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There are expectations on Caitlyn that most people can't (or won't) understand. It isn't that others don't have anything expected of them (all of Piltover is built on appearances), but the Kirammans -
Well. Maybe Caitlyn is just being a moody teenager.
In any event, being with Jayce is like breaching the surface of the ocean. With Jayce, Caitlyn can breathe, and it resuscitates her when the Council goes back on their previous ruling.
Her parents, of course, are vampires about it. The minute that Jayce is no longer persona non grata, they invite him to dinner.
Their spinelessness notwithstanding, Caitlyn is very nearly vibrating with excitement. She would wait at the gate outside for him if her mother wouldn't kick up a fuss over it, so instead she satisfies her nervous energy by bouncing on her heels by the door.
The door finally (blessedly) creaks open, slowly enough that an unladylike grin has time to infect Caitlyn's face. Jayce crosses the threshold, and Caitlyn launches herself at him, her slight frame only pushing him slightly off-balance. Her arms wrap around him in an embrace that is certainly unbecoming of her station, but Jayce reciprocates, hugging her tightly. When he kisses the crown of her head, Caitlyn knows that her parents must not have quite found their way to the foyer yet.
Still, Caitlyn won’t press her luck. She pulls away, taking stock with a smile still plastered on, and only then does she realize that Jayce hasn’t come alone. A thin man supporting himself with a cane trails behind Jayce with a bemused look, and Caitlyn’s cheeks color.
“I’m sorry. You must think me terribly rude,” Caitlyn says. “I’m Caitlyn Kiramman.”
“Viktor,” says the stranger, eyes sparkling. She doesn’t recognize his accent. “A pleasure to meet you, Miss Kiramman.”
Caitlyn frowns, and Jayce laughs. Caitlyn didn’t think that she would ever hear Jayce laugh again. “She hates being called Miss Kiramman.”
Viktor frowns. “I hardly think it’s proper for me to call you anything else.”
“Caitlyn, please,” Caitlyn says, and though Viktor looks skeptical, he doesn’t protest. “How do you know Jayce?”
Viktor furrows his brow like Caitlyn has asked a difficult question, but Jayce, with that disarming manner that he has always had, rests a hand on Viktor’s shoulder and says, “We’re partners.”
And, well, Caitlyn has never been an exclusionist. A bell rings to announce that dinner is ready, and Caitlyn says, “Welcome aboard, Viktor.”
Caitlyn knows that if the help she offers Jayce were ever to be questioned, that any outsider would name her pest rather than sidekick. Thankfully, Viktor accepts her without a second thought, even though she is by all accounts just present while they work.
She tries not to get in the way. Usually, she is successful. When she is not, Jayce flicks her forehead and warmly says, “Typical.” Viktor, as he usually does when Jayce uses that tone (and only when Jayce is not looking), smiles.
Today, though, Caitlyn manages to keep out of trouble as Viktor and Jayce talk about things so far beyond her comprehension that their words dissipate into white noise. She leans back as far as she can in a chair that is not meant to recline, tossing a ball up and down through the air. Jayce is hunched over a set of schematics, and Viktor, in what Caitlyn has come to recognize is a position of comfort, hovers a meter or two behind him, leaning on his cane.
“Yes!” Jayce exclaims, and the sudden outburst startles Caitlyn so wholly that the chair tips backwards. She hits the ground loudly and ungracefully, exhaling on impact, and the ball comes down from its apex to bounce off her chest. “I’ll be right back,” Jayce says, and he doesn’t even notice her because he’s so absorbed in the work. He’s always been like that. Caitlyn can’t hold it against him as he walks out the door.
She lies there on the floor next to the chair that has betrayed her for just a moment. She hasn’t forgotten Viktor is there, exactly, but she startles upright into a sitting position when he asks, “Are you alright?”
Caitlyn nods, and meets Viktor’s gaze. “I don’t bother trying to keep up when you’re bouncing ideas off of each other, so it surprised me when he got excited,” Caitlyn laughs. “It’s nice to see him with someone who might actually be as smart as him - no offense.”
Viktor chuckles and takes a seat in one of the chairs that Caitlyn hasn’t sent tumbling to the floor. “None taken. He’s quite brilliant.”
