Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Now

A room with a damp checkerboard floor that cost much too much to smell like beer and yet it will, now, for at least a week, sticky and slick as heels and loafers and boots and sneakers squeak their away across black and white squares, feet finding love or lust or something lighter or deeper. Windows open and sound pouring through. Heady bass. A crowd on a deck, wood creaking, cigarettes lit and weed smoke swirling through the open air. Even the air is heavy and sticky. It’s like walking right into a cloud; the air pushes back as you approach, doing its best to keep you inside. 

The blue-haired host with a cigarette between plump lips, her long legs visible beneath a lace babydoll romper, black fabric little more than an attempt to cover what must be covered, and yet, her tits still look huge and her ass still looks fantastic and her legs, those legs, who has legs like that? Her hair hangs loosely past her shoulders and said shoulders are a little too sharp. Her hips are wide but her legs are thin. Her face is jarring in its perfection and the only makeup she wears is bright red lipstick, crimson smudging around her cigarette and making her look freshly kissed.

Her bright blue eyes are searching, and the desperation in them is a shock – it doesn’t match the rest of her, which is almost stoic, frozen in the middle of the dance floor, uncaring as bodies shift and shimmy around her, mouths crashing and hands rising.

There is only one person she wants to see. 

She only threw this party for her.

–

Then

Softer, younger, newer.

Caitlyn wore her favorite dress, a cotton milkmaid maxi with a smocked top that made her tits look like they were going to explode right out of the top. She normally hated parties like this one, but Jayce forced her to come, saying she was going to be twenty-five before she knew it and needed to get the fuck out of the house and, in his words, “Live her mother fucking life and maybe even fuck a mother.”

It’s been years since she fucked a mother.

Still. It was nice.

She forgets the mother – and her, admittedly, fantastic breasts – when someone walks in who wouldn’t normally catch her eye but fuck she’s smiling so big and she’s so broad and Caitlyn has already decided that this is who is going to fuck her tonight.

The phrase “camo cargo shorts” would normally make Caitlyn throw up in her mouth a little but this girl… fuck. It’s like she’s just supposed to be here, and exactly as she is: a little short and a little stocky but mostly fucking ripped and charming , charm oozing out of her shorts and down her legs – even from here Caitlyn can tell that her legs are both tattooed (hot) and brushed with light pink hair (hotter) – and to her Nike slides, which, again, gag her, but also, hot?

She is learning many new things about herself, tonight.

“Introduce me to her,” Caitlyn says, acrylics stabbing into Jayce’s bare, muscled forearm. “Or I’m going to bite you.” 

–

Now

Vi stands in the front yard and hates herself a little bit more for it.

She can feel the dampness of the grass stabbing her between her beat-up Vans and her striped Dickies carpenter pants. She can also feel cool, wet air on her bare arms and she thinks about going back to her car for a hoodie but she doesn’t want to be here in a hoodie – and she knows why she doesn’t want to be here in a hoodie and that makes her hate herself even more.

Who gives a fuck if Caitlyn always liked her arms most?

Vi flexes her tattooed fingers and tries to get her feet to move. She can hear noise – the party is overwhelming already, even from out here. Normally, it would be her exact scene. She can hear loads of giggling girls and really loud music and it smells like weed and it’s been way too long since she was high, ever since Ekko said, “You aren’t fun to be around when you’re high and sad. Come back when you wanna be high and happy.”

Happy?

Who the fuck is happy?

A group of girls that look around her age or a little older pushes past. One of the girl bumps into her and apologizes, and her big brown eyes linger.

Vi swallows.

It’s been way too long since she fucked.

And Caitlyn would be really, really pissed if Vi fucked another girl at her party.

Vi’s feet finally move.

–

Then

Of course Vi notices the girl with the absolutely massive rack the moment she walks into the room. She’s just high enough that the edges of everything are blurred and that she feels even happier than usual, so she chats up pretty much everyone she walks past even though she really only came here to find Ekko. They’re supposed to be somewhere else tonight.

But Milkmaid Tits.

Fuck.

She’s looking right at her.

From here, and from the weed haze that’s half her, half other people, Vi can see blue eyes and parted lips and legs that are endless and probably put her at six inches taller than her and normally that would get Vi to nope out but she’s kind of in the mood to have a girl tower over her and maybe eat her out in the bathroom of a stranger’s house.

She vaguely knows who Jayce is. They knew each other back in college, maybe? But Vi is an adult now and she doesn’t do social media so she was surprised to even get this invite. Still, Ekko really wanted to go, and Vi found herself here, and oh, that’s Jayce.

He’s standing right in front of her.

Vi accepts the beer pressed into her hands and goes to take a sip.

“Vi!” A low voice chirps. Jayce is bizarrely happy to see her.

“Fuck, hi,” Vi says. “It’s been a while.”

“No shit,” Jayce says. He looks sparkly and Vi isn’t sure what drugs he’s on. “I’m surprised you came.”

Vi smirks. “You and me both,” she says.

“I have someone,” he says. “I want you to meet.”

Vi rolls beer in her mouth, and then she coughs, because Milkmaid Tits is standing right in front of her.

Fuck.

She was right. And it might be more like seven inches.

Taller.

That’s all she’s thinking about right now.

Definitely not about getting her biggest strap from her backpack and fucking this girl right in that flirty little dress that makes her kind of look like some sort of pilgrim.

“Hey,” Vi says. “Vi.”

She holds out a hand. Milkmaid Tits takes it. “Hello.” Her voice is both grittier and softer than Vi expected, like a rock rolled in honey. Does that make any sense? Who fucking knows, she’s too high right no and she also might be falling in love for the first time in her entire life and she just knows this girl tastes incredible.

“Your name?” Vi says.

Jayce pauses, smiles, and bops off into the distance.

The hand in hers is soft and smooth. Her fingers are weirdly long, but in a hot way. Vi has always liked a girl who can reach her g-spot. She’s a little scared of the nails, but they won’t stop her.

“Caitlyn.”

Chapter Text

Now

Vi is talking to a girl.

Vi is talking to a girl.

Caitlyn invited Vi to her party. And Vi is here, talking to a girl.

And that girl is very much not her.

Caitlyn isn’t hiding her disdain. No, she’s standing right in the middle of the kitchen and throwing back shots as Jayce slides them to her and staring straight through the doorway, through the hallway, and to where Vi, fuckass Vi, is talking to some girl with brown skin and long black braids.

Caitlyn holds out a hand. Her acrylics click glass. She doesn’t even know what she’s drinking anymore and she doesn’t even know what Jayce is saying anymore but she knows that Vi is talking to a girl, who is not her, at her own fucking party.

“I know, Cait,” Jayce says. “I got it the first time.”

“You don’t get it,” Caitlyn says. Her voice is tight and she doesn’t want to be mean to her sweet, sweet Jayce, but she also is using all of her energy that would normally be spent on human interactions trying not to launch herself through the kitchen, down the hall, and into Vi’s face.

And maybe her cunt.

Because, fuck.

As much as Caitlyn kind of hates Vi these days – okay maybe it isn’t hate and is something more complicated but that’s between her and her therapist, thanks so much – Vi looks… beautiful. She’s got on those pants with all the loops that Caitlyn always liked and her white t-shirt hangs sickeningly well on her frame and Caitlyn is pretty sure that she bought it for Vi for her birthday; it’s the sort of thing Vi would never buy, a hundred-dollar-t-shirt, but Caitlyn would, has, did.

Vi’s hair is longer. It spirals down her back in a kind of mullet-y wolf cut and… does she have more tattoos?

Are those tattoos down her fucking fingers?

Caitlyn’s core tightens and chokes.

Down girl.

Caitlyn throws something back and her mouth tastes like shit. She glares at Jayce. “Water?”

“You look like you’re about to kill someone in my kitchen,” Jayce says.

“I wouldn’t kill someone,” Caitlyn says.

But then the girl has her hand on Vi’s shoulder and Jayce plants his hand on Caitlyn’s because, oh, she’s moving, Caitlyn’s feet actually decided to move toward Vi and maybe kick this girl’s ass and also Vi’s.

But as she gets closer.

Wait.

The fuck?

She knows her.

She fucking KNOWS THIS GIRL.

Then

Caitlyn quickly learns that there’s a gentleness to Vi.

Which is shocking. Because Vi is fucking ripped. And huge. And she looks like she could snap Caitlyn in half. Her neck is thick and her biceps are delicious and ripe and round and she has those little tricep divots that have always made Caitlyn want to lick and suck and bite. 

Precisely her type, despite the ever-present cargos. She has camo cargo pants. She has cargo shorts in every shade of navy and black and green. She has a straight-leg pair that crop at her fucking calves.

At. Her. Calves.

She should look like a midwestern mom at a big-box store.

Instead, she looks like some sort of baby butch with a Tumblr.

It certainly doesn’t stop Caitlyn from frothing at the mouth every time they run into each other.

There’s the first time, at the party, where Vi takes her hand gently, like she’s some sort of normal, sweet girl, and averts her eyes very hard from her tits like she’s some sort of innocent, which makes Caitlyn laugh, because she is rarely sweet and never innocent, and she wants Vi to look at her tits, which are, admittedly, heaving from her dress.

She didn’t spend $500 on this basic bitch milkmaid dress from Reformation for no reason. 

Her hand in Vi’s is an exercise in contrast: Caitlyn’s long, flawless fingers and her bright blue acrylics – relationship blue, Jayce had teased her, and she had kicked him – and Vi’s own scarred fingers with callouses and proof that she actually uses her hands for something other than reading and flipping through racks of clothing and masturbating and fucking other girls.

The first smile Vi gives Caitlyn is tentative. She is a gentle giant in cargo pants.

The second comes later, and it’s delicious.

They separate at the first party. Caitlyn is drunk and distracted; Jayce has wandered off with boys and girls and is dancing. Vi has faded into the background with the rest of the smokers, having “real talks” and “deep conversations” and Caitlyn loses track of her and her triceps but can still feel her hand in hers. The sort intro. Her rumbly little voice.

It’s two parties later when Caitlyn takes one too many shots and falls onto the couch and is delighted to find Vi next to her, joint in one hand and a fucking notebook in the other, like the lesbian love fairy has thrust her right in front of Caitlyn like, “Hello, do you want this one or not, I can only stage so many meet-cutes.”

Caitlyn’s cunt swoops immediately and she crosses her legs and leans over, trying to catch a glimpse.

She earns it, then.

Her first real smile from Vi.

