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The sound of the wind circulating through stony fissures was the only break from the deafening silence. Even so, it sounded like the pained moans of a wounded creature, so it didn't offer any respite from the current and delicate scenario. It was creepy, to say the least.
Cait hiked up her rifle on her shoulder, her thumb and pointer finger running through the leather strap. The weight of it made her feel more grounded. Meanwhile, she observed Vi as she peered around the edge of a cliff with practiced inconspicuousness.
The plan was simple: feigned capture, distraction, betrayal. Cait ran through the steps on her mental checklist to anchor herself.
“They're turning back,” said Vi, as she stood up and returned to her place in front of Cait.
Her words were the first to fill the space in the last several moments.
“Alright,” Cait replied. “We'll have close to fifteen minutes before their next round. We'll go then.”
Fifteen minutes before moving in.
Which meant fifteen minutes spent in each other's company. Alone.
There was no apparent reason for the lack of immediate action. They could have just marched on and announced themselves; the guards were still well within their earshot.
But that required them to advance now, leaving no private time with one another. Having Vi this close again was disconcerting her, Cait was aware of it. But part of her—the selfish one—wanted to sit with the feeling, even if just for a little while.
She considered a few practical excuses for the delay: to give themselves time to recoup, to go over the plan again, to mentally prepare.
In the end, she didn't elaborate on her decision.
Vi had to have noticed it, but she said nothing.
So, they stayed put, waiting for the next guard shift to actuate the plan.
With their unspoken pact hanging over them, they waited silently as Rictus and the other man disappeared from sight. Cait's satisfaction of having Vi all to herself lasted mere seconds before anxiousness took over; she had fifteen minutes alone with Vi and absolutely no idea what to say to her.
She tapped the metal canister that contained the electric net on the end of her weapon, the one Vi was to use against Ambessa. She pretended to fumble with it while she racked her brain for conversation topics. She had been so absorbed in basking in Vi's presence after so long apart that she forgot to plan how to fill up the next stretch of time.
Before she could open her mouth to gape or stutter out an awkward 'So, how have you been?', Vi beat her to it.
“Just so we're clear,” she said, “what you're proposing will require you to trust my sister. You realize that, right?”
There was a disguised apprehension in her gray eyes. Cait couldn't force herself to hold that gaze, which probably made her next words sound unreassuring.
“Yes, I'm aware.”
“And you're okay with that?”
Cait wondered if it was concern for her or for Jinx that prompted her to ask. She bit the inside of her cheek.
“In war, you do what you must,” she said finally, some echo of Ambessa's sentiment slipping out.
With a metallic click, she detached the canister from its port and handed it to Vi, who took it and turned it around in her hands. While she inspected it, she took a step back and sat on a large rock that stood close to the wall. The pose highlighted the thickness of her thighs, making them stand out to Cait.
Cait took advantage of Vi's focus being on the object to observe the changes in her body. She was heavier, her limbs broad all around. Her stomach was exposed, and the sharp lines of her obliques showed that most of the weight gained was in muscle.
She had noticed it previously when she had flipped Vi. All the years of being trained in various fighting styles honed her ability to assess someone's body composition and how they could weaponize it. It was a crucial skill in a warrior's repertoire. If you were to engage someone in battle, you had to know how to estimate the extent of their power and what kind of damage they could inflict on you.
Vi's physique had always been solid, her corners sharpened and core hardened by a tough life. It was evident, though, that since the two of them parted, whatever the circumstances that were thrown her way only served to condition her further. To make her heavier, in every sense of the word.
“You've gained weight,” she said.
Vi looked up again, eyes wide in surprise this time. Her face conveyed indignation, but there was a stirring of amusement on her lips that betrayed her actual feelings.
“Are you calling me fat?”
Cait shook her head and frowned with fake theatricality.
“No,” she said, with a mischievous 'I wouldn't dare' tone, “just heavier. You look…” angry, tired, ragged. Beautiful. “Good.”
Vi's face softened. “You've changed too.”
Cait was aware. All the grief hadn't left her unscathed; it had cut across and left deep footprints as evidence of its passage. There were crow's feet forming in the corners of her eyes that weren't there before. You needed to search for them to notice them, but they were there, nonetheless: three fine lines the width of a thread, that changed in depth depending on how many hours she had slept the previous night.
