her chest rumbling against Vi’s head. “Does it scare you? Being patient one?”
Vi shook her head slowly. “It’s not fear.”
“Then what?”
“I don’t know,” she sighed. “I always wished it had been me. It’s just sad to know it was always meant to.” Vi squeezed Caitlyn’s hand. “Powder should’ve been the anomaly – she should be alive. She deserved all my luck.”
“Perhaps the universe had better plans for you?” Caitlyn said, in a weak attempt to lift Vi’s mood.
“Well, the universe is a bitch. I learnt that too long ago.”
Caitlyn chuckled quietly; Vi did too – a comforting noise that promised all would be okay. And then they were silent – lost in two different minds that ran the same thoughts into the ground.
Vi continued holding Caitlyn’s hand, stroking her thumb softly over her knuckles.
Caitlyn broke the silence eventually, starting to stroke through Vi’s hair. “I wanted to apologise… for using mind control on you.” She bit her lip. “I was just scared.”
“Scared of what?” Vi turned to rest her chin on Caitlyn’s chest and look up at her.
“Scared the creator would find you. Scared because you’d fallen for a monster and I had –” she swallowed. “Allowed it.”
Vi shook her head and did not yell. Did not retort. Instead, she smiled softly. “Cait. I don’t care about any of that.”
“But you should,” she replied indignantly. “I betrayed you.”
“No,” Vi whispered, reaching to trace the sharp edges of her jawline. “You could never betray me.”
And she meant every word deep down. Their fragile lives were too weak to be weighed down by regret. Caitlyn had betrayed no one but herself, in an act of love too strong for Vi to ever understand.
“And our first—”
“I loved it. How desperate you were.”
Caitlyn blushed, unable to respond for a moment. “I was not. I just knew I wouldn’t see you again.”
“And you were wrong.”
Vi leaned up closer, studying her. Feeling each curve of her face beneath her fingertips and the way her heart thumped like it too was reaching to touch Caitlyn. How she’d come to love this force of nature.
Someone above mortality, above everything human and sacred she’d known.
“I want you, Caitlyn,” Vi whispered, breath hitting Caitlyn’s skin.
And her reply was immediate – slightly breathless.
“I have never been anything except yours.”
Vi grinned and pressed their lips together. Slow. Savouring the way she tasted, the way her arms curled around Vi’s body. The way they were whole again.
She pulled back, pressing a few more soft pecks to Caitlyn’s lips. “I want to go slow this time. Feel every inch of you.”
Caitlyn chuckled, wrapping her arms around Vi’s neck. “I find it hard to go slow when you look at me like that.”
“Like what?”
“Like you want to eat me whole.”
“I do,” Vi teased. “But I’ll try control myself.”
And then lower, spoken just before their lips met again. “For now.”
Soon, the kiss had deepened, tongues brushing softly in a manner that made them both moan. It stayed unhurried, though. A stillness in the chaos of the last few months.
Vi’s hand slipped under her shirt, feeling the softness of skin her mind had never truly let her forget. Touching her everywhere – down to her waist. Not letting their lips break apart for a second.
Because this was what made Vi feel alive. Her Caitlyn, her cure. The antidote.
Caitlyn wrapped her arms around Vi’s neck, pulling her closer – bodies fitting together in a way that felt almost fated. Until their chests pressed together, and Vi let out a quiet groan into her mouth.
“Didn’t know you were so… easy to rile up,” Caitlyn murmured, pulling back to look at Vi.
Somehow she seemed even more beautiful now, lips slightly wet from kissing, chest heaving in rhythm with Vi’s. She brought one hand up to tangle in Vi’s hair, tugging slightly at the strands.
“Can you blame me?” Vi whispered, shifting more to straddle her right there on the windowsill. Moving down to kiss her and silence another teasing remark.
Their mouths moved more intentionally together now, a rhythm they’d grown long familiar with. One that managed to express every feeling burning deep inside in an action.
And Vi had begun to grind.
Perhaps to reduce the ache, or because Caitlyn felt so unbelievably good beneath her. Immediately, Caitlyn rose up to meet her, gripping Vi’s hips. Then her waist.
