#Well this is the aftermath | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

mountainofgoats · 14 days ago

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There’s the rifle. Disassembled and scattered in pieces.

Her feet stutter to a halt.

And next to it, a splatter of red. Next to that, Maddie’s lifeless corpse.

The rifle, in pieces.

The red.

Maddie’s corpse.

Ambessa’s corpse not far beyond. Still and red.

The rifle. In pieces.

Two corpses.

A knife, coated in red so thoroughly she can’t tell what color it’s supposed to be. A broken spear, the blade also painted red. All scattered amongst splashes on the stone.

The red. Splattered. It’s fucking everywhere. The more she looks, the more there is. Like staring at the night sky and watching stars multiply the longer you look.

It’s everywhere. Red scattered amongst steel and stone and corpses.

And she’s suddenly staggering to her knees next to the dismantled rifle. She sees her hand reaching out to grab it, clutch it, cradle it, but she can’t feel it. Her hand is numb. She is numb. Numb and muffled.

She holds the broken rifle. Counts the splatters of red.

There are two corpses. Two red-painted blades. And a rifle in pieces.

She quakes. Doesn’t realize it’s someone shaking her until her head lolls to the side and finds Ekko kneeling next to her with his hands on her shoulders.

His mouth is moving. His eyes are too. Taking in the rifle in her hands, the red splashed on the stone, the corpse in front of them and the corpse beyond them. He looks, then shakes her again. Says something again.

She looks from Ekko’s eyes to the rifle in her lap.

“It’s Cait’s.”

Her own voice feels like it echoes through her head. It echoes, and then everything coalesces in a roar of sound like a rising hurricane.

Screams.

Crows.

Crumbling stone.

The fluttering of the banners surrounding them.

Voices all over. Calling names. Yelling orders. Crying in agony.

Ekko’s voice saying “Your girl? This is hers?”

“It’s Cait’s.” She jerks her head up again. Stares at him. Clutches the rifle. “This is Cait’s.”

Ekko glances at the rifle, then scans the stone around them.

She watches him. Watches the dawning in his face as he sees all the red scattered like stars between the two corpses.

Watches the pity in his eyes when he looks back at her.

“Vi.” He slides his hand to the back of her neck and squeezes.

Her gut twists, curdles, and she retches right there on the stone. Nothing comes up, but she hunches and coughs while the one remaining shriveled piece of her ruined heart shudders. Convulses.

Gives up.

How long had she laid there in that tower, screaming for her sister and father, while the woman she loved needed her? How long had Cait been fighting- because of course she’d fought, her gun’s in pieces and there’s red splashed everywhere- while Vi had been fucking useless in that damned tower?

How had she failed- failed so miserably- after trying so damn hard?

She’d waited too long, chosen wrong again, and now Cait’s- She’s- Like everyone else-

She curls around Cait’s rifle and pukes again. Nothing but bile and spit comes up, mixing with the tears and the red she unknowingly crashed into when her knees gave out at the sight of two corpses.

Only two corpses. Only two corpses.

Her head shoots up. “She’s not here.” That shriveled piece surges back to life like air on an ember. It catches, and suddenly she’s a snarling, half-starved feral thing let out of a trap.

She jerks away from Ekko’s hand. Her feet scrabble against the stone when she hauls herself up, takes one wobbly step, and realizes she has absolutely no idea where to even start looking.

The starving thing in her chest howls.

She howls with it.

“Caitlyn!” She scans the stone, but all she can see is red. Red and steel and corpses.

But not Cait’s corpse. Not Cait’s.

“Caitlyn!” It’s a wail now, and it’s agony ripping out of her throat.

She’d screamed herself raw in that tower. Screaming for her sister and her father. For everyone who’s gone now.

Jinx Vander Cait Mylo Claggor Isha Jinx Vander Cait Jinx Vander-

“Caitlyn!”

Blood. She’d fought. There was blood. She’s hurt. Where would she go if she’s hurt?

A memory of chem tanks and a glowing hammer slices through the haze of red. A conversation outside a tent with a red cross on it.

Medical. She’ll be where the medical people are. They’ll help her. They have to help her.

Vi forces her eyes away from the red on the stone. Tries to find a different red, a red cross, a patch or a banner or something, anything-

“Vi! Over here!”