There was a hardness to her jaw, too. Whether caused by the loss of baby fat from natural aging processes or the gained tension in her mandible joint, now ever-present, she didn't know. Yawning wide and rubbing the sides of her face every now and again to ease the overworked muscles had turned into a daily habit.
The change had been swift enough that sometimes she would look at her reflection in the mirror and she would find it uncanny.
“For better or worse?”
The question was both regretted and welcomed when it called Vi's attention to her body. She looked at Cait, really looked, and Cait tried to appear more relaxed than she felt as she became the target of her scrutiny.
“You'd never manage to look bad,” Vi said earnestly.
“Even as a mongoose?” Cait teased, recalling the nickname.
At that, Vi lifted one corner of her mouth in a half-smile. She got up, slipping the canister into her jacket pocket, and took a few steps toward Cait.
“Especially as a mongoose,” Vi said, without breaking her gaze.
A few more steps in her direction and something did a flip deep inside Cait's lower stomach. “You seem quite certain about where you stand.”
“And where do I stand now, cupcake?”
Mouth gone dry, Cait wet her lips before she spoke. “Awfully close to me.”
“Do you want me to move?” Vi asked, looking at her lips.
There was a wall of rock behind Cait, its coldness seeping through her clothes. In front of her, warm, there was Vi. There was so little space that any step she took, in either direction, would lead to a collision.
“No,” she decided.
Tunnels in your eyes, lava in your veins, shadows in your heart, Ambessa had said.
Cait was pretty sure this wasn't the kind of fire she was referring to.
The truth of combat, alright. The truth of something else, too.
She chose warmth and leaned forward. Vi met her halfway, hungrily, and at last, their mouths clashed.
Vi's lips tasted sweet, a fruity flavor Cait couldn't place. It suited Vi perfectly, as sweet as she truly was, beneath her scars and inked skin and scraped knuckles. Beneath the reactive anger and all the bravado of an unjustly caged animal finally set free.
Threading her fingers through the newly black tresses, Cait chased the flavor with her tongue into Vi's mouth and licked behind her teeth. Vi wasted no time reciprocating, her own hands grabbing Cait by the hips in a bruising grip and walking her backward until they collided urgently against the wall.
Now she was thoroughly trapped.
Vi pulled away from her lips only long enough to direct her mouth to her neck, where she imprinted a line of kisses. Cait tightened the grip on her hair and tugged, making her breathe out a moan. She opened her eyes and faced Cait with a tipsy expression on her face. Cait bit her lips, struck by an idea, and Vi tracked the action, pupils blown wide.
A terribly enticing idea.
“You know,” she said, “we still have close to ten minutes to spare.”
Vi pressed a kiss on the soft skin beneath her ear. “Yeah? How should we spend them?” she said and nuzzled her.
Cait tried not to let the resulting shiver be too obvious. She ran her knuckles down Vi's abdomen, past her navel, and stopped over the expanse of skin just beneath it. The same place she had hit her with the butt of her gun all that time ago, after the confrontation with Jinx. She softened her touch into a caress there, a silent apology.
But Vi's breath sped up in anticipation, and Cait couldn't resist reaching lower, lower, until her fingertips reached the waistline of her pants. She hooked her fingers over it, feeling the tickle of the fine strip of hair that led below.
“I have a few ideas. If you are on board.”
“I'm fully in, cupcake,” she said, voice raspy, and kissed her again.
The limited space between their bodies made it nearly impossible to take a deep breath. Cait could feel Vi's heart beating wildly against her own chest, a rhythm her own echoed. She took the hand that wasn't occupied and sneaked it beneath Vi's jacket until it was over the lines of her ribcage. She traced the lower edges of the bandages that were binding her chest, and then touched her lower, over her waist, noting the new musculature there.
The other hand was more occupied trying to work Vi's intricate belt. At the same time, responding fingers began undoing the fly of her own pants.
With a handful of effort, she achieved her goal, and the metal buckle jingled in the air as her hand slipped inside Vi's pants. The barrier of her underwear wasn't enough to disguise how wet she was.
In any other circumstances, she would have taken it slow, like she had imagined it so many times before: learned all of her reactions, teased her, worked up her movements until Vi was melting in her hands, weak in the knees.
But time wasn't on their side. So, right now, she wanted nothing more than to give everything she had and take everything that was offered.
Eagerness burned through her as Vi's hand made it inside her own pants. Unlike hers, however, it went past her panties and straight for her bare skin. The touch of fingers on her clit pulled a barely stifled moan out of her.
