"I know all about you, Twisted Fate." His name sounded like it stung her lips to say it. She might have been sorry if she hadn't meant for it to sound that way. "I've heard about the sorts of things you involve yourself with in other parts of Valoran."

The notorious crook smirked. That was all Caitlyn could see with that stupid wide-brimmed hat on, shading his eyes and most of his face. It was especially hard to see the expression on his face since he wouldn't look up at her. "Oh, have you now?"

Hmm. It wasn't too difficult for Caitlyn to place his drawl. Bilgewatian diction was heavily varied from region to region, but it wasn't uncommon to hear poorer folk from the Blue Flame Islands speak that way. It was rare to hear, since Piltover was home to primarily natives, as well as scholars from Demacia and Bandle City. He had a low, quiet voice and the distinct way he spoke was slow and deliberate. It reminded Caitlyn of molasses. If the things he said weren't so maddening, she figured it might have been relaxing to listen to.

The Sheriff of Piltover narrowed her eyes at him, trying to get a read on him without blatantly asking him to look at her. Given his reputation, there wasn't a sliver of doubt in her mind he was trying to do the same to her, trying to see if he could play her like he played the fools that fumbled their ways around the disgraceful underbellies of Demacia and Noxus, too stupid and desperate to see that they were being played.

She knew damn well that he was a bad man with no place in Piltover, the renowned City of Progress whose zero-tolerance policy regarding crime in the city made it a dangerous vacation spot for a notorious criminal like the man who sat before her. Caitlyn had been aware of his presence in her city from the moment he had stepped through its gates. There wasn't a law enforcement officer worth their salt north of the Great Barrier that didn't know to be on their guard the second they caught wind of the name "Twisted Fate" in their city. Despite that, to Caitlyn's knowledge, he hadn't spent a minute in prison. He was a little too slippery to get locked up in prison.

"There's not a competent police officer alive that isn't on their guard as soon as they know you're nearby," Caitlyn went on, crossing her arms and circling around him. That was an old but simply tactic that trailed back to humanity's most basic instincts. She was the predator, and he was the prey. And she was going to break him. "And I'm sure you know why."

"Well, Miz—"

"Sheriff," Caitlyn corrected firmly. She hadn't spent years scrubbing Piltover clean of the filth that used to cling to it to be called "Miz" as if she was some delicate little schoolmarm. She didn't like to be patronized, especially not by lawless bottomfeeders like Twisted Fate.

Still, he didn't correct himself. "—it sure sounds like you know a lot I don't." He was lying, that much was easy to tell. And Caitlyn could tell that he wanted her to know he was lying. She couldn't haul him in without anything but a hunch to substantiate her claim. "It'd be nice if you would tell me what you think I did before you start throwing around those hostile words, Miz."

Caitlyn scowled, setting her jaw. She couldn't stand the kinds of people that seemed to get off on jerking the chain of law enforcement. Despite the fact that she wanted to correct him, she didn't linger on a minor detail like that. Her rifle sat in its polished oak cradle on her desk, tempting her to grab it and use it to at least scare him a little… That would be a hell of a lot of paperwork, though, to explain why the Sheriff of Piltover had held a gun to his head when he hadn't done anything to indicate that he was going to become violent with her. Twisted Fate had no idea how lucky he was that she was a patient woman. Vi, who had no concept of patience or self-control, would have had him bleeding on the floor, paperwork be damned.

Before she responded to him, she paused. He wanted her to tell him what it was she thought he was guilty of, and Caitlyn had a list taller than he was of illicit things she could reasonably say he had done. But she wasn't going to do that. "I'm sure you would like it if I stroked your precious ego like that," she purred, her eyes narrowing at him, "but we don't have the time it would take for me to get through half of the things I'm nearly certain you've done in Demacia alone."

"Sounds like you shouldn't go around believin' everything you hear," he answered curtly, tilting his hat up so he could see her. Caitlyn saw a faint glow of blue from under the wide brim of his hat, but it was there and gone so quickly she was nearly positive she had imagined it. "And I can guarantee you that my ego is being stroked plenty. Ever been to Demacia? Some of the girls are so deprived they'll do it for free there."

Caitlyn turned around inhaled deeply, as quietly as she could, trying to reign in her temper. She had never been known to be easy to rile, especially not when she was dealing with criminals. But the coolness of this one bothered her, and she wanted little more than to crack him like an egg. She closed her eyes and was immediately satisfied by an image of the conman on his knees, covering his face in shame as he sobbed like a child.

Reminding herself that she wasn't Vi and that she didn't need to break people to be successful, she collected herself and turned back around, narrowing her eyes at him and placing her hands on her knees, trying to come to level with him. "I don't care what the girls in Demacia do. The girls here in Piltover will make sure you spend so long locked up right here that you'll forget all about those girls in Demacia. Are we clear?"

He reached up to flick his hat upward with his first few fingers, just enough that she could finally see his eyes. Despite the shade of the hat shielding his face from the cold glow of the lights of the sheriff's office, she could see that they were a pretty distinctive shade of hazel. She tucked that away in the back of her mind as something to write down in her file on him later (if she could find it among the thousands of others she had stowed away).

Twisted Fate's eyes were narrowed, mirroring hers, as if he was challenging her. She didn't really know what sorts of tricks he had up his sleeve in terms of combat, but she was one of the most skilled shots in Valoran. If he picked a fight with her, she wasn't going to give him a chance to run. He chuckled lowly at her.

Caitlyn's mouth tightened into a scowl. "Are. We. Clear?" she repeated sharply.

Then the corner of his mouth turned up, just enough for her to notice that he was teasing her. For just a moment, she was certain she saw a cyan glow radiating from his eyes again. "Crystal."

"Stop where you are, and Piltover's Sheriff's Office may show you leniency!" Caitlyn hollered out shortly before strafing to the left with a quick step in order to narrowly avoid a concussion via glowing green snowglobe stolen from a vendor's stand.