Her teeth are pointy and her lip is scarred and uneven and a little chapped and Caitlyn wants to shove this sweet little queer deep into the couch cushions and eat her out until her jaw is numb and clicking.

She holds back. She says, “Hello, Vi.”

“Are you trying to read my notebook?” Her voice is teasing, half a laugh. 

Caitlyn pouts. “Can’t I read your little diary? What secrets could you have to keep from me? We’re strangers.”

“Two things,” Vi says. Now, her eyes drop to Caitlyn’s tits.

Caitlyn shimmies a little bit.

What? She’s drunk, and this girl is beautiful.

“Not a diary,” Vi says. She taps the notebook with a thick finger. It has two silver rings on it, one shaped like a snake, curling around her knuckle. 

“Fine,” Caitlyn huffs. Her head is heavy. She drops it on Vi’s shoulder. Vi smells like weed and sweat and Caitlyn aches.

“And are we?” Vi says. Her breath smells really good. How is she smoking but her breath smells so good?

“What?” Caitlyn says. She can hear her accent doubling. She needs sleep. Water. A bed.

“Strangers?” Vi says. “You don’t feel like one.” Her voice is almost kind of harsh, like it’s pointed around the edges, little barbed wires on words that feel deep, like a compliment, like an opening, like a start.

That swoop again.

But kind of in Caitlyn’s… heart?

Oh no.

She really is drunk.

Vi shakes her head and laughs a little laugh. Her hair is so red that it looks pink. Is it pink?

“Is that your natural color?” Caitlyn says.

Vi raises a scarred eyebrow. “Wouldn’t you like to know?”

Caitlyn laughs. “I’m not pulling a ‘does the carpet match the drapes.’ I’m just curious.”

Vi has such nice eyes. She is gorgeous. She is probably very used to strange girls falling all over her when she’s drunk. This makes Caitlyn frown.

“What’s wrong?”

“I don’t want to be one of them,” Caitlyn says out loud.

“What?” Vi says. She lowers her shoulder for Caitlyn, allowing her to get more comfortable.

“One of your girls,” Caitlyn says. She hums into Vi’s tattooed neck.

A soft smile on scarred lips. “You’re one of my girls now, huh?”

Caitlyn closes her eyes. She falls asleep a little bit. Just for a second. 

Now

Caitlyn is going to kill her.

Even with her back turned, Vi can feel Caitlyn beaming holes into her skin. Vi doesn’t move. She stands with her back to Caitlyn like she can’t feel the heat on her shoulder blades and she smiles at the girl talking to her because she’s here and she’s beautiful and she isn’t Cait.

But Cait does know her.

And she can feel it when Cait stares through the haze of smoke and bodies and realizes it because the heat on her back? It becomes sharp. More akin to metal scraping down her back. It’s kind of like getting a tattoo over a scar, something she is quite familiar with and would like to not experience again any time soon, thank you. 

“It seems your Cait is going to kill us both,” Mel murmurs. Her eyes are bright. She’s having fun with this. She’s holding a mug of wine. The mug reads, “born to slay, forced to work,” and it makes Vi smile because she knows its Jayce’s and he is such a strange combination of things. 

“Aren’t you two friends?” Vi says.

Mel shrugs. “I respect her more than I like her,” Mel says. “We’ve simply known each other a very long time.”

“And you decided to hit on me anyway?”

“You get to the point,” Mel says. She nods. “I respect that.” A sip of slay-mug-wine. “I do too. I’ve wanted to fuck you for a while, Vi. Or, I should say, have you fuck me. I’m that kind of girl.” She shrugs, but it isn’t at all sloppy. Her pointed shoulder simply lifts itself, lowering slowly, and fuck, this girl is stunning.

“Oh,” Vi says.

“But you were with Cait, and then you broke up, and, well, you know that whole story.”

Vi swallows. She tries not to know the whole story.

She doesn’t want to think about it. The fight and how fucking drawn out it was like neither of them could stand to be in the same room for another single poisonous second but also like neither of them could let go or leave each other’s air.

The pain afterward. The sharpness in her chest. The way nothing tasted the same. The way the world darkened, just like every song and book and movie had ever told her. She thought they were just being dramatic.

She fucking wished.

“I know the story,” Vi says. “So. You want to fuck, huh?”

Mel nods. “If you’re open to it. I don’t date. You know I have a thing with Jayce, who I imagine is also watching, though with less of a murder-vibe than Caitlyn. It’s open. Casual. I haven’t been fucked by a woman in a while, and you feel like the right woman.”

Vi can see it. She is the right woman. They know each other, but aren’t close. They aren’t going to fall in love; they can’t, with Cait as smoke in the air between them. They do have a sort of chemistry, Mel as this beautiful woman in her low-cut gold top, each shimmery little facet making her dark skin glow, Vi as this kind of big dude who would rail her right into the mattress, slipping gold from her shoulders and replacing them with tattooed fingers and then teeth and then tongue. Vi already knows she would like how Mel looks naked. Vi is quite sure Mel would like how she looks naked. They would make good sounds. They would make each other feel good in a way that would be equally hot and respectful.

It has been a while.

Something heats between Vi's thighs and she feels her nipples against her heavy cotton tee.

Vi tells herself not to consider it. To chill the fuck out. To not invite drama for no reason.

But then she looks over her shoulder at fuming blue eyes and pale fists and wonders why the fuck she wouldn’t fuck a beautiful woman just because of Caitlyn fucking Kiramman.

Vi rolls her shoulder back.

Then

Caitlyn is laying on her shoulder.

And fuck, her skin is so soft, and she smells like alcohol, sure she does, but she also smells like… fruit. Mango? Papaya? Vi hasn’t been anywhere, eats more pizza and Taco Bell than fresh, luxurious fruit, but she imagines Caitlyn smells like this. Tangy, tart, a little sweet.

One of her girls, Vi thinks. She looks down at a pool of blue hair and it’s so shiny and Vi wants to run her fingers through her hair and comfort her and make her feel good. Not in a sexual way. Just a loving way. A caring one?

This is all very bizarre.

Of course she already knew of Caitlyn. They live in a city, sure, but it’s not so massive that the queers don’t all run into each other at some point. They have just enough mutual friends to not have officially had met until this month, but enough that it was inevitable.

Something between them feels like that. Inevitable.

The way Caitlyn curls a hand around Vi’s bicep. The way her nails claw in, just a little bit, like she doesn’t ever want to let go. Like she owns her already.

Vi doesn’t date much. She doesn’t even fuck around that much. A random kiss here and there, a bathroom makeout at a bar or a club, her mid-twenties have been an exercise in trying to decide who the fuck she is and what the fuck she wants, especially now that her sister is doing better and it doesn’t feel like her home life could shatter at any point. She has a job she actually kind of likes, training at the boxing gym and occasionally manning the smoothie stand and pretending she knows how the hell to do that. She did well enough at school, but being young, really young, wasn’t for her, and she likes being 26 and gay and big and strong and smart and in charge of her own life.

Including her love life.

But. Looking down at shiny blue hair and mango-papaya-scented skin and lips that are falling open and letting just the tiniest, sweetest snore escape, Vi is pretty sure she’s not in control, anymore. 

Chapter Text

Then

Caitlyn’s bedroom is big and opulent, not entirely unlike the one her parents still keep in their large home for her rare visits. She really only goes home during holidays. She loves her parents, but she doesn’t love who she becomes around them: eighteen again, petulant and stubborn and mouthy.

She is still mouthy without them, but it’s different. It feels more grounded in who she actually is versus a knee-jerk emotional reaction to the sound and smell of the people who birthed her and raised her and made her.

What does she want? She stares at her closet and considers. She wants to make Vi drool. No, she wants something better. She wants a double-take. She wants to walk into the bar she’s invited Vi to meet her at – in a casual way, a throwaway text, as if she hadn’t hounded Jayce to dig up Vi’s number and give it to her immediately – and she wants Vi to look like she’s going to collapse.

Caitlyn knows her legs are good, so she looks for something short. Her burnt orange linen mini dress is too summery. Her knit dress with the low bodice is too sweet. Her silky cheetah print is too obviously slutty.

She’s not opposed to slutty. But she is opposed to obvious. 

She tosses item after item behind her, and Jayce laughs and Mel rolls her eyes. They are splayed out on her bed and patiently giving Caitlyn advice, even though she knows Mel is really only here because she wants to start something up with Jayce and hasn’t yet figured out how to meld their hot bisexual energy into a single thing that can mutate and shift and grow with ease.

So Mel, beautiful Mel, lays back on Caitlyn’s four-poster bed with her legs bare in a high-waisted romper and red-painted toes. Caitlyn considers her. They have never hooked up, which would surprise an outsider, but they’re just a little too similar; too much opposite sides of the same coin, both sharp and accented, one – Mel – sweet, one – Caitlyn – sour.

But it does make them decent friends, even if they’ll never be wearing friendship necklaces.

And if Jayce is the glue, that suits them both.

Caitlyn sighs. She holds out two dresses and spins on her heel. Her hair is wet around her mid-back and her face is bare, glowing under three layers of serums and a gold-infused oil. She knows she looks like a sweet little angel right now and she’s ready to decide on a fucking outfit so she can get to marring it with coal and black and sharp lines.

In her right hand, a fitted bodice with an a-line skirt and asymmetric neckline. The chocolate fabric is a nice surprise. In her other hand, a classic: black halter with tie straps and back buttons that run down her ass. Classy versus suggestive. Both expensive, both chic. She already kind of knows which one she wants to pick, but Vi has her just enough off kilter to bother asking for other opinions.

When she’d texted Vi: bar smoke tonight? 10pm 

Vi had responded quickly (good), but casually (stressful): c u then 

“You already know what I’m going to suggest,” Mel says. She shrugs and rises from the bed, letting Jayce admire her thighs. She reaches for the halter and smooths her fingers down the fabric, gold rings glinting. “This one makes your shoulders look delectable.”

Caitlyn nods. She glances at Jayce.

He holds up both hands. “You are a very beautiful woman, Cait,” Jayce says. “And I already know Vi likes you. This all just seems like…” He floats his hands around.

“You don’t get it,” Caitlyn says.

Mel rolls her eyes. “Men.”

They smile at each other briefly; the boy they both love in different ways.

“Okay,” Caitlyn says. “Go so I can get ready and I’ll see you there.”

“I’ll be a little late,” Mel says. “Need to pull a report for work. But Jayce, I can pick you up?” A suggestive eyebrow. Wide, gentle eyes.

