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There's This Girl...

Summary:

She's missed this.

Lara hasn't been at Uni too terribly long yet, just a single year, but what a year it's been. So much has happened, so much has changed. There are a hundred different events from this past year she could think back on, so many things she could remember as important.

And yet, all she can think about is that ridiculous haircut and that devil-may-care smile.

But Lara...well, she isn't the most well-adjusted person, socially speaking, and she doesn't know how to deal with the way Sam makes her feel. She has *questions*, and there's only one person in her life that she knows to go to for advice.

But before she can ask Roth anything, she has to tell him about Sam. About their friendship.

And for reasons beyond her comprehension, Lara finds that idea *terrifying*.

Or

Lara and Roth climb a mountain and talk about life.

Work Text:

God, she’s missed this.

Her arms strain, burn. Her hands are scratched to hell and back, she aches down to her bones, and she is totally, completely exhausted. She takes a moment to just be spent, sagging forward against the stone, letting her face press against her safety rope.

And she thinks for a moment, ‘ God, that’s it, that’s all I have. I can’t go any further.’

But then she hears a coarse voice, “C’mon, girl, don’t give up now!”

And she finds it in herself to pull back a few centimetres and look down and to her right.

Roth’s calloused fingers bite into the stone, and he hauls himself up another quarter-metre.

He’s catching up to her.

Well now, that won’t do, will it?

“I’m only letting you catch up, Roth!” she calls back, “I wouldn’t want to make the Royal Marines look bad!”

He laughs, and she finds her footing and hauls herself up. They’re near the peak, now. A familiar peak. Roth had taken her up this mountain for the first time when she was fourteen. Their first real climb together. Though, they’d gone up the shallow face of the mountain, back then.

Not anymore, certainly not, as she continues to climb the sheer wall of stone before her.

She’s missed this.

It really hasn’t been too terribly long. She’d only been in University for a little over a year, and they still talk all the time over the phone, but between classes and Roth’s lengthy trips on the Endurance - the ‘day job’, as he liked to call his expeditions - they haven’t had a chance to do anything like this. They should really take another camping trip up to the Highlands, too, one of these days.

It's only been a year, but it feels like it’s been much longer. So much has happened.

Of course, she could think about all sorts of things. She could think about Dr. Avendale (the Professor From Hell), or her first rounder of properly-challenging final exams last semester. She could think about actually living on her own for the first time, or renting that flat in London and moving in. She could think about how she'd joined the Sisters of Artemis - UCL’s newest archery club - and swiftly learned that she’s one of the only girls at UCL who can shoot a longbow properly (though she’s working on fixing that). She could think about her first major Historian’s Craft class coming up in a few months.

There’s so many valid things she could focus on to meter-mark these last ten or so months she’s been in Uni.

But for some reason, all she can think of is that ridiculous haircut and that devil-may-care smile. She stops to breathe, leaning forward against the cool stone, the exertion and focus letting the upper parts of her mind run wild. She closes her eyes for a moment, and all she can see is that crazy girl she'd met just a few months ago. Then, she reaches up, and continues the climb.

She hasn’t really told Roth about her. She doesn’t know why. Of course, he knows about Sam, knows that Lara had made a friend a few months ago. Knows that she’s really the only friend Lara's made at Uni.

But for some reason, she just hasn’t told him much about her. No details. She finds the notion…oddly intimidating, for some reason, even though she thinks the worry is completely absurd.

Which is one thing on his own, yes. Silly, stupid, and anxiety-inducing, but…

…shit, it's becoming a problem. She has no experience feeling the things she's feeling or- or having this sort of relationship with someone her own age. Maybe that's a little pathetic to admit, considering she's nineteen years old, but it's true whether she likes it or not and--

- And she has questions .

She doesn't know who to ask, if not Roth.

But she can't ask Roth anything without biting the bullet and telling him all about her not-so-new friend-

Which isn't that bad, but that would also mean confronting the fact that - for some reason - Lara has been hiding her from him--

Her hand slips, and she narrowly catches herself before she falls. Her line would have caught her, but the jolt still sends a lance of adrenaline coursing through her, sharpening the world and hardening her hands against the stone.

Careful up there, Lara!” Roth calls out through the wind, even closer now than he’d been, “Don’t want you falling-- I’d never let you hear the end of it!”

There’s a laugh in his voice, and it’s infectious. Lara laughs too, the adrenaline making her feel oddly delighted, “Oh, you wish , you old northern bastard.” She redoubles her effort and climbs like her life depends on it. He will not beat her.

And sure enough, he doesn’t. Of course he doesn’t. No one ever does, not when she lets that competitive pride in her burn. Her fingers bite into the rock, her climbing shoes find purchase, and she hauls herself up to the peak, letting out a heartful, sweat-soaked whoop as she throws her arms up--

It’s always great, that feeling. There’s something about it, mountain climbing. It speaks to some kind of base, animal desire within her. The urge to be on top, to win, to defeat something so incredible and monolithic as a mountain. It feels like conquering, it feels like victory .

And she turns around, places her hands on her harnessed hips, and looks over the cliff’s edge at Roth as he covers those last few centimeters, barely ten seconds behind her. Squaring her stance, she extends him a hand, as if he needs help up.

And he pauses, right on the edge, and looks at her hand with naked insult in his eyes.

But then he laughs, breathless but hearty, “I never should have shown you how to do this, girl.”

“Probably so,” she says back, grinning, as sweat runs down her face and the wind buffets her, "Not if you ever wanted to be first to the top, anyway."

Still, he rolls his eyes and clasps her hand. She plants her feet and hauls him up with her back and shoulders, and then they’ve both won.

And now, her favourite part.

They disconnect their safety lines, stagger tiredly over to their rock (a flat, even slab they’d found on their first climb up this mountain together), and collapse onto it, breathless, tired, and victorious together.

Roth takes a long swig of his canteen. Lara follows, and nearly drains her own.

And then, that done, they look out over the land. Allow the view to steal their breath.