As if the fact that the thug who had made the mistake of entering her city with bad intentions was close to seven feet tall and a pure wall of muscle wasn't bad enough, somewhere he had picked up some sort of affinity for magic, and he knew how to use it. She had learned that the hard way when she had shown up in the market, flashing her badge. Apparently she had frightened him and now she had a huge dark singe mark on her side, where his magic had seared through her dress and into her skin.

She couldn't tell if he was Zaunite or Noxian or what. It was hard to get a good look at him, and huge shirtless men all looked the same to her. It didn't look like he was wearing any typical Zaunite tech, but Noxians weren't known for using magic, especially if they came from the slums. Magic infused with pure brute force definitely seemed like something they would do, though.

Caitlyn was waiting for himself to run his way out of the busy marketplace, firstly so he would stop barreling through people she didn't have time to mutter apologies to, and secondly so she could line up a good shot on him and take him down. She was trying to do a million things at once, switching out her bullets for tranquilizers with one hand and fumbling for her radio with the other.

"Disturbance in the marketplace. I'm keeping pace with the guy, can catch him. Need someone to check up on people." She nearly dropped both her gun and her radio as a magically-charged book thicker than her neck came sailing at her face, pages flying every which way. She ducked to get out of the way, holding her gun to her as if it were a baby. The book took her hat with it, and she looked back at her hat woefully, unable to stop long enough to grab it. She didn't have enough hands.

"Dispatching now, Sheriff. Need any help catching him?" a voice on the other end of the radio answered just as the goon broke out of the crowd. He was towering at least a head over everyone else, making it especially easy to track him.

Caitlyn trailed him, raising the radio to her lips. "I've got him now." She clipped the radio to her hip where it normally went, waiting for him to turn onto a side street before she kneeled down, lining up her shot. Her hat had the extra scopes attached to it, but he was reasonably close.

Suddenly the culprit turned around, eyes glowing a smoky green, and thrust out with his hands. The sheer magical force of it stumbled her out of the shot, leaving her dazed for a moment. She really wasn't prepared for the second huge burst that sent her sailing backwards onto her ass, her rifle landing somewhere even further away. She tumbled until she was several meters away, face-down on the cobblestone side street.

Shaking off the shock of hitting the ground so hard, she pushed herself up to her knees and immediately went for her rifle. Her fingertips had only grazed the stock of the gun when a huge hand wrapped around her ankle, dragging her back. Caitlyn went for her radio to at least get a sound through to them so they knew she was in trouble, but before she even knew it was gone she saw it land inches away from her head, shattering into a mess of springs and scrap.

How long had it been since someone had dared challenge her authority as sheriff? She had been picked on by the common thugs of Piltover early in her career, while she had been climbing the rungs of the then-nonexistent Piltover law enforcement. Then, she had always had her rifle (among other things) to defend herself. How long had it been since she had been against a magical opponent she wasn't able to outrun or outshoot?

Her mind was racing as she desperately tried to think up a solution and tamp down the panic that was welling up in her. There was blood all over the street where she was being dragged and she didn't have the time or the willpower to figure out where she was bleeding from. Looking over her shoulder, she noticed that he was wearing a dark wrap around his face, concealing everything except for one bloodshot eye. It was hard to tell what his intentions were since she couldn't see his face, and that made her especially nervous. She didn't allow just how terrified she was to show on her face. "You will be punished severely if you continue to—"

The thug's contemptuous snort was cut off by a strangled grunt. Her leg made contact with the street as his stony grip on her ankle loosened and gravity did its work. Caitlyn barely had time to flip herself over to see what was going on before she realized that the brick wall of a man was getting closer to her at an alarming rate. She managed to somersault out of the way just in time to narrowly avoid his huge body crushing her as he landed. Oh, how the mighty fall for you.

There was something like a tarot card stuck in his back, right along his spinal cord. It shone a phosphorescent gold, lighting up the shady alleyway she had been dragged into in the dim glow of dusk. She lifted herself to her knees and reached forward so she could pluck it out tentatively with her thumb and forefinger. The glow dulled to a dim yellow as she did so, and there was a dark red tinge of blood where it had breached the man's flesh. She didn't recognize the symbol on the card, but it looked like a small chain.

And then she noticed it: an otherworldly cerulean glow at the darkened opposite end of the alleyway. Inexplicably startled, the first thing she did was begin pushing herself backward, toward her gun and the guts of her ruined radio, keeping the card in her hand.

"Fascinating as it might be," a voice Caitlyn unfortunately recognized right away drawled from the other end of the alley, "you probably shouldn't go around taking things from the unconscious, Miz. It's bad manners and I have you figured for the type to care."

As he got closer, Caitlyn's fears were confirmed: Twisted Fate stood there in all his sleazy glory, passing a card between his fingers like a bad habit. The cyan glow luminescing under his hat faded to nothing. She narrowed her eyes at him, trying her best to salvage what little dignity she could.

"I had it under control," she stated haughtily, getting to her feet and perfecting her posture as she walked back to the much more well-lit street to get her gun.

He began walking toward her, nudging the man's body with the toe of his boot. "That so?" he muttered, bending down to shamelessly check if he had anything valuable on him. All that was worth taking was a little coin pouch strapped around his waist, which he pocketed before following Caitlyn toward the entrance to the alleyway.

"It is, as a matter of fact. I merely needed time," she answered sharply, raising her chin indignantly. "And maybe it's not the brightest idea to steal right in front of the sheriff."

Twisted Fate leaned against the mouth of the alley, not smiling at her. She had expected at least a little smirk, considering he had just gotten away with petty larceny in front of the highest legal authority that existed in Piltover. "You didn't exactly have time on your side, darling. I watched him knock you flat on your ass and drag you without that gun of yours into a dark alley to do who-knows-what. Only reason I stopped him was because I knew you weren't gonna."

The lighthearted, devil-may-care attitude he usually wore was gone, and this righteous attitude was probably more annoying. "I am the Sheriff of Piltover—"

"Toss that around all you like, but someone like him doesn't care that you're the goddamn sheriff when you don't have a gun to fight him off with. You being the sheriff is a big ol' trophy for him to brag about later to his buddies in Zaun. Do you understand?"

