Chapter Text
Rosalie was having what she was starting to think of - in a very small, cloistered corner of her mind - as the worst week of her fucking life.
She didn't let the thought stray. She kept it nice and neat - she imagined it was a comfy, warm little blanket, for the tadpole to curl up in as it slept in her cranium. If she didn’t keep it locked away, she quickly became overwhelmed by both the immensity of what she was doing - and then the void where the fear of it should be.
There was no fear. Of course there wasn’t: she was on her way to the Absolute. The tadpole wanted her there, and so it overrode everything in her mind that told her otherwise.
No fear, but fucking hell, was there exhaustion. And blisters, and muscle ache, and headaches from all the nights she spent up, hastily scribbling away the new spells that would keep them all alive, in this near fucking darkness. Until her fingers cramped and her eyes watered, and she had that annoying finger blister again, that had healed to a sheen in the weeks spent in the countryside -
Rose had known the Underdark would be shit. It wasn’t a holiday destination - no one made postcards saying Wish you were here! in Menzoberranzan, or on the slavery routes, or in the numerous mindflayer colonies. But it was fucking awful. The air was fetid and thick. She had grit in her teeth that she was pretty certain was mushroom spores from days ago, and she was sick of murderous shit sneaking up on them in the darkness.
There was a certain thing to be said for the Emerald Grove. Everyone had been fucking hostile, grouchy, and demanding, but not all of them had been actively trying to fucking kill her. Only like, a solid 60 percent. She would kill for that ratio now - she’d really started looking back on it fondly. Here, everything seemed actively to spite their mere survival, nevermind their success.
When Astarion had started complaining about the sun, after she’d found out he was a vampire, she’d given him a lot of copious side-eye, until he’d noticed and waggled his eyebrows back at her. She’d thought he was mental. After any time spent trapped, who could get bored of their newfound freedom so quickly?
But now she was just as guilty of thinking that same thing. The Underdark was the first place Rose found herself missing her fear. She almost missed the life before, when she’d had the luxury of worrying, and her life was so empty she could trundle along an anxiety spiral for days. If she’d still been afraid to go outside, she’d be inside now. Between four walls whose strength she could trust, hopefully in a place that received natural light. With hot meals she didn’t have to cook, and a bed she could sleep in at night, not just a threadbare bedroll and shingle for her troubles.
A place where no murder was needed, and spells could be poured over for hours at a leisurely pace. Not thrown together on a wing and a fucking prayer, transcribed at such a speed that it often lead her to scream incoherently whenever the calculations didn’t add up and she had to go all the way back to the beginning and make the fucking thing work so that they all wouldn’t die.
Gods, if she was daydreaming, she could be in a hotel. A big, fancy one. Where someone else did the cleaning, and the bed was so soft her body dipped the mattress by a good two inches. And the meals came with wine, and there’d probably be a bathtub, and it would be big enough to share with-
And that’s where that daydream ended. She hadn't had enough energy to sustain a horny thought in days, and if anyone else in her party had… well, all Rose could muster was admiration at their ability to multitask.
Nevermind that she hadn’t spoken to Astarion one-on-one since they’d fucked and then she’d accidentally blundered blindly into rubbing literal salt in his wounds - or sulphur, given that the wounds in question were Infernal.
Nevermind that they now all had to sleep in the same tiny, claustrophobic space of a black tinted Leomund’s Tiny Hut - or tried to, Halsin was so big that sometimes his feet ended up sticking out of the edge, not to mention that one mortifying time Rose had ended up with her head nestled against Karlach’s back, and she’d drooled. While it provided a reassuring level of security, preventing anything from attacking them at night, it also meant no one could do anything particularly novel, except maybe ease a cricked neck, or get on everyone else’s nerves.
Nevermind that they had to have multiple people on watch and no one could leave camp for fear of dying a gruesome, Underdark-related death. And nevermind that Astarion hadn’t once volunteered to take one with her once, even though he didn’t fucking sleep.
So no, no horny thoughts here! And no fear either! Just a relentless, fucking trudge through the fucking relentless darkness that wanted her dead, and now: Grymforge, and its slavers.
Rosalie threw a duergar cultist into the water with an angry, undignified grunt, and was dismayed to find it didn’t make her feel any better. Maybe next time, she should try fireball.
She certainly couldn’t say the thought aloud. She had to act like this shitty, shitty week was commonplace for her. She had to act like she knew what she was doing: like she’d done it before. Everyone else could complain - in Astarion’s case, loudly - but she had to keep her thought very small, and her complaints silent.
Everyone had placed their trust in her, decided to follow her where she chose: they deserved certainty, in return.
So when Nere attacked, and he took his horrible, twisted little sword, and slashed her across the face with it, Rosalie didn’t shout: this week can officially go fuck itself!
