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Caitlyn wants to ask about the gears, if only to confirm a theory.
She is staring at the one on Vi’s neck as they wait for her father to return. He went to get supplies from his office. The relief of seeing her alive when they first arrived at the Kiramman estate was enough to make him cry. He had gathered her up and pulled her into a hug so tight she felt her spine pop. And then he did the same with Vi, much to the bruiser’s surprise. The action also results in a strained gasp that Caitlyn can tell Vi desperately tries to conceal but isn’t quite able to which concludes with her father giving them both a check up.
If Vi goes after Sevika alone again, Caitlyn swears to every god she has ever learned about but never prayed to…
The check up shows Caitlyn’s father all the split skin of Vi’s knuckles and other such fun injuries and leads him to telling them both he’ll be back with antiseptics and to Caitlyn considering the gears painted on Vi’s body.
And she has a theory but she thinks now might not be the appropriate time to voice it out loud, given the situation they just came from and the fact that Vi can’t bring herself to look either Kiramman in the eye.
“They haven’t found her yet, sweetheart. They’re digging through the rubble as fast they can.”
Caitlyn clenches her hands so hard her knuckles turn white but it does little to stop them from shaking. It’s all too fresh. Being kidnapped, Jinx, Silco, the rocket, her mother…
She latches onto Vi’s gears again to distract herself from the flood. She can still feel the knot in her throat, the weight in her heart, but they need to deal with one thing at a time and right now that needs to be stitching and mending torn and broken things to make them strong again.
So they can use what will eventually be healed effectively and properly deal with the reason why the things were torn and broken.
Vi bites at the skin around her right thumb as she stares decidedly not at Caitlyn but rather the rug. Her right arm is resting on the knee that isn’t bouncing at a tempo faster than the heartbeat of a hummingbird. The guilt in her eyes is bleeding into every feature of her face.
Oh, Vi.
Caitlyn looks at the gear on Vi’s neck again, if only because it’s the most out in the open. Caitlyns knows the gears span across her shoulders and make their way down each of her arms, but Vi is still wearing that red jacket she stole in the Undercity - Zaun? Is it Zaun now? - and that makes it a little hard to see the extent of them.
But she knows they’re there.
Gears. Machinery. Things that tick and rotate and pump. Heavy things that move how they want, with purpose and a job, but can be replaced when they’ve been worn down and don’t work quite as well as they used to. Things that can be oiled and worked on to get them to move more efficiently. Things that can keep going, keep moving, for long periods of time with no rest, until they are worn down, really. And then the replacements come and the machinery chugs along once more.
Caitlyn has a theory about what the gears mean.
She takes in Vi, the purple and yellow hues of bruises starting to form on her cheek and no doubt more are being scattered among other areas of her body. Caitlyn again wonders how many fights with Sevika Vi plans to take on alone after these last two have landed her in the Fissures - why did we go there? - on Death’s doorstep and seeing her dead mentor.
“How bad do you gotta be to see someone that’s dead, Doc?”
“I think… I think it’s a miracle you’re sitting here.”
“Shit, that bad, huh?”
Gears. Machinery. Things that may continue to move and operate, even when the things around them die. Because life cannot be replaced. You cannot fix an organic being, not like you can machinery. You can perform a transplant, take one body part and move it into a new home, but there is no promise it will work the same, that it will be accepted by the rest, that it won’t be rejected. And your time with the transplant is limited, you will have to find another replacement eventually, and that is not an easy task. It is a process. A lengthy process that requires tests to be taken, papers to be signed, preparations to be made, and questions to be asked.
Viktor and Jayce are trying to blend the rules of science and magic together, but it is all still so limited.
For now.
“Pave the way. The future is what we make it, Jayce.”
Machinery, though. Machinery can be fixed, replaced, and there would be little worry of rejection. If a part doesn’t fit that only means you need a different one, not that there is no hope for recovery. The process can continue until there is no one left to replace the broken parts. Even then, the machine may continue to do its job past the last life that fixed it.
Work. Break. Fix. Repeat. No stops. No room to breathe. Just go and keep going. Until one day all has fallen apart, and there is nothing to work for anymore.
Caitlyn has a theory.
“You are not a goddamn machine, Vi.”
Vi’s entire body freezes. It is almost comical, considering her thumb is still being worried at by her teeth and her leg was mid bounce. When she whips herself around to look at Caitlyn, all Caitlyn can see is confusion and-
And the gears, the ones in Vi’s head, working out what Caitlyn just said, trying to figure out what she could possibly be talking about.
To be quite honest, the sentence had slipped out as Caitlyn was thinking about her first encounter with Vi. Hitting her cell’s stone walls. One punch after another, fists meeting hard rock as if they weren’t the things in a vulnerable position. As if they weren’t the ones that could break and never be fixed properly if pushed hard enough. As if they were the machines that would continue to work if asked, despite any wear and tear they might experience.
Caitlyn unclenches her fists for a second before returning her knuckles to the white they are starting to get used to being. She wishes she could stop shaking, it makes her anger look sad.
Caitlyn takes a deep breath, eyes closing in an attempt to recenter, and sighs through her nose before repeating slowly, “You are not a goddamn machine.”
