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“Theres a cat…in my apartment.”
Neve paused at the threshold, already releasing her pinned-back hair with one hand while the other tossed a bundle of newspapers onto an ever-growing pile on the floor. Rook made a mental note to check for a new edition of the Randy Dowager when Neve was done with them.
“You should be a detective with those observational skills,” Rook teased, putting down her whetstone and her weapon to follow Neve’s gaze to the white cat stretched out in the windowsill, soaking up the last bits of sun before it dips below the water and ushers in another night in Dock Town.
Neve stepped toward the window and sighed, her hand going to her hip. Rook had been on the receiving end of this look so many times she could practically hear Neve’s thoughts. ‘Oh, this is going to be trouble.’ But Rook expected this and was confident she could work her magic.
After all, Rook was trouble and Neve hadn’t kicked her out on the street…yet.
“Have you been smoking Elek’s special pipe, Rook? I can’t have a pet! I can barely remember to feed myself. And I’m constantly running around chasing leads, working cases, spending nights at the lighthouse…”
Neve let that last thought hang in the air a moment. If she thought she was going to distract Rook with thoughts of nightly activities, she was severely underestimating Rook’s stubbornness.
“Lucky for you, I’m sleeping with the boss of Dock Town’s foremost crime syndicate. There’s dozens of Threads patrolling the streets at all hours, who I know would be happy to check in on a four-legged member of their crew.” Rook picked up her whetstone and resumed sharpening her weapons, as if the matter was settled.
“Rook, I cannot ask the Threads to check on my cat. I’d hope they have more important things to be doing,” Neve replied, unfastening her leather coat and making her way across the tiny studio apartment to her wardrobe.
“The Shadow Dragons take care of Viper’s dog for him all the time. Tarquin told me everyone considers it the best part of the job,” Rook countered, trying to keep her eyes fixed on her weapon and pointedly not look over as Neve shrugged off her coat and began unbuttoning her top. Maker, this woman is good.
“Taz isn’t really Viper’s dog. He just sort of wandered in one day and never left. Reminds me of someone else I know…” Neve came over and leaned on the arm of the sofa where Rook sat. She was in her casual clothes now, and Rook could swear there was an extra button undone. Not one to back down from a challenge, Rook put her weapon away and turned to face Neve.
When she met Neve’s eyes, she was frozen by a sense of deja-vu, remembering a time Neve came into her room at the Lighthouse and leaned over her sofa just like this, her face hovering above Rook’s with a sly smile. Rook knew how easy it would be to reach out and pull Neve down on top of her, forgetting all about cats and Threads and Shadow Dragons. Forgetting about the setting sun and the passing of time, the cases unsolved and the people not saved. Neve’s touch was like a gateway to somewhere far away, where nothing existed but their need for each other. A world where her mouth on Rook’s could save the world. Could save them both.
But Rook was just now starting to believe that they will have time for all of that. Right now, she just begged her hands to keep to themselves and not betray her in this battle of wills.
“Okay, well if Taz gets to decide where he lives, let’s leave it up to the cat. If she goes and doesn’t come back, then that’s her choice and I’ll respect it,” Rook reasoned, throwing her hands up in mock defeat.
“Oh, you know perfectly well she won’t go,” Neve sighed. She stood up and walked around the cluttered coffee table, collapsing on the sofa and kicking papers aside to put her feet up. “I don’t even like animals.”
“That’s not true,” Rook said a little more forcefully than she intended. Neve turned her head to meet Rook’s eyes, a meaningful look lingering between them. It still hurt, losing Davrin and Assan. Rook thought back to the time in the Lighthouse she caught Neve sneaking treats to Assan – the earnest way Neve laughed as she reminisced on her childhood bedtime stories, the lurch Rook felt in her heart as she realized just how desperately she wanted to be one of the people who sticks for Neve…
Rook was so lost in the memory she startled a little when Neve reached across the sofa to grab her hand and give it a soft squeeze of understanding.
While Neve’s version of grief usually involved closing the gates of her heart, protecting it from pain, Rook was a very different case. She never met a street cat she didn’t stop to pet, and when she fed this one some fish from Halos’ stand and it followed her here, there was no world in which Rook could turn it away. Rook had a habit of adopting strays everywhere she went, Neve supposed it was only a matter of time before one of them was an actual stray animal.
“So. We have a cat, huh?” Neve smirked. Rook’s stomach leapt pleasantly at the casual use of “we.” They were alive. They were together. They had a future. She would never take those things for granted.
“We have a cat,” Rook smiled, rubbing her thumb over Neve’s hand. “I’ll concede the naming rights to you. Since I’m the one who let her take up residence in your windowsill.”
Neve leaned over and kissed Rook gently. So gently that Rook was sure she was still enjoying the slow and drawn-out seduction game she’d been playing ever since she stepped into the apartment and unpinned her hair. Rook, however, was done playing. She pulled Neve fully over into her lap, deepening their kiss until Neve pulled back, looking down at Rook, her hair falling around Rook’s face. The corners of her mouth twitched up in a coy grin. “You know, when we fought The Formless One, I did think in the back of my mind, ‘That would be a great name for a cat’…”
At that, Rook flipped them over until Neve was pinned under her on the sofa, eliciting a quiet laugh of surprise from neve. “Maybe we’ll need to sleep on that one…” Rook said as she started working on the few clasped buttons of Neve’s shirt.
“Oh, you know me, wasn’t planning to get much sleep tonight,” Neve sighed, unable to hide the effect of Rook’s fingers brushing her navel as they worked her buttons.
She finally let herself go, grabbing Rook by the neck and crashing her mouth into hers. At the end of the day, when her pessimistic thoughts have run their course, when the small wins have come or gone, when the blue street lamps have flickered to life in the streets of Minrathous, Neve knows that Rook will be there with her. And that’s starting to feel like all that matters.