She didn’t start sobbing. She didn’t reach up for to cheek and nose in a panic, even as she felt the skin tug a little looser than one would like. Even as blood began to obscure her vision, and she was assailed with the memory of Threnn slamming the door in her face after her third attempt to talk. It was a unexpected reprisal, right from the back archives of her pathetic little life. It felt like a particularly pointed barb, to dredge up the things that used to torment her, given that she’d gotten so much horror fodder in the past few weeks.
Rose didn’t do any of the things she actually wanted to do. She just reached out blindly with one hand, and her fingers closed around Nere’s neck in a chokehold. And then, she cast Hold Person. Touch wasn’t necessary, but it helped convey the general emotions she was certain she was feeling, somewhere inside the riot of her mind.
Nere locked up in front of her, and she just stared at him, while blood dripped down her face. She watched him, with a deep seated, numb feeling that she thought was satisfaction, as a few seconds later, Astarion came up at his back, and ran him through so thoroughly that she saw the tip of the blade poke through the sternum in front of her, nearly grazing her own torso.
“Don’t just stand there!” Astarion groused, as the body fell dead between them.
“Why not? He was paralysed.”
“You’re not stupid, you know he could've escaped the bindings! You were the only one not moving,” he said, before adding helpfully: “and you’re bleeding.”
“Your observation skills never fail to impress,” Rose replied - and then winced. She’d been trying to aim for saccharine and sarcastic, but she had catastrophically failed, and it almost sounded like a real insult.
“Well, don’t worry,” he shot back, cattily enough to tell her she had actually missed the mark with that banter, and hit something else entirely. “I’ve already gorged myself on villains, and I promise I won’t slobber all over you like a dog. Just get it looked at, when this is over, will you?”
“When is it ever over?” Rosalie grumbled to herself.
Unfortunately, her words caught his attention. She hadn’t meant for him to hear that - she hadn’t meant to say it at all. She hastily turned away when she saw his expression sharpen slightly, like he might have just enough of a read on her to see that little thought, dwelling underneath.
Or he could just be fully delving into her psyche with the help of his tadpole. She had to remember he was not above doing that.
Time to bring other thoughts to the fore! She quickly moved onto the next person they had to fight - a slaver, because there were slavers now, not just fucking cultists, and she’d spent a full day walking amongst them trying to pretend it didn’t make her skin crawl, She set about the process of working out exactly how to fell them, as well. That was how things worked, these days.
Rose had quite forgotten about the cut from the evil little psychic sword, until she started to feel dizzy as she was looting the cooling bodies, picking them clean of gold with depressingly practised ease. She swayed a little, and Shadowheart was suddenly by her side. With all the bedside manner of a funeral dirge, she got Rose to perch on the rubble of a stone wall, with her head between her knees. Blood dripped down the line of her nose onto the rubble - poor Astarion, she really hoped he’d gorged himself as promised, otherwise she was being a little tease.
When Rosalie raised her head again, the entire party was stood in front of her, in various stages of blood-stained, dusty glory, all of them dripping sweat except Astarion, who it seemed was above such things. She was glad to see she was the only one who’d sustained a notable wound. It was relief she was feeling, she told herself, as Shadowheart knelt down in front of her with her medicine pack.
“Ooooft, that looks nasty!” Karlach said, which didn’t help. Rose tried to keep her expression as neutral as possible, as Shadowheart took her face in her hands, and tilted it up towards what counted as light in this hellhole.
“It’s not very pretty,” the cleric hummed, after a second of contemplation, “but the damage is cosmetic, nothing to worry about. It shouldn’t take much to fix.”
“The sword had some kind of psychic enchantment,” Rosalie informed her clinically, wincing as alcohol was placed on the cut and it predictably stinged like a fucking bitch. “Petty, vindictive little spell, of no real merit or note, but probably enough to account for the dizziness. There was definitely a bit of a rummage. But as you say, not anything to worry about.”
“Please stop talking,” Shadowheart said, with what for her counted as kindness. Rose stayed very still as the Cure Wounds was cast, and Nere’s horrible, spiteful little sword left her face with a permanent scar.
It’s not a big deal, she told herself, as she looked in the mirror, and her placid expression stared back serenely, only a little altered.
It could have taken an eye, she thought.
It’s not even your first scar, she reasoned. That accolade went to the seam of raised flesh on her abdomen, where Ethel’s victim had stabbed her through the gut.
It was just… that scar wasn't visible. Well, it was - she was pretty certain everyone here had seen it, given that these days changing clothes didn’t happen without a buddy system in case an Underdark crawly decided to buddy up instead. Shadowheart had been the one to treat it. She was pretty certain Astarion had kissed it, that night back in the Grove - although she had to admit that that evening was somewhat of a blur in retrospect, and it could have been a vivid embellishment of her imagination, given that it didn’t seem particularly in character for him.