Jayce is none the wiser and it makes Caitlyn smirk at herself in the mirror. “Sure!” He says.

“Cait,” Mel says. “Tell Vi to pick you up. Don’t ask. She’ll like that.”

“I didn’t know you two were so familiar,” Caitlyn says. She holds back a frown but knows she’s feeling. Something cool rolls through her spine.

“We aren’t,” Mel reassures. “But I know the type.”

Caitlyn nods and waves them both out of her room with kisses and smiles. She leans against the door and takes a deep breath. And then she takes a shot of something on her vanity. “You are Caitlyn fucking Kiramman,” she says, and she texts Vi, throws her phone on the bed, and goes to finish preparing.

--

Then

Caitlyn fucking Kiramman.

Only a Kiramman would text, pick me up and drop a pin without a please or a thank you and be waiting right at the edge of a very long, winding driveway fringed with perfect hedges and the glow of outdoor lighting and look, fuck , how does she look like that?

How is Caitlyn Kiramman real?

She’s all legs and shoulders. It’s the first thing Vi realizes when she stands up and exits her car – in a pair of pleated chocolate-colored trousers, cropped to show striped blue socks and black loafers, topped by a blue and white button down worn open over a white t-shirt – and stares. She leans back against the passenger door and tries to look casual but her stomach is swirling and twisting and hot. Caitlyn is smirking as she walks – and she’s taking her time.

She’s walking slowly, putting on a show.

Vi is liking this show.

A girl has never affected her quite like this. Especially one she, really, hardly knows.

Caitlyn’s dress is this tiny black thing with a high neck and it makes Vi wonder what Caitlyn would look like with a tattoo or two. She wonders if she could convince her to go for a stick-and-poke; the mess of it would look so good on her flawless skin. Vi has to shut her mind up because, for some reason, the thought of her being the one to do it – to hold Caitlyn’s forearm or shoulder or maybe even the side of her left tit oh-so-gently to keep the skin taut as she marked her with something silly, a skateboard or a dinosaur or a handgun – is making her wet.

And it doesn’t help that Caitlyn’s got black pumps on with a very, very pointy toe and Vi didn’t know she had a thing for heels until right the fuck now because her core is so, so hot.

“Hello,” Caitlyn says when she finally arrives, her show wrapping with a spark. She stands still and doesn’t cross her arms or twitch or wiggle at all. She’s confident-serious-high-femme and it contrasts in a delicious way to Vi’s own wiggly, jumpy, always-nervous-always-moving-butch and Vi goes to push her hair back and remembers Powder made her put it up in a very casual but actually lot-of-fucking-work bun to show off her neck tattoos and rips her hands away.

Vi realizes she hasn’t spoken yet.

Stop being a loser and talk to this girl.

“Hey,” Vi says. Cool. Very cool. She leans away from the door and holds it open for Caitlyn. She wonders if this is weird. Is this even a date? This started as a casual, let’s meet up at this party and maybe fuck later, but now she’s holding open the door for Cait and Cait…

Cait is looking down at her. She’s got to be eight, nine inches taller than Vi in those heels. She looks so incredibly illegally good.

Vi wants this to be a date. She realizes it with a start.

She knew this couldn’t be casual the moment she took Caitlyn’s hand.

“You look beautiful,” Vi says on an exhale. She didn’t mean to say it, or maybe she did, who fucking knows at this point.

A soft smile. Caitlyn briefly looks vulnerable. “Thank you,” she murmurs. She tilts her head, considering Vi. “Your cargos are missing.”

Vi laughs out loud. “I heard you aren’t a fan.”

Caitlyn shrugs. She does blush a little and that is precious and Vi wants to make it happen again. “On you, it seems, I’d be a fan of anything,” she says. Her voice is that lovely low murmur again and Vi has to lean in closer to hear her. It’s like they’re in this tiny bubble on this big big street, night shrouding them and humid air keeping them afloat. “You look lovely. Like you rolled here on a skateboard.”

“I have a skateboard,” Vi says.

“Of course you do.” Caitlyn grins.

“I could teach you.”

“Who says I don’t already know how?” Her grin is growing.

And fuck. Those teeth. The teeth. The gap.

From the imaginary tattoo to the heels to the gap. Vi feels herself moving forward, ready to kiss the fuck out of this girl, this woman, this human who feels like she was ripped from the universe to tempt Vi and turn her into something feral and hot and alive.

Caitlyn tilts her head down, smiling. That gap. Wow. Fuck me.

Caitlyn pauses when their lips are almost touching. When Vi can taste her breath. “Take me to the bar,” Caitlyn says. She smells like fruit again.

Vi forces herself to yank her head back. She nods. She helps Caitlyn into her car and hope it’s a decent enough ride for this princess of a girl. She closes the door and pauses to shove her fists into her eyes.

She does not want to fuck this up.

--

Now

Vi drinks too much.

It isn’t Mel’s fault. Mel is drinking wine in her silly mug like a pro, and she’s classy and she’s glistening. The music is loud and it’s clearly Jayce’s playlist: it’s like Charli XCX and Frank Ocean were put in a blender and that’s probably exactly what happened. The music is as loud and clacky and metallic as it is sensual and hot.

The same could be said about the feeling of Caitlyn in the house.

Caitlyn hasn’t approached Vi. They haven’t spoken. They haven’t even really held eye contact.

But Caitlyn is this… presence. She’s as loud as she is subtle. She’s swirling through the air, smoke between Vi and Mel and everyone else in the room. She’s a laugh caught in the back of Vi’s throat because she’s nervous because what if she laughs and Caitlyn sees? She’s Vi holding back her hands even though, to be fucking honest, she wants to comb her fingers through Mel’s skin and make her twitch.

No matter what, Caitlyn is this coating over Vi. It doesn’t matter that they aren’t together anymore and will probably never be again.

No, not probably.

Will never be again.

Because Caitlyn is always, always, always there.

And Vi is kind of getting sick of it.

So she drank too much.

She’s been at this party for two, maybe three hours. The music has only gotten louder and the smoke has only gotten heavier. It’s midnight, maybe? So things are finally ramping up. She catches glimpses of Jayce, who isn’t hiding nearly as much as Caitlyn is, even though Vi knows that, knowing Jayce, and knowing Cait, they have to be near each other, somehow. Jayce has nodded at Mel and winked at Vi and made very clear his I-do-not-care-if-you-two-fuck, because Jayce is a lover boy but he’s also a love boy, and he wants everyone to be in love.

He made that quite clear when Vi and Cait were dating.

But that’s for another time.

A time where Vi is not too drunk to go down memory lane.

As it stands, Vi is leaning against a wall and smoking a blunt and watching Mel dance. Mel is dancing with and around two other girls, but the dance is clearly for Vi. Her gorgeous eyes are locked on Vi’s and, Vi is no liar, she’ll admit it: it feels fucking incredible. To be wanted by someone like Mel. Someone not only so stunning it almost hurts, but honest. Real. Mel doesn’t fuck around. She and Jayce are similar in that way.

Cait. Not so much.

Cait, who doesn’t want to see or speak to or hear from Vi, but who doesn’t want her to fuck anyone else, and who does, somehow, get Vi to come to her party.

How does that make any fucking sense?

So Vi tilts her head and lets her hair fall across her tattooed cheek and watches Mel swirl her hips and raise her hands into the air so that her dress tip-toes up her muscled, glittery thighs. Vi doesn’t know if it’s some sort of body glitter or if Mel is just magical enough to glow, but she does briefly wonder if it’s edible.

If Mel is edible.

If she’ll get to eat her.

Mel grins just as yellow light hits her from the strobe overhead and Vi decides.

Yes. She is going to eat her right the fuck up.

--

Now

Somewhere in her bag, Caitlyn Kiramman has a strap-on.

It’s light blue and curved at the tip and attaches to a beautiful and very expensive leather harness and she is finally drunk enough to admit to herself that she brought it in the hopes that Vi would fuck her with it tonight.

So what if they haven’t talked.

So what if they aren’t in love.

So what if there’s no reason for Vi to fuck her anymore.

Caitlyn has maybe just been living in a world where their souls are undeniably connected and where chemistry never fades. A bond like theirs couldn’t really just… poof. Disappear. Could it? She gave so much to Vi. Her Violet. She held her so dearly. She wanted her so badly.

She doesn’t know what she expected to happen. To invite her ex to a party and for them to argue a little bit and the maybe end up fucking in Jayce’s bedroom?

Okay. Maybe that is what she expected.

And, if she’s honest, it’s just because that’s what she wanted. She’s used to getting what she wants.

She knows she is beautiful and rich and all of those things that other people care about, but what she knows is most valuable to Vi is that she is, simply, Cait. Her currency was never in wealth or beauty, but in her, period. Vi always used to hold Caitlyn’s face in the mornings when Caitlyn was in that liminal stage between sleep and waking and murmur, “Wow.” Like Caitlyn was a marvel. Like she was so lucky.

Like she loved her.

Like she always would.

And now Caitlyn is at her own party at her own friend’s house and she is being forced to ignore the strap in her bag and watch Vi watch Mel.

Her plan has, clearly, gone very, very, very fucking wrong.

It makes her want revenge.

It makes her want to cry.

Between the two, she prefers the former.

She roams her eyes over the crowd until she finds tall and butch and swaying to the music and with friends but not a girlfriend and she runs her tongue over her teeth.

Vi wants to play this fucking game?

Game on, then.

Chapter Text

Then

Caitlyn does this… thing.

Vi learns it quickly, and she also learns that she absolutely fucking lives for it.

It’s almost like being… hunted. Like Caitlyn is holding a rifle in her hands instead of a cocktail. Like she’s peeking through a scope instead of long, long lashes. Caitlyn circles Vi, always watching, even when they part, even when Jayce and Mel stumble into the bar with their arms around each other, laughing, and Jayce throws an arm around Vi and insists that they go to the shitty little dart board in the corner of Bar Smoke where someone has almost certainly been stabbed.

Okay. So it’s not the nicest place in the city. But it’s got that gritty, dive bar feel that makes you feel really hot and cool when you're in your mid 20s and horny: dim lighting and a flickering neon sign and skateboards affixed to the wall and random ass stop signs on the ceiling. There is also a row of books, which is both weird and interesting. And the bartender is, admittedly, hot: a leggy black lesbian with cropped bleach-blond hair and matching eyebrows.

Normally, Vi would hit on her. Wet her lips and tip her beer her way and ask her name. Give her the choice of if she wants to flirt back or focus on her job.

