You were laying in bed, sheets draped about you and Vi in a way you thought was artful, and a way that she thought was needlessly close.

All the people she loved ended up getting hurt, you didn’t deserve that.

For some strange fucking reason, you had welcomed Vi into your life with little gifts, hand-holding, hickeys, and home-cooked meals.

What?

She’d tried to refuse it, but she couldn’t handle the look on your face.

She had never been good with sad people.

Sure, Vi was the resident flirty, butch lesbian, but she was a pathological people pleaser.

She *couldn’t * handle seeing the people she lived sad.

And, as much as she loathed it, she was in love.

You were going to ruin her, she knew that already.

You cuddled closer to her side as the rain lashed the windows of your fancy, Piltie apartment.

She hated what she did next.

She slid the chain with her tags off, placing them on your neck.

Dogtags, or tags, were little, rectangular tags that held an Enforcer’s name, age, and spouse in case their corpses needed to be identified.

You looked at Vi with shock, hands moving to cradle her face.

You weren’t surprised that she pulled away, rolling over and giving you her back.

That was the Vi you knew, who was so good to you one second, and the next was checking out other women.