Caitlyn did not like being reprimanded, especially not like a child. Vi would try sometimes to rebuke her for her excessive planning, but at least then she knew that she was in the right. She didn't have that now. She knew she was wrong and she had been overpowered and—worst of all—she had needed Twisted Fate's help. She set her jaw but didn't answer him, just glaring him down. How vulnerable she felt was not befitting for someone like her. She was not the sort of woman to be vulnerable, and she really never had been. She didn't plan to become the damsel in distress now, especially not for this backwater con.

"And don't go harping at me for taking a little recompense for saving your life when you and I both know you didn't deserve it out of me," he griped lowly, walking closer to her and removing what looked like a little white-and-gold kerchief from a pocket inside his coat. Although she flinched slightly when he reached up to dab at her nose with it, she didn't back away from him, surprising herself. Even though he was plenty lofty enough for her to have to look up at him, his hat was low enough again that she couldn't see his eyes. She reached up for the cloth so she could hold it to her nose herself. Twisted Fate wasn't her mother and she didn't care to feel like he was helping her longer than was strictly necessary.

The cloth was ruddy with her blood, and Caitlyn wondered if all of the blood she had seen on the ground had come from her nose or if she had some other wound on her that she couldn't see. She had a whole ton of questions for him, but decided that the amnesty he was going to be rewarded in exchange for his… kindness would be that she didn't assail him with questions right away.

She was struggling to find something to say. Her disposition toward him definitely wasn't friendly enough for her to sacrifice confidence so she could thank him, but every time she opened her mouth it seemed like he had an aggravatingly valid argument to counter her with. It would have been easier for him to stand by and watch what might have happened to her. In fact, she would not have been surprised if he had enjoyed seeing her in trouble. Just yesterday, hadn't she been thinking of how satisfying it would have been to see him cry? Caitlyn hadn't cried in years, but she was sure someone like Twisted Fate would get off on the sight of that in a heartbeat.

"I don't expect you to be grateful," he added, seeing that she wasn't going to respond, twinges of bitterness staining his words, "but you're not as invincible as you think."

Being the gentleman he was, he tipped his hat at her and turned to walk back into the alley, still passing that card between his fingers.

"What's wrong, cupcake? Found your hat, if that's what's got you down."

Caitlyn scowled into her paperwork as the tall purple hat landed on the desk, sending a few papers fluttering to the polished hardwood floor. Vi's voice was really the last thing Caitlyn wanted to hear when she was already on edge.

...Well, maybe the second last thing.

"I'm fine, thank you," she answered, sullenly picking up her hat and putting it on her head. Her voice came out sharper than she had intended, but her point still got across just fine. She didn't look up at Vi, scribbling and stamping as she went through the piles and piles of tedious paperwork she knew Vi would never actually get around to doing.

Vi perched herself on the corner of Caitlyn's desk, getting to work removing the huge hextech gauntlets she wore. "I've been trying to get a hold of you all night. Giving me the cold shoulder isn't gonna solve all your problems, you know."

"I'm not ignoring you," Caitlyn answered, although she very much wished that she had grounds to ignore her boisterous partner. "My radio is broken. I'm waiting on a new one."

"Yeah, we were worried about you. Last we hear if that you're chasing down a criminal, and then nothing. What happened there? Did you drop it? I mean, it's not every day you lose your hat, too. I'm surprised I didn't find you in tears."

Caitlyn set down her pen gently, reaching up to pinch the bridge of her nose tiredly. She really didn't want to tell Vi the truth, especially not the whole truth, but it wasn't in her nature to lie. "I wasn't expecting the criminal to be as tough as he was. He got my feet out from under me and my radio shattered. If you think you were worried, imagine how I felt."

Vi got one huge gauntlet off, lowering it onto the floor gently and stretching out her arm. "So? What happened? You didn't lose your gun, right?"

"I couldn't keep my grip on it. Magic's a nasty thing and after I was on the ground I panicked." She looked down at the stack of papers in front of her, frowning slightly. Admitting that she had been anything less than heroically tough was really a monumental task for her. She took pride in her elegance and in her competence; she had shown neither. She couldn't think of a way to frame what had nearly happened to her as "competent".

"Fuck, Cait. What'd you do?" Vi wrestled the other gauntlet off, flexing her arms a little. She bent down to get a grip on Caitlyn's chin, trying to see the damage. There was still a ring of red around one nostril and she had a bruise on the high point of her right cheekbone. Caitlyn swatted her hand away.

"Well, he was sort of dragging me by the ankle like I was a prized kill or something. And then…" What could she even refer to Twisted Fate as? She knew that Vi was aware who he was. Owning up that she had relied on a known criminal's help for any stretch of time seemed unsavory to her. "...someone showed up and took him out. Ultimately the guy got away, since I didn't have my radio and I knew I couldn't drag him back. He was out cold when I left to round up my men, but I came back a little while later and he must have run off."

The irritation showing on Vi's face made it clear what she thought of Caitlyn's story. Deciding it wasn't worth it to pick a fight with her, Caitlyn looked back down to her paperwork. Unfortunately, Vi wasn't done with her. She never was. "Okay, so this someone shows up, renders this guy immobile, and then… what? Nothing? You just let your friend walk off? Didn't ask him to keep an eye on the guy while he was out?"

Caitlyn's mouth tightened into a scowl. Vi was making it very hard to justify her actions without giving away more than she necessarily wanted. The sheriff had never encountered someone who was harder on criminals than she was. Someone as notorious as Twisted Fate would definitely snag her attention in a way that didn't reflect well on Piltover law enforcement. Vi would likely prefer to haul him in for the pettiest crimes possible, and give him the harshest treatments available. Caitlyn was a firm believer in due process, and she didn't want the police force to end up with a poor reputation because of Vi. "I don't think he would have been willing to stick around too long. Just let it go, Vi. We'll track him down and get him in here somehow."

Vi huffed, whirling around and reaching across herself so she could rub the back of her neck. "It's whatever. I just can't believe you let a guy get away and you're not still out there tracking him down. It's not like you."