But she could hide it, if she ever wanted to.
This one, however, was on her face.
Karlach’s body is covered in scars, and she’s gorgeous, Rosalie told herself. Lae’zel has a mark just like this one, and you think nothing of it-
Although admittedly, it was faded to a shadow, and not quite as livid. This scar was currently red, and pulled on the skin when she contorted her face. She prodded it, again, and as anyone with any common sense would’ve guessed, it stinged, and became redder.
It’s not that big a deal! she rationalized. I could’ve died!
But the thing was, it was day eight in the Underdark. The worst week of her life had outstayed its welcome, and was probably entertaining ambitions of becoming a fortnight.
She was fucking tired. And while she wanted to help people, and she wanted so desperately to be brave, she didn’t fucking want a scar on her face.
Rose felt her eyes start to water, and she dropped the mirror onto the bedroll, facedown, blinking rapidly. She put her head in her hands, and then snagged them through her greasy, gross hair, like she could wring the emotion out of herself.
She thought, longingly, of the days when the smallest things terrified her, and that meant she had always just given up, never having to hunt for the energy to go on.
And so, the tears spilled over. Despite everything, she hadn't cried on this quest since she’d killed her first man on instinct, when something alien within her had taken control, and decided his life was worth less than hers was, as a vessel.
“Darling, after how mercilessly you mocked me for my vanity, I can not believe that you stole my mirror, like some kind of… petty urchin! And all for a little graze, honestly-”
Astarion was used to inviting himself into conversations unannounced, and making them immediately about him. What he clearly was not used to - Rosalie thought, as his loudly projecting voice suddenly died a valiant death - was walking into a half-ruined storage cupboard someone had clearly been trying to use as a hiding place, and finding said person sobbing away to herself in a ball in the corner.
Unable to stop herself, Rosalie lifted her head. She knew her expression was sticky. Astarion’s own pale face looked horrified, exactly as he had the last time she’d cried, and his stance was awkward, like he wished he could stealth out - like he’d rather be anywhere but here. In response to his gallows-bound face, Rose felt her body curl in on itself protectively.
Of all the people she would want to come across her crying, she was entirely certain that Astarion would be her very last choice.
“Sorry,” she said, throatily, mostly just so that he would leave. “I’ll give it back in a minute. It just didn’t seem like something - like something I could ask for-”
Astarion didn’t say anything. Rosalie wished that at all those other points when he’d been so needlessly talkative, he could’ve stored some words in reserve to make this moment easier.
“So you can… go,” she said, weakly, scrubbing at her face. “I’ll just be a few more moments.”
Still, he didn’t fucking move.
“I know I’m being silly, ok?” she said, into the silence. “It’s just a scratch, it’ll heal in no time. So just give me a second, with a bit of privacy and no running commentary, and then I’ll stop being pathetic and we can come up with a new stupid nickname-”
“Is this really worth crying over?” Astarion suddenly blurted.
Rose stared up at him from her place on the floor.
Yep. That about tracks.
“It’s just,” Astarion said, unfortunately finding his voice, “you literally died, not that long ago. And it was all ‘oh, don’t worry, I can walk it off’, and ‘don’t be silly, the hag will just roll over next time’, ‘how can I not save the poor unfortunates, even with my intestines on the outside, they might have about three gold total to rub together’-”
“My intestines were fine, I was just poisoned-”
“-And this is what finally gets you? Really?”
“Astarion, please-”
“It doesn’t even look that bad!” he said. “And if you think about it for more than two seconds, it could’ve been so much worse!”
“Astarion, please, shut up,” Rosalie said, through gritted teeth. “If you got a scar on your face-”
She started, and then immediately stopped, because Astarion was looking at her pointedly, and she had to not be an awful person in order to set him an example.
“...Well, you know you’d be fucking insufferable,” she muttered. “You know it.”
“Luckily for me, all my scars are reserved for conversation pieces after sex, and I couldn’t see my face even if I wanted to,” he replied instantaneously, because he was a petty bastard and not about to let her own small slip go unremarked. “Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad to see you finally have a limit-”
“-You’re glad I’m crying in a cupboard?” Rosalie said, incredulously.
“It’s just… I’m genuinely surprised that this is the straw that breaks the camel’s back. You didn’t even have to drink a health potion. You’ll be right as rain in no time. I’m sure you’ll look ruggedly handsome, and all the hero worshippers will swoon-”
“Astarion-”
“The smarmy bastard is dead - I made sure of that. And all the poor, helpless little slaves are free, so really, you’ve gotten quite everything you wanted, in record time, and with not a single-”
“Astarion,” Rose said, with a voice like a whipcrack. She knew it worked, because he fucking stopped talking.
