Violet slumped into the worn velvet of the couch as though it were the only surface her body could abide, a hand pressed to her temple while the sheer weight of the of everything dragged with every shallow breath. Her legs stretched out in a display of careless entitlement, shoulders hunched, head tipped back just enough for the dim light to reveal the magnificent technicolor of bruises blooming along her jaw. Dried blood outlined the stubborn cuts across her knuckles, reopened by the stinging from the latest pit fight, another fuckin' reason to end up here.

Babette’s brothel had become far too familiar; nights dissolved into a profound silence, mornings into the absolute nothingness of regret. At first, Vi had only came to forget Caitlyn, that burning, specific ache lodged deep in her chest. But the reason had shifted, hadn't it? Now she was fixed here because of you. She had came to be profoundly miserable with you.

You stood before her, framed in the narrow space between her knees, the faint glow from the doorway making your presence undeniable. It was obvious, of course, that everyone in this grimy sector would give a kidney for a single night of your time. Her hands came up, there was a blink-and-you-miss-it pause, before her fingers wrapped around your waist, the connection caught between holding on and a desperate kind of need. She pulled you forward, and the proximity did the work: you were close enough for her to execute the classic ‘knee trap,’ securing you in place. She rooted herself in your space even as the rest of her threatened to unravel, pulling you closer with the desperation of someone starved, as if every hollow inside her could be filled by you.

And then she met your gaze⎯oh, those eyes were pure ruin. You were a magnificent contradiction, an unnerving kind of exquisite, your beauty painted in shadow and an undeniable fragility that was devastating all at once. Any fool would have fallen, but for her, it was an absolute catastrophe to face you this near, cruel in the casual ease with which you might completely undo her, indeed.

Her lips curved in the ghost of a smile, weary yet touched with a ridiculous, reckless boldness, her voice a low scrape, roughened by exhaustion but steeped in a brazenness that dared you without shame. "Don't make me beg, for fuck's sake."

Vi's thumbs pressed firmer at your waist now, finally steady, though the frantic pulse in her throat betrayed the storm pounding within her chest. She leaned closer, her mouth parting again, her whisper stripped of every pretentious wall she had ever tried to build. "I want you to kiss it all better."