“My parents knew what they were doing when they sponsored him,” Caitlyn says, not bothering to stand. “I’m surprised you didn’t have a family do similar for you.”
Viktor breathes out as though he isn’t sure what he wants to say, eventually starting with, “Jayce may be a Talis, but he is not from the undercity, and he is also not a cripple. Being from a lesser house is a disadvantage, but it is neither of those things.”
Tilting her head to the side, Caitlyn says, “I didn’t know you were from the undercity.”
“No? I don’t broadcast it, I suppose, but I assumed that Jayce had told you.”
Caitlyn rolls her eyes. “Hardly. When he mentions you I can hardly get a word in edgewise because he just wants to talk about how brilliant you are.”
Her words hang in the air just a moment too long, as if Caitlyn has said something wrong. Instead of responding, Viktor changes the subject. “I’ve been meaning to ask; why are you here all the time?”
When Caitlyn recoils, it is slight and involuntary, and Viktor holds up his hands in apology. “I don’t mean anything by it. You never cause problems in the slightest. But you’re young and from a good family. Why do you consistently choose to be locked away in a room all day where Jayce and I are poring over books more often than not?”
Caitlyn’s mouth goes dry, and she looks down at the floor, tucking her legs up underneath her. “Um-”
“I didn’t mean to pry,” Viktor says.
Shaking her head, Caitlyn says, “No, I’m just not a very good Kiramman. Everything that I’d like to do is distinctly off-limits. Frankly, being here in the lab is, too; my mother would much rather that I was out meeting prospective matches or trying my hand at business, but at least when I’m here I’m not embarrassing the family.”
“What would you rather be doing?” Viktor asks, and Caitlyn doesn’t know why she’s being so honest. Probably it’s because Jayce trusts him.
Grinning, Caitlyn makes eye contact with Viktor again. “Target practice.”
Viktor chuckles. “Forgive me for saying so, but I think you may have fit in better in the undercity, if that’s the case.”
The door opens again, and Jayce walks in, a thick, leather-bound tome under his arm. On his entrance, he does notice Caitlyn, still sitting on the floor. “Why are you on the ground?” Jayce asks, amused.
“What do you mean? I’ve always been this tall,” Caitlyn says, and Viktor exhales a laugh through his nose, shaking his head.
Caitlyn invites Viktor to her birthday party. She doesn’t bother inviting Jayce, because she knows that her parents already have. The likelihood of them inviting Viktor to her birthday party, which is more of a society event than an actual celebration of Caitlyn, is effectively nil.
When she tells her parents, they aren’t thrilled, but Jayce might have brought Viktor anyway, so they let her insubordination ride.
Caitlyn likes Viktor, and Jayce smiles when Viktor’s around. That’s reason enough to invite him.
High society comes in swarms. The long dress Caitlyn wears restricts her movement, and the layers make her sweat, and her hair is twisted up in a bun that she will never wear again, if she has a say in the matter, but Caitlyn simpers and giggles like she’s supposed to.
When Viktor and Jayce walk through the door to the Kiramman estate, Caitlyn breaks character for only a moment, grinning and raising her hand up high to wave at them. The sudden movement tears a seam somewhere in the side of Caitlyn’s dress; she hears a ripping sound, and instantly she puts her arm back down. Viktor rolls his eyes good-naturedly, and Jayce smiles. “Excuse me,” Caitlyn says to the short, thin man in a hat almost as tall as his torso who she had been speaking with before, and pushes towards Jayce and Viktor.
In the time it takes her to reach them, Jayce’s attentions are otherwise claimed by a socialite with long blonde hair and an outfit that Caitlyn’s mother would simply gush over. Viktor, with a sigh like the effort drains him, leans against the wall nearby.
“You came,” Caitlyn says, squeezing Viktor’s hands and smiling so wide that her cheeks hurt. Viktor looks surprised at the contact, but not displeased.
"You'll have to wait a bit for your gift, Caitlyn,” Viktor says quietly, and Caitlyn’s eyebrows rise in surprise.
“You didn’t have to get me anything-” she starts.
“Well,” Viktor sighs, long, dramatic, good-natured. “Jayce didn’t want to, but I said it would be bad form not to bring anything.”