Ekko had moved a few paces away from her without her realizing, down the stairs and out towards the road that’s littered with bodies and pulverized stone. He’s waving at her, eyes down the street. “Think I see someone! Come on!”

It’s takes too many steps to find her footing, to not just crumple to the stone in a heap of useless terror. She takes that terror and wrangles it, strangles it, shoves it down and forces her legs to move. To run.

Ekko takes off, unslinging his board from his back. He tosses it with smooth precision, hops on it without breaking stride. He hovers as he reaches his hand out and back to Vi.

She takes it and leaps. He doesn’t even wait for her feet to land before the board revs and shoots forward. He steadies her as she staggers, but he doesn’t slow, and she loves him so fiercely she wants to scream with it.

They shoot down the street, over the mass of bodies, red and blue alike, and she can see what he saw now. Red and white banners strung outside the same building she remembers carrying Cait to so long ago. After the council chambers exploded in blue against a blood red sky. When Cait was looking screaming crying for her mother.

The fucking hospital. Of fucking course.

There are swarms of people outside the doors and strewn along the steps leading up to them. Some are bloody, most are crying or screaming. Some just wander, aimless and lost. All of them are in the way.

“Move!” Vi bellows with every ounce of violence she has left in her soul. Heads snap up, see the two of them barreling in, and everyone scatters like bugs on a picnic blanket.

Ekko doesn’t slow, just banks sharply before they hit the door. Vi leaps off the board and lands already running, stumbling and bouncing off the doorframe as she bolts inside.

Her momentum almost has her careening headfirst into a nurses station. She bumps shoulders with too many people, stumbling through them and into them, desperately trying to stay upright on wobbly knees. No one pays her any mind. It’s like she’s not even there.

There’s too many people, too much squeaking of gurney wheels on the floor and voices rising and people crying and-

“Caitlyn!” She’s howling again, wailing like she’s fucking dying. The thing in her chest thrashes and shrieks as she looks, looks and doesn’t see midnight blue. There are beds lined against the walls, all are occupied, most splattered with red, people in white shouting and hands hovering over bloody wounds, but she can’t see-

“Caitlyn!” She shoves through the writhing crowd, down a random hallway. Lowers her shoulder and pushes when her path isn’t clear. “Caitlyn!”

What if she’s too late, she wasted so much time in the tower, wasted time in the pits, wasted time her whole damned life-

“Vi?”

She staggers and looks to her left, down a hall she hadn’t seen for how clogged her way has been. Theres someone in white making her way toward her, someone familiar, gold flecks across her dark cheeks and surprised green eyes and-

“Mel!” Her knees buckle, but that feral thing in her chest hauls her forward, screaming and howling. She shoves her way in Mel’s direction. “Mel, have you seen Cait?”

Mel is squirming through the swarm of moving bodies, eyes locked on Vi. Her face contorts.

Vi’s stomach drops. “Where is she?” She reaches out, seizes Mel by her white robe, and drags her close. “Where is she?”

Mel lays a hand on Vi’s chest over the armor she’s still wearing. “I can show you, but Vi-“

“Is she alive?” Mel has to grab her shoulder strap and heft her up when her knees dip out for a split second. “Please, is she-“

“She’s alive,” Mel says fervently. Her eyes bore into Vi’s soul. “She’s alive, Vi.”

Vi’s knees hit the floor. The feral thing strains and shrieks, tries to yank her back up by sheer force of will, but she can’t. Can’t rise under the relief crushing her, a tsunami over a wildfire. She rests her head against the tile and lets it have its way with her.

Cait’s alive. She’s alive.

She’s not too late yet. She chose wrong, but maybe- maybe this time-

“Vi, you have to get up. Your arm- you’re hurt, you need to see-“

“Need to see her,” she croaks into the floor. She can’t even muster the strength to raise her head against the flood. She presses her head into the floor, chest tight. “Cait. Need to see- where- I have to-“

“Alright, we will. I’ll take you, alright?” Her voice is far away. “Just- just catch your breath-“

She wants to spit that she trying, but she’s drowning and can’t get a word out.