They don’t talk for a long while. That’s fine. Good , even. Most people overvalue words, conversation, small talk. Lara has to pretend she enjoys it so often at UCL. Has to smile and nod like she cares about what party her classmates had gone to the week before, or about the gossip of who is shagging who. Then, they think she's being friendly because she isn't rude , so then they invite her out to all these silly places-- and she has to act kind as she politely declines, has to come up with excuses and empty chatter to fill a void because they expect her to speak. It is all so, so tiring.

But she doesn’t have to pretend around Roth. She doesn’t have to be a university student around him. She just has to be herself.

And so they sit, listening to the wind and breathing in the thin, cool mountain air, for what must be nearly an hour, resting.

After a time, Roth nods his head, as if agreeing with some unspoken thought, and hauls his low-profile climbing pack off his shoulders, setting it at his feet and unzipping it.

Lara doesn’t even take note of it, still looking out over the landscape and thinking about nothing and everything. Roth always likes to smoke a cigar when they do a climb like this. Always once they reach the peak of a mountain.

He roots out two metal tubes, a cutter, and a book of matches. He twists the caps off the tubes, tips out two rolls of tobacco, and then holds one out to her.

That , however, is entirely abnormal.

She blinks at it. “Roth?”

“You can say no,” he says, zero judgement in his rough voice, “but you’re old enough now, and I’ve always wanted to share one of these with you up here.”

She looks at him, sees the corners of his eyes crinkle. “I don’t smoke.”

“You don’t have to be a smoker to enjoy a cigar, Lara,” he shakes it a little, “A cigarette is for addicts who need a hit of nicotine. A cigar is a luxury, and it’s for enjoying. It's about the taste and the feel, not the chemical.”

She looks at the little brown thing for a long moment. She could list the history of the tobacco plant's cultivation at the drop of a hat. She could explain the cultural impact of its consumption and the economic impact of its trade on seven different cultures without even needing to strain. And yet, not once has she ever considered what it would be like to actually smoke it herself.

She considers the cigar for a long moment, then reaches out and takes it. Roth smiles.

For a moment, she just holds it in her hand. It's short for a cigar, she thinks, only about as long as her index finger (but then again, Sam says she has long fingers, so). It's also much lighter than she'd imagined it would be, as if it were made of polystyrene. Logically, that makes sense - it's just a bundle of dried leaves after all - but she's still surprised by the lack of weight.

She brings it up to her face, twisting it around. When she inhales, she realises that the smell reminds her of Roth, of long hikes and climbs and camping trips. It reminds her of archery practice behind his house. It reminds her of trips to shooting ranges in countries where they’re legal (and a few where they aren’t). It reminds her of sitting on the deck of the Endurance in her berth near Liverpool and talking about life.

"Well, I suppose I have always been curious," she says, even though it's only half true, "You're always smoking these things, after all."

His smile turns to a grin, and he says "At'a girl," in that way that, had anyone but him said it, she would've given them either a vicious talking-to or an elbow to the teeth. But when he says it, she feels a small dash of pride run through her.

He takes the cutter and snips off a sliver of the cigar at the rounded end, then passes it to her. She repeats the maneuvre on her own. As she does it, she eyes the little band of paper wrapped around the upper end of the cigar, "Nicaragua?"

He nods, tucking his unlit cigar into the corner of his mouth and holding it there, "Had my first smoke in Nicaragua, oh…sometime around '96 or '97. You were still this wee little thing. It was one of those times your parents left you with Old Nanny Winston."

"Really?" It probably shouldn't surprise her, but she finds it hard to believe that there had ever been a time when he didn't smoke, "I'm surprised it wasn't during your time with the military."

He shrugs, "Bah, some of the other bootnecks liked to smoke, but it didn't interest me.” He leans a bit closer to her, gesturing with his hands as he talks- just like he does every time he tells a story. No matter how old they get, he always talks like he’s trying to wow a six-year-old with an adventure book, “but there was this old bloke there in Nicaragua who showed these to us. I barely spoke any Spanish, and he barely spoke any English, but he housed the five of us for a night. Me and him sat on his porch that evening. Didn't talk much, but he knew 'smoke' and I knew 'fumamos', so we had a smoke."

"So you still buy them from Nicaragua?"

He shrugs again, mouthing at his unlit bundle of tobacco, "I've tried others, but it's nostalgia, ya know? He was a nice bloke, and it was a real A1 cigar, so…” he gives his head a little unsure shake, “...I have Grimaldi nick me a box whenever he comes across one."

The mental image of that salty old scot bartering over a box of cigars he didn't even want makes Lara laugh, "I'm sure Grim is thrilled to do your shopping for you."

Roth snorts a laugh, plucking up his box of matches again and shaking his head, "Yeah, he's a crabby old bastard, but for all his moaning, he still gets the cigars - as long as he's not three sheets to the wind as soon as we drop anchor, anyway - so I can't complain. Anywho, look here, Lara."

He fishes a single match from the box, striking it and then quickly sheltering the small flame from the wind in the cup of his hand, "Alright, now lighting these can be a bit tricky." He brings his hands up to the tip of the cigar. "Ideally, you wanna twist it as you light," he says, his voice partially muffled by concentration and the cigar in his mouth, "to toast the whole round, but ye can't do that if it's windy like this. Need both hands, see?"

He brings the flame to the tip, holding it under the roll of tobacco and working it back and forth to touch as much of the cross-section as he can, all while taking a few quick inhales to draw the flame into the cigar. Lara watches closely in a way she never had before. For the first few pulls, nothing happens, but then when Roth exhales the fourth time, a puff of white smoke flows from his mouth.

Of course, she'd seen him light cigars a thousand times, but she'd never studied it before. She twirls her own between her fingers and finds herself probably more intrigued than she ought to be.

He takes another toke from the cigar before pulling from his lips and closing his eyes. He holds the smoke for a second before raising his chin and blowing it out to drift off into the mountain air. "Got that?"

"Yes," she says with a probably undo amount of confidence.

Which makes him laugh, "Alright then, give it a try." He holds out the box of matches to her, "Don't inhale, though. Like I said, it isn't a cigarette. There's no filter, so it'll play hell with your lungs. Keep it in your mouth. Puff on it, don't breathe in. Sort of like drinking through a straw."

Okay, so he hadn't been inhaling earlier, then. Good to know.