"Imagine my surprise," she mumbled, dejectedly resting her cheek on one hand and crossing one leg over the other. Caitlyn would love to track him down, but magic coming from someone who was physically strong otherwise was tricky to combat without using magic. There weren't too many in Piltover who could take down a juggernaut like that.

The other officer popped her neck and then stretched out her shoulders. "Listen, cupcake, it's getting pretty late so I'm gonna get out of here." She patted her hips, finding her radio and plucking it off the hook on her leg. "If anything serious happens, send someone by. You gonna be here awhile?"

The sheriff nodded after a moment. "I've got a lot of work to do. I might do some rounds later on, if the mood strikes me." She didn't really want to go back home. She could sit alone in the office just as well as she could at home.

"Well, take it easy. Looks like you've had a rough day. Night, night, Cait."

"Have a good night, Vi. Be safe."

Caitlyn continued to work mechanically, signing off on tickets and ordinances and other things she personally didn't care much about. She made notes to herself everywhere, reminding her to follow up on some arrest or to check the progress of some case or to send someone to investigate a complaint.

Hours slipped by and it was just past midnight when Caitlyn realized she had worked her way through her entire inbox, leaving it empty for the first time in ages. She pushed back from her desk and just sat there in silence for a few moments. The sound of the lights overhead buzzed quietly and a fan in the corner of the room whirred softly, just barely ruffling pages on her desk. She thought of doing some rounds through the city to make sure all was quiet, but she decided right away that she was too tired to do something like that.

She would go home, run herself a bath and pour herself a glass of wine, and then she would get to sleep. Since all of her paperwork—which unfortunately accounted for the bulk of many days—was all done, she figured she could let herself sleep in a little bit. Caitlyn left a quick note for Vi informing her of this decision and gathered her things before hitting the road.

It was fortunately an uneventful walk home. The pleasantness of the walk was obstructed somewhat by intrusive thoughts of Twisted Fate. She wished she could understand his motivations, above all. What did he want? Was there anything he could legitimately gain from saving her life, or at least saving her the trauma of whatever was going to happen to her otherwise?

She had a few ideas, but none of them seemed to be worth the reward. Boasting rights, maybe, but he hadn't exactly dangled his great success in front of her. Getting a positive reputation with Piltover's sheriff seemed possible but highly unlikely, as he honestly didn't seem like he wanted or was able to charm her, and she certainly didn't plan on acquitting him of any of his future crimes, should she get the opportunity to pin one to him. Ethical reasons didn't strike her as entirely likely either, given his reputation for extremely iffy morals.

Aggravated with her own inability to figure him out and with his unwillingness to make his purpose clear, she reached into the small bag she had slung over her shoulder, fishing out the square of fabric he had offered her. Dried blood crinkled the center of the golden design inset on the white cotton. The minor inconsistencies of the intricate pattern made her think that it was handmade, and it looked like it probably originated from some gypsy culture.

Caitlyn nabbed the little bit of mail that poked out of her inbox as she went inside. She rarely got too much mail at her home, since just about anyone who needed to contact her that way would just send mail to her office. Most of what got through to her house were bills, personal complaints of legal citations they insisted she had given out unfairly, and (usually) anonymous declarations of love and attraction. The letters of the third sort didn't come as often now after she had snuffed out rumors of her promiscuity.

There was nothing of significant value in what little post she had, so she tossed it onto the coffee table to go through in the morning when she wasn't so tired.

Twisted Fate's little handkerchief was still a problem, too. Keeping it seemed like a perfectly valid option. It was a pretty piece of work, certainly, but it didn't belong to her and she knew it wasn't right to keep it (although he had been the one to walk away without getting it back) She sighed, rolling her eyes, and tossed it haphazardly on the coffee table in the middle of her modest living room, resolving to wash it and return it to him as soon as she could. She didn't know exactly where to find him during the day, but she knew the less reputable bars in town would probably attract him.

She hated how much thought she was giving it at all, and she admonished herself as she dropped the rest of her things off on the kitchen table, going straight for the bottle of Demacian cabernet sauvignon she saved for rough days at work and pouring herself a glass. She sipped from it as she went upstairs to the bathroom.

Caitlyn tied her dark hair up after running the bath and finally ditching her clothes in favor of a terrycloth robe her mother had given her for a birthday a few years ago, pinning it to the back of her head. The water was just short of scalding before she was satisfied enough to lower herself into it. The little magical singe on her side stung when it made contact with the water, but the stinging quickly resolved into relief.

There was a lot of work to get done, but Caitlyn wanted to address the issue of her own assault first, at least to appease Vi, and to get down to brass tacks with what Twisted Fate wanted out of Piltover. It had been a long time since she had paid a visit to any of the seedier bars in Piltover; her appearances there were seldom well-received. She didn't know if any of them would be willing to be helpful enough to tell her where Twisted Fate was. That sort of thing was always Vi's job; Caitlyn generally dealt with more civil matters.

It had been a long time since she had been able to visit a tavern at all, she thought, closing her eyes as she took another sip of the wine. When she was a bit younger she would occasionally visit one to get a little bit tipsy and to find a gentleman to bed. She didn't think of herself as a prude even today, but she certainly wasn't quite as… free as she had been in her younger days. Caitlyn hadn't had the time or the energy to do much of anything for herself lately, although the thought of the fuzzy pink pair of handcuffs she had been so fond of still did make her smirk.

A fleeting thought of putting Twisted Fate in those demoralizing handcuffs and making him beg for her mercy passed through her mind. She forced it away reproachfully. That wasn't what she was going to do. That wasn't the kind of person she was going to let Twisted Fate think she was. Caitlyn knew for sure she had been working too hard, and she didn't want to even try to think about how long it had been since she had taken a man home.

As much of a pain as it was going to be, though, she knew that she couldn't hold onto something that belonged to someone so notorious—that implied a level of comfort with a criminal she certainly wasn't pleased to have. She especially didn't want to throw it out in case it was somehow valuable to him. Tomorrow evening, she decided firmly, she would get the damned handkerchief clean and set out to find its owner and hopefully wash her hands of him.

Despite Vi's complaints that she didn't want to be trapped in the office in case something happened, Caitlyn had managed to wriggle her way out after the sun had slipped beneath the horizon and Caitlyn was fairly certain Piltover's darkest corners would become alive.