“Fuck.”
Caitlyn chuckled low in her ear because Vi’s hands had already started to move. Touching bare skin, squeezing her waist, then her breasts.
She pulled back from the kiss again, and Vi met her eyes – half-lidded with how turned on she likely was.
“Do you want to go—”
Vi didn’t need to be told, scooping Caitlyn up into her arms, hands resting under her thighs. Finding her mouth again – this time harder. More desperate.
She only broke it to kick the door shut and then the one to Caitlyn’s bedroom open. Lowering her onto the bed and climbing on top. Caitlyn tugged her closer again, nails digging into Vi’s back in a way that almost made her curse. Again.
Vi leant back in, teasing her with the promise of a kiss – waiting until Caitlyn moved forwards to capture her lips and then kissing her jaw.
She gasped – muffled slightly, but it only served as encouragement. Vi kissed along her jaw and then down her neck. Sucking lightly – and then hard. She’d leave marks, but Caitlyn would heal long before they’d been noticeable.
Vi pulled away, toying with the hem of Caitlyn’s top and looking directly into her eyes. “You gonna lift up for me?”
“You’re insatiable,” Caitlyn chuckled, and helped Vi to remove it.
And then her mouth went dry.
Because Caitlyn was more beautiful – more attractive – than the last time. Her breasts sat perfectly, more than a handful and enough to make Vi almost cum right there on top of her.
Tentatively, she reached out to cup them. Not because she was scared, but because Caitlyn looked like a goddess spread out beneath her. Pale skin almost glowing in the gentle candlelight.
And because Vi was still fighting every part of herself to keep it slow. Almost teasing. To live in the moment – breathe it in until it flooded her veins.
“You’re the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen,” Vi said softly, giving Caitlyn’s chest a gentle squeeze.
“Vi,” Caitlyn muttered, in a breathless, needy tone that made Vi feel absolutely soaked. “Stop hesitating.”
She grinned. “I told you I was taking my time.”
Caitlyn kissed her harsher than before – biting at Vi’s bottom lip. “I don’t want you to take your time.”
Something in Vi snapped at those words.
Her mouth latched back onto Caitlyn’s skin. Kissing more feverishly now, stopping to suck her nipple into her mouth and swirl her tongue around it. Caitlyn’s soft noises of pleasure filled the room, but Vi barely noticed.
Too consumed by the taste of her. The feel of her skin. How she arched up, making Vi so sure she’d soaked through her underwear by now.
Caitlyn’s hands threaded back through her hair, guiding Vi lower. Down her stomach, pausing to remove her pants and then pressing Vi’s face to her damp underwear.
Vi’s breath caught at the sight.
Staring in silence for a moment, mouth hanging slightly open.
And then she kissed Caitlyn through her underwear. A brush of her lips at first.
Then more insistent. Covering the entire fabric in frustrated open-mouthed kisses.
Caitlyn lifted her hips with a low moan, but Vi grasped her thighs, holding her down.
“Be patient,” she hummed, looking up to meet Caitlyn’s glazed eyes. “You made me rush last time.”
“Stop talking about last time,” Caitlyn said, in between gasps as Vi kissed her through the fabric. And then pulled it down with her teeth.
“Fuck, you’re wet,” Vi almost moaned, running a finger over her soaked pussy.
She couldn’t wait anymore – she was tired of trying to curb the intense need that soared through her body.
Vi lowered her head and licked the full length of her heat, groaning at the taste.
***
Caitlyn moaned as soon as Vi’s tongue made contact, clamping her legs around Vi’s head to calm the overwhelming pleasure.
She could feel the desperation in Vi’s movements – sucking her clit into her mouth, flicking her tongue.
Every inch of her body had gone numb, except between her legs.
But Caitlyn loved it. How Vi made her feel so special, so beautiful. How her mind went fuzzy, and her eyes rolled back.
Mostly, how alive it made her feel.
It wasn’t long before she felt the familiar heat in her stomach – the way her thighs tightened around Vi’s head as she got close. Caitlyn had lost all thought now – unable to do anything except moan Vi’s name on repeat.