Mel grabs her shoulder strap and hauls her up, to her knees. She holds her there and pierces her with those golden-flecked eyes. “Vi,” she says. Not unkindly, but hard as stone. “You have to breathe. You’re almost there, just take a breath.”

Vi clutches at the arm holding her up. She uses it to drag her feet under her, pulls until she’s upright and everything sways-

“Let’s go,” she rasps.

“I really think-“

“Mel,” Vi snarls. It comes out a whimper.

Mel appraises her for an eternal split second- the starving feral thing roars- then pulls Vi’s arm around her shoulders and steps down the way she’d come.

“They’re still working on her,” Mel says as she guides Vi through the mess of people. “She lost a lot of blood.”

All that scattered red. How much of it had been- there’d been so much of it-

“She fought like hell,” Mel says fiercely. “She still is.”

She’s pulling Vi toward a door as she speaks , and through it-

“I heard her, please, let me-“

And oh, that’s her voice. Weak and wispy, but it’s her.

The feral thing in Vi’s chest yowls and strains.

Vi yanks away from Mel, has to grab the doorframe to keep from pitching through it and landing in a heap. “Cait?” she gasps.

There are three occupied beds in the room she falls into. Two people in white uniforms hover over one to the left of the door, one on each side. The woman in white on the far side of the bed is kneeling by the bedside with a needle and thread, gloved hands splattered with red. The other stands by the head of the bed and turns just as Vi tumbles through the door.

She shoves him sideways just as she hears a tearful “Vi?” from the bed.

Her knees give out again just as she reaches the bedside. She all but falls into it. But she doesn’t feel the impact.

Oh. Oh no. Oh Cait.

There’s so much red.

It’s all over her face, her beautiful face is littered with cuts. A bruise blossoms over her cheek, cuts over her forehead, under her chin, along her jaw, streaks of red smudged down her neck-

And her eye- her left eye is-

Cait seizes her hand. Vi drags her eyes to Cait’s, and there’s blue. So much blue. She’s looking at Vi like she’s the literal moon and sun, tears gathering in her eye, and that feral thing in Vi’s chest finally- finally- curls and settles with a bone-deep sigh.

Vi reaches out and runs her hand over Cait’s forehead, smoothing back sweaty hair. Her other hand clutches Cait’s. “Hey, cupcake,” she whispers.

Cait sobs her name and pulls at Vi’s hand, pulls until it’s resting against her chest and Vi is nearly lying on her. “I thought- I thought you were-“

“Shhh,” Vi murmurs. She strokes over Cait’s head, smooths back her hair over and over. “I’m here, I’m right here.”

Someone rests their hand on Vi’s shoulder and she flinches. “Miss, I have to-“

“Work around me,” Vi snarls.

“The Commander has lost a significant amount of blood-“

“I’m not fucking moving.”

“She should have a transfusion-“

“So give it to her!”

The woman on the other side of the bed speaks up as she- oh god- drags a needle through Cait’s gut, closing up a deep gash by her right hip. “Spoke with the blood bank. They’re low.”

The feral thing stirs. Hisses.

“So give her mine!” She keeps a stranglehold on Cait’s trembling hand as she twists around to look at the squirrelly chucklefuck she’d shoved. “I’m right here, give her mine! But I’m not fucking leaving!”

“Vi,” Cait rasps. Her fingers clench weakly around Vi’s.

Vi turns back to her, strokes her hand over her hair again as softly as her own shaking will allow. “Right here, Cait.”

Cait’s eye is on her. Tears streak down her cheek, cut through the dirt and blood. “Don’t go,” she whimpers. “Please, please don’t go-“

Vi falls forward, dragged there like her heart is trying to climb out of her chest and into Cait’s. She presses her forehead to Cait’s. “I won’t,” she croaks. “Not going anywhere you aren’t, okay? Promise.”

Cait squeezes her hand, but it’s so weak. Barely a twitch of her hand. Her one eyelid keeps drooping, and every time she drags it open again she’s staring at Vi with an exhausted uncertainty. Like she can’t comprehend what she’s seeing.

“Whatever she needs,” Vi says. Sounds like begging. “Take it from me. I don’t care how much-“

“You might not be a match-“ Squirrelly starts.

