A handful of minutes ago, Vi was helping Caitlyn cross a bridge back into Piltover after a bit of a nightmare moment with Powder (how she'd figure that out was something for Future Vi to handle). Now she'd found herself somewhere else. Not the Lanes, not Piltover, not even Runeterra. They'd given her a whole spiel about it and set her in front of a vidscreen that was playing some kind of musical. And she was enjoying it, feet up on a comfortable chair and chowing down on some popped corn (the salt and butter were just right, she'd never had anything like this back home).
Shoving handfuls in her mouth and laughing at the screen, she leaned back into her chair. The music was stupidly catchy and she found herself kind of bobbing her head along with it as she chewed. Considering the last few days she'd had, it was kind of relaxing. In the back of her mind, she was worried about Caitlyn, about Powder, about Ekko, even kind of wondering what was next for all of them. She knew they weren't here and apparently time was both stopped for her back home and also still going but with her there? Ugh, too much thinking about how all that worked. The video was easier to focus on.
Caitlyn wasn’t particularly pleased by this turn of events, but she took it… calmly, all things considered. These people - they weren’t rude, or threatening, and were perhaps a bit relieved that she wasn’t in some panicked frenzy about actual world-hopping (what is happening??). It was a bit difficult to have a more normal sense of clarity when her face felt like it was a giant bruise (it wasn’t, miraculously, despite how the blow to it knocked her out for a while). The wound on her leg was screaming too, and they were kind enough to offer a set of fresh bandages and disinfectant with the option of further medical attention at a clinic.
For now, she declined. It wasn’t anything life-threatening and she was capable of enduring discomfort. There was a video they wanted her to see that would answer more questions and they hinted that she’d be in familiar company, so - consider her interest piqued.
Her arrival was a little late. The video had started (unfortunate), but the sight of the person watching it so casually ignited this flutter of relief (very fortunate) that almost consumed her. There were other feelings too - though she’d prefer to focus on one at a time.
“Vi,” she said, the sound of her name falling from her lips in a breath.
Chewing stopped. Feet quickly came to the floor as Vi immediately stopped watching the video and hurled herself to a standing position, twisting to face the voice that she instantly recognized. In the span of two blinks, she took in everything - the face, still a little dirty (which was a good look, honestly), the leg was bandaged, and most importantly she looked relieved. That was enough. "Caitlyn." She stated the name with a mixture of both ease and concern like she'd been holding in a breath without realizing it.
Shoving the unchewed bits into her cheek, Vi quickly moved around the seats and circled around to Caitlyn while also brushing a considerable amount of popped corn from the front of her clothes. Wordlessly, she moved into position to help get her to a seat - without really thinking she must've walked on her own to get this far. "Come on, let's get you comfortable. Uh, you gotta see this video."
The assistance wasn’t quite necessary but Caitlyn didn’t have it in her to voice any protest. Most likely because the reality of the situation stunned her into a temporary silence - were they not kidnapped and sitting around a table that held a display of insanity about an hour ago? Was it an hour ago? It felt fresh still, all of it. Vi in ropes, the smoking gunshot wound on Silco, Jinx marching off. Topside and bottom, oil and water.
And now they were here, in this place, watching… a video.
“Is this…” Caitlyn squinted once she was seated, processing the sequence of images flashing on the screen and this song, how catchy. “Are we watching a musical?”
Offering a half-smile in Caitlyn's direction as she settled back into her chair, Vi nodded. "If a musical means a music movie, you're not wrong. They should do everything educational like this, I've actually been paying attention. Especially the part about a free drink at a place called Gala. Galad. Something like that. It's half explaining things and half promoting businesses, guess they pay the bills somehow."
Internally, she winced as she realized she might have helped Caitlyn sit in some strewn popped corn, but considering where they were not too long ago, still an upgrade. Which led her thoughts to try and turn back towards Powder until she forced them back to the here and now. "Oh, did you arrive with anything? My gauntlets are a no-show."
“I arrived with a splitting headache,” Caitlyn retorted dryly, sparing Vi a glance. It was brief, blue eyes flashing with worry she didn’t know how to bring up. All of this was surreal - really, she was sure if she went down for a quick nap she’d wake up back home and discover this was all some odd, Jinx-induced dream (did she gas them with a hallucinogen, maybe?). “As for anything else, no.”