Lara nods and takes the matchbook. She brings the cigar to her lips and holds it in place with her teeth. The first thing she registers is the queer taste. Not good, but not necessarily bad either. Strange, slightly bitter like good tea, yet oddly spicy. It makes her lips tingle where she touches the tobacco, and her mouth begins to water involuntarily. She isn't sure she likes it, but finds herself equally unsure as to whether she dislikes it.

Striking the match and sheltering the tiny flame is simple and easy, she's had more than enough practice from trying to light campfires on their previous excursions. Even though the wind makes the fire gutter and shiver, she keeps it safe and brings it up to her mouth.

She tries to mimic what Roth had done, pulling air through the cigar with her cheeks and imagining she's pulling a milkshake through one of Sam's steel straws. The match burns down to her fingers before she manages to light it, though, and she's forced to drop it.

She eyes the burnt match as it hits the ground, making sure it doesn't catch any of the sparse greenery. Satisfied that it hasn't, she stoops down and collects the little thing, setting on their stone. Biodegradable wood or no, she's not going to leave her garbage on this beautiful mountainside.

Roth doesn't say anything as she takes another match from the box and tries again, nor when she fails and takes a third attempt. He sits and watches the horizon, puffing on his own cigar. The fact that he doesn't speak up or offer advice tells her that she isn't making any big technical mistakes, and just needs to keep trying. He lets her figure it out her own way, just like always.

She tries and tries, until, suddenly, something flows into her mouth. That's the best way she can put it. It's not like a liquid, but not like air either. She can feel that it's dense and warm, but it's ephemeral.

And she sees what he means, the taste. Her nose curls involuntarily. It's odd, and not exactly pleasant, but it is interesting and strong, and it carries with it that same strange spiciness the tobacco itself had.

She looks over at him, and he eyes her. She meets his eyes for several seconds as she holds the ephemeral something in her mouth. When she exhales, a curl of thin white smoke flows out from her lips, fogging her vision for the brief moment before the mountain wind sweeps it away.

And Roth nods, repeating, "At'a girl, Lara."

Lara takes a moment to look down at the thing, pulling it from her lips. The end of the cigar has turned from a soft, leathery brown colour to a dark black. As she watches, it changes from black into an ashy white. It's burning.

She puts it back between her lips, filling her mouth again and watching as the tip glows in response, red like the embers of a previous-night's campfire.

She breathes out, watching as the smoke curls again--

Then she breathes in through her nose-- but the smoke hadn't dissipated yet, so she pulls some into her lungs from the air and hacks. God, it's like inhaling concertina wire .

And Roth has the gall to laugh, "There it is, always happens sooner or later." He reaches out and pats her sweaty back with a heavy hand as she coughs the acrid smoke out of her lungs.

" Shit," she curses involuntarily as she doubles over-- and it still feels weird to curse around Roth, but he never censors himself around her so, natch. "How do people inhale that?!"

He shrugs, "Cigarettes have all sorts of rubbish in them to make it smoother, and a filter to boot. Cigars are just rolled tobacco, no faff or treatment. Some people still inhale them, but how they manage it is beyond me. Awful for the lungs, too."

Lara coughs again, shaking her head and looking down at her cigar with watery eyes. She's suddenly wary of the thing.

Then, Roth side-eyes her and asks, "You gonna let that stop you?"

She shouldn't be so proud, she knows that, but in her defence, she's nineteen and she is proud-- and besides, Roth has always known how to push her buttons. She sticks the cigar back between her lips and takes another puff of spicy, slightly sweet smoke while doing her best to glare at him defiantly through her teary eyes.

Then, she waits for his next exhale. Right as he goes to breathe in, she blows the smoke in his face, and he gets his turn to make a fool of himself.

He hacks out a lung, his eyes watering under those silver brows of his, but then he laughs through a cough, "Bloody-- I raised you mean , didn't I?"

And Lara laughs back and says, "No, of course not." But then she makes a show of pouting, like she's suddenly doubting herself, and concedes, "Well, maybe a little bit."

And he laughs again.

And Lara laughs too.

And they look at the horizon. It's still early in the day, just past noon. They've got plenty of sunlight left to make their descent. Plenty of time to just sit and linger.

Then, Roth laughs again, but it's a touch heavier, "You know, your parents would have hated this."

Which strikes a tone in Lara. It isn't often Roth talks about her parents. She looks at him, for a long moment. He smiles down at the cigar in his hands, twirling it between his fingers slowly. Lara thinks his smile is somehow both sad and fond all at once. "How do you mean?"

He shakes his head, "They both were always on me for smoking. I told them that I never made a habit of it, that I didn't do it enough to get an addiction, but they were worried I would get lung or mouth cancer."

Lara frowns. She'd never overheard any of those conversations, back then-- but then again, she hadn't been on many of their expeditions, and at home, her parents had only ever talked about 'Uncle Roth' in glowing terms. Lara suspects they had worried she would be afraid of the big, grizzled ex-marine, but that thought had never even occurred to her as a child. To her, then, 'Uncle Roth' had always looked like a big, silver-haired teddy.

He laughs, lightly, and shakes his head, "No, they would've had a row with me over letting you smoke."

Lara nods, "Well…if it's any comfort, I can't see myself making a habit of this." She takes her cigar between her fingers and waggles it at him for a moment before shrugging, "And either way, I probably would have tried it myself, sooner or later. I suppose this is the best way to go about it."

He snorts, "On the top of a mountain, stinking to high heaven with sweat?"

He tends to try and deescalate things with that odd humour of his. Witty, quippy, and dry as bone. Sam does that same thing, except her humour is about as dry as the Pacific.

Lara'll have none of it. She leans to the side and clocks his shoulder with her own, "With you , you old bastard."

And he laughs again, "Don't you turn me all soft, girl. I've got a reunion with my old unit in a week, and they can smell Feelings from two klicks out."

She laughs again, but shakes her head. She brings the cigar up and takes another draw from it. When she exhales the smoke - silly as it is - she imagines she's a dragon, coiled up atop this mountain, breathing sulphur out over the world. Sounds nasty, but sulphur is good for the plants, brightening flowers and enriching crops. It would be a blessing, even if it would smell a bit whiffy.

So they sit up here, atop the world, and smoke.