“It’s an easy test,” the woman says when Vi opens her mouth furiously. “Takes just a drop. We can do it here.”

“And if it doesn’t match?” Vi says.

“Check mine as well.” That’s Mel’s voice, back behind Squirrelly. “Even if I can’t match the Commander, I’d like to donate if I can.”

Squirrelly is madly writing shit down in a notepad as Mel speaks. “We can test you both,” he says. “Either way, you’ll be needed for-“

“Whatever,” Vi snaps. “Just do it. Do something.”

Squirrelly nods frantically and bolts from the room.

“She’s got an IV of fluids already,” the woman with the needle says. She doesn’t look away from where she’s stitching Cait up. “That’ll help keep her blood pressure up until a match is found.”

It’s her tone, calm and measured, that keeps the nausea curling in Vi’s throat at bay. “How long?” she asks.

“Hm?”

“How long can the IV keep her… help her?”

“Hard to say,” the woman says. She pulls another stitch through and Cait whimpers. “Not forever, obviously. Her blood’ll turn to juice if we give her too much.” The nausea leaps again. “But I don’t think it’ll take long to find a match. If you two don’t work, her father probably will.”

Oh shit. Her dad.

Vi presses her forehead to their joined hands, eyes cataloging the mess of red on Cait’s face. “Someone should go get him,” Vi mumbles. “Just- make sure he’s okay.”

“He was in the bunker when things got started,” Mel says. “And they didn’t breach it. He’s more than likely alright.”

Vi readjusts until she’s sitting on the floor by Cait’s head. She rests her chin on the thin mattress, eyes on Cait. Always on Cait. And Cait’s eye on her, however bleary.

“Someone should go get him anyway,” she says. “He’ll… he should be here.”

“I’ll get someone on it,” Mel says. Footsteps move toward the door.

“Thank you, Mel,” Vi blurts. “For…” Being here when I wasn’t. For taking care of her when I didn’t. For offering your own blood for her. “For everything.”

Mel’s footsteps stutter and pause. The silence hangs for a moment, and Vi remembers belatedly that Ambessa was Mel’s mother. It’s a blunted realization, but she just can’t muster the fortitude to feel the cut it should be.

Not when Cait’s looking at her like she barely knows what’s happening, and her eye is a mess of swollen flesh and blood, and her hand shakes so much in her own.

Not after her sister- not when Jinx was-

“It didn’t have to be like this,” Mel says. For the first time, Vi hears a tremble in her voice. She glances over her shoulder, but Mel’s already out the door.

Vi swivels back to Cait. “What can I do?” she asks the medic by Cait’s hip. She runs her fingers through Cait’s hair again, a compulsion.

“Talk to her,” the medic says simply. She clips the thread off and starts rummaging in her bag, produces a bandage. “She most likely has a concussion, so she shouldn’t sleep right now.” She presses the bandage to the closed wound, and Vi grips Cait’s hand when she flinches.

Vi’s heart squeezes. She drags her face across her shoulder, scrapes the tears out of her eyes.

“I’ll see where we are with blood typing,” the medic says as she stands, stuffing materials back into her bag. “In the meantime, just keep her awake.” She strides out, and quite suddenly they’re alone.

Or, as alone as they can be with two other people moaning in pain in the other two beds.

“Vi,” Cait whimpers.

Vi bends close again, runs her thumb over Cait’s forehead. “Hey, hey I’m here.”

Cait’s eye roams over Vi’s face, bleary and exhausted. “You’re… you’re hurt…”

Vi swallows the lump in her throat. Runs her fingers through Cait’s hair. “I’m okay,” she says. “Just some scratches.”

Cait frowns. Grips her hand tighter. “Liar.”

Vi huffs a chuckle. Sounds too close to a dry sob. “Let’s get you taken care of first, okay? We’ll worry about me later.”

Cait blinks at her long and slow. She shivers. “Always worry about you,” she whispers.

Vi presses her hand to her forehead, feeling useless. “Are you cold?”

Cait shivers again and winces. “A bit.”

Vi’s already scrabbling at the buckles of her armor. She manages to get her shoulder straps undone, but her arm is so stiff she can barely maneuver it out of the chest plate.

“Vi, you need… a doctor,” Cait breathes as Vi squirms free of the metal and lets it clank to the ground.

