there is the familiar stretch of bloodied knuckles splitting open when she hears the clamour of studded boots and a jingle of keys. they travel in pairs, she's found, one with a baseball bat, and the other with a set of knuckledusters that treat each rung of her ribs like a nail to hammer into. but this time she counts three, with the pricks of her ears and the muted thud of her wrapped hands grazing over grouted walls. there are days she settles into it, stares at the tally-marks and swallows the powder in the back of her throat before the wind is knocked out of it, but today, she twists her jaw until it cracks quietly, and tenses fists into tight white balls.

she's not expecting someone so young. she's her age, maybe, give or take with the blades of light through the bars casting across her left eye — it's bright blue, and a hard, starched collar does its best at hiding half of her face, and vi can't help herself when she launches herself at the bars, arms swiping through the gaps in the metal and hands clawing at the air with a faux-feral theatric. (if they want to treat us like animals, i'll show them fucking animals.)

it's blemished by the grin that splits across her cheeks and the way her arms drop quickly to drape over the bars. powder was always the more dramatic one. (in an instant it drops, and she glowers at the two uniformed creeps either side of her. pretty, huh. what's a girl like you doing in a place like this.)

"you should see your face." she slumps, pressing the side of her face against the cool metal of the door, and flipping a middle finger to the two guards either side of her.

the world is closed for a period of mourning. all the doors are locked, the curtains closed — there's black streamers and wilting flowers lining the steps of the council building and across the rubbled feet of battlefields and makeshift crematoriums. piItover grinds to a halt without the face of their leader, still recovering under the watchful eye of a half-dozen doctors that come and go without paying her much mind. (they scribble notes on charts and change weeping gauze before shuffling out, down the corridor, until the next horde slumps in like a macabre carousel.)

she keeps her fingers laced in tightly to the cool palm at her side, having dragged a stately chair from one corner of the room 'til her knees practically press into the side of the bed like a wicked little prayer, and squeezes every so often to try and catch the commander in her vibrant but fleeting moments of lucidity. when cait squeezes back, it's gentle, with long fingers flexing at her knuckles, and vi ushers herself in even closer.

"hey, cupcake," with a deft hand reaching for the cup of water in the forest of flower bouquets on the bedside, the other lifts their entwined fingers and plants a solid kiss at the backs of her grazed knuckles.

"i need you to pretend like you're awake for a little — they might bring pudding." (she cares for her because she has to — because the more time spent by herself, the more she slips back into that ache that fills her out like a grimace.)