But Vi is busy being hunted by Caitlyn.

Caitlyn in her tiny, shiny dress. Her legs seem a little longer every time Vi glances at them, and it’s getting harder and harder not to glance at them because Caitlyn is dancing with Mel, and fuck, they look incredible together. A spark in Vi’s brain wonders if Mel and Cait have ever been a thing, but Vi is pretty sure the answer is no because Mel is watching Jayce just like Cait is watching Vi.

Vi, who drove Cait here, and then was nearly promptly ditched.

It’s been a very weird night.

They drove in near silence, and Vi was surprised by how… nervous she felt around Caitlyn. They’d never been together in such a small space. Vi had expected banter, or for Caitlyn to tease her or something, but Caitlyn had seemed comfortable in her quiet mystery. All Vi could do was focus on the road and try not to turn and look at those sweet blue eyes and pouty lips. She realized Caitlyn had a scar right by her eye and she was dying to ask about it but also didn’t want to intrude. She wanted to ask a thousand questions. She wanted to spill from the mouth.

Instead she drove quietly and tried to match Caitlyn’s energy: confident and calm tinged with a little cocky.

Now, Vi is listening to Jayce ramble about science – or something like it? – while he gathers sticky darts and hands them to her. Vi cannot believe Jayce can focus at a time like this.

“How are you seriously playing darts right now?” Vi says quietly, beer pressed to her bottom lip.

Jayce grins, and Vi sees that he also has cute, kind of crooked teeth. “With them?” He nudges his shoulder slightly toward the girls.

“Uh,” Vi says. Out of the corner of her eye, she sees Caitlyn’s arms lifting, Mel’s own dropping on either side of Caitlyn’s curvy hips. “Yeah.”

“I’ve known them for a long time,” Jayce says. “They love attention. But, between you and me?” Jayce flashes teeth. “They like to have to work for it. I love Mel. She already knows it. And I get the sense that, if I’m honest? Dude, there’s no way Caitlyn doesn’t know you’re obsessed with her.”

“What?” Vi says. Her voice is too loud. She lowers it. “What?”

“I mean, you are, aren’t you?”

Vi turns. Looks. Watches. Gray eyes meet blue. Vi’s stomach drops into her core, which is turning molten in a way that doesn’t make sense considering she hasn’t even touched the girl.

“Fuck,” Vi mutters. She meets Jayce’s eyes. “How would I not be obsessed with that fucking girl?”

Jayce’s smile grows. “So throw darts with me,” he says. “And give her what she wants.”

“Which, according to you, is to be ignored.”

Jayce passes her a handful of darts. “Most definitely.”

So Vi plays darts instead of rushing across the miniscule dive bar to scoop up a long-limbed girl in a pathetic excuse for a dress and plant her lips on puffy red-tinted ones and finally know what Caitlyn tastes like. So she does her best not to tear her eyes from neon lights and tattered targets. So she sips the second beer Jayce hands her and nods her thanks and acts like she can’t hear the heels marching her way. 

Caitlyn doesn’t announce herself. She just appears. She just reaches into Vi’s hand and steals her darts. She just lifts them, one after the other, and tosses and tosses and tosses and lands and lands and lands, metal tearing through a ragged target. She exhales. She hovers next to Vi, a tall, hot thing, and, finally, she turns on her heel.

“That’s done, then.” Caitlyn says, her accent sharp. She smells like lime juice. “Are you simply going to ignore me all night?” 

Vi tucks her thumbs into the loops of her carpenter pants. She doesn’t look at Jayce. She just looks at Caitlyn, beautiful, beautiful Caitlyn, with her pointy edges and her pointy nose and the sweetness of her cupid’s bow.

“Come ‘ere,” Vi says.

The moment Vi’s thumb brushes Caitlyn’s cheek, some of that sharpness melts away. When Vi’s thumb reaches Caitlyn’s bottom lip, metal turns to something softer. By the time Caitlyn’s entire cheek is in Vi’s palm, Vi knows her shock is visible, palpable: Caitlyn, nuzzling into her calloused fingers, whole cheek in her palm like a puppy or a bunny or some other baby animal that Vi would have never expected to associate with Caitlyn.

But why wouldn’t she? Heels and expensive, tiny dresses and crisp lip liner and all, this is the girl who once fell asleep on Vi’s shoulder. Who didn’t just want to be one of her girls.

There it is. That softness. The sweet core in Caitlyn that matches Vi’s own gooey insides.

Vi’s entire being feels like it’s glowing. She knows it’s stupid and very gay of her but she can only think, Is this what falling in love feels like ? Like the future. Like being ripped open in a really nice way. Like walls coming down and hesitations melting and giving in.

Caitlyn doesn’t move her face, but she does lift her gaze, and, fuck.

Looking into those eyes? This close?

It hits. And Vi wants to swallow her whole.

The dive bar is busy. No one is watching this intimacy unfold, which seems impossible given how much it’s overwhelming Vi; how could the entire world not stop and zoom in on this beautiful moment?

Vi does what she wanted to do earlier.

She lowers her face, angles it, brings it toward Caitlyn’s.

Caitlyn doesn’t move. She just waits. She just watches.

Her hunt continues; she prepares for her prey.

And, fuck. Vi has never been so willing to play the role.

--

Then

The thing is, Vi is the cutest thing she’s ever seen, wearing loafers to a dive bar and those adorable striped socks and that button down that she’s pushed up to her forearms and those tattoos? They are kind of killing Caitlyn.

What’s a girl to do but fawn and flirt?

Caitlyn is melting in Vi’s palm and she doesn’t care. She has no regrets. She thinks, considers, wonders, and realizes that, no.

This is precisely what she’s been dreaming of since the moment she first took her hand.

So Caitlyn allows Vi to lean down and kiss her in a grimey bar.

It’s sweet: Vi’s lips and her grip on Caitlyn’s jaw and her breath in Caitlyn’s mouth. Caitlyn splits open a little more more and then a little more and then a bit further and then there are two of her, the Caitlyn who wants to be kissed sweetly in a bar and the her who is ready to rip her dress off of her body and shove herself, one tit at a time, inside of Vi’s mouth.

But then Caitlyn gets the best news.

Because it seems there are two of Vi, as well.

The one holding her oh-so-sweetly and delivering those treacherous, sugary presses of lips to lips, and then this one – oh.

Oh, this one.

It’s subtle. It’s in the flex of Vi’s fingers. It’s in the shift in her hips, bringing them just the teeny-tiniest bit closer to Caitlyn’s own.

It’s the low grumble of a moan that sneaks through her lips.

Caitlyn pauses. She looks up. Her eyes meet Vi’s.

And she smiles. She sees a glimpse of herself in those eyes.

It seems they aren’t so different, after all.

“Take me to your car,” Caitlyn whispers against her lips, bodies on either side of them moving and dancing and kissing. Caitlyn wants and aches and needs to know how Vi, big, broad, Vi, will feel against her naked.

Vi’s eyes are dark and heavy. She kisses Caitlyn again, just one, sweet, small kiss.

“Wanted to make sure everyone saw, just to be sure?” Caitlyn teases, curious.

Vi shrugs. “Not possessive,” she corrects. “But clarifying.”

“Clarifying what?” Caitlyn eggs. She wants to hear it from Vi and her perfect, scarred lips.

“That you’re mine, now.”

Chapter Text

Then

Caitlyn is shocked by how instantly Vi overwhelms her.

Vi’s calloused palms on her hips pushing up her skirt. Vi’s lips on her neck, sucking and marking. Vi’s breath on her flushed skin, hot and trippy. Caitlyn is a coil and she’s wound tight and she’s maybe going to come? That is impossible, but maybe she is going to come from Vi grinding on her, their cunts locked tight and still clothed, Caitlyn thin underwear and the rough fabric of Vi’s pants separating them. Caitlyn knows she’s hot and wet and that Vi can feel it, and that only amps her up further.

She keeps hearing these tiny little gasps leaving her mouth and she cannot believe she sounds like that but she does, is desperate for this butch in carpenter pants.

Vi knows. “Tell me,” Vi says.

“What?” Caitlyn whispers, the word rolling on a moan.

“What you want,” Vi says, and it’s so fucking hot. “Where do you want me?” Vi says, and it’s even fucking hotter.

Caitlyn moans louder. Her mouth and her hands and her mind is full of Vi, a hot, pink-haired haze that smells like smoke and shitty beer. Caitlyn likes to think she’s a classy girl, a fancy girl, a girl with high expectations, the sort of girl you should have to wine and dine before you get to put your mouth to her skin, but right now she needs to be railed in the back of Vi’s truck – immediately.

But Caitlyn does want to make this as good for Vi as she knows it’s about to be for her. She has her suspicions. Of what Vi might like. Of what Vi might need. She brings her lips to Vi’s ear, her tongue curling around the soft skin there. She tastes like salt and perfume. “I want you inside of me,” Caitlyn murmurs against the shell.

“Fuck, Cait,” Vi groans. Her eyes are roaming and needy and excited . It’s like she has so much energy and she doesn’t know what to do with it. She drops her head to Caitlyn’s tits and just sort of goes to town, licking and sucking and pouring herself into Caitlyn’s cleavage. “I could write a song about your tits.”

“What, you’re a skateboarder who’s in a band?”

“Of course I’m in a band,” Vi says, like, duh .

Caitlyn flushes. Of course she’s in a band.

Vi’s moved on. She is focused on one thing. “Take this off,” she demands. Rough hands manhandle at Caitlyn’s dress, tugging until it’s over her head, not giving a fuck about how this is really not some cheap, polyester dress but a quite nice satin – but then Caitlyn doesn’t care because her bare tits are in Vi’s hands and Vi is groping her, there’s really no other word for it, and their hips are still angled just right and…

“Fuck, V-Vi,” Caitlyn says. Suddenly she needs to know more. “Is it just Vi? Is it?”

“What?” Vi cusses into her tits.

“Your name,” Caitlyn says. “Your entire name, is it just Vi?”

“ Fuck ,” Vi mutters. She sounds like she’s going to burst and her hips are rolling and it’s absolutely delightful and Caitlyn is so soaked she knows she’s going to have to just abandon this thong entirely. “Violet.”

“Violet?” Caitlyn asks, words tangled between her gasps. Her face feels hot and her tits feel hotter.

“Violet,” Vi confirms. “My name is Violet.”

“That’s very beautiful, actually,” Caitlyn says. She muses, rolling it over in her mind. My Vi. My Violet. I belong to Violet.

