Chapter Text
Yesterday, Caitlyn was adamantly sure there was no worse fate in the world than trying – and failing miserably – to fall asleep to some obnoxiously vulgar rap about fucking, clubbing, and snorting cocaine with the bass that made the entire building vibrate, resonating somewhere in Caitlyn’s toes.
Oh. Oh, just how wrong she was.
She pulls the blanket over her head. Maybe, she is overreacting. Perhaps, her neighbor is a perfectly decent person who just happens to require moving some furniture. That can happen, right?
Right?
Well, no. Not if your neighbor is Vi, anyway. A prolonged, lustful, shamelessly loud string of yeah-yeah-yeah’s, followed by a couple of right-there’s quickly manages to back up that notion. Vi’s bed must be somewhere right next to this very wall above Caitlyn’s head since no amount of blankets or pillows can shield her from hearing the headboard smashing into it.
Caitlyn lets out a long, exasperated half-groan and tosses the blanket away. A neon green clock face is ruthless under her glare. 3:29 a.m. Great.
Well, Caitlyn assumes this is a pretty unsurprising scenario for someone who had just moved out of their luxurious family home and right into some godforsaken neighborhood building with walls as slim as the chances to ever rent something nicer. Obviously, Caitlyn wants to be at least slightly more optimistic, but her position as a junior accountant at the (possibly) smallest law firm in the whole city doesn’t help.
And at that rate, she will never get promoted. Simply by dint of sleep deprivation.
The monotone knocking seizes, then there’s commotion. Caitlyn’s ears catch a muffled moan, some sheet rustling, and heavy breathing. Yes, the walls are that flimsy. All too early, the headboard smashes against the common wall again, followed by another wail-like sound, and that does it for Caitlyn.
She gets out of bed, shoves her feet into a pair of slippers, and somehow makes it outside on sheer irritation alone.
Unprepared, Caitlyn is startled by the coolness of hallway air clinging to her warm skin; she was just under the blanket a minute ago. She squints in the dim luminescent surroundings to make out the way and assumes the whole trip is probably not a very good idea.
A pretty bad idea, to be precise. A terrible one, really. She knocks anyway.
The door is jerked wide open surprisingly quickly, somewhere after the third knock, right when Caitlyn is ready to start smashing it with her open palm. She inhales sharply to finally unleash her wrath, yet realizes that none of the people behind the door are actually aware of her presence, despite the knocking.
In the half-light of the corridor, Caitlyn only manages to see bits and pieces. There’s a flurry of ember hair, a bright spot of fabric – a girl, her blue sun skirt askew – hanging on to another figure while clutching the door handle at the same time.
“Bye, Vi,” the girl drawls; her voice is followed by a wet sound that can’t be anything but a parting kiss. She spins around and fumbles awkwardly, having finally noticed Caitlyn. One of her thigh-highs is rolled all the way down to her ankle. “O-op, you’ve got guests, I better go!”
A hot wave of syrupy-sweet perfume smell washes over Caitlyn as the girl shimmies past her and through the doorway. Caitlyn gazes after her – slim, long-haired, very pretty even in a silly sun skirt and mismatched thigh-highs. A ‘see ya, Sarah!’ pulls Caitlyn right out of her thoughts, and she turns to finally face Vi.
To be completely honest, Vi isn’t a horrible neighbor, nor is she a bad person. Sure, sometimes she ramps her horrendous rap music up to an obnoxious volume, or trains with her punching bag at midnight, or brings a girl over, which effectively cuts each one of Caitlyn’s attempts to for once fall asleep on time, like today.
On the other hand, Caitlyn has also seen her helping their elderly neighbors carry groceries more than once, or changing a burnt-out lightbulb on their common floor, or even passing ball with local kids sometimes, all of which leads Caitlyn to suspect there’s a personal issue involved. One can even deduce the cause of it just from the amount of times Caitlyn has been called a ‘princess’ sardonically. Her last name isn’t exactly unknown, and it would be at the very least strange to expect unconditional niceness from someone with Vi’s background.
Social class differences, presumptions, biases. To put it simply, they haven’t been getting along all that well.
“You lost?” Vi leans on the doorframe lazily. “Cheerleaders are next door.”
Case in point.
Vi’s voice is hoarse and sounds slightly breathless, lacking a degree of its usual sneer. A cropped tank top and a pair of loose-fitting gym shorts cling to her sleek, inked skin – she has tattoos on her stomach, too – and reveal way more sheer muscle Caitlyn had bargained for when she knocked at the door. A crown of short cherry pink hair is messy; the unshaved side is damp at the tips. Caitlyn earnestly tries to tear her eyes away. Still, something in Vi’s unapologetic, ever-nonchalant demeanor always manages to knock the ground from under her feet, even if just for a short while.
“It’s half past three in the morning,” Caitlyn hisses, the realization of having to get up for work in not more than four hours bringing back some of her initial anger. “Didn’t you think for a second that other people might actually have a job they must attend?” there’s more and more venom in her voice with each word, and soon she is once again on the very edge of being livid. “Or have they knocked your last remaining brain out in that fighting class of yours?”