The night before had left Caitlyn reeling. That same stupid image of the unlikeable con had twisted its way into every part of her brain, probably as a result of the volatile mix of deprivation and her strange desire to see him submit to her. Since when had that been an issue for her?

There were a few bars in the grimiest parts of Piltover that Caitlyn's influence had yet to scrub, where most of the sleaze she had pushed off the streets had skittered in fear that they might be next. She started with the most popular one, figuring that if Twisted Fate wasn't in there, someone likely would be that knew where he was.

As expected, no one was pleased at all to see her when she walked into the bar, her gun slung lazily over her shoulder. Some people that didn't immediately evacuate their seat to move further back in the bar lowered their heads, expecting her to walk up to them and announce that they were under arrest. Those that weren't as afraid of her pinned her with a glare, clearly trying to figure out what she was doing in their territory.

Caitlyn ignored the dirty looks and strode up to the bar with the confidence of someone that was supposed to be there. "I'm looking for someone," she stated to the bartender, who looked to be ignoring her. They didn't look up and she frowned. "Excuse me?"

"We're not gonna snitch on anyone on your behalf," the bartender grumbled.

"I'm not looking to arrest anyone, although I'm sure I could find a few in here alone who have been evading me for a little while," she countered, narrowing her eyes. "I'm looking for Twisted Fate. Where is he? I'm sure someone in here knows where he might be."

The bartender, a stocky man a head shorter than her, glared right back at her. Some of the other patrons began to inch closer to her, as if they were afraid Caitlyn was going to pick a fight. She knew better. "Listen, lady. You don't scare any of us and we're not gonna sell someone out so you can run off and haul them in like you're the queen of the goddamn world."

"I'm not going to haul anyone in. I already told you that no one is in trouble, and I'm not looking for anyone to be in trouble. If you would prefer, I could send Vi, and I doubt she will be as patient and diplomatic as I'm choosing to be right now." The bartender met her hard gaze, but he was wavering. "Is there anyone here who knows where Twisted Fate is?"

A lengthy silence ensued, and Caitlyn held her gaze with the bartender, who was desperately hoping she would be the first to crack. She was incorrigible, though, and the barkeep rolled his eyes. "He likes to hang out at the bar a few blocks from here. It's called Benji's. Anything else us humbled, lowly commoners can do for you?"

"That's plenty, thanks," she said sharply, turning on her heel to go finish up what she had to do.

Benji's wasn't far away. As promised, it was a few blocks away, but the bright orange-red sign sticking out from its side made it easy to hunt down. Even from outside she could tell that it was not quite as busy as the other bar, which was packed to the teeth with people. This one did not have the same warm glow of light flooding from it, either: Benji's had darker, more cold light leading from it. Caitlyn wondered why Twisted Fate would come to get comfortable here. This place hardly seemed fun or enjoyable.

She walked in, and immediately understood why he would come here: across from the bar, which seemed like it was only shoved in the corner as an afterthought, sat a large raised platform with poles stretching from the ground to the ceiling. Girls, most scantily clad and some wearing nothing at all, were getting comfortably acquainted with the poles on the stage and with the men that sat shamelessly around the platform. Loud music Caitlyn was sure had not been manufactured in Piltover thudded through the walls.

The bar itself was backlit with a dark blue light that hurt to look at. A dirty mirror sat behind the shelves of booze, barely visible behind the colorful bottles. A bored-looking older man leaned against the furthest end of the bar, tapping his knuckles quietly against the bar as he watched the girls on the platform across the way.

Caitlyn took a deep breath, trying to not inhale too much of the air inside as she looked around. Only one person sat at the bar on the darker side of the building, hunched over tiredly. She nearly overlooked him, although she realized after inspecting him for only a moment that he was exactly who she had come here to see.

She walked up to him, hanging her gun around her back and planting her hands on her hips. "Twisted Fate," she said as quietly as she could, so she wouldn't draw attention to herself from the other side of the room. The music wasn't so loud over here, fortunately.

"You just can't get enough of me, can you, darling?" he asked without looking back at her, tapping his fingers on the side of his glass. It was probably whiskey, if Caitlyn had to guess. He set the drink back on the counter. "What'd I do now?"

"Unfortunately for you, I'm not that much of a masochist. As much as it pains me to say it, you didn't do anything that I can bring you in for."

He turned around on the barstool, looking up enough that she could see his eyes focus on her face. There was a card in his hand, but he wasn't playing with it like he had been yesterday. "Alright, I'll bite. This doesn't seem like the kind of joint you'd hang out in. I'm sure they'll be happy to take an application from a lady like you but—"

Caitlyn snatched the handkerchief from its spot on the back of her belt and held it out to him. "I'm not much for dancing," she stated. "This is yours."

Twisted Fate took it from her, folding up neatly in one swift, practiced movement. He didn't even look at it, training his eyes on her and smirking perversely. "I sure am flattered that you'd go through all the trouble of coming to this neck of the woods to give me this. You sure you're not just coming down to see me?"

"It might surprise you to know that I was extremely reluctant to come down here to be snarled at by the local wildlife," she informed him primly. "There was a very real danger of getting spat on in the first pub I went into, and I had to threaten to send Vi so they would tell me where you might be."

He eyed her for a moment before turning back around. "Why don't you sit down, Miz? Let me get you a drink." He dropped the little pouch he had stolen off the thug on the counter.

Caitlyn stared at him for far too long, trying to figure if he was serious. There was no way he thought that she would purposely impair herself around him, especially in this part of town. She detested him, that was for sure; she couldn't believe he was pulling her chain like this and trying his luck when he had already done so much to piss her off. "You've really got some nerve, Twisted Fate, asking me to sit down and drink with you after you—"

"After I what? Saved your life? Loosen up, darling. I'm offering to spend the little—what did I say it was?—recompense I took from him on you. All my cards are on the table, sweetheart."

She set her jaw, crossing her arms. He wasn't looking at her, just swirling the liquid in his glass absently. That was the thing with him—he was always doing something with his hands.