She lowered her voice back to normal volume, face burning hotly with shame, and said, slowly, “I know you will think it’s all my own fucking fault, but I am having a very, very bad day. So, if you have nothing useful to say, I would greatly, greatly appreciate it, if you could just fuck off, and let me have it in peace.”
“Ah.” Astarion said.
Gods, fucking save me, Rose thought, because once again he didn’t move from his spot by the door.
“So, this isn’t about the scar, then,” he said, astutely, still thoroughly engrossed in the sound of his own voice. “It’s about something else. You know, I did find it odd, when you kicked that man off the boat. Rather bloodthirsty, for you, I would say. Not to mention, you couldn’t lift a bag of flour if your life depended on it, usually. Clearly a lot of frustration in your system, if I were to hazard a guess. Feeling a little pent up, are we?”
Rosalie wanted to kick him off a boat - and it would be easy, because she had another bottle of Hill Giant Strength that she could sneak a sip of in the morning, if she so chose.
“I am literally just tired.”
“Yes, I have found that many people are often grouchy after being deprived of their beauty sleep, and inclined to murder as a result. But then again, I lived in a dormitory with vampire spawn-”
“Astarion!” Rosalie said, as she finally pushed herself up to standing. “Will... you.. stop?”
“Never,” he replied: immediately, unrepentantly, meeting her eye to eye. “I’m not about to have you sulking away in a cupboard because a man who clearly was about to murder you, again, only got away with a little mark on your cheek that will turn into something quite endearing-”
Don’t fucking lie, ok? It will be ugly. It will be ugly, and I will get hurt again, and I will keep getting hurt again, because as you are so fond of telling me, I am an idiot who doesn’t know what they are doing. And the world is the most abominably shitty place, and apparently, we’re the only people who care enough to do anything about it. And you don’t even want to do that, when I’m not here to bite if you keep me in good favour. So why don’t you just leave, and crow over the fact that I’m getting exactly what I asked for, and I’ll just look at my ugly, stupid face, and then I’ll get up tomorrow and I’ll do it all over again, fuck knows why-
That’s what Rosalie wanted to say.
But, she was tired.
“Ok,” she said, aloud.
Astarion gave her the face he got when he wasn’t quite sure if he’d disarmed a trap correctly: like maybe perhaps it had been all somewhat too easy. Rose noticed he was clearly rethinking his decision not to leave the room.
“Ok,” she repeated. And yes, it was spiteful, to watch him watch her close down and see it actually matter to him, at all. “You win. You’re right. I’m lucky not to be dead. It’s going to be the hottest scar ever. I bet I smell fantastic to you, right now. And all the slavers are dead, so really, the world’s my oyster.”
“Foxglove-”
“You can have your mirror back,” she said, though she did not deign to pick it up for him, off the floor. “Did you want anything else?”
It took Astarion a moment to respond. She had surprised him. She wondered what it was he’d actually come here for, if it wasn’t her immediate acquiescence.
“Um, well,” he cleared his throat. “You said that the sword had some kind of… well, psychic property. And you appeared a little out of sorts. I suppose… I didn’t know if you maybe wanted to… talk about it? Whatever ‘it’ was. Get it off your chest, et cetera.”
Rosalie felt so non-plussed, she almost became minused.
“And, you know, Foxglove,” he continued awkwardly. “I don’t begrudge you the mirror, obviously. After what you did when I wanted to look at my reflection, being so very… well, you, about it - I’m not about to be a… well, I am a hypocrite, but obviously not about the things that on the grand scale, don’t really matter.”
“Oh.”
“But if you don’t really want company, well, I won’t begrudge you that either,” he said. “It was silly of me to think - I should’ve gotten Wyll, or Shadowheart, or something-”
“-It was just an ex,” she blurted, and then immediately regretted it.
Mortifying, she thought, as he stopped talking as well, his mouth hanging open on whatever syllable he'd been about to inflict next. Fucking mortifying.
“The sword hurt like a bitch, but it gave me a memory of an ex,” she hastily clarified.
“An ex…partner?” he said. And Rose realised she’d veered them into even worse territory, the kind that implied he had the sort of relationship with her that meant he needed to know these things.
“So like you said!” she continued apace, “absolutely not life or death! I’m surprised it didn’t throw some Ethel in my face, to be honest. Or like, waking up alone on the Nautiloid. I have far more useful trauma to be playing with. The ex wasn’t even that bad, or anything! She just fucking sucked!”
“And this memory caused you… pain?”
“Nope!” Rose fought valiantly to recover the situation. “Easy mistake to make, but it was the psychic damage that did that! You’ve got nothing to worry about - oh, shit, I didn't mean like, romantically, gods no, she’s out of the picture, and also, it’s ok if you’re not interested! I just meant that I’m not like… Gale, or anything! I haven’t mentioned Threnn once!”