“I need to get you warm,” Vi retorts. She climbs into the barely-there space at Cait’s side, carefully maneuvering around the line snaking out of her elbow. She winces as she slides her arm under Cait’s neck, presses in close to her. “Shit, you’re freezing.”

“Shock,” Cait whispers. She nudges weakly under Vi’s chin while Vi braids their legs together. “At least… the start of it.”

Vi carefully rests her free arm on Cait’s chest. Cait reclaims her hand and tucks it under her chin, breathing a shaky but deep sigh as she settles. Vi scoots as close as she can get, curls her arm to cradle Cait’s head to her neck, wishing wildly that she could somehow envelope her entirely. Body, soul, everything. Just to keep her warm.

Keep her talking. Keep her awake.

“What happened?” Vi asks. “I saw- I saw your gun and-“ A completely wild thought occurs to her. “Ah shit, I left your gun.”

Cait snuffles a giggle into Vi’s neck. “Guns not… high on the list of… priorities right now.”

Her voice is thin. Wispy. Just a breath against Vi’s neck where she’s tucked her face.

Keep her talking. Keep her awake. Keep her alive.

Vi squeezes her. “Got a list, huh? What’s number one, then?”

Cait hums. She shivers. “I… just be here… with you.” She squeezes Vi’s hand.

Vi’s heart clenches. “Yeah. Me too, cupcake.” She presses a kiss to Cait’s hair.

Cait hums again. “Glad… you’re here,” she murmurs. A sleepy, breathy sound.

Vi squeezes her again. “You gotta stay awake, Cait,” she says. “Doc said you hit your head, you can’t sleep yet.”

“Not sleeping,” Cait mutters, petulant and stubborn. “Just… dozing.”

Vi rubs her fingers a little frantically, scratches lightly at her scalp. “Dozing is next to sleeping. Hey, you remember that nap we took when we first met?”

She can practically feel Cait’s frown against her neck. “Don’t think getting… knocked out is… a nap.”

“No no, not that time. After your-“ she nearly chokes- “your mom caught us sneaking in.”

There’s a brief pause and Vi nearly shrieks Cait’s name, but there’s a puff of breath against her neck as Cait chuckles. “What… about it?”

“Best sleep I ever had,” Vi rambles. “Shit, I didn’t even know beds that big existed, let alone that I’d sleep in one.”

“You had… your boots on it,” Cait breathes. “Got mud… everywhere.”

“Worth it,” Vi says, grinning. “Like I said, best sleep I ever got.”

Cait hums, nestles a bit closer to Vi’s neck. She breathes out a long sigh. “I’m… really tired, Vi.”

Vi’s stomach drops out. She curls tighter around Cait, clutching her hand. “I know,” she rasps. “But you- the doc said you can’t sleep yet. Just hang in there for a bit more, okay?”

“Want my dad,” Cait whispers.

Tears are leaking out of Vi’s eyes into Cait’s hair. “Mel’s sending someone for him, Cait. He’s gonna be here soon. But you-“ her breath hitches around cold terror. “You’re gonna be fine. You have to be fine. You-“

Jinx Vander Mylo Claggor Isha Jinx Vander Mylo Claggor Isha Jinx-

“My sister died.” The words gouge fissures in her soul as they go. “She- for me, she died to protect me. And my dad, he-“

That dead eyed, empty stare… If she’d just moved, accepted he was gone a long time ago-

She clutches Cait’s hand to her chest, buries her face in sweat-damp hair, holds her. “I can’t- I can’t take it, I won’t survive it Cait-“

Cait lets go of Vi’s hand and reaches upward, along her neck, along her cheek, and up into her hair. Her trembling fingers card through it, soft and soothing.

“I’m here,” she murmurs. When Vi sobs into her hair, she moves back to her cheek. She soothes away the tears with tender strokes of her fingers. “I’m here.”

Vi wonders agonizingly for how long that will be true.

#caitvi #piltovers finest #arcane #arcane season 2 #battle aftermath/reunion #throwing my hat in the ring here #yall what if all vi found was the disassembled rifle and a lot of blood #well I wrote it #caitlyn kiramman #vi #I wrote dis

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