'Alternatively, have you fucked your last remaining brain out just now?' is not said out loud. Not that Caitlyn is interested.
Vi doesn’t move an inch, just slits her eyes maliciously. “And what would you know about jobs that people must attend, exactly?” Her vowels are round and prolonged, the t’s are soft in a mockery of Caitlyn’s accent. She is taunting on purpose. “Newsflash, princess, there’s life outside your palace, and it doesn’t always align with your schedule. Now, can you manage walking back to your apartment with that pole up your ass, or do you need an escort?”
It’s days – or nights, rather – like this one that make Caitlyn regret moving out just to prove a point. Perhaps, swallowing her pride, staying under her overbearing mother’s wing, and making a dashing political career wasn’t such a horrible prospect after all.
At least, she wouldn’t have to deal with insomnia, flimsy walls, and hot neighbors being insufferable just because they can.
—///—
Caitlyn’s knees are trembling as she overcomes the very last stair on her way to the apartment. The elevator here is usually broken at least three times a week, which is why she had to walk eleven floors up on her own two feet.
Her heels and a tight pencil skirt she usually wears to the office do not help at all.
Caitlyn is severely tempted to lean against a wall and catch her breath, yet the urge to get home outweighs that quickly. With a glance at her wristwatch, she learns it’s about a quarter before midnight already and swears solemnly to herself that no paperwork is worth staying this late for ever again.
There’s a fleeting memory of Caitlyn’s parent’s estate and her large, rose marble bathtub. What she wouldn’t give to have one of those right now: to lower herself into a whole bath of marvelously hot, steamy water, wash away all the city dust, and let her limbs ache pleasantly from exhaustion.
It takes a lot, but she forces the thought away. Catching a glimpse of her reflection in a glass hallway door – a slim, raven-haired woman with tired blue eyes – Caitlyn muses to herself that now it’s hard to believe there were ever days she owned a marble bathtub.
Still breathless, Caitlyn slowly approaches her door, accompanied only by the soft clacking of her shoes – nothing interrupts the silence today, not even some idiotic rap song – and that’s when she notices a dark figure, sitting on the floor slumped against the wall further down the corridor. Caitlyn freezes, trying not to let her keychain clink too much, but soon enough, the stranger’s hair glint familiar vibrant pink under the dim lamplight.
It’s Vi, of all people.
Caitlyn is exasperated. Caitlyn had just finished a twelve (or more) hour shift and walked hell knows how many steps up the stairs. Caitlyn doesn’t even like Vi.
She lets out a long sigh and leaves her lock alone. The least she can do is try and ask what’s wrong.
Her heels betray her presence way too early, despite being muffled by the dirty carpet, so Vi tenses visibly at the sound before snapping her head up. Caitlyn, by this point drained of her last strength, almost bumps into a wall to eventually rest with her shoulder against it. “Are you okay?”
Vi is dressed in a short leather jacket and torn jeans in matching black, knees are exposed by two large cuts. She scoffs without even looking at Caitlyn. “Hello to you too.”
Ah, right. Social pleasantries, Caitlyn has never been – much to her mother’s dismay – particularly skilled at that, neither did she expect Vi to even care. “Oh, stop it. I just wanted to ask if there’s any specific reason for you to spend your night sitting on the floor outside your apartment door?”
“Should I be sitting outside yours?” Vi quips with a jerk of her scarred eyebrow. She doesn’t seem scornful or hostile, just… tired?
Caitlyn can relate. She shrugs. “You might as well; it is, like, a foot away.”
Vi huffs an unamused laugh, closes her eyes – for much longer than needed to simply blink – and glances up at Caitlyn from under her bangs, strangely, alarmingly neutral compared to her usual self.
“What’s it to you anyway, smartass?”
“No idea,” Caitlyn isn’t lying at all. “Consider it neighborly curiosity, I guess.”
“I’m peachy, can’t you see?” Vi stretches one leg on the floor, resting her elbow on another. “Now, can you neighborly fuck off?”
This is going nowhere. Caitlyn considers her neighborly duty fulfilled. She tried, it did not work, not her fault. Yet something – a mix of concern and something else, Caitlyn doesn’t dare to call it sympathy just yet – is heavy on her, adding to the weight of general physical tiredness. All that combined, it takes Caitlyn at least half a minute to push herself off of the wall, and she still hasn’t come up with any witty reply, so it seems appropriate just to leave silently.
“I’ve lost my keys,” Vi says unprompted, and Caitlyn – as if she needs an excuse not to move – freezes at place. “Could have crashed at the gym, but all of my keys are in one bunch for me not to… well, lose them.”
Caitlyn’s ankles throb furiously at this point, and she carefully shifts her weight from one leg to another, wincing. She remembers that Vi is a female self-defense instructor and probably has (well, had) access to her gym at all times, hence the remark. Still, there are questions. “And at what point did you decide that staring at your door is going to summon those keys back? Is that a ritual I’m not aware of?”
