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She wakes up first, which is perfectly regular but she still chooses to appreciate it like it’s a rare treat. Really, while the time and order of waking certainly aren’t any different than any other day, the weather and day itself lend to her feeling of this particular moment. It’s late in the spring, just finally warm enough they could have left the window cracked open last night and the breeze is coming in from the right direction to softly blow into the room and reach the bed. There’s always something so refreshing about the first few spring breezes that make their way indoors.
The sun as well, is angled in its rising at this point of the year to bathe the room in the optimistic light that comes with the season. It’s bright enough to make the pale green sheets glow a bit, but not quite at the brilliance of the summer sun that’ll make her squint, have the curtains doubled with sheer sheets to dilute it.
Vi snores beside her, which is also a perfectly regular part of the morning. And just a perfect part as well, her features always so relaxed in sleep, the golden hues of the morning warming her skin with a healthy glow, hi-lighting the freckles that have developed in abundance since her skin got used to the expose. They pattern down her arms now, dotting tiny little stars around her tattoos in a blend Caitlyn would consider poetic if she had a little more skill in creativity.
She lies there on her blindside, watching Vi sleep with the longer half of her bangs and hair strewn across her face and pillow beneath it, the shorter half making visible the scarred and tattooed cheek and brow. Her nose twitches a bit with a snort, and Caitlyn smiles to herself as her heart swells with affection.
The way Vi’s face is softened, her brow slack and lips slightly parted, the way her cheek is pushed against the pillow to round out the shape of her face, the way her bare shoulders are free from their tension — a lifetime of waking up to this just isn’t enough.
With her arm bent and tucked up to her bare chest, in an angle that covers her breasts almost artfully, the sheet loosely folded up to her elbow with draping shadows in the sun, Vi looks like a painting in a gallery for Caitlyn to admire. One she can reach out and touch, sink into, lose herself in. And unlike many of the artwork in her home, one that was gifted to her. Not bought, not earned, but freely given and appreciated to the best of her ability. A loan she hopes to never lose again.
Vi’s nose gives another twitch, tickled by a bit of her stray hair across it. Caitlyn gently reaches forward to try and brush it aside, but as careful as she is the movement appears to be just enough for Vi’s breathing to adjust and deepen, the other woman shifting awake.
Her eyes slowly blink open, and even they are adjusted by the weather, the light just right enough to make them almost glimmer like rare metal, warm gemstones in spring’s morning glow. Nothing makes Caitlyn feel richer than when they fix upon her, pupils expanding to take her in, creases wrinkling at the corner as a smile spreads.
“What are you staring at, hm?” Vi asks with a sleepy mumble and then a yawn. She turns her face into the pillow to do it, and then flops back onto her side, her hair even messier with the action. She grins dopily, sleep still lingering heavy. She always takes a few slow minutes to properly wake.
“Watching you snore,” Caitlyn replies, her voice low from sleep. Vi chuckles warmly.
“You need better hobbies,” she teases, and Caitlyn laughs a little at the retort, Vi laughing with her. They both settle back into silence again, just smiling at each other, before Vi takes a deep breath, now looking fully awake.
“You sleep okay?” She asks, tone light but with her usual concern. Caitlyn smiles and nods; the night went blissfully unplagued. Vi’s smile warms. “Good.”
Caitlyn sits up, stretches her arms and rubs at her neck, frowning a bit at the stiffness. She tilts her head to the left too much when she reads; a habit still new enough that it’s hard for both of them to catch, one that fights with her habit of holding the books and papers to her centre. The stiffness is a scold that comes too late, but one day she’ll finally crack out better posture.
Vi sits up behind her and though Caitlyn heard the movement and anticipated the next action, Vi brushes her knuckles against Caitlyn’s left bicep to softly forewarn more contact.
“Stayed up too late again?” she asks as her hand slides up Caitlyn’s shoulder to start to gently squeeze in direction to her neck. Caitlyn drops her hand and tries to relax back into the touch as Vi’s other hand comes up to perform the massage in full.
“Not too badly,” Caitlyn defends herself. “I just forgot to take breaks.”
Vi chuckles. “No,” she says, voice dripping with sarcasm. She drags her thumbs up and down the back of Caitlyn’s neck before continuing to work out the tension, and Caitlyn groans as she can nearly feel her muscle loosen.
“Hard for me to prioritize if the consequence is I get to enjoy this the day after,” she says with a little wry smile, rolling her head with the movement of Vi’s wonderful hands at the base of her neck.
“Oh, is that the strategy?” Vi asks, hands sliding down to hold Caitlyn by both arms. She leans in and gives Caitlyn’s spine a light kiss, and Caitlyn hums happily, turning her head to the left request a kiss proper. She already can’t see Vi at this angle, but she closes her eyes anyway as she feels Vi’s lips press against hers.