And then she kicked herself, because she’d said Threnn’s fucking name.
Astarion was looking at her like she’d grown a second head.
“You can seriously go now,” she said. “Thank you for, um… trying to be nice?”
“‘Trying?’” He said, looking offended. Like somehow, in the reality he was living in, he’d thought he’d succeeded.
“It was very kind of you to care if the sword had hurt my feelings,” she lied.
“...You do realise, Foxglove, that I don’t actually like you being unhappy?” he said, after another pause. “None of us do, in fact - but I speak of myself, specifically. I might disagree with your methods, and worry they’ll get you killed, but I’m not a monster, and none of that is malicious… you do understand that, correct? You keep saying we’re…” he clearly chose his next word carefully, “friends-”
Rose’s entire body flamed, as their entire encounter in the Grove kindled through her mind and she almost died. Yes, she thought. Friends.
“I don’t understand you sometimes, but I don’t exactly…” Astarion looked a little like he was fighting through soup, “‘revel’ in your misery? I might gloat a little, as is my right, but I’m not keeping some kind of… tally for when your methods don’t pay off. I just… I feel like they might not work, all the time, and we have to prepare for that eventuality, don’t we? I could… you know… help? If you ever… need help?”
He looked at her, like he was waiting for confirmation that, yes, the girl crying in a cupboard did indeed need a little bit of assistance.
After a second of silence, he clarified. “Just like with how I stabbed that man who would’ve worn your ears as a necklace, never mind leaving a small mark on your cheek. That’s just one brand of help I can provide.”
Oh shit, Rose thought. He is trying to be nice.
He was just horrendous at it.
...Fuck.
If Astarion wasn’t embarrassed about being awful at offering comfort, Rosalie wouldn’t let herself be embarrassed about needing whatever little she could get. Feeling the tiredness overcome her, she closed her eyes, and let herself sway forward.
Their fight… argument?... had bought them standing closer together. It seemed that kind of thing was inevitable, with Astarion. As a result, Rose could lean forward just enough that her forehead hit the ridge of his collarbone. She let it rest there, tentatively, arms at her sides, until all of her weight was against him. She kept her eyes screwed shut, to help pretend none of this was happening.
All it really meant was that she felt it, when Astarion froze up against her. He could nearly drain her of blood and have the cheek to lick the plate clean, fuck her until she saw stars, but when confronted with her in a moment of vulnerability…
'Sorry," she said reflexively, which was the wrong move because it meant she’d admitted she noticed, and now they had to talk about it. "I know we're not really…. And that you don't-"
But she didn't finish her sentence, and she didn't move away.
"It's just a really nice collarbone, honestly," she continued, reaching up blindly and patting his other shoulder with her hand. “Top marks. Ten out of ten. Big fan.”
As she expected, veering wildly out of any dangerous territory that hinted towards a genuine emotion had the desired effect. She felt, and heard, his chuckle rumble through his ribcage.
"I think I've still got the marks that prove how much of a fan you were," he replied with renewed ease. “A whole week ago, as well. Who knew you had such sharp teeth?”
And then-
He reached up, and stroked her hair.
Rosalie was very, very careful not to freeze up, the way he had. She didn't want to spook him, or break the moment. She couldn't quite believe the moment was happening.
"I think that's what some might simply term ‘payment in kind'," she replied, though her voice wavered and she knew he would be able to hear the way her pulse was rocketing. He stroked her hair again, and she kept her face buried in his chest, as if she could hide away from the world.
“Yes,” he said, with a better performance than she was giving. “One might be concerned that this could turn into a vicious cycle, and we will both end up mauled-”
“-You promise?” Rosalie countered, knowing he wasn’t expecting it, and that startled a real laugh out of him. She grinned properly then, wide and toothy against his shirt - she’d proven she could recover the script, after all.
"You know, Foxglove, have you considered-"
"I'm not going to stop saving people," she said quickly, before he said something stupid like 'slavery is a perfectly respectable profession, in this economy,' or ‘maybe Nere’s horrible torture sword was just an aesthetic choice, and he was actually a stand up guy’’.
"Yes, heavens forfend," he sighed. "Gods forbid we put a stop to your heroics, when they clearly bring you such unfettered joy! But don't worry, we already had that argument, and I'm well aware I lost. That's not what I was going to say, dearest. I was just going to propose that… if you’re reaching the point where you might commit acts of brutal violence… we can perhaps help you alleviate some of that tension, hmmm? Would you be amenable?"
He didn't mean… but of course he did. Rosalie brought her head up then, breaking them apart.
"I get injured," she said incredulously. "And you're going to offer to kiss it better? Is that the real reason you came to find me?"