“Thanks. Now, shut up, please,” Vi says. “And take your underwear off right this second.”

--

Then

Caitlyn, beneath her, in her car.

With her dress around her waist, and then her shoulders, and then over her beautiful face and then it’s gone and Caitlyn is there, bare save for a pathetic excuse for underwear – what is that, a fucking g-string? She can see dark blue curls around the fabric and fuck, is Vi going to just fucking come in her pants? – Caitlyn is beautiful.

Caitlyn is stunning.

There are no words.

Maybe Vi will come in her pants.

She’d be lucky to.

She can’t stop grabbing at this girl, but Caitlyn seems to be into it. She pulls the fabric of her thong and lets it go with a pop , and Caitlyn rolls her eyes and Vi laughs. She needs this to be a little lighter than it is because she’s about to get overwhelmed. She braces one hand next to Caitlyn’s head and one on her hip and just pauses, taking her in. Long legs. Long torso. Sharp shoulders. Delicate neck. Lips parted, gasping, waiting. Eyes roaming, impatient, curious.

“You still haven’t told me,” Vi says.

“Yes, Violet?”

Fuck, hearing her name like that, her full name . Wow. Vi didn’t expect this. “You want me inside of you, yeah?”

“Yes,” Caitlyn says, voice prim like they’re talking about taxes and not about to rip into each other.

“How do you like it?” Vi says.

“You are so…” Caitlyn tilts her head. Blue waves spiral down her shoulder. “Polite.”

“Don’t worry,” Vi says. “It’s not all going to be polite. But I want to do this the way you want. I want you to be comfortable.”

Something softens in Caitlyn’s eyes. “I like fingers. And… weight. I want to feel you fucking against me.”

Vi’s core heats, tightens. “Okay,” Vi says. “That, I can do.”

“I know you can,” Caitlyn says.

Vi swallows. She goes to kiss her but feels a palm on her chest.

“You?” Caitlyn says.

“What?” Vi is ready to have a tit shoved in her mouth, a cunt down her throat. Caitlyn’s fingers are so soft and manicured and pointy against her skin.

“What would you like,” Caitlyn says. Eyes big and blue. “From me?”

Vi pauses. She rarely makes it to this point. She’s used to reaching and being allowed to reach. She isn’t used to questions. She swallows. “I want you to just have a really fucking good time,” she admits. “And I’ll take care of me.”

Caitlyn pauses. Considers. Nods. “Okay,” Caitlyn says. She removes her hand from Vi’s chest and falls back against the seat. She rolls her shoulders back and lets her thighs fall open as far as they can in the narrow back seat. “You may proceed.”

Vi scoffs. She wants to be annoyed but instead she’s just turned on. She does as she’s told.

She lowers her right hand and crawls her fingertips down, passing Caitlyn’s collarbones and the plane between her tits and walking her stomach and the softness of it and then the softness of her, the wet curls that shiver when Caitlyn twitches. She wants to see her. Vi holds Caitlyn’s face up, gripping her chin, and slips her thumb between Caitlyn’s teeth right as she slides two fingers through her folds.

And she’s wet.

Vi knew she was wet.

But she’s so. Fucking. Wet.

Caitlyn gasps and Vi does too.

“Wow,” Vi says. “You want me or something, baby?” 

“Shut up,” Caitlyn says. Her eyes fall closed.

Vi grips her chin harder until Caitlyn’s eyes open. “Eyes on me,” Vi says.

This works for Caitlyn, clearly, because she moans and sucks Vi’s thumb deep into her mouth. Caitlyn digs her nails into Vi’s hips, finding her hip bones beneath her boxers and sinking in.

Touching Caitlyn is… it simply is. It’s how wet she is. It’s how hot she is. How the skin there seems to reach back. How easily she parts, opens, accepts. Caitlyn is stubborn and beautiful and shockingly sweet and kind of a pain in the ass, but her cunt is all Vi’s .

She experiments. She slips her fingers up and down. She rolls them gently above her clit. She brings her pointer finger just below Caitlyn’s clit and moves it ever so slightly, noticing that this gets Caitlyn louder, wetter, and more impatient. So she keeps doing it. So Vi plays with her clit from below, jacking her off without touching her where she’s most sensitive.

“What the fuck.” Caitlyn moans. “O-oh, my god.”

Vi gently walks her left hand to Caitlyn’s throat, and Caitlyn nods. “Gentle,” she demands.

“Of course,” Vi says. She just wants a hint of it. She just wants to give Caitlyn some of that weight she asked for. She palms Caitlyn’s neck, not squeezing, really just touching, and Caitlyn’s eyes roll back. “That’s my girl.”

“Am I?” Caitlyn says, beginning to swirl her hips to chase Vi’s touch. Her thighs are already shaking and Vi hasn’t even touched her the way she wants to yet.

“About that,” Vi whispers. Her cheek finds Caitlyn’s. She keeps her voice soft, gentle, edged with something hot. “If I’m going to fuck you,” she says. “Really fuck you? I need you to be mine. I don’t care if you’ve been fucking the entire city up until now. Now, you’re mine. Just mine.”

Caitlyn gasps. Little curls sprout around her hairline as she sweats. She can’t stop the way her cunt reaches for Vi, and Vi wants to bottle this moment up so she can drink it later when she’s alone in her room, rutting against a pillow and moaning into her sheets and coming endlessly at the thought of Caitlyn, wet and naked and needy.

“So?” Vi says.

Caitlyn is too turned on to think. She’s wriggling and sweating and moaning.

“Allow me to sweeten the deal. Weight, right?” Vi does something she rarely does and lifts up. Caitlyn pouts, and Vi smiles. She moves, reaching for her pants but leaving her boxers on. And she returns to Caitlyn and offers her cunt to Caitlyn’s thigh.

Caitlyn curses, loudly. She stares directly at the huge wet patch at the front of Vi’s boxers. She looks… hungry . “Can I?”

“You can’t touch me, baby girl,” Vi says. “But you can grab my hips. Or my ass.” The words are barely past Vi’s lips before Caitlyn is grabbing her, digging those acrylics in and making Vi twitch.

“You are…” Caitlyn says. Her eyes are glossy and she’s flushed from her cheeks to her nipples.

“I know, honey,” Vi says. “So are you.”

Vi grinds down on Caitlyn’s thigh and it feels way better than feels possible. Caitlyn is all sinewy muscle and the sounds Caitlyn makes spur Vi on. Vi grinds down harder, bringing two fingers to Caitlyn’s entrance, and Caitlyn surprises her by placing her hand on the back of Vi’s and shoving, hard , forcing her inside of herself.

“What the fuck, Cait,” Vi moans.

Caitlyn bites her hip and stares at Vi, widening her thighs and pressing her muscle up against Vi’s cunt. “Fuck me,” Caitlyn says. “Right now.” 

Vi does. She stacks her fingers and presses, going deep, shallow, and then deep again. She scissors her fingers against each other and Caitlyn bites her neck so she keeps doing it, widening Caitlyn and stretching her out. All of Vi’s focus is Cait, Cait, Cait. Vi finds a rhythm, fucking herself against Caitlyn while she shoves inside of Caitlyn’s drenched core and Caitlyn picks up on the rhythm and fucks her back, rolling her hips and keeping her thigh tight and giving Vi just the right around of pressure, just the right surface to grind on.

And they find that point – where they are really and truly fucking the shit out of each other.

They aren’t kissing. They’re gasping into each other’s mouths and necks and skin, hair pulling and teeth gnashing and bodies needy, chasing for something hot and white and edged with pain, a feeling as inevitable as it is desperate.

Vi busts. Her eyes fly open in her surprise and Caitlyn grins so wide it destroys her; she is so happy to have ruined her first. Vi ruts and stumbles and tries to keep moving her fingers in a way that makes sense but Caitlyn is just so incredibly beautiful and her expression is so open – that smile on her face is something she hasn’t seen before and, fuck, she could drown in it.

Vi needs Caitlyn to come. She thinks she might die without it.

She lifts her hips and grabs Caitlyn's thighs and folds her up, shoving her knees into her chest and drops onto the ground and it’s a tight fit and it’s vaguely uncomfortable but it doesn’t fucking matter because Caitlyn is in her mouth, wet and throbbing, and Caitlyn is muffling a scream very poorly against her palm and biting down on her own thumb as she comes in Vi’s mouth, liquid and hot and aching, and Vi is certain she is never going to feel this way about another human being ever again.

--

Now

Sevika is big and broad and everything that Caitlyn likes, other than simply not being Vi. Best of all, Vi kind of hates her in that way that butches sometimes do: competitive, despite being allies. Enemies, despite being friends. She’s seen them fight before, wrestling or boxing in official places but fueled by something less official that always left Caitlyn a little heady and a little eager to find her way to Vi, Vi’s fingers driving into Caitlyn while Caitlyn demanded more, more , harder , more and thought of the way Vi and Sevika rounded on each other and bled and sweated, fragrant and salty and alive.

Sevika raises an eyebrow on Caitlyn’s approach. Her brown eyes are rimmed with black and she has a cigarette tucked behind her ear. She’s all edges and curiosity. She’s three years older than them and hot and she’s known for fucking around and doing it very, very well. The other girls around her part and leave space for Caitlyn, who is frightening and focused, her gaze unmoving from Sevika’s bright brown eyes.

“Caitlyn,” Sevika says, like maybe she’s not all that surprised at her approach. There’s always been something rugged about her voice that Caitlyn has been able to appreciate. They aren’t friends, are barely even acquaintances, but they know enough. “How can I help you?”

Her voice rumbles through Caitlyn’s chest. Caitlyn sees no reason to lie to Sevika. “I need a favor,” she says. She can hear that her own accent is still too strong. Shot five always spurs it on.

Crooked teeth come onto Sevika’s bottom lip. She drops her voice. “I’m going to need more than that.” Her dark jeans are slung low on her hips and they reveal a little strip of her boxers and her abs. A tease of happy trail.

Caitlyn fidgets with her fingers and stops when she realizes it. She clears her throat, and then whispers: “Vi is going to fuck Mel.” 

That get’s Sevika’s attention, as Caitlyn knew it would. “Oh.” She says. “Oh. I imagine you aren’t happy about that.”

Caitlyn brushes her hair over her shoulder. She offers more of her tits to Sevika’s gaze. “I imagine you aren’t, either.”