Silently weighing her options, Caitlyn looked around at Benji's, feeling out the atmosphere. A woman was hanging off a pole by her thighs while her onlookers whooped and hollered. A man in one dark corner of the room, barely illuminated by the red lights that glowed under the platform, was hunched over one of the scantily clad women, who had her back up against the wall as she puffed on a cigarette. She smirked at him and blew smoke in his face.

This definitely wasn't somewhere she belonged. Realizing that that was the only thing keeping her from sitting down was all that she needed to chip away her pride enough that she slowly slid into the barstool next to him. She flagged down the bartender, who barely took his eyes off the girls but did move toward her. Caitlyn could see that his nametag read "Benji III" on it.

"Bourbon, please. Neat," she asked when he was close enough. He didn't seem the least bit phased by the fact that the sheriff was in his sleazy topless bar. Twisted Fate made a sound that almost sounded like the beginning of a laugh. "What are you giggling about?"

"You sure change your tune quick, don't you, Miz?" He took a drink from his own glass as Benji III set Caitlyn's down in front of her. "If I had known it was that easy to win you over I would have brought booze into town with me."

Caitlyn scoffed as she took a sip, letting it roll over her tongue. It had been a long time since she had gotten the opportunity to drink any kind of whiskey. She could have moaned, it was so good. She couldn't believe she had almost forgotten the pleasure of hard liquor. "Win me over?" she repeated, shaking her head. "Oh, please. Don't act like I'm about to crawl into bed with you. If I can make a criminal buy me a drink I'm not about to turn it down. Even if it is in a… place like this."

"Whatever helps you sleep at night," he drawled in response. The pink fetish cuffs crossed her mind intrusively, and for just a moment too long she entertained the thought of what might have happened had she brought them with her. She crossed one leg over the other in an attempt to shut him out the way she meant to before, feeling inexplicably angry at him, as though he had intentionally been putting those stupid thoughts in her head.

Caitlyn huffed before taking a longer sip of it. She let her eyes flutter shut, appreciating the warmth of it. Wine was good for relaxing at home, sure, but this was better to unwind. A long, pleased sigh escaped her. "Never would have reckoned a lady like you would drink whiskey like it was doing something private to you."

Despite how determined she was to stonewall him as much as possible, she chuckled. "I used to be a lot more fun. On weekends I would drink like the world was ending. I guess I forgot how fun it was." She took another sip, held it in her mouth to appreciate it, and let it slide down her throat.

He laughed at her then, and Caitlyn pinned him with a dirty look. "Looks like you forgot what fun even is, if you're getting off on drinking barely decent bourbon in a skin bar."

"It's not my locale of choice, obviously." She took a long drink of the bourbon. Getting drunk with only Twisted Fate to make sure she got home in one piece didn't seem like a great idea. She didn't plan on entrusting herself to him, especially since he was drinking just the same. "I think this is the first time I've ever been in a place like this. I wish I could say I was thrilled."

"Never would've guessed that of you. Then again, you've surprised me before, darling."

Caitlyn and the fuzzy cuffs in her head had a million answers to that. Instead she remained silent, taking another drink and looking over at him as subtly as she could. She was trying to memorize what he looked like, but it was hard when he kept his head down, his hat shading his face. Her eyes looked over the rest of him slowly. It was hard to tell while he was sitting down, but he was tall and lean, like many gypsy men were. She had always been fond of taller men without lots of excess muscle and bulk.

It wasn't until she realized he had spoken that she noticed she was staring at him, eyes transfixed on a random spot on his waist. It wasn't until he was finished speaking that she had even noted he had spoken at all.

"...what was that?" she asked, eyes immediately snapping up to look at his face instead. She took another drink almost too quickly when she figured that she had been sitting too still for too long.

"Doesn't matter, darling," he muttered, emptying his glass in one gulp. Caitlyn eyed him suspiciously, embarrassed that she had been caught staring at him. She couldn't imagine the wonders that she was doing for his ego without even realizing she was doing them. She wasn't entirely looking forward to finding out what he had been saying, but he repeated himself anyway. "Didn't realize my ribcage was so appealing to you."

She exhaled, trying to brush off the awkwardness she felt. As much as she hated herself for admitting it, he wasn't nearly as infuriating to be around when she wasn't interrogating him. Unlike Vi and most of the proud, boisterous citizens of Piltover, Twisted Fate was very… mild. His voice was slow and on the quiet side, which made it particularly easy to listen to. It definitely helped that he wasn't so bad to look at, either.

All that considered, she still couldn't get it out of her head that she wanted to make him beg for her mercy. She was definitely deprived.

"Well, you got me to sit down with you and drink. As far as you know, it was all in the ribcage," she answered matter-of-factly. Still, she accented it with a little smirk to show that it was still in good humor. She was fine with going back to abhorring him tomorrow. Tonight, though, he was offering her the first little sliver of fun she'd had in a long time. She was going to take it.

Caitlyn watched as he flagged Benji down for more whiskey, taking a long drink herself. It would be nice to get really drunk, she thought wistfully, pushing aside the highly vocal responsible part of brain that reminded her she still had to work the next day. She would never hear the end of it if she didn't come in because she was too hungover. After that, they drank in silence for far too long.

"What made you decide to come to Piltover, anyway? It's not the most exciting place for people like you," she pointed out, eager to break the silence he had imposed on them by forcing a response. "You can't be making too much money doing… whatever it is that you do."

Twisted Fate didn't answer right away, taking an unreasonably long drink of his freshly-poured whiskey. Feeling obligated to keep up with him at least somewhat, Caitlyn took a long drink as well. "Haven't been in awhile. Piltover's got fresher air, so I figured it would be, ah, healthy to get a little bit of a change in scenery from Demacia and Noxus before I head on back to Bilgewater to take some jobs. You ever been?"

"To Bilgewater? No. I've never had a reason to go. Obviously it's not really the type of place I would ever need to go, and I don't often get to leave Piltover these days." Back in the day, when her title had only just been bestowed upon her, she used to be able to travel across Valoran in search of some particular criminals.