"Well… no," Astarion smirked. An errant curl of her hair was still pinched lightly between his fingers, stretched between them as he played with it. “That thing happened again, where you yell at me, and I find that I rather like it. So now I'm improvising."
"Insufferable."
"We both know that you love it."
Rosalie clenched her mouth in a thin line, annoyed to find that she couldn't quite argue back without it being a lie. There was something categorically wrong with her.
"...You haven't talked to me all week," she accused, embarrassed it needed to be said.
"Yes, well, I saw our dear friend Karlach ask you a question in the middle of one of your transcription sessions, and the way you screeched at her afterwards. You seemed rather… single-minded, and unlike others, I have excellent self-preservation instincts. I decided I rather value my head."
"Oh gods, I apologised to her for that-"
"And seeing as no one but Halsin seems that interested in turning the Tiny Hut into an orgy, I decided to bide my time. But now that there's walls again..." He raised his eyes from hers to the wall behind her, and cocked his head speculatively. Then his gaze slid back down to her, like he expected that speculative look alone would be enough to get her out of her underwear.
Unfortunately, it wasn’t entirely ineffective.
"Oh." Rose said, mouth dry.
"Oh?"
"...OK."
Astarion grinned, "OK?"
Seeing how fucking smug it made him, Rosalie wondered if she was supposed to play coy. But that only tended to hinder conversations with Astarion, who loved to play with his food. She knew at this point he was drawing the conversation out to simply watch her squirm.
"As long as I can have a second to wash my face first. I'm all damp and gross," and snotty, she thought with a small grimace, as she tried to avoid looking at the damp patch she'd left on his shirt.
"I tend to like a woman's face tear-stained," Astarion observed, clearly unable to help himself. “You can’t deny it has certain charms, surely?"
Rosalie answered that with a flat, unimpressed stare.
But his grin simply widened in response, and he winked, “let’s just make sure it's for all the right reasons, next time.”
Rose tried to remain straight faced even as the heat rose all through her body and her shoulders to her face. But still, she felt the corner of her mouth twitch into a smile. Dammit, this shouldn’t work! Leave her feeling special, in a way that she should’ve been rational enough to know was pure, unfettered delusion.
And yet, she fought the smile. Gods, somehow he was helping, against all odds…
…Something awful suddenly occurred to her.
Astarion took a step forward, closing the distance, clearly assuming his proposition was a done deal. Rose put a hand on the centre of his chest, pausing him, and he did at least let himself be stopped, even as he pouted.
“I think you look beautiful, darling,” he said, the fucking liar. “No need to stop on my account.”
Gods, it would be so easy to give in, but that thought… niggled. Rose hated herself for it, because now it existed, she knew it was going to have to be said aloud.
Her cheeks flamed at her own stupidity, as she steeled herself, and said, "fuck. I'm sorry… I'm going to say something… and you have to promise not to laugh at me."
This was a pit trap of a sentence, where Astarion was concerned.
Smirking, he placed his hand over where hers rested on his chest, and started stroking the knuckles with his thumb, as he said, “what now, sweetheart? No need to be shy. If you have some embarrassing fetishes you feel you need to come clean about, you’re not nearly as subtle as you think.”
"No! Gods, no. I just… I need to say this, ok? For my own peace of mind.”
“...Say what?”
“This… whatever this is… it isn't one of those… services, ok?" she said, fighting to maintain eye contact and feeling her face flame. "One of those ways you can… ‘help’ me. You don't have to sleep with me just because I'm feeling sad, or whatever. Only if you want to."
Astarion’s mask slipped. Or rather, it ossified, becoming brittle - but she had no idea what lay underneath. Rosalie panicked: she wasn't quite sure what she'd said wrong apart from, she supposed, fucking everything.
"I know, I know," she supplied his side of the conversation in a rush. "I'm being silly, you suggested it, and despite all evidence to the contrary, you're a grown-ass man. But if it was anyone else, I'd say it, and so you get the same privilege. I just don't want you to think that's why… I… ugh. Anyway, I’ll shut up now."
By the time she'd finished that tragedy of a speech, it had served its purpose, because he had visibly recovered. His thumb started stroking her knuckles again, and Rosalie decided that was enough due diligence, because it was starting to get hard to think.
"Worried you’re taking advantage of me, Foxglove? Tarnishing my virtue? Using me for your pleasure?" He teased, stepping in closer, as his voice lowered with practiced ease.
He pressed in so close until he backed her up a few paces, and she let him. Her back hit the wall he’d been eying earlier. “A man should be so lucky.”