It’s no secret. Sevika is a fuckboy, but she’s kind of a lover for Mel. Mel doesn’t even realize it, but she’s told Caitlyn enough: that Sevika texts her songs she thinks she’d like, that she saves her a seat when they end up at the same place, that she decked a guy once who wouldn’t leave Mel alone – and didn’t even talk to Mel after, just punched him and shoved her fists in her pockets and left – and she helped her renovate her massive industrial apartment, that she looked destroyingly good in a beat up tank top while she did it, toolbelt slung low and sweat on her brow while she took down a wall Mel happened to mention that didn’t like once.

Now, Seviak hmms .

Caitlyn can’t deny it. She looks good. Strong. Caitlyn can see Vi looking a little bit more like her in a few years; filled out and extremely unapologetic about how fucking gay she is. It’s not like Vi isn’t apologetic, but Sevika is a big, out, lesbian, period, the word dyke literally burnt into her tank top as if anyone could ever forget it.

“I think we can help each other,” Caitlyn says. She brings a hand to Sevika’s waist, lets her palm warm and settle against the skin, bare in her cropped tank. She thumbs a soft hair or two. In another life, maybe they would have had some sort of fling. Maybe it would have come naturally. She can imagine the two of them falling not into bed together, but into a bar bathroom or a locker room and really fucking the shit out of each other. It would be rough and meaningless and delicious. The sort of thing Caitlyn went for before Vi.

“Your girl does fuckin’ hate me.” Sevika smiles.

Caitlyn drops her eyes. “Vi,” she says, hands lowering to abs, nails teasing boxers. “Is not my girl.”

Their eyes meet and it’s startlingly heated.

“What is it that you’re after?” Sevika doesn’t reach for Caitlyn back. She just watches her. She just stands with her legs spread and allows herself to be touched.

“We don’t have to fuck if you don’t want to,” Caitlyn says. “But I would really like Vi to think we’re about to.”

A flash. A smirk. “I mean,” Sevika says. “It’s not like I’ve never thought about it. Fucking you.”

“Oh?” Something coils, deep and hot.

“Your accent,” Sevika says. “I’d like to fuck it up a little.” She shrugs like she’s told her the weather.

“Oh,” Caitlyn says. Her voice has gone high.

“But I’m happy to put on a show,” she says. “If that’s what you’d like. Let them think what you want them to think. And we can take it from there, pretty girl.”

Caitlyn’s nodding and reaching before she realizes it and the alcohol is blurring and the music is louder and she’s lifted, suddenly, her hips clamping around Sevika’s and her being gripped hard and she’s turned and slammed into the wall, a shelf rattling nearby as hot lips find hers, searching and curious and groaning and doing as she asked – putting on a show. 

Chapter Text

Now

It’s jarring how quickly Caitlyn’s mind wipes Vi from the premises.

Of course she’s not entirely gone. This is Vi, of course. Her beautiful girl. Her one great love. Her soul mate.

But Sevika…

Is hot.

The sort of hot that overwhelms. That has this magical ability to silence even the most persistent thoughts and feelings and wants.

Because right now? With her legs curled around thick thighs and big fingers digging into the skin beneath her flimsy romper? All Caitlyn can think about is Sevika.

The thing about having sex with someone you aren’t in love with is that you get to be selfish. Extremely selfish. So that’s what Caitlyn is thinking about as her lips move in and around Sevika’s. The way she’d simply fall back into whatever bed in Jayce’s house they stumbled into. How Sevika would tear her clothes off like she wanted to tear her into little, bite-sized pieces. The way Sevika would claw at her and bite her, hard. The way that Caitlyn wouldn’t have to do anything other than be , than exist, than let Sevika do whatever the fuck she wanted to her. She can hear it now, the way Sevika would moan into her ear the moment she got her romper past her hips and her fingers past her inner thighs, the pads of her fingers brushing her clit, gathering her wetness. The way she’d grunt as she fucked her: desperate and eating up every single sound that left Caitlyn’s aching cunt and loud mouth. The way she’d moan, “Fuck, imagine fucking you with my cock,” the way Caitlyn would open up for her, nice and wide, giving her all the room she needed to get her wide shoulders between her thighs and her fingers nice and deep inside of her pussy.

The way they’d come, maybe even together, maybe with Sevika fucking herself while she fucked Caitlyn, two fingers curling inside of herself and three fingers deep in Caitlyn. The sounds. The smell of it. The mess they’d leave behind.

The complete and total lack of feelings that would play over and over in Caitlyn’s mind for days, weeks, months to come, the sound of Sevika’s orgasm rolling through her mind whenever they’d stumble upon each other at parties just like this one.

Maybe it would become a thing. Maybe Sevika would find her in a beer-soaked kitchen and sink her fingers beneath her skirt, sneaky and curious and cocky, rolling her clit with ease while Caitlyn tried to seem unaffected. Maybe Sevika would take her into the bathroom and bend her over and make her look herself in the eye while she gets railed, tits bouncing and ass up. Maybe Sevika would finally taste her, then, shoving her nose into her ass and her mouth into her cunt from behind, hands digging into her hips and moans vibrating through her clit. Maybe Sevika would force Caitlyn to taste her then, too, rutting her hips against her mouth while she cursed and pulled her hair, leaking down Caitlyn’s throat and neck and into her cleavage.

Maybe.

Maybe it could be.

But maybe the haze in Caitlyn’s mind parts just so.

Just enough for pink hair and soft eyes to make themselves known. 

Just enough for her to ache in a way that’s less desperately horny and more heartbreakingly sad.

Maybe she’d remember the way Vi held her after sex, no matter what absolutely filthy thing they’d done, and kissed her chin, her forehead, the damp curls at the base of her skull, muttering nonsense but mostly muttering how in love she was.

Wholly and truly.

And able to say it so, so easily.

The times it brought tears to Caitlyn’s eyes and she shoved at them with fists. The times Caitlyn wished she could say it back. The times Caitlyn knew she wasn’t good enough for someone sweet and soft like Vi.

Someone who could leave bite marks on her inner thighs one second and hum her adoration for her into her hairline in the next.

Someone good.

Someone good.

Someone watching her, right now, as she takes Sevika’s tongue into her mouth.

Someone who looks, maybe, like she’s breaking all over again.

--

Now

Vi is watching Sevika grind her hips into her ex-girlfriend. And hold her legs around her waist. And kiss her.

Somehow, the last part is the most heartbreaking.

Vi knows Caitlyn fucks. She’s single. Whatever. It shouldn’t bother her.

But, shit, if it isn’t cracking her in half.

To see Caitlyn’s cheeks flush and to be across the room from it. To see her shiver and not be the reason for it. To see her hips clamp down on Sevika — of all fucking people, Sevika , seriously Cait? — and not be able to stop it.

To not have a reason or a right to.

Sevika pivots, leaning back into the wall while Caitlyn climbs her like a fucking champ, and Caitlyn dares to open those blue fucking eyes and look directly at Vi.

And she looks sad.

And it makes Vi sick to her fucking stomach.

Vi smokes. And she takes a shot. And she rips her eyes away from Caitlyn and looks at Mel and something heavy settles in her chest. She walks up to Mel, dancing, glittering Mel, and leans in close and takes her ear into her mouth. “Mel,” Vi says over the music, her voice a rumble. “Would you still like me to fuck you?” 

Mel brings her hand to Vi’s throat. She nods once, and her gold hoops catch the light. She’s smiling. “Yes.”

“Cool,” Vi says, trying to play it casual even though she feels like she’s choking to death. She needs a distraction, but she also doesn’t want to disrespect Mel. Because Mel is a woman and a lovely one and she doesn’t want to make anything weird between them or to feel bad about this after. “Can we talk real quick?”

Mel’s eyebrows raise. “Of course.”

Vi takes Mel’s hand because Cait is being cruel and she wants to be a little cruel back but also Mel is beautiful and Vi doesn’t want to miss out on the chance to touch her and see what it’s like.

And it’s there. That little zing.

Vi leads her into the first bedroom she sees and locks the door behind them. She sits onto the bed beside a pile of coats that she shoves aside. She spreads her knees and brings her fists onto her thighs and just looks up at Mel.

Stunning, glowing Mel, who puts her hands on her hips and waits.

“I feel like I have to explain,” Vi says. Her voice is rough and she doesn’t know where to begin.

“Vi?” Mel says. She walks a little closer to Vi like she’s approaching a wounded animal. “Before you start, may I?”

Vi huffs a laugh. “Yeah.”

“We are both adults,” Mel says. “And I’m… familiar with your situation. As I said, I just think we’d be a nice pair for a quick fuck. No more, no less.” Mel walks between Vi’s thighs, and Vi inhales sharply. “If that’s okay with you, of course.”

Vi looks at Mel’s hips, which are right at eye level. She has this impossibly small waist and these impossibly curvy hips and this soft little pooch right at her tummy and it makes Vi hungry. She would really like to see this woman naked. “Even if it’s just some fucked rebound situation?”

“I’ve done worse,” Mel says, grinning. The set of her mouth is soft, but her gaze is hungry. “Now, if I may.” Mel begins to shift, pushing her skirt higher on her hips. The silky fabric rides high, and she sinks her hips down, down, down, until she’s sitting in Vi’s lap with her legs spread. “I’ve always wondered what it would be like to kiss you, Vi.”

“Fuck,” Vi says, and she reaches for Mel.

Something hot and a little twisted snaps. Mel moans in Vi’s mouth, and Vi grips the back of her neck, fingers slipping through dense curls. Mel smells like vanilla and caramel and some sort of musky perfume and the skin of her thighs is so soft beneath Vi’s fingers, which immediately started roaming because, well, have you fucking seen this girl? Her moans are light and soft and edged with something delicious, and Vi opens her mouth and does her best at eating her alive, accepting her tongue and saliva greedily. Mel tastes good and Vi wants to get her cunt in her mouth immediately.

They separate, calibrating. 

“You top?” Mel whispers.

“Yeah.” Vi sounds out of breath and she can’t believe how quickly this spiraled. “You don’t, I’m guessing?”

“Not a day in my life.” Mel’s grin shines. “I’d love for you to eat me out.”

“Mel,” Vi says. “I can honestly say it’d be a goddamn honor.”

That smile in response; it sparkles. Mel shrugs her shimmery gold tank off of her shoulders, one strap at a time, revealing her bare breasts. Vi’s pupils go dark and she just stares, taking in soft tits and pointed brown nipples.

“Something for you,” Mel murmurs, knowing how good she looks.