She wonders what Sam's doing right now. Probably sitting in their flat, watching something silly on her phone and laughing in that easy, bright way she does.

Or maybe she's walking around London with her camera, looking for all the world like one of the city's many tourists as she tries to capture a perfect subject, in a perfect scene, with the perfect lighting. Trying to find what she calls 'Candid Art'. Beauty that exists naturally, without artificial staging. She says that that's what all the good documentary filmmakers capture.

Lara had asked her once what exactly 'Candid Art' is, and Sam had said 'You're a pretty good example of it, Croft.' As if that hadn't been bad enough, she'd then immediately snapped a shot of Lara's embarrassed blush.

The memory makes Lara laugh. She doubts Sam would guess she's sitting atop the world smoking a cigar right now.

"What's got you laughing over there?" Roth asks.

And she does the absolute worst thing she could possibly do.

She hesitates.

She hesitates, for no good reason. It's as if she's scared to tell Roth that she's made a good friend, that she's found someone she cares about. For some damn reason, telling Roth about her new friend fills her with trepidation, and she's been censoring Sam from their weekly phone calls for months now.

She can't fathom why, but talking about Sam to Roth feels like a confession, and she hesitates to share.

And that hesitation is rare from her.

Rare enough that Roth looks at her, makes a mental connection, frowns, and then crows, "Oh, god, you've not met some boy , have you?"

"No!" she says with a scoff, twisting her head away like the notion itself offends her, "Of course not!"

It appears that, too, had been the wrong response. His eyes widen, and he mouths his cigar while shaking his head, "Christ, I spent most of your secondary school years worrying about when you'd start dating." He recoils back, as if a wave of dread has crashed into him, "I knew this would come eventually, I just knew it."

" Roth," she turns back to him, scowling, "That is not - I didn't- that's not what's wrong!"

The shock on his face vanishes like the illusion it had been, and the corner of his lip quirks up. He reaches a hand up to scratch at the stubble of what he might actually grow into a proper beard one day, "So there is a problem, then?"

Damnit, she'd walked right into that, let her hot head guide her into a trap, " No- Well, I- not a problem, but--"

She's stuttering. She can't get her mind straight, and the tips of her ears are burning. Christ, fuck, this should not be this difficult, she shouldn't be flustered --

Roth pulls his cigar from his mouth, gesturing at her with it, "Come on then, out with it, girl. If it's not a problem, what is there to worry about?"

Lara scoffs, fiddling with her own cigar, "I'm not worried , Roth, just-- hell, this isn't helping, you know!"

He snorts and puts his cigar back between his lips, puffing on it, "Have a toke then, and think about what you actually want to say. Then say it, and own it. What am I gonna do, tell you 'no'? I know when to pick a fight, and with you, I'd lose."

She huffs. He doesn't mean that, surely, even though he says things like that all the time-- and anyway, that isn't what matters. She cares about his opinion, his approval. She trusts him, and she just- she just wants him to… well, wants him to like Sam.

"I…" and she works her jaw. She'd only mentioned her a few times in the past year, and never with the proper emphasis. This stupid mental block has stopped her every other time. This stupid, stupid fear.

She breathes in, fills her lungs, and then listens to Roth's advice. She pulls up her cigar, holds it between her lips, and puffs on it. She fills her mouth, tastes the smoke, then exhales slowly.

Maybe she just doesn't think Roth will like her? That sounds…almost right. After all, they're nearly polar opposites. Roth, all gruff and weathered, world-weary and grounded. Military at his core, but far too free a spirit to let protocol and structure keep him down.

And then there's Sam, with her bright grin and devil-may-care attitude and lopsided undercut. She loves cameras, loves beautiful things. She likes music, and dancing, and laughing, and singing. She's defiant and colourful and--

And Lara likes her. She's never met anyone like that before. Oh, she's met plenty of pretenders, but never…never someone real like that. Never someone who cares beneath that. Who's soft and kind and--

And Lara wants Roth to like her, too, because…well, because she's swiftly becoming one of the most important people in Lara's life, second only to him. She doesn't know what she'll do if Roth doesn't like her.

She pulls the cigar from her lips again, holding the smouldering thing between her hands and toying with it, squirming because she just knows Roth is analysing every tick and twitch, looking for a crack he could use to break her open.

But she feels as if she's entirely made of cracks. Like a shattered windscreen.

She doesn't look at him. Doesn't think she'd be able to say it if she does. She doesn't look at the horizon, or the land. No, she looks down at her own hands and the Nicaraguan cigar Roth had given her. "I…well…" she shakes her head, closes her eyes, and goes for what she hopes is a good introduction, "There's…there's this girl…"

Only to be interrupted by a low hum, slow and even, "Oh, so it's a girl , then."

Lara frowns, she looks up at him again, sees his brow crease as he thinks, "What does that mean--"

Oh.

Oh, god .

" Roth--!" she shouts, shoving his shoulder none-too-gently. Damn him, she's sure her cheeks are absolutely scarlet now and that's put ideas in her head- "Don't joke like that!"

He recoils from her push like she'd caught him off guard, and he holds up a hand between them in either surrender or defence. He keeps his cigar in his mouth with his teeth and has the gall to say, "I wasn't joking!"

Which makes Lara shove him again, "Take this seriously! This is… important."

He takes another puff on his cigar, shaking his head at her and exhaling a cloud of wispy smoke, "I am being serious! It's a girl , then, yeah?"

" No!" she barks, but then realises her error and corrects, "Well- I mean, yes, but- Okay, she is a girl but that's not- It isn't like that , Roth!"

"Ahh," he says, nodding and absolutely refusing to rise to her shouting, "Okay then. Tell me about her."

Lara pouts. "Well now I don't want to."

He looks at her for a long moment.

It's easy, sometimes, to forget that they aren't peers. That he is more than twice her age. But then, sometimes, he gives her that look. That slow, piercing look, that reminds her he's been all over the world and must have seen everything there is to see.

And he just nods, looks back to the horizon, and smokes. "Then don't."

And that's the end of it. Or, well, it could be. If Lara wants it to be.

He won't press further. He's always given her the space she'd wanted, only ever pulled the 'legal guardian' card when she was being stubborn and at risk of hurting herself in a way she couldn't heal from.

