Work Text:
Vi stares at the mirror. She’s not really sure what brought this on today because it’s not like the mirror hasn’t always been there—hell, half the bathroom’s a big fucking mirror—but maybe she’s usually preoccupied by other things.
Whatever it is, whatever those other things are, well, they don’t matter right now.
She stares back at her reflection.
She’s changed.
Not drastically, she doesn’t think, but it’s also been long enough since she’s really spent this much time staring at her own naked form that she can’t say that for sure. (There’s another naked form she’s spent a lot more time staring at. She’s had other priorities, thank you very much.)
Most of her is the same. The set of her shoulders, the bulges on her arms, the swell of her chest. It’s just—she looks down at her tummy. She hadn’t known that she had much of a tummy before. It’d been abs which Caitlyn had loved to trace with her tongue and now it’s just tummy. She pokes it tentatively with a finger. It gives a little, but not very much at all which means her muscles are still there. She knows they’re still there. She’s still out and about, still moving, still working.
It’s the food.
The Kiramman estate is full of food and once she’d learnt that she could pop into the kitchens any time well, game fucking over. Small savory pies, sweet fruit tarts, dumplings, noodles, pancakes, crepes, you name it, she’s had it in between meals.
It’s not like she’s never had food before, nor is it that she’s never had anything good ever—she still has a fondness for Jericho’s and that one other food stall around the corner that’s thankfully still there—but to have it here and to see that big beaming smile on the chef’s face…
There’d never been a reason to hold back. She’s an active puppy, after all. Needs her nourishment.
And now she stands in front of her mirror and she worries a little. The logical part of her brain knows Caitlyn isn’t going to care because Caitlyn isn’t the kind of person who would care about something like this—if she were they wouldn’t get along the way they do—but the rest of her brain doesn’t know how to feel about this. She’s getting soft.
She’s literally getting soft.
She looks at her hands, at the backs of her hands now perfectly smooth, even fragrant. All there is is scars that have healed over, skin unbroken. Her calluses are migrating. She finds one where she holds the trowel and as she pokes at it with her other hand it feels almost like it’s laughing at her. Hey, it says. Look at me. I’m a gardener now.
Well, gardening’s pretty damn fun.
Vi enjoys being out in the sun, hands in the cool dirt, picking out spots where she wants to plant new vegetables, helping to prune back vines that are a little overeager, lifting things, moving things, growing things. It’s been a few weeks and she’s already seen things sprout, already started to observe the first few blooms that are going to blossom into fruit that one day she’s going to pluck and present to their dining table.
Warmth wraps itself around her shoulders but she’s had a crumb of an advance notice from the warm scent of sandalwood.
“Did you find something fun in the mirror?”
Caitlyn’s voice is soft in her ear, velvety. The words send a tinkling kind of shiver down Vi’s spine that doesn’t go unnoticed.
“Would you like to share with the class?”
A hand wraps itself around her waist, those long, deft fingers squeezing at the soft parts over her hips—Vi’s realizing now she has soft parts in more places, more places than she’d thought she’d had and she’s not sure what to think of that.
“Vi?” Caitlyn’s voice loses that sultry note and slides back into normalcy, dipping into concern. “Is something the matter?”
A gentle kiss to the round of her bare shoulder.
Vi looks up and meets that one blue eye through the mirror.
“It seems that I’ve grown myself a tummy,” she says, and feels kind of stupid the moment she does. What a statement. What an observation. Good job, Violet. Of course Caitlyn knows you have one. Hell, she’s probably known the moment you started growing one. She’s observant. She’s Caitlyn.
Caitlyn’s face breaks into the most beautiful sunrise.
“Yes,” Caitlyn says, a little hushed. “I’ve noticed. I love it so much.”
Vi blinks. Once, twice, thrice.
“You do?”
“Mmhm—” Caitlyn’s hand migrates off of her hip onto the tiny swell of her tummy, rests there warm, comforting, fingers not prodding but holding “—your tummy’s perfect.”
Her teeth peek out in her smile.
“Darling,” she says. “This means you’re eating well and you’re sleeping well. It means your body’s no longer just in survival mode. It means—” her grin grows almost a little dopey and that is a look Vi hasn’t seen on her wife in a long time “—you’re happy.”
A kiss is pressed to the curve of her neck.
“And nothing,” Caitlyn murmurs into her ear, “nothing makes me happier than your happiness.”
Vi’s eyes flutter shut.