“Thanks,” Vi says. She stares, trying and failing not to, because, fuck. She hasn’t gotten laid since Caitlyn. She’s had chances, but it hasn’t felt right. She didn’t want to lead anyone on or end up sobbing into some stranger’s tits. Something about Mel, though… it feels safe. Like they’re truly on the same page.

“Vi?” Mel says.

Vi tears her eyes away from perfect nipples and swallows. “Yeah?”

Mel brings her hand to the top of Vi’s head. She sinks her fingers into her wavy pink hair, destroying the bun she’d spent much too long on earlier. She scratches once with her acrylics. “Get on your knees.”

Vi bites her lip, hard. She feels a pulse between her thighs. Her boxers are soaked.

She gets on her knees.

She does as she’s told.

Chapter Text

Now

Vi kneels between Mel’s soft brown thighs and she opens her mouth and accepts her.

Gratefully.

Graciously.

She has always been a gracious host.

And her mouth has always known its way around a cunt.

Mel’s, specifically, is damning. It tastes like heat and salt and, well, pussy, each fold slipping a little too perfectly as Vi’s tongue pushes past it, each unveiling something new: a moan that escape’s Mel’s plush lips, a shiver that sends her hips shuddering between Vi’s fingertips, a taste or a scent or a sensation. Vi is completely and utterly focused on Mel and her cunt and she has never been so grateful for a distraction.

Her tongue continues to slide, parting Mel gently like a finger on a rose, except this is Vi’s tongue and Mel does not taste or smell like a flower: her pussy smells like a pussy and she tastes like one too, and for that, Vi is also grateful. She has never understood why people are so afraid to get a cunt in their face; if it were up to Vi, she would spend most nights and some days just like this, pussy-drunk and drowning in it.

Vi curls her tongue around Mel’s clit and Mel really shakes, now. Vi holds her hands down harder and she forces Mel not to move. She glances up and Mel glances down and Mel smiles this entirely too sweet smile and Vi gets back to work. She cannot think about how sweet Mel is, because that will make her think about sweet girls and the times that Cait was sweet.

She focuses on salty instead.

She scoops salty slick into her mouth and swallows and moans. She brings her lips around Mel’s clit and sucks and grins. She lifts up slightly and shifts and forces Mel onto her stomach and listens to the clink of Mel’s shimmery top with its metal details as it clatters to the floor. While Vi would very much like to get Mel’s tits in her face and her mouth, both are occupied, and she returns to her cunt.

Vi likes to eat pussy because she cannot think.

--

Now

Caitlyn’s hip is buzzing.

She is ignoring it because she is wrapped around Sevika in the living room and Sevika is essentially humping her in public and it’s fabulous.

But Caitlyn’s hip is buzzing. Still buzzing.

“Fuck, you got a vibrator on you or something?” Sevika cusses into her mouth between kisses.

“Hold on,” Caitlyn says. “Shit, one second.” She is hot all over and her hands are shaking and she’s having trouble getting her phone out of the pocket of her miniscule romper. But then she sees the name and her hands are shaking for another reason.

Sevika notices. “You good?”

Caitlyn tears her eyes away from her phone. “Yes. Yes, I’m fine. Give me just a moment.”

She pushes through groping couples and dancing crowds and swirls of smoke and tucks into the tiny bathroom at the end of the hall. The floor is sticky and there’s a half-empty cup of beer on the edge of the sink. Caitlyn’s hands are shaking. They are really, really shaking.

Powder.

Caitlyn swallows. A part of her, a bigger part than she wants to admit, does not want to do this. Wants to toss her phone into the toilet and go back to getting railed and distracted. But she made a promise, once. And she has always done her very best to not break promises.

She breaks everything else.

Caitlyn taps the number under missed calls .

“Powder?” Caitlyn says as soon as the dialing stops, not waiting for her to speak.

“Uh, yeah. Hi.” Her voice is small, smaller than it should be. Powder has always been smaller than she should be. But it’s edged with something. She sounds annoyed, as if Caitlyn shouldn’t have called her back.

“Am I wrong to return your call?” Caitlyn asks. “Was it an accident?”

Silence. Caitlyn pauses, staring at the floor. Her eyes follow the lines of blue and white tile, once pristine, now filthy.

“No.” It’s still tinged and barbed, but it’s there. “It wasn’t an accident. I just needed to talk to someone.”

“Oh,” Caitlyn says.

“Is that… is that still a thing? Is that still okay?”

Powder is seventeen, and that’s always felt so wrong to Caitlyn. She seems permanently twelve, like a pre-teen in an older body. She’s all of the most sensitive parts of a teenaged girl wrapped in barbed wire, and it makes her seem strong, Caitlyn’s always thought, but the truth is just the opposite. If anything, she’s always on the precipice: of loss, of grief, of pain.

Caitlyn was endeared to her the moment they met.

“Of course it’s okay,” Caitlyn says. “What’s going on?”

“I’m not… doing so hot,” Powder says. “I didn’t know what to do.”

Silence. But pointed in a different way, this time. Vulnerable. Afraid.

“I’m glad you called me,” Caitlyn reassures. “I always want you to call me.”

“You left,” Powder says.

“I never left you.” Caitlyn says the words as quickly as she can. It feels like the clock is ticking.

“Hm,” Powder says.

And then Powder begins rambling.

And Caitlyn realizes she has something else to do.

Something harder than kissing Sevika.

Something harder than calling Powder.

Something harder than leaving Violet.

Going to her, now.

--

Then

“And this,” Vi says with a flourish. “Is the only person in this house you should be afraid of.”

Powder rolls her eyes. Her fifteenth birthday was last week; balloons still float around the modest kitchen, a poster reading, Happy birthday, Pow! spotted with glitter glue hanging on the white refrigerator. 

“I’m happy to meet you, Powder,” Caitlyn says. “And happy belated birthday, how lovely.”

Powder doesn’t stand or speak to Caitlyn, making it an awkward introduction, but she does watch her like a hawk.

It’s something.

In the kitchen, Vander puts around, pouring drinks and ladeling pasta into plates. “Don’t worry about her.” His voice is a grumble, but a warm one. He wipes his hands on the towel over his shoulder. “We’re happy to finally meet Vi’s girl.” 

Him, Caitlyn likes. But, honestly, she likes them both. She sees her younger self within Powder, and, if she’s honest, she sees some of who she is now in her twenties within Powder: nervous and anxious and afraid, but sharp about it lest anyone figure her out.

She likes the entire home. It’s much smaller than where she grew up, but it’s more lived in, too. There are photos and magnets from different places all over the fridge. The towels and throw pillows don’t match. You can see the living room from the kitchen, and there’s no formal dining room. It’s lived in. It’s loved.

Powder swirls back and forth on a bar stool, watching.

Vi throws an arm around Caitlyn’s shoulder. Her skin is warm and her bicep wraps around her, sturdy and comforting and incredibly hot. “She’ll come around. In the meantime, let me show you around.”

“Don’t get up to any weird shit,” Vander says. “Dinner in 10.”

Vi rolls her eyes and Powder flips him off and it’s this bizarre, mystical dynamic that Caitlyn didn’t know existed beyond short fiction she’d read on the internet and the occasion indie film. She can practically hear the synopsis in her head: Three broken people, torn to pieces by tragedy, build each other up again and become the perfect family in the process.

Caitlyn’s logline would read in the exact opposite direction.

She makes out with Vi in her bedroom, and they giggle and shush each other. Caitlyn accepts Vi’s tongue in her mouth and she tastes delicious and her skin smells different, like summer, like a sexy little cloud. It eggs Caitlyn on and she lets out the smallest moan she can manage and she bites down on Vi’s lip and palms her tit, feeling her pierced nipple and melting for it. “I want you in my mouth,” Caitlyn says.

“I know you do,” Vi says.

“When are you going to let me?”

“We’ll see,” Vi says. “Be a good girl and we’ll see.”

It’s enough to throw Caitlyn off of her scent. It’s hard to deny how good it feels, having Vi’s lips moving around her own, the hard bud of her nipple straining against the fabric of her striped button down. Caitlyn presses kisses to her neck and inhales. She gets high on Vi.

She absorbs her through her scent, her skin, the memory of her that saturates her childhood bedroom, her childhood home.

She absorbs Vi.

And she tries not to be in love.

--

Now

Caitlyn leaves the small bathroom with slick floors, and it feels like she’s in a dream, or has done some strange sort of drug. Everything is fuzzy around the edges. Everybody is a blur. Every scent is too harsh, every sound is muted. All she is is long limbs pushing through strangers. All she is is feel climbing the staircase. All she is is the feeling of her own heart beat pounding in her chest, her phone clenched in her hand.

She made Powder a promise, once.

Caitlyn isn’t going to fail her. Powder’s already been collateral damage.

She knocks until she finds her.

And when Vi opens the door, everything rushes back: sounds and smells and awareness. Caitlyn is a tall, too-thin, pale girl standing in the hallway of a party that’s long gone off the rails and she is still raising her fist despite the door being open, despite Vi standing there, despite the expression on her face – the expression alone tells Caitlyn everything she needs to know, doesn’t it?

She doesn’t even need to see the way her hair sticks up in twelve different directions, or the flush of her face, or Mel, sitting on the bed in the background.

Caitlyn swallows hard. She locks eyes with Vi and her voice is even when she says, “If you’re done fucking my childhood friend, I need you.”

Chapter Text

Now

Looking into the eyes of someone who used to love you is a pain that no one should have to feel. It’s all too easy to imagine that the love remains : maybe just as a whisper, maybe just as a glimmer, a memory glazing an iris and saying, yes, I loved you once. Yes, you were loved by me, deeply, truly, maddeningly.

It hurts even more when you know that you’ve really, truly, fucked up.

Maybe, forever. 

Vi walks with hair fucked and clothes mussed and lips damp and follows Caitlyn down the hallway. The party is still going – she catches a glimpse of Mel talking to Jayce and feels a tumble of relief that, okay, at least Mel is fine – but Vi feels wholly deflated. She’s probably still high around the edges but she feels shocked into sobriety.

How is any of this real? 

That Caitlyn opened the door just minutes after Mel had finished in her mouth.

That Caitlyn had uttered the words, “I need you.”

That Caitlyn placed her hand in Vi’s and dragged her down the hall.

The hand that she’s still holding.

Caitlyn’s hand is small. Her skin is perfect, her nails are sharp. If Vi focuses, she can just barely feel Caitlyn’s fingers trembling in hers. She wonders if Caitlyn meant to touch her and then wonders if Caitlyn is only holding on because it would be embarrassing to yank her palm away.

Is this as hard for her as it is for me?