"Yes, yes,” she sighed, rolling her eyes. “I know I know. You, me, our 'collective ecstasy', et cetera, et cetera. Don’t worry, Astarion.” She looked up at him through sticky lashes, and smiled, “if I could ever take advantage of you, ever, in my life, you know it would only be to make you do something really, really heroic. Nauseatingly selfless, in fact. Getting my back blown out is lovely, of course, but I’ll save up all my evil, sexy leverage for miracles, and nothing less.”
Astarion watched her silently. She could see the calculation in his gaze. Their hands still rested on his chest where his heart should be, and though her pulse thundered hard enough for both of them, his ribcage was hollow and lifeless against the palm of her hand. Rose thought he’d have something else obnoxious to say to her, but then something in his expression shifted. With his free hand, he gripped her chin and tilted it upwards, before kissing her, in a way that was deep and searching and just right.
At his touch, satisfaction flooded through her body almost instantaneously, so strong that Rosalie had to close her eyes, to drown herself under the weight of the sensation.
The kiss lasted only the space of a few messy, open-mouthed breaths before Astarion broke it. But even that was long enough for Rose to make a wordless, frustrated groan when their lips parted. She opened her eyes to glare at him, and his reddened smile widened at her obvious irritation. But before he could mock her for being needy, she moved her hand from his chest to the nape of his neck and tugged him back down to her, sealing her mouth over his with a force that meant he wouldn’t have the chance to separate them again. She wrapped her arms around his shoulders, buried the curve of her talons in his hair, bit down. Clutched herself to him, pulled him hard against her, so it felt like he crushed her. Though it felt dangerous to listen to the extravagant promises he'd made on the night of the revel, she thought it might be nice to get a little lost, for once.
So she was needy. She wanted to be needy. It was better than thinking. She simply let herself want this, briefly, when she let herself have so little else.
Astarion didn't resist, and he needed no further guidance in what she wanted, either. Soon she was warm all over, pulse thundering in a way that felt like anxiety, like embarrassment, but not like that at all: all honey sticky and sweet-edged, leaving her stomach molten and her body weeping. Rose wanted to bite into something, consume it: she just felt so hungry.
When Astarion broke away from her mouth the next time, and moved to kiss her neck, she knew it was more for her benefit than his, so she could gasp a few lungfuls of air, like someone drowning at sea. His fingers started on the clasps of robe, but four buttons in he started struggling, and even through the fog Rosalie quickly realised why: the cloth was so stiff with dried blood at this point, that it didn’t really have much give anymore.
“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” she huffed. She took one hand from the tangles it had made in his hair to butcher the brief gestures of a hurried prestidigitation, cleaning away most of the recent dirt. Then, she popped three more buttons one-handedly for good measure, given that she’d now learned the knack of shucking off her horrid, fetid clothing.
“My finest hour,” she muttered, tugging the fabric off one shoulder and shaking out her lank, grime crusted hair. “I told you you should’ve let me clean up first, I’m disgusting.”
But when she looked back up at him, his eyes were riveted on her exposed chest, the sweep of her collarbones and the ridges and indentations of skin. She knew he’d already seen it all before, yet he was drinking in the sight like a man starved. With that look on his face, there was no way she was leaving this room.
As if she'd spoken of leaving out loud, Astarion stroked his hands along both her shoulders, then pushed her back against brickwork, pinning her there. He dipped his head to kiss the base of her throat once, open mouthed, where the dips of her collarbones met. Then, he captured her mouth again. Her robe and the thin shirt underneath was shucked from Rosalie's shoulders, leaving her in her trousers and breastband, while she started working shamelessly at the fastenings at his waist.
"You know, one day, we could have a bed," he murmured, breath warm and damp in the curve of her neck. Rosalie gasped once, feeling her body seize and tense on nothing. It wasn't just the sensation, but the echo of her own fantasy in his words: that luxurious hotel, that she hadn't even dared to place him in, even though it was only a daydream - even though it was just in the recesses of her own mind.
It had seemed like asking too much, like being far too greedy, even in the privacy of her own thoughts.
"But tonight…" Astarion hummed thoughtfully. His hands moved from her hips to the creases of her thighs, and then Rosalie felt herself lifted, with ease that left her feeling light-headed.
“This… works,” she said, with great intelligence, wrapping her legs around his hips and crossing her feet at the base of his spine, pulling him in close.
“Does it, sweetling?” he gloated, looking up into her face. He leaned in, and kissed her once, at a strange, off centre place on her cheek, close to her nose. “I think it just might. Let’s get rid of all those pesky thoughts of yours, now, shall we?”
Rose realised then, that he must've kissed the scar. Strange, it didn't hurt. She'd basically forgotten it was there. It wasn’t even bleeding, to give him an easy excuse for doing so.
If I’m getting wrecked, I’m taking you down with me, Rosalie thought once, with vindictive certainty. She anchored her hand in his hair, wrenched his head back, and kissed him hard, until there was nothing else left.