She trusts him, and she trusts that he won't pry.

She takes another pull from her own cigar and looks up at the horizon. She spots a cloud, in the distance. She aims for it when she blows out her spice-tinged smoke. It's a hundred kilometres away, she knows the smoke would never have reached it, but she contents herself with the knowledge that it would have if the wind hadn't interfered.

He won't press if she doesn't want to talk about it. Talk about her .

But that's the problem. She does want to tell him about Sam. She wants to talk about her new friend, explain how close they've grown, show him that she's finally formed an actual, real relationship with someone her own age!

She wants to tell him.

She just…doesn't want him to dislike her-- and she doesn't want him to read that kind of implication from it, either.

She takes another pull from her cigar. For some reason, that second thought makes her squirm.

And so she finds herself saying, "I'm not gay, Roth."

She glances at him, out of the corner of her eye. She sees a small smirk quirk his lips. "Never said you were, Lara."

Shit .

"You implied it."

"Okay."

"I'm not gay."

"Alright," he responds, accepting it easily.

There. Easy as that.

She nods, good. With that out of the way…"You…do you remember last year? I mentioned a- a girl I met on campus?" She can't help but inflect the word 'girl', as if it were important. She blames that on Roth.

He nods, frowning around his cigar, "Yeap."

"Well…I may have understated…" her role in my life. How much she matters to me already. The amount of trust I have for her. How much I value our friendship. "...how significant that event was."

"Ah," he says, nodding suddenly as if he'd just remembered something, "this is your new flatmate, yeah?"

"Yes," she responds.

He pulls more smoke into his mouth. This time, he doesn't even exhale it, just lets it flow out as he talks, "I figured she was more important than you let on. I didn't think you'd go from 'I met this weird lass on campus' to 'we're moving in together' with nothing in-between."

Lara purses her lips. She does feel guilty for keeping him in the dark, honestly. She still isn't wholly sure why she had been omitting her time with Sam from their calls, this past year. "I suppose that's my own fault. I haven't really been keeping you up to date."

He shrugs, "You're nineteen years old, girl. You've got your own life now. It's normal to not give the old farts in your life the play-by-play."

Which makes her frown again, "I know that, Roth."

He looks away from the horizon, eyeing her again, "Then what's the problem?"

"The problem ," Lara grumbles, "is that I want to tell you about these sorts of things, but just…haven't been. And I'm not sure why."

He mouths his cigar, moving his jaw back and forth. The glowing red tip bobs up and down in response. "Interesting," is all he says.

Lara frowns out over the world, idly puffing on the cigar once every ten or fifteen seconds or so.

"Don't smoke it too fast," Roth warns, "the nicotine in that can make you green around the gills if you take too much in too quick."

Lara takes the cigar from her mouth. Without it to focus on, she finds her jaw working. She isn't sure what to say next. God, this feels so awkward for no reason .

Lara licks her lips. She can taste tobacco on them.

People have been doing this for millennia-- drying, rolling, and smoking tobacco leaves. She doesn't really see the appeal, but the smoke colouring her breath is a novelty.

But she should say something. Something on-topic. Because she doesn't want to change the topic, even though Roth would let her. Honestly, that'd probably only make his suspicions grow. She should…disabuse any notions he might have.

She just has to get over how inexplicably embarrassing this all feels.

"She…" Lara says, before she's ready to speak, "...she likes cameras."

'Wow, Croft. Very good opener.'

Roth hums, nodding and looking out over the world, "Cameras?"

"Cameras," Lara confirms, opening and closing her mouth for a few seconds before-- "She…likes photography, but her real interest is cinematography and filmmaking."

Roth crosses his arms and leans back against the boulder that makes up the backrest of their stone. "She wants to make movies, does she?"

Lara shakes her head, "Documentaries, now. She started off wanting to get into movies, but she changed to Documentaries a couple months ago." After one of the backpacking trips Lara had dragged her on. She hadn’t wanted to go, had argued ‘why would you want to walk when we have cars , it’s the 21st century!’, but Lara had talked her into it. Something about that night in Spain, under the stars, had shifted her paradigm. Now, Sam wants to get into documentaries. She says it’s more ‘real’. Lara won’t let herself overstate her role in that decision, won't let herself believe Sam had made that choice because of what Lara had showed her that week, won’t undercut Sam’s autonomy in that decision-- but…but she can’t help but feel a little proud of the role she had played in it.

He laughs, suddenly, and has to snap a hand up to catch his cigar. Some ash falls from its tip and flies away with the wind, "Archeologist and Documentarian. Sounds like you both make a solid pair, then."

She lingers on that word, pair , and nearly presses again that their relationship is entirely platonic , but getting defensive about it would probably only serve to reinforce what her awkwardness has already implied.

So, instead, she laughs, "You'd think so, but honestly-- we are so mismatched."

"How's that?" Roth asks back, his tone even and interested.

And Lara smiles. She allows herself to get a little lost as she looks at the horizon, and finds her words flowing easier. She hopes that means she's gotten over the bizarre trepidation she's been feeling, but she isn't getting her hopes up, "Well, she's an extrovert, for one thing."

"An extrovert, huh?" he responds, humming, "What sort?"

"What do you mean?"

He shrugs, "There are all different sorts of extroverts. What sort is she? What does she like?"

Lara frowns, looks back at the horizon. She knows what Sam likes. How she likes to spend her time on weekends. But…

Well, perhaps the straightforward approach would be best. "I'm worried you won't like her."

Roth snorts, "Girl, what does that matter for?"

And Lara opens her mouth to respond, but she halts, chokes on her words.

But he hears her regardless.

He takes another toke, and breathes out a smoky breath with a long sigh, "Lara, I'm going to be fifty years old this year. You get that?"

"Yes?" she answers, not entirely sure where he's going with this.

He doesn't look at her, just stares out at distant clouds, "I have been all over the world, and I have met all sorts of people." He shakes his head and frowns around his cigar, bringing up a hand and twisting it against his lips, "I have had my own pretentions disabused more times that I could ever count. I've seen nice people do awful things, and I've seen people I thought would be awful do incredible things."

He looks at her again, and she finds herself staring back and putting her own cigar back to her lips. She doesn't interrupt, though, not yet.