The kiss is slow and soft, and Caitlyn keeps her eyes closed when Vi pulls back. She can hear the movement of sheets and feet on the carpet as Vi gets off the bed, the little grunts she makes as she stretches herself out, and Caitlyn turns to face her, eyes still closed.
Vi’s warm hand cups Caitlyn’s left cheek, thumb brushing over her cheekbone as she tilts her head up a little. Caitlyn smiles into the contact before opening her eyes, again having to wait out the couple of seconds it takes her vision to adjust the focus. She tilts her face into Vi’s palm, both for the warmth and to angle her head to see Vi better.
“Scar’s almost gone,” Vi says observationally, her thumb brushing against the outer corner of Caitlyn’s eye where the blade had nicked her skin on its path to blind her, a painful cut at the bone of the socket. It had eventually healed, even when the rest could not, but left behind a sharp, pale line.
In response, Caitlyn reaches up and caresses Vi’s own left cheek, brushing her thumb against the thin, pale line that bisects the tattoo of her name.
“Yours too,” she says.
Vi gives her that sad smile, and slides her hand down to tap at Caitlyn’s chin affectionately before stepping back out of Caitlyn’s touch. She then holds her hand out to help Caitlyn stand up instead, a gesture but one Caitlyn finds cute. It’s an excuse to tug Caitlyn forward into a proper kiss, one Caitlyn indulges willingly with an arm around Vi’s waist.
Pulling back from the kiss, Caitlyn runs her fingers through Vi’s longer part of her hair, turning her head a little to see better as she plays with the ends reacting to the static of the morning air.
“It’s growing long.”
“Mmhmm,” Vi takes the opportunity of Caitlyn’s slightly turned head to kiss down her throat, tugging her a bit closer as Caitlyn giggles a little at both the ticklish sensation and the little sparks it shoots through her. Vi playfully bites at her shoulder when she reaches it, and releases Caitlyn with a roll of her own neck. Caitlyn doesn’t do the same, arm squeezing around Vi’s waist.
She brings her hand around to brush the heel of her palm against the rough scar on Vi’s torso, the thicker pale cut to permanently remind them of the Noxian spear that had sliced through her. She had fought the final battle with stitches and a plaster barely holding her together, and the skin had healed poorly in protest, leaving behind a silvery white stripe that Caitlyn sometimes wakes up in the middle of the night needed to touch and see, her nightmares sending her back to when she was pressing her coat against it trying to desperately stop the bleeding.
As if in response, Vi squeezes Caitlyn’s hip where under her nightshirt sits a similar scar, thinner and more fortunately tended to but one that took painstakingly long to finally reach this point, from a blade that went too deep and almost took Caitlyn with it when it left. A mirror to Vi’s, twin memorials of experiences no lovers should share.
Caitlyn searches Vi’s face, ready to talk if needed. She doesn’t remember the days of the aftermath, barely drifting in and out of consciousness until she finally was able to keep her eye open, see Vi sitting beside her with bloodshot eyes and squeezing her hand so hard she thought she would lose her fingers.
They’ve never spoken about it. Caitlyn understands.
“Did you sleep okay?” She asks. She can see Vi’s eyes, even in the bright sun, turn stormy and the relaxed softness of sleep furrow a little in her brow.
With a quick smile and noncommittal shrug as an answer, Vi pulls her down for another kiss, squeezing at her hip almost possessively and just as abruptly breaks it to step back.
“Okay,” she says with a yawn, stretching out an arm. “Coffee.”
“Good idea,” Caitlyn masks her own yawn in response, taking the change in conversation in stride, walking over to where their robes hang. She takes hers and starts to slip it on, speaking the schedule for the day as she does, settling again into their regular routine.
“I have a bit of paperwork to check over this morning, left over from last night. Just needing to reconfirm the details. No meetings until lunch, but I’m expecting a courier at some point this afternoon as well.”
“Think we got time to head to the market?” Vi asks as she tugs on her own robe, trying the sash loose around her waist. “I wanted to get some cured meats for dinner tonight, and it’s supposed to be the freshest day for berries.”
“Oh, that’d be nice,” Caitlyn says, moving in close to give a peck on Vi’s cheek. It would be a shame to waste this weather. “I’ll try to rush the paperwork.”
She collects her eyepatch from her dresser and holds it in place against the socket, turning so she and Vi can coordinate holding up her hair and tying the band. Once that’s settled Caitlyn turns back and playfully nudges her hip against Vi’s.
“Let’s get you coffee,” she says, just as another yawn overtakes her.
Vi laughs knowingly, Caitlyn shooting her a completely venom-less glare as she covers her mouth as the yawn drags. Vi steps closer and reaches up to brush her fingers against the edge of the eyepatch, smoothing it slightly as she always has since Caitlyn complained once about it sometimes folding a bit and being irritating.
Caitlyn smiles and brushes her fingers through Vi’s bangs. It does nothing to tame it.
Then Caitlyn slips her left arm into the offered crook of Vi’s right, and together they set out for the kitchen and caffeine to start another day.