Jayce finally extricates himself from his conversation and wishes Caitlyn a happy birthday. After he does, he rests a hand on Viktor’s forearm, and Viktor reddens just enough that Caitlyn might call it a blush.
When Viktor looks at her again, Caitlyn bites her lip and smiles. “Thanks for coming. Both of you.”
The party goes out of its way to be a slog. There is food and there is tea and there is cake. There is music and there is dancing, but Caitlyn can see her mother scanning the room for a suitable bachelor, and that is the last thing Caitlyn is interested in. A Demacian boy, rife with swagger that is unsuitable for anyone in their teenage years, saunters in Caitlyn’s direction, and Caitlyn inhales sharply. Casing the room for an escape route, the only one she finds is located directly behind her mother, and thus, inaccessible.
The Demacian gets closer and closer (Caitlyn can smell him; he reeks of cologne), and just as Caitlyn has resigned herself to an inevitable loss of brain cells, Jayce is bowing in front of her. He doesn’t even get a chance to ask if Caitlyn wants to dance before she says, “Yes. Absolutely yes.”
Jayce is more than a head taller than her, and he has charisma in spades. Anyone would melt into him, but Caitlyn and Jayce have danced many times before. Jayce lifts her out of a twirl, and Caitlyn's smile isn't even fake. Under his breath, Jayce whispers, "In about thirty seconds, Viktor is going to remotely set off a significant amount of fireworks, and we're going to use it as a distraction to disappear," without missing a beat.
"We are? But you love these… events," Caitlyn manages with minimum venom. They pull apart until only their fingertips touch, and then step forward again so that their palms are flush.
"Well, yes. But it's not my birthday," Jayce winks. "Viktor had the foresight to suggest that you wouldn't enjoy a party like this without having even been the one to save you from a hundred such situations in the past."
The sky explodes in purple and yellow, and when the crowd turns, first in surprise and then in awe, Jayce wraps a hand around Caitlyn's wrist and tugs her away from the ballroom and up into the recesses of the Kiramman estate.
"Happy birthday," Jayce says once they are out of sight and earshot of all party-goers, and Viktor falls into step next to them.
Caitlyn smiles.
They sit on the balcony outside Caitlyn's room, near a table much too small to seat three. Jayce dozes in a chair that can't be comfortable enough to sleep in, and Caitlyn grips a warm mug of tea. Viktor stares out over the city.
"What are you thinking?" Caitlyn asks, not bothering to be quiet. Jayce could sleep through someone blowing up his lab again.
Viktor's cane leans against the railing of the balcony, his own cup empty. "That this is far beyond my station. Everyone in the undercity deserves a view like this." Viktor pauses as if he is considering something. "Well," he amends, "Not everyone, but enough of them."
"What was it like?" Caitlyn asks. Viktor sighs and doesn't turn away from the lights of Piltover, sparkling in the dark. Caitlyn swallows. "I know you think I'm spoiled. Everyone does. But I'd like to understand."
Viktor looks at her then. "You are spoiled, but it isn't your fault. That you recognize it at all is a testament to you, considering your upbringing."
The words sting, though there's no cruelty in them. Caitlyn takes a sip of her tea and stares into what's left. Eventually, Viktor says, "The undercity is difficult to explain if you haven't been raised in it, and even harder to describe if you haven't been to it at all, which I can't imagine you have."
Caitlyn shakes her head, and Viktor nods.
"I thought not. The undercity is cruel and unforgiving. The air and water are thick with chemical runoff, the people are hard, and the food-" Viktor laughs, but there's no joy in it, and then his face softens. "I have never seen the same resilience topside that I saw in the face of almost every person down there. Everyone that survived was a fighter. A large part of me wonders what the undercity could accomplish, if someone reached out a hand. Their ingenuity - the education is abysmal, but the innovation of these people who have no resources is nothing short of…" Viktor trails off, almost like he's forgotten that Caitlyn is there. "Awe-inspiring."
There's so much that Caitlyn doesn't understand. She's just turned fifteen, and she hardly knows anything at all. Viktor, who still seems lost in thought, pays Caitlyn no mind as he pushes a stray lock of hair back from Jayce's forehead. Viktor's eyes are tender and his lips are parted with something that Caitlyn might call longing, and though she doesn't want to break whatever spell Viktor is in, she feels too much like a voyeur not to remind him that she's there.