Vi’s tongue hit her clit repeatedly, making stars flash behind Caitlyn’s eyes.
And she was so, so painfully close.
Vi gave one last flick of her tongue, and Caitlyn shuddered. Coming harder than she ever had straight into Vi’s mouth, unable to stop the way her legs trembled.
Eventually, her body went limp against the sheets. Caitlyn could already feel the uncomfortable wetness beneath her, but her mind was too sated to care.
“You always did finish so beautifully,” Vi teased, moving up to look her in the eyes.
“Shut up-” she muttered, kissing her insistently.
And then she pulled back.
Really looking this time at Vi. At her strength, her face that made Caitlyn’s heart restart every time. But also her soul. Her bravery, her kindness.
Her resilience.
Caitlyn hadn’t said it before. Not when the world was burning, and it had been nothing more than a goodbye letter said in words.
Nor when she’d betrayed them both.
But now, Vi’s eyes pale with desire and her mouth coated in wetness, Caitlyn knew with her whole heart that she meant it.
“Vi”, she said. Tentative, in a voice that sounded like a stranger.
“Mm?”
She hesitated. Only for a beat.
“I love you too.”
Her eyes widened, and then a large grin spread across her face.
“I’m sorry I didn’t say it before; I just – I didn’t want it to be a goodbye and –”
“Cait.” Vi pressed her finger to Caitlyn’s lips. Silencing her.
“I love you.”
“For eternity?”
Vi leant down and kissed her once – lingering – the kind of kiss that Caitlyn felt in every part of her.
“Eternity, if you'll have me.”
In that moment, wrapped in the silk of Caitlyn’s sheets alongside candlelight that flickered like a ghost, she knew.
For the first time in months, that her world had been reborn
They made love again, slower this time. Taking turns to love every part of each other. Filling the air with each other’s names until it remembered how life had sounded.
Frozen in time – eternal in each other’s arms.
:⛧ ¨༺ ♱✮♱༻¨⛧ :·
Day 165,395.
The days had passed in an odd sort of haze since Vi had come back to her. Blurred between each touch of their lips, each word shared.
Trapped in their own bubble, so disconnected from the rest of the world.
Caitlyn knew now that love was what had separated monster from human. The creator from her. Humanity was the light under which it was able to be seen, but love was a stronger light.
One that chased away the shadows and grew trees from the world’s ashes. New, strong things that did not repeat the cries of irredeemables.
She knew this most because Caitlyn felt the most disconnected from her monster nature when Vi lay between her arms. For her love truly did chase out the shadows.
Jayce disrupted them in the early hours of the morning. Before Caitlyn could quite remember that the creator had not unfastened her chains. That he lived.
And if he lived, the world – it seemed – could not.
“Sorry to…disturb,” Jayce said, watching them for a second before pulling his eyes away like it burnt.
“It’s okay, Jayce. You don’t have to tread on eggshells around us,” Caitlyn smiled.
“No, no, I just didn’t want to walk in if you guys were busy or –”
“Jayce.” Caitlyn said softly. “What do you need?”
He rubbed the back of his head awkwardly. “Right. I was thinking… Vi, we need a blood test.”
She frowned, too, sitting up and letting the sheets fall around her waist. “For what?”
“To check your… infection.”
“I’m not infected,” Vi frowned. “I thought we’d established that.”
“Right, yeah. It’s just,” he swallowed. “I want to inject irredeemable blood into a sample of yours.”
Vi blinked. “Really?”
“Wouldn’t it help you relax… knowing that - y’know. If you’d been injected or not?”
“I didn’t.” Vi shook her head. “The creator must have been lying.”
“That or you’re the luckiest person to exist.” Caitlyn looked over to grin at her.
Jayce gave them both another glance. “Come down in 10. I’ll be in the lab.”
“And Vi?” he asked, just before leaving. Waiting until she locked eyes with him.
“No one is that lucky.”
Once he’d left, Vi slumped back against the pillows. Caitlyn watched her for a few moments, her hair spilling over the cotton, how she rubbed a calloused hand against her forehead.