"Now, I'm not saying I'm gonna like whatever it is you're hesitating to tell me, but I trust your ability to judge a person's character, Lara." He huffs, as if he's annoyed she'd ever doubted that trust, "If this lass is important enough to you that my opinion of her matters…well, if you vouch for her, she'd need some pretty big red flags to counterbalance all that."

She frowns at him, puffing on her cigar and trying not to involuntarily inhale, "I'm only nineteen, Roth. You should probably assume I'm naive enough to be manipulated."

He snorts in response, coughing slightly as he inhales a bit of smoke, "That's probably true, Lara. That's probably true…but you're also a Croft . The most important lesson I ever learned was to never underestimate a Croft. You lot need a completely different metre-stick."

Lara doesn't say anything to that. It's hardly rare that he brings up his notion of Croft exceptionality, but it's never…gotten to her like this. She wonders, idly, what it is her parents had done to so strongly reinforce that notion.

For a few minutes, they both just sit there in comfortable silence. Both thinking, and both smoking. Lara tastes the smoke, feels the burn in her arms and shoulders, the rawness of her hands, and she wonders at this situation she's gotten herself into.

"So what is it you're so worried about, Lara?" he asks, directly, as if he's gotten tired of fannying about.

Lara pulls her cigar from her mouth, ashes spilling from the tip and falling to the dirt below. She works her jaw for a moment, "I- I don't really know , honestly. I guess I'm just awful at talking about-" she almost says relationships , but she's scared of giving ground there, even that teeny bit, "-friendships."

He shrugs again, "Then don't."

"Huh?"

"Don't tell me about the both of you. Just tell me about her."

Okay, she can try that.

Lara doesn't look at him, doesn't let herself focus on the trepidation or worry. She looks up at the sky, mouths her cigar, blows a puff of smoke up at the sun, and imagines those dark eyes. She imagines that lopsided mop of hair on her head. She imagines her laugh, the clothes she wears, the way she talks.

She imagines that glow she gets when she's in her element, when she's got an eye in her viewfinder and inspiration alight in her chest-- and she does glow. Like her skin is made of starlight, she glows and it's beautiful and she makes Lara feel- makes her feel-

"She's so… colourful!" Lara says with a harsh exhale. She shakes her head, fiddles with her cigar, and looks at the sky, the sun, and the clouds. The places where she sees Sam. "She just- she's kind, and she's funny, and she's so, so bright , Roth. God, you should see her when she's in her element." Her words bubble up, like an overfilled kettle, and she lets them flow, "She just-- she gets so excited, and it's infectious! It's like, when she's happy, the whole world is brighter. And she's loud , but not in a bad way. She's loud, and she likes to dance and go to parties-- which I still don't understand or enjoy, by the way, but I'll go to them anyway!"

She turns up her palms, as baffled by her own behaviour as ever, "I'll go even though I hate crowds, just so I can see her there, having fun, because it makes me feel happy, too. But she isn't-- she isn't shallow, though, not like other people at UCL. She's… passionate , and real, and she's smart, too . God , she's smart, in all the ways I'm not, but she doesn't make me feel dumb for not knowing what she knows, and she doesn't make me feel stuck-up for knowing things she doesn't, and I feel like she actually cares about me the same way I do for her and that is so hard to find--"

"Slow down , girl, breathe!" Roth interrupts, laughing deep in his chest, "You haven't even told me her name yet!"

Oh, god, she'd gone off the deep end, hadn't she?

The tips of her ears burn, and she can't look at Roth right now. No, if she does, she'll burn to ash for sure. She shakes her head up at the clouds, but she can't help the way saying the name makes her lips curl up, "Sam." Then, she corrects herself, "Samantha. Samantha Nishimura, but she likes to be called Sam."

She hazards a glance at Roth, out of the corner of her eye. He nods, puffs on his cigar, and says nothing.

"She's an American," Lara says, which makes Roth snort.

"Is that the part you were worried about?" he asks, sarcastically.

Lara laughs, but it's thin and a little nervous, "No, no, just…she's just so… different from you and I, Roth. She's…loud, and cheerful, and colourful, and- and she's got this haircut!"

"A haircut?" he scoffs, making a show of rolling his eyes, "Oh, lord, a haircut , how terrifying . I'm shaking in my-"

She shoves him again, "Don't be daft, Roth. It's a weird haircut. She has it shaved on one side, all the way down to her scalp, but long on the top and the other side."

"I know what an undercut is, girl," he responds with a snort. "I'm old , not blind and deaf."

Which makes Lara laugh, too, "I thought it looked so silly the first time I saw her. Then she started talking, and she was a yank too, and-- well, I just…like I said, she isn't like you or I. She likes loud noise and loud people. We shouldn't work, we shouldn't be able to be friends but- but it's like she's just perfect , Roth." That word sticks in her mouth, finds a home on her tongue. It feels right. "We…I guess we sort of balance each other. Like, we're alike in all the ways we need to be alike to be friends, but different in all the ways that make our friendship interesting." That said, she finds herself shaking her head, feeling like she needs…like she needs to say one last thing, "I've had a few friends before, Roth, but Sam…she's different , in a way I don't really understand."

She exhales, heavily. There. Finally, she's said her piece. She can sleep easier now. She just hopes Roth understands. She dares to look at him properly, only now. "Do you understand?"

He chews on his cigar, puffing another puff, "More than you probably think, Lara."

Which makes Lara frown. She brings her own cigar up for another puff. "What do you mean?"

He reaches up, pulls his cigar from his lips, and frowns down at it. An odd expression flickers over his face, one she hasn't seen in a long time. His eyes go distant, like he's focusing somewhere far, far away. "I met someone like that too, once."

Her brows raise, "What do you mean?"

His lips curl up, and an odd fondness she isn't used to seeing softens the rough lines of his face, "Someone's who's the same in all the right ways, and different in all the right ways too. The kind of person who makes every day a little bit brighter. The sort of person you don't only care about-- you respect ."

Lara opens her mouth, forgetting for a moment that she's holding a roll of tobacco there. She has to snap her hands up to catch it, and it's a miracle she doesn't burn herself. She turns to Roth, gawps at him. He's never talked about any friends like that before. Not outside of her parents.