"Jayce is high-maintenance," Caitlyn says, and Viktor tears his hand away with panicked speed, eyes wide as he locks back on to her. "But he's worth the work."
Like he has been caught doing something he shouldn't, Viktor says, "I don't know what came over me."
Caitlyn shrugs. There's a lot that she doesn't know, but she does know this. "Jayce is like my brother. He's happy around you. To me, that's just about all that matters."
Viktor stares at Caitlyn like she has surprised him. Caitlyn only stands, drinking the remainder of her tea and setting the mug down on the table. "I should go to sleep. If I miss breakfast after disappearing tonight, I doubt I'll ever be allowed to leave my room again. You can stay as long as you like, though."
Finally, Viktor comes back to himself. "Thank you."
Caitlyn rolls her eyes. "I should be thanking you. You two got me the only birthday present that was actually worth anything."
By the time Caitlyn fetches two blankets from her room as an afterthought (it's unseasonably warm, but a chill still follows the night) and steps back on the balcony, Viktor is asleep as well, his fingers light on Jayce's bare forearm.
They don't need two blankets. Caitlyn covers them with one.
Caitlyn isn’t sure that she knows what love is. Her parents respect each other, and they probably do love one another, but it isn’t in the romantic sense. Though Caitlyn doubts that Jayce or Viktor would call it love, there is more affection in the stolen moments that Caitlyn sees between them than she has ever seen from her parents. Jayce’s fingers brush against Viktor’s as they stare at schematics, and Viktor’s eyes soften into fondness almost every time Jayce speaks.
And that’s only what she sees. What happens between Viktor and Jayce behind closed doors is almost certainly more brazen. Jayce pinches her side when she’s being obnoxious, grinning all the while, and Viktor tousles her hair when Caitlyn asks what she knows is a stupid question. Neither of them ever treat her like a Kiramman. Jayce treats her like he always has, as a sister, and Viktor seems more than happy to do the same.
Weeks pass, and then months become a year. Jayce helps her write her application for enforcer training, even though Caitlyn assures him that she’s more than capable. Viktor seems skeptical about the whole endeavor.
“Enforcer doesn’t seem the correct path for you, if I’m being honest,” Viktor says lightly.
Caitlyn’s eyes narrow. “I’ve heard a thousand times over that this decision doesn’t befit me. I wasn’t expecting to hear it from you.”
“Oh, please,” Viktor says with a legendary eye roll. “I’m the last person in Piltover to worry about what’s proper. I just don’t think you’re cruel enough to be an enforcer.”
Her gaze snaps towards him, and she sees him, then, though she is only sixteen and still sheltered and still a Kiramman. Viktor is from the undercity, and she wants to be an enforcer. Something wary hides in his face, because no matter how long Viktor lives in Piltover, he will never forget where he came from.
“You said once that you wondered what the undercity could do if someone gave them a hand,” Caitlyn says. “Who better to offer than a Kiramman?”
Viktor blinks twice and then smirks at her answer. Jayce bellows out a laugh and says, “Oh, you’re a Kiramman now? After all these years, now you’re going to own it?”
She still doesn’t seal the envelope holding the application with the family crest.
Caitlyn clenches a piece of paper in her hand, euphoria and exhilaration racing through her as she sprints down the hall that leads to Jayce and Viktor’s lab. She hasn’t even been able to read the whole letter; the word ACCEPTED is printed along the top in bold lettering, and she didn’t get much further than that.
How she’s going to tell her parents is a bridge that she’ll cross after she tells Jayce and Viktor.
Her boots click against the floor with each footfall, and finally, Caitlyn skids around the corner that puts her right at the door to the lab. The door is open so slightly that Caitlyn hesitates to really call it open, and the tiny crack emits the telltale blue light of hextech. From within, Jayce makes an exclamation of joy, and Caitlyn pauses to peer in. She hardly wants to usurp whatever moment they’re having with her own (undoubtedly less exciting) news.
Through the sliver between door and doorframe, Caitlyn sees Jayce laughing, unrestrained, and Viktor, in a controlled sphere of hextech energy, levitates.