"No? Well, in the rare circumstance you ever find yourself in the vicinity of the Blue Flame Islands, don't be afraid to look around for me if I don't find you first. Wouldn't complain about housing my favorite officer of the law."

Caitlyn rolled her eyes, not committing far enough to take him up on that offer. It didn't seem likely she would end up anywhere near Bilgewater Union, anyway. "I've been to Demacia a few times, though, for meetings. I'm not fond. It's a little creepy, honestly, how much they pour into empowering their military. It seems like everyone's life there revolves around the military."

"The girls there get real lonely," he commented seriously, taking another drink. She didn't doubt that those girls in Demacia probably were deprived, but Caitlyn had a solid argument that she was probably more so. The first time she had gone to the Demacian capital, not yet even twenty years old, she had gotten way too excited and had way too much to drink.

Caitlyn smiled, finishing off the bourbon. She felt pleasantly warm, and the alcohol she had imbibed so quickly was having a positive effect on her mood. "So I've heard. The men there that aren't chained to their jobs will try to bed anything that moves. When I was nineteen, the first time I visited for fun, some of the drunker men nearly dragged me off by my hair. I might have let one or two of them do it."

"Really, you? Always took a special kind of girl to let me get away with something like that." Caitlyn was instantly reminded of the magic-using thug that had hauled her down an alley by her leg. She tried not to think about what might have happened to her without Twisted Fate's special brand of kindness.

Her subconscious voice of reason urged her that it would be wisest to thank him for the drink and go home now. The thought of those pink handcuffs on his wrists booted the voice of reason out of the way. She deserved to have a little bit of fun every now and again, even if she was getting it from a notorious conman she knew she had no business spending time with. Very rarely did she get such an attractive chance to live a little, and she had to strike while the iron was hot.

If she didn't, her fuzzy cuffs would never forgive her. She was sure of it.

"It does." She eyed Twisted Fate brazenly, one side of her mouth tugging upward. "Buy me another drink or two, and I can show you just what kind of girl it takes."

Caitlyn woke up alone.

That was not the part that surprised her.

Just as she had for so many nights before that one, she had gone to bed alone and she had woken up when the sun peeked curiously through her curtains just as alone as she had been when she had finally gotten to bed. This was nothing new and nothing too surprising.

She was surprised solely by the fact that, for the first time in too long, the solitude bothered her. The house she lived in alone seemed needlessly spacious to accommodate one person. More than once in the past, she had considered moving into something much smaller. Vi often joked that she should move into her office. The thought of those jokes now made her heart sink—Caitlyn had never before had a real issue with being so married to her job, where her only hobby and the only thing she knew she had to look forward to in the morning was protecting the city. She loved it, she really did, but… there was so little time left for her. No one seemed to care to look after Piltover's matronly protector.

With a quiet sigh, Caitlyn rolled onto her side, looking at the empty spot next to her that she was so sure would have been occupied at least during the nighttime. A few strands of hair slipped over her shoulder to fall across her cheek, past her lips, and she didn't bother to blow them away.

It would have helped if she had been drunker; at least too drunk to remember, or drunk enough that she didn't understand what he was trying to tell her. It really would have helped if he had gone to bed with her and left when he was finished with her, leaving her feeling used and guilty. At least then she could have had an excuse to resent him. The throbbing in her head as a result of her hangover was too hard to blame on him when she had been the one asking for more drinks.

Caitlyn bunched up the blanket in her hands so she could cover her face with it like a distressed teenager. Since when did back alley gamblers who fed off the desperation of others have moral codes? He had been a little less drunk than she was, sure, but...

"It wouldn't be right while you're drunk, darling. If you're still interested sober, come find me and we'll work something out."

She was mortified thinking of it. The Sheriff of Piltover, the City of Progress' first and last line of faith and defense, had been falling all over an alleged criminal with a list of crimes longer than most dictionaries ran, so desperate to have sex with him that she had found herself heartbroken when he told her no. Caitlyn could remember asking him, feeling personally attacked, if the girls in Demacia were ever drunk when he took them to bed.

"Those girls in Demacia aren't the Sheriff of Piltover. You have a good night, Miz." And then he had tipped his hat to her and walked off, playing card dancing between his fingers, his drunken stagger insubstantial compared to hers.

Despite how hard she tried, it was difficult to be angry at him for doing the right thing—something he did surprisingly often, she found, considering the kind of person he was. Caitlyn felt bad for being irritated that he had refused to go to bed with her when booze was influencing her decisions. The booze had been her last line of defense from herself: it had served as her first and last excuse to sleep with him, to get close to him if even only for a night. The sudden craving for him was too tempting for her to ignore, and her desperation to crack him the way he had cracked her was nearing obsession.

Sober and hungover as she was, though, she was still interested. There was no shortage of men she knew she could seek out at any bar in Piltover and have home in less than an hour if she so chose, but that didn't strike her as the least bit appealing.

The physical draw of the notorious Twisted Fate was too strong, and she told herself firmly that it was solely because he was especially attractive. She had gotten a good look at the way his body came together so nicely when she had been pulling him out of Benji's by one hand; he had long limbs and a long waist that seemed mastercrafted to her tastes. There was something in the arrogant, lithe way he carried himself that just… did it for her. She hadn't noticed it when she had first dragged him into her office to offer a warning. Really, she hadn't noticed it until she was too drunk to remind herself that scrutinizing him was a bad thing.

The longer she let herself dwell on him, the more appealing he became.

The unaffected tenor of his voice and his rare Bilgewatian drawl definitely helped. He had only ever called her "darling" and "Miz", as if she was somewhere between a naive ingenue and a tight-laced widow. She had been desperate to make him beg for her, and even now the thought of her name or her title passing through his lips as a desperate plea made her smile.

By the time Caitlyn had dragged herself out of bed and gotten ready for the day, sluggish from the hangover, she was very late. The entire time she spent getting ready, chugging glasses of water, she was wondering if it was even worth going into work at all.

Vi's radio, however, didn't crackle from its spot on the coffee table until she was about ready to head out the door.

"Cupcake? Are you dead? Did you break my radio?"