Maybe…maybe he could give her some advice. She's so often broadsided by her own emotions, unsure how to process them. She's never really had many friends her own age, not friends as close as Sam, at any rate. His insight could be invaluable. "Well…what did you do? About this friend of yours?"

He blinks, then laughs. He tucks his cigar back into his mouth and glances at her. Something mischievous glints in his eye, "Well, me and her did some things I'm not gonna recount to you, Lara."

Oh, god .

" Roth, damnit, I said-"

But then his eyes harden, "I'm not foolin' with you, girl. That's how it went down."

Lara's jaw snaps shut.

Then, she reaffirms, "I'm not gay."

"I know that," he says, "If you say that's how it is, that's how it is. Believe it or not, I'm not trying to imply anything there. That's just what happened in my case, with someone who I also happen to be quite attracted to on top of whatever else I'm feeling."

Gross , she does not need to be hearing this of all things--

Wait.

Present tense .

Happen to be, not happened to be.

"You still have feelings for her?" Lara asks, suddenly finding the topic much less repulsive.

He side-eyes her, realising his mistake and knowing he's already lost. "...Lara…" he says, his voice low. A warning. The only defence he has.

She blinks, wide-eyed, "Is this something that's still going--"

"It's very complicated. Don't ask."

You know what, that is more than fair.

"Okay," she says, swallowing, and going back to smoking her cigar.

Well, come on now, she has to ask. "Is it…have I met her?"

He sighs.

But he's not a liar.

"Yeap."

That narrows the list significantly.

In fact, that narrows the list down to pretty much just one person.

"... Reyes?"

He doesn't answer.

But that's answer enough.

Noted. Wow.

That certainly explains a few things.

Lara nods. "Well, er…Sam and I aren't…you know. Romantically involved."

He snorts, "Yes, you do keep reiterating that."

The comment makes Lara bristle. "I just- I just want to be clear."

He nods in response, puffing another cloud of tobacco smoke into the air before pulling his cigar out and tapping the ash off the end. Lara mimics him. Half their cigars are burned away now. She can feel the nicotine in her, a very mild buzz, similar to alcohol.

"Is it normal to… feel something from this?" she asks, after a moment.

"From relationships, or from the cigar?" Roth asks back.

"The cigar," Lara clarifies.

He shrugs, "Yeah and no. It's your first time smoking one, so you'll probably feel a little something, but if you start feeling lightheaded or woozy, you're smoking too fast. Keep going like that, and I'll have to tote you down the mountain like a baby."

That makes sense, she supposes. She holds the cigar in her lips but doesn't puff on it for a moment, then takes it out to hold in her hand, away from her mouth or nose.

A cool crosswind blows across their faces, and Roth sighs. He rests the back of his head against the boulder behind him and looks out at the horizon as noon shifts into early afternoon. "Hey, Lara?"

"Hmm?" she asks, moving her knees a bit closer together and leaning forward to brace her forearms against them.

"You haven't had much experience with people your own age, have you?"

Lara licks her half-chapped lips. She supposes there's no sense in trying to preserve her dignity here, Roth already knows the answer to that question. "No, not really. The girls at my boarding school didn't like me much." She shrugs. It had bothered her as a child, but she's more than used to it by now. Still, it does sting a little to admit, so she takes a queue from the two best people she knows: she blunts the pain with humour, "You'd be surprised how uninterested posh tweens are in Maya myth."

Roth snorts a dry laugh in response, "Yeah, I would suppose so." But then, he sighs, "I guess that's partially my fault."

She blinks, turns to him. He has that distant look in his eyes again, "You were always in those bloody boarding schools with those same people who you didn't like, and when you weren't I was," he throws a hand out towards the horizon, "dragging you out to places like this."

She swallows thickly. He'd never talked like this before, and she doesn't like it much at all. " Roth," she strains, because she has to say something , "The state of my social life is hardly your fault, and you didn't drag me anywhere. I wouldn't have given up our trips for the world then, and I certainly wouldn't now." She tries to seek out his eyes, but he chews on the nub of his cigar and refuses to look away from the horizon.

But then he sighs, and his shoulders deflate a little, "Lara, look…this girl, she matters to you, yeah?"

Lara raises her chin, "Yes."

He nods, "Good."

And that's all he says, closing his eyes and nodding, puffing on his cigar.

Lara raises hers up and reclines against the boulder too, reaching up with her other hand to readjust the strap of her sweat-wicking tank. That done, she puts the cigar back into her mouth and fills her cheeks with spicy smoke. When she blows it out, it happens to be right at the same time as Roth.

And she feels her own voice bubble up with it, "I…don't know what to do next, though."

"What do you mean?" Roth asks back.

She shrugs as if she isn't sure what she means, but it's a lie. This has been nagging her for weeks. That's part of the reason why she's been kicking herself lately for hiding Sam from Roth.

"I…" she starts, pulling her cigar from her mouth and running her thumb up and down its length. It's cool at the back near where she puts her mouth, but closer to the ember, she can feel warmth radiating through the tobacco. She focuses on that instead of her words, "...I'm scared that I…bore her."

" Bore her?" Roth asks, raising a single salt-coloured eyebrow in incredulity, "You think you're going to bore her?"

Lara looks down at the landscape again, taking it in, and squirming. She swallows, "Yes."

He scoffs, “Lara Croft, what are you doing?"

Her brows furrow, "What?"

He tokes on his cigar, "What are you doing?"

She swallows, "I'm just trying to say-"

"No, no," he interrupts, holding up a hand, "I mean what are you doing right now?"

Huh?

Her jaw works, and she looks down at her hands before looking back up, "I…am talking to you?"

He scoffs, rolls his eyes, "Lara, you just climbed the sheer face of a mountain, now you're sitting atop it smoking a cigar with a professional mercenary."

Lara scoffs, "You aren't a mercenary, Roth!"

He finds her dismissal frustratingly amusing, chuckling throatily, "True enough, girl, but only barely. My point is, you're a Croft ." He wags his cigar through the air, leaving behind a wispy trail of smoke, "'Boring' is about as far from ' Croft' as a word can get."