“What’s on your mind?” She asked eventually. Soft. Sure.
A few of Vi’s heartbeats riveted through Caitlyn’s skull before Vi answered.
“Immunity”.
“Vi, no,” Caitlyn shut down the idea immediately. “You’re still thinking about that? I thought we put that theory to bed when we found the folders.”
“Yeah, well, the theory can't sleep apparently,” she sighed, dragging her hands down her face. “Of course I’m thinking about it again when – when that patient was goddamn me the whole time.”
Caitlyn studied her for a long moment, trying to pick apart each contour of her expression. “You’re serious about this?”
“Yes. No… I don’t know—”
At Caitlyn’s expression – eyebrow raised in a complete scene of disbelief – Vi continued.
“Think about it, Cait. Think about it for a second.”
“I’ll humour you,” she said with a gentle shake of her head.
“Do you honestly think the creator would have sedated me, chained me up… all that bullshit just to inject me with another fake.”
Caitlyn pinched the bridge of her nose. “We don’t know the creator’s intentions—”
“But we do. God knows you spent enough time with that psycho to understand his game plan.”
“He wanted his infection in every crevice of the world,” Caitlyn admitted. “He said he did it out of hatred. A stronger breed of hate that I could never comprehend.”
“Think about it,” Vi had sat up straighter now – enough that Caitlyn could almost hear the whizzing noise of ideas spinning in her mind. “He brought you there to prepare you.”
“He destroyed me –”
“That's what I mean. He shattered you, isolated you. Burnt you, until you were spewing his words back to him, you know why?”
“No,” Caitlyn said coldly. “Believe it or not, I can’t understand such a sick mind.”
“Because he wanted you to fall. He wanted you to believe that biting me wasn’t some accident but instead something you were always meant to do.”
Caitlyn bristled, but she hid it under a long, cracked facade. “I’m stronger than that.”
“But you aren’t,” Vi sighed. “You’ve always seen yourself as a monster.”
She said nothing, picking at a loose thread on the sheets. Because Vi was so right, it stung – in each string of her heart she’d cut.
“I did understand the creator. In some ways, he was just like me.” Caitlyn gritted her teeth. “I knew his hatred, too. Because what he felt for the world does not scratch the surface of what I feel for myself.
And Caitlyn did hate herself.
Not the loud sort that filled rooms or that people noticed. But a quiet background ache that dulled every happy moment at its edges and bleached the world in a strange grey colour.
More than anything, she hated the part of herself that clung, bloodied and pleading - to the label of monster.
The Caitlyn who’d sent Vi away and stuck her hands into the light so that for once, her body could burn like her brain did.
She sighed deeply. “Fine. Say… the creator had infected you at the start, and you were the anomaly, not the virus.” She hesitated, attempting to collect her thoughts. “I…drank from you.”
Vi’s expression fell. “Shit. You did.”
“If, say, you were immune. You’d carry the virus but not embody it, meaning you would not turn – but whoever drank from you would.”
“And twice I’ve been infected, and twice you’ve drunk from me,” Vi groaned loudly. “We’re going in fucking circles.”
Caitlyn sat up, reaching out to take Vi’s hand. “Come on. I’m sure Jayce will know.”
Vi made a noise of disapproval as she got up. “Our chances are looking great.”
***
Caitlyn watched as Jayce took one bag of blood from Vi. Then another. Muttering the whole time about the importance of double testing.
She held Vi’s hand the entire time, eyes locked onto the way her blood poured in steady flows into the bag.
A week ago she’d have leapt up and drunk it.
But Caitlyn was a different person now – a new one, too far from the darkness to remember how it had held her in its cold dead arms.
Once Jayce had finished, Caitlyn took Vi back to the kitchen, pouring herself a large pint glass of blood. Not because she was hungry, but because for a moment, she had felt the remnants of desire for Vi’s blood creep into her stomach.
Neither spoke. Waiting seemed a small blessing in their world, where knowing had never been merciful. Caitlyn had also been questioning something far heavier.
Why had Vi always promised to love her for eternity?