How many hours had they spent tangled up in each other? How deeply had they helped each other heal from all of the bullshit they’d faced in their childhoods and their teens and their twenties before they cracked each other in half? How many new laughs had Vi discovered from Caitlyn? How many new ways did Vi discover to make Caitlyn come? That’s what every second felt like with her: a discovery. Vi an archeologist and Caitlyn a gem, precious and rare. 

Now, Vi, cracked in half, hates how good it feels. To have Caitlyn’s skin on hers. To feel something vulnerable from Caitlyn. To connect like this.

She follows Caitlyn’s swishing hair and swishing hips and doesn’t let go of her hand.

Caitlyn doesn’t speak until they’re in the driveway. Caitlyn finally lets go and she stares at her palm for a moment, like maybe it betrayed her by reaching for Vi.

Then, Caitlyn has her phone in her hand. She taps away, and then she shoves it to Vi.

“You need to read this.”

Vi tears her eyes from Caitlyn’s – blue, blurred, but worried , which makes Vi worry – and she remembers why they’re out here – because something is wrong, because Caitlyn needs her – and she grabs the phone and she scrolls and she feels something sink low in her stomach as she reads.

Powder.

“Wait,” Vi says. Her entire body is suddenly vibrating. Her stomach is hot, her throat thick. “What the fuck? Why didn’t she call me?”

Caitlyn laughs, but it’s quiet and sad. “Why would I know? I haven’t seen her in months.”

Vi shoves and digs and comes up empty. Her phone. It’s missing. “Fuck me,” Vi cusses. “Fuck.” She shoves her hands into her eyes, fists balling up, pressing too hard. All I do is fail her. Over, and over, and over again. All I do is make it worse. 

Soft, small hands wrap around her fists. “Hey,” Caitlyn says. Her voice is gentle and it only makes everything hurt more. She knows everything: the times Vi thought she was going to lose her little sister, really lose her; the times Powder would call Vi sobbing at all hours of the night, gasping for air and saying things like I don’t understand why it hurts so bad and why does it have to be so hard for me? and what’s wrong with me? why is this happening to me? Caitlyn would sit up with blurry eyes and rub Vi’s back while she sobbed, outright, phone on silent and listening to her sister spiral or have a panic attack or delve into mania, which sometimes felt even harder, even worse.

Caitlyn was there for it all.

She’s here for it now.

Vi lets Caitlyn pull her hands away. She looks at her and she wishes this were an alternate universe, because as bad as it always felt to have Caitlyn sitting there trying to soothe Vi over something that couldn’t be soothed, it’s felt worse not having her there.

“Tell me what happened,” Vi says. “I get some of it from the messages but it’s…” She waves her hands, out of words.

“She asked if she could see me,” Caitlyn says. “She wants to see you, too. She doesn’t want to be alone.”

“She never does,” Vi says. Her voice comes out like a croak. “You don’t have to come.”

“Oh,” Caitlyn says. Her face drops. “You don’t want me to?”

“No,” Vi says. “Wait, I don’t mean it like that. I mean, fuck.” Vi shoves her hand into her hair. “You don’t have to. You don’t owe me, or Powder, anything anymore.”

“Vi,” Caitlyn says. “I loved her, too. I will always owe her.”

Too. Vi bites down on her bottom lip, hard. She will not cry in front of Caitlyn. Not anymore.

“Okay,” Vi says. “I’m not going to fight you on this.”

Caitlyn nods. She grabs her phone, pulls up Uber, hands it to Vi. “Wherever. Just call it.”

“I’ll pay you back.”

Caitlyn rolls her eyes. “Vi, I’m not worried about it.”

“Believe me,” Vi says. “I know.”

They stare at each other for a moment. The worst part about an ex you used to love? They know all of your weaknesses. Your weak spots. And you know all of theirs.

Chapter Text

Now

The Uber ride is long and quiet. Vi’s leg jiggles the entire time, and Caitlyn stares out the window. Vi thinks about Powder, and failure, and love. Caitlyn thinks about Powder, and betrayal, and mistakes. They’re dropped off in a suburb, the sort of place where the hedges are clipped and all of the mailboxes match. Powder stands on the curb in a sweat set that’s three sizes too big and a duffle at her side.

She sees Caitlyn first. “Oh,” she says. “You came. After all. I wasn’t… I wasn’t sure.” Her voice is pointed, those barbs still rolling over her skin.

“Of course I came,” Caitlyn says.

Powder nods. But then she sees Vi.

And as soon as she sees her sister, she crumbles.

Vi is under her in a flash, and all Caitlyn can do is stand on the curb with tears in her eyes while she watches Powder sob. She looks absolutely minuscule in Vi’s arms, and her sobs are so loud, becoming gasps in her sister’s neck. She seems to be saying something because Vi is nodding and holding her head so, so, so gently. Caitlyn swallows hard and tries not to make it about herself. She is silent, there if she’s needed, patient.

Internally, she’s freaking the fuck out. Powder has never had an easy time, but getting older seems to be making it worse. It’s like her mental illness is growing more powerful as time passes, and her coping skills don’t always work. She knows that for Powder it’s like every single day is different and every single day brings a new Powder: will she be loud and giggly and productive to a fault? Will she sink into her sheets and lay silent and incapable of moving? There were days when Vi was Caitlyn’s and Caitlyn’s was Vi’s where Powder would text Caitlyn thirty times in a row with new ideas, new things she wanted to study or learn about or try. And there were days where all she would send Caitlyn was a photo of the ceiling of her room, layered with years worth of glow-in-the-dark stars.

At least she called.

Caitlyn comforts herself with that.

And then she sees a little white hand jut out from Vi’s torso and Caitlyn rushes to it, holding Powder’s palm in hers and letting her yank her to her. She is so close, and so small, and Vi is so close, and too big, and Caitlyn can’t help but let a few tears escape when her eyes meet Vi’s.

There is so much there.

So many months.

Of love.

Of hurt.

The last twenty four hours alone have been an exercise in violence. How far could they take it before breaking?

It seems they could take it exactly to this point.

Vi looks at Caitlyn with huge gray eyes and her lashes are damp with her own tears and she has her teeth clamped down hard on her bottom lip like she’s trying not to let out a sob of her own. Everything in Caitlyn softens and she feels her lips part but there’s nothing to say.

What do you say to your ex when you rush to save her little sister from a sleepover in the middle of the night?

What do you say to your ex when you just opened the door to her having fucked your childhood friend?

What do you say to your ex when you’re the one who ruined everything? When you have no one to blame but yourself?

“It hurts,” Powder cries. “It hurts, it hurts, it hurts.”

Caitlyn looks into Vi’s eyes and she agrees. It does fucking hurt. 

-

Then

It happens on a night where Powder breaks and Vi needs more than Caitlyn can give.

The room feels smaller than usual. Caitlyn’s apartment isn’t large by most means, but it’s open and warm and loving. Normally, it is: blankets and curtains and candles and colorful Le Creuset on the stove and the scent of tomatoes, always, in the air. Plants curling around the fridge. Framed photos dotting a narrow hallway leading to a room where, normally, they are in love, where, normally, they’re mid-fuck, gasping into mouths and thrusting hips and shoving fingers and the never-ending loop that is loving each other, being obsessed with each other, knowing each other, fully and wholly and openly.

But right now, the room is small. It’s tight. No candle lit. No music playing. No breeze floating in through an open window with a fire escape.

Just quiet. Just, words. “I just,” Vi says.

Something cracking.

Something breaking.

“You just what?” Caitlyn says. Her voice is harsh and haughty and it feels wrong in her mouth. Like something thick and gross between her teeth. “You just what, Vi?”

Vi looks like it’s taking everything she has to hold back tears. “I knew it would be you,” she says. “I just knew it. And you’re sitting here and you’re looking at me like you don’t even know me. Like you don’t even fucking care.”

“What do you want me to say?” Caitlyn throws her hands up, acrylics reaching skyward. She’s wearing gray sweatpants and a white tank top and she can feel herself sweating through the fabric. She’s nervous and afraid and snapping into pieces, glass shattering around her bare feet.

“That you love me?” Vi says. The sleeves of Caitlyn’s hoodie are too long on her big, big arms and it makes Caitlyn want to weaken. “That would be nice. To hear it. To know it.”

“You know it,” Caitlyn says.

“You never say it,” Vi says. “I say it all the time. I say it every morning. I say it every time I look at you. I love you. I love you . I love you.”

Each word hits like a punch to the gut. “You say it,” Caitlyn says. “But I show it. All the fucking time. Every single time I show up. For you and Powder and Vander. For the middle of the night cries where you won’t explain why you’re crying to begin with. For the checks that don’t cash. I give. I give so much. It’s not enough. You want me to be someone else.”

Now, Vi huffs. “I don’t know why you think that,” she says. “I really don’t.”

“You want me to be a wife .”

“Please, tell me, what the fuck I’ve done to make you think I need you to be someone else? Why couldn’t that wife be you, right now, as you already fucking are?”

“You want little blue haired babies!” Caitlyn shouts. “You want a wedding. You want Vander to walk you down the aisle and for us to declare ourselves. To promise. To be forever. You want to be a family and you think it’s going to fix everything fucked up that you feel.”

“And you don’t?” Vi says. “Tell me, honestly, Cait, that you don’t want that too.”

Caitlyn can see it. Herself growing rounder in the mirror. Vi’s hands on her belly. The two of them giggling as they coo over someone soft and small and theirs. Them , in a single body. Somehow. Vi’s smile and Cailtyn’s hair. Then, older, Vi’s laugh, Vi’s penchant for telling ten stories at once, Vi’s ability to pause and look and see. 

It’s beautiful.

And it haunts her.

Caitlyn wants it. She wants to be able to want it. She wants to be able to trust herself and to trust Vi enough to do it, to give in, to embrace the vision. But what if Vi leaves ? What if Vi looks at her one day the way her mother began to look at her father? Like a burden. Like a regret. Like roots, tying her down. If they have a child they’ll be connected forever. If they fall out of love now, it’ll hurt less than it will then.

It’s inevitable, isn’t it?

Vi, beautiful, strong, smart, adventurous, will fall in love again, and again, and again.

And this is the only time Caitlyn will.

Ever. She knows it.

If she ruins this, she’ll ruin the only chance she ever has to be in love. But at least it’ll be on her terms. At least it won’t end because Vi finally sees her and realizes she simply isn’t worth it.

Yes. The dream is beautiful.

And, after this? It will always haunt her.