#Vi is a soft cuddle teddy bear who will give you a flying knee to the face if you touch her cupcake

[natalievoncatte]

Even in the vast softness of Caitlyn’s bed

(their bed)

Vi felt the jolt. It was either that or the soft, pained exhalation that woke her, but it didn’t really matter. She snapped awake with the sudden alertness she’d been taught by Vander and had honed in Stillwater. Even though she came around in an instant, she still expected to feel a cold concrete floor beneath her aching side and smell the charnel stink of sweat, desperation, and blood. Waking up to soft linens and the clean, fresh smell of sheets washed in lavender water, and *Cait* felt fresh and new every time.

“…no…” Cait mewled. “…no… stop… Jinx… Cupcake! Cupcake she calls me-“

Vi hesitated, unsure whether to wake her. She’d seen plenty of people cry out in their sleep and knew that eight times in ten it was better to let them ride it out instead of waking them in the middle of something that might make them lash out or hurt themselves.

When Cait let out a blood-curdling scream, Vi lept wxross the bed and pressed a hand to her cheek, finding a cold sweat sheening her skin.

“Cait, wake up.”

Caitlyn’s eyes (*eye*, a bitter voice added) snapped open and she looked around, jerking up from the bed, her chest heaving as she drew in ragged, pained breaths.

Vi pulled her into an embrace, wrapping Caitlyn up in her arms and bending her body as much as she could to form a shield around her while Caitlyn desperately hugged her back and buried her face in Vi’s neck.

Sometimes they said more this way than they did by talking. Vi sat up and gently rubbed the back of Cait’s neck with her fingertips and pressed light kisses to the crown of her head, for no other reason than she loved her and she was free to show it.

Finally Cait said, “I had a nightmare.”

“Do you want to talk about it?”

Cait didn’t answer, instead resting her head on Vi’s shoulder while her finger aimlessly traced the tattoo on Vi’s arm, sort of half-humming on exhalation. Vi had learned that Cait wasn’t being rude when she didn’t answer her and that these little things she did to soothe herself were just as important. That Vi could savor Cait’s touches forever was incidental. Vi hadn’t touched her enough and would make up for it for the rest of her life.

“Do you remember the… the tea party.”

Vi swallowed hard. That night had been one of the most painful of her life, when all her sins had marched out of the darkness to revenge themselves on her tenfold. It was the terror she felt when she saw Cait’s eyes that shattered her, but the worst, the worst…

(I paid your girlfriend a visit…)

It hurt to even summon the thought, like touching the edges of a barely healed wound, feeling the scab lift and pull at the raw flesh beneath.

For a moment Vi knew that Jinx was going to lift that lid and Caitlyn’s severed rotting head would be sitting there staring at her with blank eyes and she cringed in horror and fear, a shiver ripping through her.

Cait knew; Vi didn’t have to say yes.

“Did you ever wonder how she knew you called me cupcake?”

Vi shook her head. “I thought she must have heard me. On the bridge maybe or…”

“She might have, but she delighted in making me tell her. I was helpless, terrified. She spent hours hurting me, but she kept saying she wouldn’t kill me because she was waiting for you. She said you’d do it.”

“Did you believe her?”

“No, never.”

Vi let out a long, slow sigh in relief.

“I hurt you. I hit you, but you would never hurt me.”

“We talked about that, Cait.”

“I know.”

There was a brief silence in the dark. First light was beginning to peek through the curtains and soon it would be time to get up. Most nights Vi hated waking now. She wanted nothing more than to spend then rest of her life in soft sunlit moments with Cait, making love under the warming sunlight as often as not.

Cait’s hand worked between them and traced over the scar on Vi’s belly, in the same spot where Cait’s rifle butt had smashed the air from her lungs and left her begging, sent her spiraling into a booze-fueled nightmare of longing where the pain of a fist to her face was the only thing that kept her awake long enough to keep looking for someone to kill her in the ring before the drinking did.

They held each other a little tighter.

“No one is going to get you now,” Vi promised.

“You’re not my keeper, Vi. You mean more to me than what you can do for me.”

“I meant you can hold your own. You took me out, remember? Do you know how many people can say that?”

“You let me win because I’m me.”

Vi shook her head. “Not until I was already face up on the ground. You took down Ambessa.”

“I had help.”

“You’ll have help if someone comes at you again. My help.”

“I told you, Vi, you…”

“No. It’s not because I owe you something, it’s because I love you.”

Vi hadn’t said the words yet, despite all this time, but it shocked neither of them.

“We protect each other, then.”

Vi nodded in agreement. She could see Cait’s eye growing lidded and the tension slit out of her body as Vi lay down with her. She was asleep in a few minutes, snoring lightly against Vi’s neck.

Vi vowed to stay awake, Cait was too soft.