Vi’s eyes furrow into further confusion, “I- What? Caitlyn? Are we sure I’m the one with the concussion here?”
“Your sister did hit me rather hard.”
“Fuck, I’m-”
“You are not a machine, Vi.”
“Yeah, you keep saying that, Caitlyn. I dunno what you’re talking about. I think I should get your dad.”
“Gears,” and Caitlyn emphasizes her point by pointing to her own neck.
Vi brings a hand up to trace the strong lines of her tattoo with a sense of clarity. She covers the side of her neck and looks away from Caitlyn, bringing her attention back to the rug before her once more. “Figured it out, did you?”
“Anyone who has known you longer than five minutes could piece it together.”
Vi’s laugh sounds more like a gargle before she says, “No one in Stillwater did. Then again, no reason, I guess… But I bet you’ve got the deeper parts down too, huh? Been pretty good at that.”
Caitlyn thinks crossing her arms will make them look less shaky. She tries it, even though she knows it is unlikely Vi will look up any time soon. It doesn’t work, but it does provide her with a sense of protection, security, like her arms are guarding her from something she doesn’t know the name for but can feel.
“I have a theory,” Caitlyn responds finally.
“Well, I saw how your last one panned out,” Vi states simply. She is digging the heels of her palms into her eyes, like she’s trying to relieve the pressure there. “Go for two?”
“You said,” Caitlyn hesitates because she’d rather not think about how Vi almost died again but this is important. “You went down in your fight against Sevika.”
“Right.”
“And you saw… Vander?”
“He- he was my…” Vi trails off and never finishes her thought. Caitlyn doesn’t need her to. He was important to Vi, someone she looked up to. That’s enough information. More than enough. “Anyway, he died. The night I was arrested. He died the night I was taken to Stillwater.”
Caitlyn didn’t know that.
Marcus, how deep does your cut go? How infected is the wound now?
One thing at a time. Machinery.
“You saw him, forced yourself up based on this vision, and continued to fight,” Caitlyn sums up. The point. She wants to get to the point.
“Then I threw Sevika into the jukebox,” Vi adds. “That ended the fight. And then… then I was- and you were-”
Caitlyn doesn’t need her to finish that line of thinking either. It moves past the point anyway. “You were punched so hard you saw a vision of someone who is dead, Vi, and then you got up and went back to throwing punches like it never happened.”
“What the hell else was I supposed to do, Caitlyn?”
“What did he say, Vi?”
Vi jerks back like she’s been punched, which is ironic considering the circumstances. Caitlyn needs to know. She has a theory but she needs to know. She has to have confirmation on why Vi thinks she can take all the punches, why Vi blocks with her face like that’s better than dodging out of the way, why Vi will take and take and take and give back but will go back to taking it in a second when…
“What he always did,” Vi admits because she’s finding that hiding things from Caitlyn might be impossible anyway. That doesn’t mean she’s going to look Caitlyn in the eye when she spills her guts right now, though. “‘She needs you. They all do.’”
Oh, Vi.
Caitlyn is willing the other woman to look at her, is about to ask her to, even, because Caitlyn wants Vi to know she understands in some capacity why she behaves like a machine. She wants to tell Vi that, even though she’ll always remind Vi that she isn’t a machine, remind her that her parts are human and irreplaceable because Vi is too important to Caitlyn to allow her to continue on a path of self-destruction, Caitlyn will still oil the gears if Vi asks her to, that Caitlyn will paint them again when the ink fades or is cut through.
Because Caitlyn understands that to Vi the gears are more than restless machinery. Yes, they are her ability to stand in front of the people she loves and take the pain for them. Yes, they are her wishing she could replace the broken parts of her with stronger stuff so she doesn’t have to worry about any of the hurt seeping through to the ones she is guarding. Yes, the gears are her, because she’s been given a job to do and she best do it until there’s no need for her anymore. But it runs deeper than that.
Caitlyn might not know everything about what happened between the sisters. She knows enough, though. She knows Vi feels guilt for it all. She knows Vi feels she has failed her sister in a way that is irredeemable.
The gears give her hope that she might be able to improve, to fix things that are broken and get back to work, get back to when things ran in a way that made sense and there weren’t stops and starts.
Vi isn’t a machine, and Caitlyn will do well to make sure Vi remembers the soft flesh that covers them both, but asking Vi to rid herself of her gears would be like asking Caitlyn to stop looking for something to shoot for.
Impossible asks, you might as well be asking Vi to stop having a good heart. Especially so, knowing that the foundation of the ideas come from someone lost, for Vi and Caitlyn both.
Caitlyn wants to voice this. She wants to ask Vi to look at her as she states her understanding while also reminding Vi that she won’t let Vi purposely look for ways to test the idea of her gears.
But then her father returns with the supplies and they have to save that part of the conversation for another time.
And as she watches as he carefully unwraps Vi’s arms and deals with the damage the gauntlets left there, Caitlyn comes up with a new theory based on the events that led them here and what the gears mean and who Vi is. How this all ends with her, Jinx, and Vi.
And she hopes that this time… this time her theory isn’t as correct as they have been.