Not that she had the opportunity to properly arm herself before this. Admittedly she felt a bit vulnerable in a new land without some kind of firearm, but she’d make do.
While the movie was undoubtedly riveting with its humor and catchy tunes, she found herself too distracted to focus. “Are you -” No, she’s not alright, that’s a stupid question to ask. “Did they discuss housing with you? Apparently, the lodging accommodations are complimentary.”
Stick with practical. It was a good route. Caitlyn shifted in her seat and heard a crunch and was that - oh, it was popcorn.
"Both of us unarmed in a strange land. I guess it's a good thing we're badasses. If anything goes sideways, I go low, you go high?" With a priority on finding Caitlyn a rifle so she could crank her deadliness to an 11. "But," began Vi, stretching her legs back out again to the chair that previously held them up, "yeah. Free room and board with some spending money to boot. Too good to be true? Maybe the Council has something to do with it? For services rendered? Or maybe we're in a dream."
Grabbing the armrests of her chair, Vi hop-scooted her chair closers to Caitlyn. "Pinch me, cupcake?"
Caitlyn halfway leaned out of the chair to, ahem, wipe the crumbs that clung to her butt. Not that it really mattered anyway, she was hardly put together and could use a shower that didn’t end in her abduction. “That assumption is too optimistic in their favor,” she scoffed in reply, a smile curling her lips. It was soft and small, albeit slightly regrettable.
But with Vi making the effort to close the physical distance between them, she felt the resolve to keep herself guarded chip away; perhaps even outright crumble. Caitlyn then went to, gladly, pinch her arm. Very hard. “There, you’re welcome. Still awake, I’m afraid. Though this video is definitely something so bizarre it only makes sense if it were in a dream, and was that explosion necessary?”
It wasn’t, she was sure of it, but it was probably in the video for the sake of theatrics. Well done, she supposed.
Rubbing her arm with a grin, Vi glanced back at the screen and shrugged. Traumatic life events aside, she could appreciate a well-placed explosion. "Done right, you can achieve a lot with a decent kaboom. Though, granted, there haven't been a lot of decent ones in my life lately. So maybe it's a sore subject at the moment." Look, some growth. Vander would be proud. Especially since there wasn't even one lewd comment about Caitlyn brushing off her own ass. Vi totally could have offered, after all.
She was completely out of her element here. Everything was too clean, too normal, too quiet. And to be honest, she was pretty sure she saw someone with horns on her way to this room. Without a helmet to attach them to. By way of expressing this odd feeling, she simply sunk further into her chair.
“Hey,” Caitlyn whispered, having observed the way she looked like she wanted to disappear into her seat. Things were fragile and raw and bloody bizarre, but that wouldn’t stop her from trying to extend comforts in the form of a distraction. She reached over to squeeze her forearm gently. “You were eating - are you still hungry? After this, we should find a place to eat and settle into those apartments.”
Maybe indulge in that freebie drink Vi had mentioned earlier. God knows they could use it. They could figure things out afterwards - assuming she didn’t stand by the whole forget me conversation they had before things inevitably sunk into a deeper level of shit.
Opting not to mention how growing up in the Lanes or spending all of your 'adult' life in a prison cell meant you could always eat if there was food available, Vi instead pursed her lips briefly and nodded. "Yeah, I could eat. Who knows what kind of weird food they have here." This coming from Vi, who enjoyed what was basically slugs in sauce, of course. "Dibs on first choice of room, though," she added, glancing at Caitlyn with a sly grin on her face.
She also considered restarting the vid so that Caitlyn could see it from the beginning, but that just meant they'd be cooped up in here that much longer and she'd be stuck with Vi in a small room watching a bunch of people sing and talk about this Vallo place. Just the two of them having to spend time in each other's company. How miserable that would be, she thought, as she hit the buttons to start it over again.
Dibs on first choice of room - oh. Caitlyn blinked, brows flaring up. They were technically given the option of individual apartments where they could live, alone. But she wasn’t against the idea of sharing common spaces with a familiar face in a foreign world, and the proximity to watch each other’s backs was an advantage in case Vallo turned out to be Hell Incarnate.
It was logical, made sense. She was satisfied with that for now.