Her payback was in kind as her fingers ran between Vi's clothed labia, upwards until they were drawing half-circles over her sensitive spot.
Vi gasped against the skin of her neck, and then pulled back until she was facing her.
“Run the plan by me again,” she said, pressing their foreheads together. “Just to make sure we're on the same page.”
Inhaling deeply to gather her thoughts despite the warmth spreading between her legs, Cait relented, “I'll take you in as a prisoner to Ambessa. You'll be distracting her while I take Singed to the colony—”
The words scattered like the seeds of a dandelion when fingers pressed against her hole and began pressing in. She was so soaked that there was no resistance, and they just slipped inside, two of them judging by the girth.
“And…?”
The heel of Vi's hand ground against her clit as she moved inside. Cait's breath quickened as if she were running a marathon. She focused on her words, desperate to distract herself from how embarrassingly fast the sensation was building.
“I'll incapacitate him and secure the serum. That way they'll lose the advantage, and…" the fingers inside crooked upwards, digging into that soft, tender spot, “Oh—”
Just when it was at the point that doesn't go away if you stop, Vi put more pressure on the outside, rubbing against her. That's all it took.
She bit her lip to hold back the noises as she came. Her legs wobbled slightly, but Vi was there to hold her through it, pressing her more insistently against the icy wall behind for support.
She rode it out until, little by little, it ebbed away. Satisfied, she exhaled and opened her eyes, noting she had closed them. Vi looked pleasure drunk, gaze scorching and cheeks flushed. Her lips were cherry red and swollen from the kissing, and Cait wanted nothing more than to have them on hers again.
She looked delectable.
“How do I know she won't just kill me where I stand?” she asked, sounding barely put-together.
Out of the fog of pleasure, Cait schooled her own expression into seductive calmness. She resumed her movements, laser-focused on her goal.
Vi blinked heavily as Cait rubbed her clit, her own hips following the rhythm, unable to still.
“She's ruthless, but she isn't dishonorable,” Cait said. “She won't kill a bound prisoner. That will give you enough time to act, I believe.”
“You believe?” she smirked.
Cait hummed. “If we pull this off, we cut them off at the knees.”
Vi's mouth went slack, her lips parting to let out a shaky groan. It drew Cait's attention to the scars on them, white lines slashing the ruddiness. Cait surrendered to her instincts and leaned in to lick over the one on her lower lip.
As she did, Vi took her working wrist in her grip and humped desperately against her hand. Cait matched her motions, steady and responsive, letting Vi guide her in the way she needed to take her pleasure.
She gave it to her as good as she got until she was kissing tiny gasps from Vi's mouth. Her hand was crushed between strong thighs as she rode out her orgasm.
Cait gentled her movements as Vi came down and sagged into her, propping herself up with one hand against the stone wall behind so as not to crush her completely. She stilled her fingers, but kept them in place over Vi's clit, feeling the tiny contractions from the aftershocks.
Giving her time to pull herself together, Cait peppered kisses along her cheeks, jaw and any place on her face she could reach. In the meantime, she helped fix her underwear and pulled up her pants, zipping them and buckling the belt.
“I think that was best mission prep I’ve ever had,” Vi said eventually, between nibbles on Cait's neck.
Cait chuckled, giddy and warm inside. She had almost forgotten the situation at hand.
“The location could have been better,” she said. “Perhaps somewhere more comfortable than a cold canyon.”
Vi snaked her arms around her waist, hands halfway down her ass.
“Then we should pick a better place next time,” she said. Her tone was confident, but her eyes were hopefully questioning.
“Next time, huh?” Cait bit her lip. She studied Vi's face, committing every feature to memory. "It's a deal, then."
As if on cue, deep voices resonated through the stony paths far below. They came from afar, but it was enough for the two of them to sober up. They parted reluctantly, readiness settling into their muscles.
Trained efficiency kicked in, and they rushed through the last adjustments to their clothes, trying to make what had just transpired between them less obvious.
Vi ran her fingers through her hair, amending what Cait had undone. The lines on her beautiful face had hardened, but when she looked at Cait, she failed to contain the remaining traces of heat. Cait relished the fact that she had been the one to put them there.
Body tensed, Vi turned her head to the side, offering her cheek.
“Ready?” she asked.
Cait straightened herself. She shook her dominant arm, clenching her fist in preparation. She spared Vi one last dangerous smile.
“Ready,” she answered, and then punched her.