Lara pouts at that, frowning at the horizon, "You always say that, Roth, as if that somehow means I'm not the kind of person who'd rather spend my weekend in a library than some club ."

"I'm saying ," he presses, gesturing with his cigar again, "that you're more than just bookish, Lara, and anyone worth their salt will see that. Don't pair your personality down to just one trait, it's bad for your health."

Though the point he makes does lighten her mood a bit, she frowns harder, mostly just playing, and argues, "So is smoking tobacco."

"Aye," he agrees readily, wagging his cigar between two fingers, "but at least this is fun."

Lara laughs a light, breathy laugh, "Fair enough, but regardless, I still worry that I'll bore her, and I don't know what to do about it."

He nods, and is silent for a long moment.

Lara waits, shifting on the boulder and smoking slowly, trying not to inhale any of the smoke, briefly taking a moment to appreciate just how far this little bundle of tobacco has travelled. She wonders if the people who grew and rolled it would have imagined it'd work its way to the opposite side of the planet. She wonders further at how marvellously far-reaching trade is in the modern age. Even after the establishment of widespread trans-Eurasian trade routes, a luxury as far-travelled as this would have still been the stuff of fortunes, not for casual sharing atop a mountainside.

Then, Roth breaks the silence with a quiet laugh, "Well, case in point, I guess. Do this."

"What do you mean?"

Roth gestures with his cigar again, "You want to show her that you aren't boring? Do this . Take her out on a long hike, climb a mountain, and sit with her for a while."

It's…well, it's an idea. As for a good one, Lara isn't sure she agrees, "Roth, please. She's- she's an extrovert. She likes parties and fashion trends and YouTube videos about makeup-- things like that. She wouldn't like- She doesn't like the outdoors. She barely even followed me on a hike."

"Has she actually told you that, or are you just assuming it because you think she only likes girly things?" he interjects, firmly.

Which gives Lara pause. She's never actually asked Sam, just assumed she wouldn't like Lara's hobbies, "Well, not exactly, but compared to the hobbies and interests I do know she has, the kind of hikes and climbs we do don't seem to be in her wheelhouse."

And Roth shakes his head, "Don't make assumptions like that, Lara. I say ask her, see how she responds. She may surprise you." Then, he laughs again, "And hey, if she says yes, you may get to see what she's really made of. Who knows, maybe she'll beat you up a mountain."

Lara feels a little mean that the thought makes her laugh, but it is what it is, "I do highly doubt that but…I'll consider asking her, I suppose."

He nods, and they fall silent again, smoking and sitting and thinking together.

And Lara shakes her head out at the horizon.

God, what a mess this whole conversation has been. Sure, she knows it had to happen at some point, and she's also totally aware of just how overdone it all is. Telling your only family member about a friend you made in Uni…well, Lara doesn't really have much experience with things like this, but she's pretty sure that it's the sort of thing that's supposed to be dropped over tea, between chats about the weather and football matches.

And even if a little bit of anxiety is warranted, given her social history and her worry that Roth won't like Sam for being so raucous, well, this much anxiety had certainly been unwarranted. This shouldn't have felt so much like a confession of guilt. Damn it, she's been so silly .

But, well, at least it's done with. At least now she can bring Sam up in their talks. Ask for advice or guidance, embarrassing or no. She's proud, but not that proud.

But then, Roth takes a particularly long drag from his cigar, puffing out a thick white cloud over the countryside. Lara watches it and allows herself to embrace the serenity of the scene for a few wonderful, brief moments. Then, with a gruff sigh that shows Roth's age, he speaks again, "You do know that I'd be fine with it if you were, right?"

Lara blinks, "If I were what?"

His posture is relaxed. Entirely, completely relaxed, as if it's nothing worth noting. He makes a gesture with his hand, and the word almost sounds wrong in that briny, northern accent of his, "Gay, Lara."

And again, she huffs, on the verge of getting defensive, but then he glances at her, through the corner of his eye, and she realises what this is. Why he's brought this up again.

So, instead of acting insulted, she meets his gaze, "What do you mean?"

He looks away, "You're young, girl. You've still got a lot of growing to do, and being out on your own has a way of showing you new parts of yourself." He brings his cigar back to his lips, pulling from it again, then saying directly as the smoke flows out of his mouth, "I want you to know that there isn't a thing you could find that would stop you from being my Lara." He continues, not letting her get a word in edgeways, waving his cigar and leaving a trail of faint white smoke behind it for the wind to carry away, "Whether that's relationships, mistakes, or new friends you think I won't like. You're my girl, Lara, and that won't change for anything-- and I mean that, anything ."

She purses her lips. Against everything, his words manage to turn her all soft inside, and she stares at him for a moment, trying to figure out what to say. Eventually, she settles with a far-too earnest reply of, "Thank you, Roth," but the sentiment is uncomfortably strong, so she blunts with a joke, laughing quietly and adding, "but I'm afraid I'll always be boring old Lara Croft."

He scoffs, sitting back again, and saying simply, "Now there's a bloody oxymoron if I ever heard one."

She shakes her head.

Then tucks her cigar back between her lips. It's slightly spicy.

She breathes in, then out-- careful not to draw in smoke.

And they sit there, on top of the world.

Quiet. Peaceful.

And far away from everything.

Lara closes her eyes, feels the crisp air on her cheeks mingling with the warmth of the cigar against her lips.

Roth is in her corner. That's what he's said, up here, today. No matter what, it's unconditional, he's here for her.

Maybe it's not an earth-shattering notion. Maybe it's not any sort of grand revelation.

But it's been a long few months at Uni.

And sometimes…

…sometimes it's just good to remind people.

"I love you, too, Roth," she says, quietly.

He chuckles at that, quietly.

Maybe they aren't the most normal family in the world, but…she wouldn't give it up for anything.

She reaches up and toys with the cigar Roth had given her.

No, for all their eccentricities, for as much as she misses her mother and father…no, she's happy.

She's happy.

She draws in a mouthful of sweet-spicy smoke, holds it, then blows it out slow.

She hopes Roth will like Sam.

She hopes Sam will like Roth.

But she knows she loves the both of them. Maybe it's too soon to say that about this girl she'd only met a few months ago, but she can feel it in her chest. She loves Sam, too.

…platonically, of course.

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