For the first time, Vi seems to be genuinely smiling. Even though it barely touches her lips, her eyes still light up. “You are so not funny.” She states, unspiteful. “I’m waiting for Ekko to finish partying his ass off and come back home so I can take his couch.”
Sure, Ekko. Another neighborhood guy Vi happens to be sharing her highly acquired taste for abhorrent rap music with.
“Or you could just call him,” Caitlyn offers with a shrug.
Vi reclines her head against the wall, letting Caitlyn catch a glimpse of her neck tattoos again. “If only my phone weren’t dead.”
Well, Caitlyn approached first, after all, so it’s only natural to offer help, right? It would be weird to walk away at this point. Mind foggy from exhaustion, she steps closer, holding her hand out for Vi to grab. “I’ve got a phone. And if that doesn’t work…” She trails off, not believing her own words. “If that doesn’t work, I also have a couch.”
It’s fine, it’s fine, it’s going to be alright, Caitlyn chants inwardly. The couch is a good distance away from her own bed, and it’s just one night anyway. It’s okay.
Caitlyn isn’t sure if the time seems to have stopped because of how tired she is or for some other reason. Vi regards her with a slow, serious look of those silvery-gray eyes, heavy eyelashes throwing long shadows on her cheeks.
Ignoring the offered hand, she straightens up swiftly with no assistance at all and is suddenly standing a little too close. “There’s a better idea. You have a balcony, right?”
Yes, just like every single apartment owner in this miserable place, including you, Caitlyn wants to say, but Vi is already ahead of her. Caitlyn sighs and trails along, playing with her keychain absentmindedly. “What do you need my balcony for?”
“Gee, keep up, princess. It’s right next to mine,” Vi seems drastically more energetic than a minute before, pacing behind while Caitlyn fiddles with the lock. “Which means I can jump on.”
Jump on? The door opens with a short click just as Caitlyn finally catches up on Vi’s plan. “Are you insane? It’s the eleventh floor.” Instead of letting Vi inside, Caitlyn turns around, one arm pushed into the doorframe to effectively block the path. “If you’re walking in, you’re either calling Ekko or staying on the couch.”
Vi’s eyes are heavy on Caitlyn; her voice drops half a pitch into a raspy, soft, convincing undertone. “Listen, I might seem it, but I’m not actually crazy. The balconies are practically conjoined, plus, I mean, not to brag or anything…but I’m fit. I can make the jump.”
That she is, Caitlyn agrees in her head. The serious part is over when Vi switches back to the usual sarcasm and adds: “If I reach my flat, you get to feed whatever savior complex you’ve got going on, and I’m out of your hair for the night. If I don’t, you don’t have to listen to me behind the wall ever again, win-win.”
Caitlyn takes a slow, deep breath through her nose. She should have just gone to bed the second she saw Vi. Apparently, the savior complex stopped her. “I’ll let you look at it. If you doubt for a second that you can make it, you’re staying. I might not be a fan of yours, but I’m not homicidal.”
Vi doesn’t seem like the kind of person to be stopped by doubts. In turn, Caitlyn doesn’t seem capable of arguing with her, either.
Naturally, in about two minutes, they both stand outside, gripping the balcony railing. The whole neighborhood is sprawled below them, twinkling its midnight lights; it’s windy this high up, and the city noise is all but a distant buzz. The autumn air is soberingly cold, crispy like a ripe apple, and Caitlyn finds herself enjoying it despite the anxiety.
“It’s not too late to change your mind,” she offers, just in case.
“You joking?” Vi glances at her incredulously. “This is even closer than I thought. Piece of cake.”
She rolls her shoulders with a slight frown, as if probing or trying something out, and then suddenly shrugs her jacket off, so swift Caitlyn barely has time to register it before the warm leather fabric ends up pressed against her chest. “Except this is too tight to jump in, so you keep it for now.”
Caitlyn huffs, confused, but clutches the leather in her fingers nonetheless, not even looking at it. The hue of remote neon lights paints Vi’s skin soft blue and yellow, intricate lines of various tattoos twining on her back – Caitlyn had seen them before, but not this close, and now they mesmerize her. In some other universe, she’d ask what they mean, what each one is for, and then she’d listen while tracing them carefully with the tip of her finger –
No. She doesn’t really care. It’s just tiredness and Vi being conventionally hot, is all.
Caitlyn doesn’t like Vi. So instead, she wraps the jacket casually around her shoulders – there’s a whiff of sweetish, dewy perfume – and says: “Break a leg.”
Of course, Vi doesn’t. The jump isn’t even long enough for Caitlyn to panic; it is just one deft motion of a well-trained body, quick, easy, near-effortless, really. After landing safely behind her own railing, Vi turns to face Caitlyn again.
“Told you.” She actually has the audacity to wink at Caitlyn with a cheeky smirk. She is so annoying. “Thanks, princess. I’ll drop by for the jacket tomorrow.”
And just like that, Caitlyn is left alone. She gazes pensively into the night sky and only now notices the pulsing ache in her fingers: she’s been clutching the lapels of Vi’s jacket so tight this whole time that her knuckles turned white.