“Doing this is a waste of time,” Viktor says, patient if unamused.
Jayce shakes his head as if that’s the most ridiculous thing that he’s ever heard. “Enjoying myself with you can’t ever be a waste of time.”
Viktor rolls his eyes, but his cheeks darken anyway. He’s a little paler these days, and it’s easier to notice when Jayce’s words affect him. Jayce presses a button on an apparatus on the table next to them, and Viktor falls suddenly. His eyebrows raise in surprise with a healthy dose of fear, but if he is worried about falling to the floor, Jayce doesn’t let him.
Jayce’s arms are there, and Jayce cushions Viktor’s fall. They both tumble to the ground, a tangle of arms and legs. Jayce looks at Viktor with such tenderness that Caitlyn’s chest aches.
If someone looks at her like that even once in her life, it will all be worth it.
Viktor shakes his head like he’s annoyed, but he laughs all the while, and neither of them move to stand. They stare at each other just a moment, two planets in orbit with one another, and Jayce, pulling Viktor in close, touches their foreheads together. Viktor whispers something that Caitlyn can’t hear, and Jayce presses his lips to Viktor’s, his hands in Viktor’s hair.
Caitlyn smiles, but it was never her intent to spy. She steps away from the door, planning to give them a minute before walking in, but all she does is trip over a box of rejected papers and parts. Her shoulder smacks into the door, and it crashes shut; Caitlyn winces in embarrassment and prepares to slink away and come back later, but Jayce’s words come faster.
“We know you’re out there, Cait,” Jayce says, not quite yelling but loud enough that Caitlyn can hear him even though she has just slammed the door closed.
Biting the inside of her cheek sheepishly, Caitlyn inches the door open. Viktor is in the process of heaving himself to his feet, red in the face and trying in vain to fix his tie. Jayce is similarly flushed, but making absolutely no effort to hide it, apparently content where he sits.
Now that she’s standing in front of them, though, it’s like Caitlyn’s words are gone. Instead, she straightens out the paper that she’s been clenching for what feels like an eternity, holding it out in front of her at arm’s length.
They get as far as she did. The ACCEPTED is more than enough for both Viktor and Jayce to know what they’re looking at. Jayce scrambles to his feet, tumbling over words of congratulations that would seem like platitudes from anyone else, and Viktor only nods with a soft smile, but that’s enough. Caitlyn knows what that means.
Jayce crushes Caitlyn into his chest, a nearly rib-shattering hug, and when he pulls away, it is only to grip her by the shoulders. “We have to celebrate!”
“Getting away from us for training is celebration enough for her, I’d imagine,” Viktor says dryly, but he doesn’t mean it. Jayce cuts him a look that Caitlyn can only call affectionately annoyed.
“Dinner. Let’s go out for dinner. Where do you want to go?”
Caitlyn laughs. “You taking me out for dinner just means that my parents are paying.”
Viktor snorts, as unrefined a sound as Caitlyn has ever heard him make, but Jayce’s smile just widens. “If it’s your parents’ money, that means you can spend as much as you like, and not worry about putting me out.”
Something about bringing her parents into the conversation sobers Caitlyn, even though she is the one who mentioned them first.
“They’re never going to let me go,” she says softly. Jayce’s lips part, and the grip that he has on her shoulders softens. For once, her brother who always knows what to say is speechless.
A lump forms in Caitlyn’s throat. She’s been raised better than to be in tears, but the temptation is there regardless. Jayce’s hands are still on her shoulders, but when Viktor puts a finger under her chin and tilts her head upwards, it’s too much. Once her emotions breach the threshold, the tears spill over so quickly that Caitlyn almost chokes on them.
“You’re not the first person I’ve said this to, but I think it holds true here as well,” Viktor says, not unkindly. “When you’re going to change the world, don’t ask for permission.”
Jayce’s breath hitches, but it’s the least of Caitlyn’s concerns. The tears stall out, and she stretches up onto her tip-toes. Viktor isn’t as tall as Jayce, but she is still the shortest person in the room. With as fluid a motion as she can manage, Caitlyn pulls each of them close.
“Thank you,” she says, her voice muffled by their proximity.
Her parents will be furious, but Caitlyn has already told the only family that matters.