Caitlyn didn't really want to go into work to deal with Vi. It had very literally been years since she had taken a full day off from her duties as sheriff. Even when she had been too sick to leave the house, she had done paperwork in bed.

"I'm okay, Vi," she answered, reluctantly picking up the radio. "I didn't get much sleep and I don't really feel well." Both true statements, of course, but they tasted like lies. She didn't want to talk to anyone, especially not Vi, since feeling especially fragile. "Gentle" was never a word that anyone would use to describe Vi of all people.

"Where the hell did you go yesterday? New boyfriend or something?" There was a definite joking tone in Vi's voice, but it nearly made Caitlyn want to cry. Pain thrummed through her forehead and planted it in the palm of her hand. When had she become so weak?

She hesitated for a moment before raising the radio to her lips again, her lips aquiver with pain and distress she almost wanted to deny even existed. Vi was going to pitch a fit, so Caitlyn braced herself. "Something a bit like that. I think I'm going to stay home today, Vi. I need a mental health day. I'll be in good as new tomorrow, alright?"

"Sure thing, cupcake. Whatever you gotta do."

"Thanks," she breathed into the radio. Caitlyn's surprise with Vi's reaction was replaced all too quickly with relief. She tossed her hat and the radio back onto the coffee table. Satisfied, she yawned and marched upstairs to get another few hours of sleep to stave off the hangover.

Twisted Fate was an elusive one. No one in their right mind could deny that. Caitlyn had spent the better part of the day sleeping, and by the time dusk rolled around she was feeling much better—at least physically—so she made herself something to eat before setting off to the grimier parts of Piltover.

There wasn't much to see there. With some forethought, she had left her hat at home and strapped her gun to her back, securely hidden beneath a hooded canvas duster she usually brought along with her when she was traveling. Having the hood up to conceal her face made her feel a lot more subversive than she meant to be, but it kept the prying eyes of the bars' patrons off her. The bar inside Benji's was empty entirely, and she couldn't get a glimpse of Twisted Fate anywhere in the more crowded bars.

She peeked into every bar she could possibly fathom Twisted Fate might have been inside, and found that she was out of ideas after that. She hadn't thought to ask where he was staying, and she wasn't too keen on poking around in the seedy motels that would probably assume she was a prostitute.

Caitlyn reproached herself more than once as she walked home, shedding the jacket once it was safe and holding it over her arm, eyes focused absently on the ground as she walked. It had been silly of her to look for him, anyway. That was fate's way of telling her that it wasn't meant to be. She was being clingy toward the worst possible person for reasons she still had trouble picking out individually.

Disappointed that she had wasted her time foolishly meandering around the part of town her influence still had not touched, Caitlyn got back home, unlocking the door and hanging the duster on a hook in the foyer as she kicked the front door closed with a kick backward. She left her gun propped up near the front door, allowing herself to pout like a mopey teenager as she walked into the house.

"If I had known you were such a hot commodity for Piltover's bachelors, I might not've let myself get so wound up."

There he was, relaxing on her sofa with his boots propped up on the coffee table. He was going through her mail, it looked like, and he held what was undoubtedly a letter of admiration she had received sometime recently.

She had a million things to say to him all at once, but he didn't look concerned that she was staring at him slack-jawed. "How… How did you get in?!" she asked first, although that was definitely not the most important question on her mind.

He tilted his head upward, getting a good look at the expression on her face before smirking. "Don't you worry about that, darling. Didn't break any windows on my way inside." He went back to reading the letter in his hands. "And I reckon there's not much of a need for that face you're giving me right now. You were looking, and here I am. Somehow I doubt that you were getting ready to tell me you're not still interested. Am I wrong, darling?"

Caitlyn took a few steps forward, raising her chin in a desperate attempt to salvage what little pride she had left. "Maybe I was going to do just that. It's not my fault you got me so drunk that I—"

"Finally got around to throwing yourself at me." She swallowed hard, biting back an answer. There was nothing to say: he was right. It felt like he was right a lot of the time, actually, although she certainly didn't let herself believe a hell of a lot of the things he said.

The gypsy-born criminal crumpled up the note he had been reading, tossing it carelessly over his shoulder as he got to his feet. Caitlyn watched every move he made as he approached her, trying in vain to put an end to the excited quiver in her lips.

The height he had on her didn't seem so significant until he was close up, narrowing his eyes at her. One of his hands, noticeably free of playing cards, rose to nudge her chin up with an index finger and a thumb so she would look at him. He leaned down as close to her as he could without making contact. Caitlyn was devoting entirely too much to ensuring that she didn't burst right there on the spot. "I'm still good for it. What do you say, Sheriff?"

That single word nearly sent Caitlyn into overdrive. When she spoke, her voice came out much less excited than she felt. "Okay."

He smirked at her, crushing the little affirmation between their lips before she could even speak again. Caitlyn reached up to knock his hat onto the floor with the back of her hand, relishing the opportunity she had to tangle her fingers into his hair.

She pulled away, breathing heavily even though she hadn't exerted that much energy. The excitement alone was taking the breath from her. Staring him right in the eyes, Caitlyn drew a deep breath before asking him one final question: "How do you feel about handcuffs?"

A/N: Wtf. So here's this, I guess. I just kind of felt like shipping this for a little while and I've been writing this little by little for around a month between chapters of Fifty Shades of Jayce (or whatever it's called) and between stupid dumb amounts of homework, so I apologize for the shitty writing at parts and lots of typos and other things that just plain don't make sense. I was gonna break this up into two parts, but I'm a firm believer in the "go big or go home" philosophy. I also wanted to get some real practice in using heavily limited perspective and shit, which was convenient because I'm guessing I would end up writing T.F.'s parts as 3,000-word blocks of "boobs!" and then laying on the floor to cry for a few hours.

If the mood ever strikes me (this seems like it might be a weird ship so I'm probably talking to myself at this point) I might do a sequel or short little continuation of this, but I cannot get my goddamn homework done, let alone a decent goddamn chapter of the other thing I'm supposed to be writing.

All of my bitching and moaning aside, reviews and messages are always welcome and very much appreciated!