“We need to talk about what happened,” she said after a moment, thinking it may be best to rip the bandaid off and address the enormous elephant in the room. “At some point. You know that, right?”
"Yeah, I know. Over the drinks and food, though. Or maybe after some sleep," responded Vi, exhaling in a way that sounded like a sigh. Her gambit to ignore their problems and distract Caitlyn with humor and flirty behavior wouldn't last forever, she knew that. But if Powder wasn't even here, then at least she could put it out of her mind for a little while, right?
Instead of thinking about it much more, she just grabbed the mostly empty bag of popped corn and passed it over. "You missed the beginning, anyway."
Caitlyn inhaled deeply through her nose and held it, otherwise she’d also let out a breath akin to a sigh. Elbow on the armest, her cheek pushed into her knuckles as she watched the intro to his lovely introductory disaster unfold. “I’m aware,” she replied curtly. “But I think we both know you’re procrastinating. If it makes you feel better I don’t expect that talk to happen today, Vi.”
Pushing too hard didn’t seem right, not after what they went through. What Vi went through, watching her sister’s fragile psyche shatter for a final time. It was easy for Caitlyn to toss Jinx under the column of lost causes, and she doubted the bonds of sisterly love would bring her back from the brink of insanity.
All that took priority over the hurt of Vi walking away from her. She could tuck it away and deal. It seemed trivial compared to everything else.
"I've never been much of a talker," noted Vi, visibly grateful that she was essentially given permission to put it off until later. Still, it would give her time to wrap her head around things. She was sure she could still bring Powder back, break her of whatever mental manipulations that Silco had put her through, damning herself once again for turning her back on her sister and then getting caught before she could make it right. She knew life wasn't fair. Nothing was ever fair. She played Vander's last moments over and over in her head and felt like such a failure that she couldn't even honor his last words. Caitlyn wasn't wrong, though, she'd need to face it eventually.
Instead, she pushed her chair a bit closer and leaned her head on Caitlyn's shoulder. "Good news, big city girl. It's going to be your turn to show me how to make it in this place."
Tensing up would have been an appropriate reaction to Vi flopping her head on her. And yet, Caitlyn didn’t. The tightness in her muscles unwinded instead, and she found herself gravitating towards her - keeping the gap between them at a minimum so Vi wouldn’t strain her neck, that sort of thing.
She even tilted her head to the other side, cheek choosing to rest against the top of her head. It was a wordless way of letting her know she wasn’t going anywhere - not unless Vi turned her back to her again.“My time’s finally come,” she murmured with fondness in her sarcasm. “First rule - keep your fists to yourself. It’s usually frowned upon to break things.”
"Hey," answered Vi, feigning offense. "No one gets punched unless they deserve it. Does this place even have organized crime? I don't remember seeing it in the musical." It was easy, this. Settling in and trying to pretend the world wasn't going to hit them in the face as soon as they walked out that door. It would. It always did. Deep down, or really not so deep, Vi knew that she didn't have a Powder to find here. Didn't have a Silco to take down. Didn't have chemshops to put an end to. Didn't have the Lanes to try and protect. So hiding in here? Easy.
Except she wasn't a coward, either. And easy was never in the cards. "All right. When this is over, we hunt down that free drink and figure out how this money spends."
“Every place arguably has organized crime,” Caitlyn retorted. Sometimes they just masqueraded as entities meant to help others (while still trying to pretend to be the good guys), and that was a lesson learned the hard way. Vallo seemed - interesting. That was the best word to use. Advanced with a lot of magic tossed in, and the way the Waypoints were explained reminded her of Hexgates on a more compact, smaller scale.
Jayce and Viktor would have a grand time here.
Exhaling slowly, she turned her head and let her lips graze the top of Vi’s head - just a little, it wasn’t a kiss. But it almost could be. “And after all that, a shower. You reek.”
"I smell like freedom," retorted Vi, but inwardly she agreed. She hadn't actually had a shower in probably a decade. Being hosed down in a cell certainly didn't count, and her life had been something of a whirlwind since she got out. "Assuming they even have showers and don't just… teleport the dirt off you."
Vi sat up so that Caitlyn wouldn't have to sniff her smelly hair anymore (because that's what she thought just happened) and cracked her knuckles. "All right. I'm ready to take this place on when you are."