Eternity was too cruel a life for her – too cruel for her sweet mortal Vi, who did truly deserve to die. To fly and leave Caitlyn from her spot chained to the ashes.
Eventually Caitlyn found it in her to ask. More than anything, so she could shut down the idea before it ever manifested as truth.
“Why do you always say eternity?”
“What?”
Caitlyn lowered the glass to the table with a gentle clink. “Twice now you’ve told me you’ll love me for eternity.”
Vi shrugged. “Because I will.”
“The eternity of life… or the eternity of death?”
“Both?” Vi blinked. “I don’t know.”
Caitlyn exhaled deeply. “Are you intending I turn you? Be honest with me, Vi.”
Her mouth fell open, but no words formed from it.
“I mean… maybe not right now, but I’d like to at some point.”
“No,” Caitlyn said immediately. “Why would you want that? Why would you wish to be a monster?”
“It’s not like there’s a better option. Either I turn or I die.” Vi’s voice softened, eyes darting away. “And if I die, I will lose you.”
“Eternity is abhorrent, Vi,” Caitlyn insisted. “It’s cruel. Suffocating. It takes all you have – and makes you watch.” Her voice drops, perhaps to cover how choked up she’d begun to sound. “You don't deserve that.”
“We’d
be eternal”, Vi reached across the table to take Caitlyn’s hand. “You’d never again have to worry about losing me. You won’t have to watch me grow old and –”
“But you’d have to watch it,” Caitlyn interrupted. “You’d have to watch
everyone
in that outpost die – every family member.”
Vi didn' t reply, staring down at their joined hands. When she finally spoke, it was surer than Caitlyn had expected. “It’s worth it for you.”
“Don’t say that.”
“Why not?
Caitlyn’s hand clenched around Vi’s. Nothing was more beautiful than her impermanence – her fragile humanity that sat atop the waves of Caitlyn’s immortality and tried not to drown.
But Caitlyn had thought of it too many times to give her a truthful answer. Picturing Vi going – first by irredeemables, then by the creator. Death scenes merging until Caitlyn truly couldn’t untangle Vi’s fate.
Truly, she knew she’d go next.
Staking herself somewhere before sunrise could quite reach her. Bleeding out in a grave alongside Vi’s, so they may only be separated by a thin wall of dirt. Caitlyn wanted to go that way.
She once thought she’d wait. Four months, perhaps to ensure the shadow of grief never left – four months of writing letters Vi would never read and lying in bed with a stake in case grief ever wanted to do it before she could.
Now she knew it would be mere hours. Several to cry until her eyes ran dry and her heart ached. Several to thank the universe that for once Vi would rest and not wake up to the blurred faces of irredeemables.
One to stake herself.
Caitlyn knew she’d do it quick, so that Vi would not have to be far away for too long. Conjuring her face and holding it between the scarred arms of her mind so that Vi’s gentle voice may be the backdrop of her demise.
Caitlyn couldn’t look at Vi once she’d snapped out of those thoughts.
“I don’t have an answer,” Caitlyn said in a strained, grief-laced sort of tone.
“Because you know you’d rather I suffer for eternity than ever have to live another moment without me.”
“I’m not that selfish,” Caitlyn scoffed, but it came out weak.
Vi watched her again, an odd knowing expression on her face, squeezing Caitlyn’s hand with constant pressure.
“You don’t seem worried,” Caitlyn muttered after a few beats.
“I’m not.”
“You should be.”
Vi shook her head. “Shit seems to sort itself out. I think this will too.”
Caitlyn opened her mouth, intending to ask exactly what Vi meant. Why she believed the world would be merciful to them when it had never been before.
Jayce broke their heavy conversation before Caitlyn could speak. Wide-eyed with an excitement that made both turn to meet his gaze.
They didn’t need to speak, because his face told everything – words spelt out on each line.
“I was wrong,” Jayce grinned, unable to hide it.
“Vi, you might just be the luckiest person in the whole fucking world.”
Notes:
Smut and prep for another big reveal.
we're close to the end now, thank u all for reading and baring with me <3
hmu on twt @severxnce_
xx
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