Work Text:
Vi watches Caitlyn stab another newspaper article into her vibrant bedroom wallpaper with a thumbtack. Watches her underline names and dates and locations. Watches her connect them to other articles, to pictures, to scribbled note cards with red and green and blue threads. Criss-crossing and intertwining and snagging until her makeshift board morphs into her next abstract painting. Case #461, by Sheriff Kiramman.
I wish we could grow old together.
The thought forms and dissipates in the same breath, before Vi can latch onto it with scarred hands and scarred sentiments and pick it apart, syllable by syllable.
It isn't the first misplaced thought she’s had since weaving her days, nights, in-betweens with Caitlyn. Knows by now it won't be her last.
They form in a remote, shriveled, blackened corner of her mind. In a part of herself she thought had died on the bridge with her parents. A part that had cradled all of her wants and dreams and little girl hopes for her future. Vi had gathered all of those up, collected them on the tips of her fingers, and brushed them into Powder’s hair while her little sister cried in her arms for their mother.
Vi never thought she would make it to twenty. Never imagined adulthood for herself after that day on the bridge. She would die young and violent like her brothers. Or young and bedridden like her first cell mate. Had come close to both more times than she can remember.
But she didn't, and now adulthood is upon her and she is hurtling toward twenty-five and she is very sure that she is very bad at it.
And Caitlyn had nuzzled into her neck with her nose and brushed her cheek with her knuckles and held her hand in her heart and woken that part of her up.
That hopes and dreams part.
And so Vi stares at Caitlyn while Caitlyn does little Caitlyn things and has thoughts.
She lets them come and go like butterflies drifting from flower to flower. Lets little Vi dream of living, for awhile.
I wish we could stay in this moment.
Caitlyn huffs. Bites at a chipped nail. Her hand shakes minutely.
Vi reaches out and tugs at the red thread tangled around Caitlyn's fingers. "We should eat dinner."
I wish we had more time.
Caitlyn blinks moisture back into her eyes as her stomach grumbles. Lets the thread and her focus fall away. Tangles her fingers with Vi's instead. Finds her eyes and smiles. "What would I do without you?"
"Raid the kitchen at midnight again?"
"Hmm." Caitlyn kisses the corner of her mouth, tugs at her fingertips and her heartstrings. “I prefer this.” Leads her out of the bedroom and out of the moment.
Vi watches Caitlyn walk past portraits of her mother. Imagines her at thirty. Imagines her with streaks of gray. Imagines her in her prime. Cannot imagine those things for herself.
Vi does not let herself think she will make it to thirty. Not yet.
I wish I knew you when I was younger.