The next morning, after they’d snuck back to their bedrolls and frankly fooled no-one, Rosalie allowed herself the luxury of scrubbing herself down using one barrel of stagnant, ice cold water from the duergars’ abandoned supplies. She ate her breakfast, spitefully, to prove to herself she could. And then she turned to Astarion - who had, apparently, decided that ignoring each other was going to be the standard etiquette for each morning after - and said, “can I borrow one of your daggers?”
He looked surprised but recovered quickly, smiling wolfishly at her as he said, “darling, you should know better than to deprive a gentleman of his weapons. We get a little sensitive about that, you know. They make us feel all manly.”
“Ohh, I’m so sorry to hear that your masculinity is fragile enough to be threatened by a brief parting with your little weapon,” she simpered, as she heard the entire camp collectively roll their eyes. “I suppose, looking at your hair, I shouldn’t be surprised-”
“...What do you need it for, exactly?”
“I’ve got a debt to settle,” she replied, “and it’s either your dagger, or Nere’s sword.”
Astarion's eyes flickered ever so briefly to her cheek. For once Rose was grateful that, even though they never said anything of gravity or particular note to one another, such things didn’t always escape his notice.
“It’ll only take a few minutes,” she continued easily, “I hope, for your sake, your manhood can survive that long.”
“Surely, it’s more beneficial for you if that’s the case, dearest. I’d hate to think you found me lacking,” he replied with a grin, and Halsin - who was a very seasoned man, but admittedly had only been exposed to Astarion for less than a ten-day - choked on his rations, while Lae’zel let out one, half-hearted tchk.
Rosalie rolled her eyes, and held out her hand, feeling like his statement didn’t warrant much more of a response than that. After a second, Astarion reached for the knife at his belt, and she raised a single, unimpressed eyebrow. He sighed dramatically, then reached for the knife at the other side of his belt, which was the one she knew Gale had enchanted to be slightly better at its job.
“Shadowheart,” she said, as she weighed the blade in her hands and told her breakfast very firmly that it was staying down. “Do you know how to cast Gentle Repose?”
The cleric looked up, “Why? I mean, yes…. but who here exactly do we care about enough, to bring back?”
“No one,” Rosalie said, standing up and testing the dagger’s weight in her hand. “But I sincerely do not want this to smell.”
She trudged around the half-ruined staircase they’d all settled under, and walked back to the site of yesterday’s battle. Halsin, bless him, had tried moving some of the bodies into some semblance of order, because it seemed he truly was a good person, or hadn’t quite lost the ability to care the way Rose seemed to.
Nere was stretched out flat, hands across his chest, exposing the dark stain across his stomach where Astarion’s blade had cleaved up and through. In the unbearable heat of the forge, the corpse was already beginning to bloat.
Rosalie grimaced at the smell, shifted the dagger in her hand, and hiked up her robes, taking a knee by the body.
I am not going to make anyone else do this, she thought, which she knew deep down was stupid, because Lae’zel had probably conducted this kind of thing in the playground for fun, aged ten. And I am not going to throw up.
She tried desperately to remember her first-year anatomy classes, and began to saw at Nere’s neck.
There was a sound behind her. She looked up to see she’d accrued a small audience. Shadowheart, she’d expected - she needed that spell to stop the head from decaying too much, even if it was presumably destined to become mushroom compost. But it seemed Astarion had feared for the safety of his precious dagger, and now he was also there, watching her, and looking at her like she’d become a total stranger.
Oh well, Rose thought, he’s seen worse, and then she returned to the body. She made more effort with the cut, this time - though he may have seen worse, she definitely didn’t need a commentary on her technique, or a critique of all the ways she was blunting his weapon.
Rose told herself it was the tadpole who was feeling that distinct sense of vindictive gratification, at defiling the body of this awful man who’d reduced her to the panicked, helpless person she had been at the Order, if only for a single breath. She felt herself drift away a little, and a few gruesome seconds later, she had a head. And a little bit of spine, but she picked that out. Then, she carefully wiped the blade clean on Nere’s own tunic, and got to her feet, holding her prize by the hair.
Pleasingly, her breakfast had stayed down, although her mouth felt heavy and dry.
She turned back to her two companions, and walked over to them, thrusting the head in Shadowheart’s direction. Her friend grimaced, but understood: her eyes flared with brief brightness, and suddenly Nere's head felt truly like an inanimate object, sterile and inert. Rosalie closed the eyelids, so he’d stop staring at her.
Then, she handed Astarion’s dagger back to him. He was watching her avidly, with wide, startled eyes.
“This better not do anything for you,” she told him glumly, knowing it probably had, and together they went back to the rest of the party, so that she could try her hand at being a myconid champion.