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“Tarquin’s going to come by for these later. Be a dear and hold them for me while I get this,” Neve says, passing Rook a sheaf of papers while she works to undo the wards on her apartment door.
Rook nods, fanning herself with the pages while she looks around. “You never mentioned your hatbox was a stone’s throw from the Swan,” she says, resting her forearms on the rickety rail to peek into the alley below.
A pair of rough-looking men trailing a drunkard look up and meet her eye. Rook grins and wiggles her fingers at them, and the pair seem to think better about whatever they were planning, turning to head back toward the docks.
Neve gets the door open behind her. “Get in here and stop making friends,” she says, chuckling as she takes the papers back from Rook.
Rook follows her inside and as the door shuts behind them, she realizes that hatbox may have been generous. The whole place could fit in the kitchen of the Shop. There’s a hotplate in one corner, and a partition screen near the door is struggling to hide a small bed from view. The far corner is a more familiar sight - a small cluttered desk in front of a wall covered in paper and string, and that’s where Neve is heading.
Rook takes off her weapons and leans them by the door. “So he didn’t say when he’ll be by, exactly?”
“He just said ‘later’, so you might as well get comfortable. Unless you have somewhere else to be.” Neve is facing the desk and working her coat off and Rook takes the opportunity to watch how the pieces come apart. There goes the belt, the coat, the ascot - and then Neve is carefully working the fascinator out of her hair but still pulling a few strands loose.
“Perish the thought,” Rook replies in a rough whisper. Her fingers itch and she wants nothing more than to ask if she can take Neve’s hair down out of the bun. Does a kiss on a dock put her there yet? Before she can decide, Neve’s own fingers are buried in the mess and pulling out pins.
Rook swallows. She tugs her outer leathers off and finds a peg for them next to Neve’s coat on the rack and tries not to think about how they look together. She leans against the frame of the window and looks out into the evening.
It takes her a bit to realize what she’s hearing from below. “You can hear the music from the Swan here? All the time?”
Neve leans against the other side of the window. “Sometimes you can hear music. Sometimes you just hear a bunch of drunks who think they can sing.”
Rook grins. “Hey, they’re probably better than me.” She looks over at Neve, expecting a laugh, and is startled to see her hand halfway to Rook’s arm. Neve pauses at the look on Rook’s face.
“Grass on your sleeve,” she says, picking it off the red fabric. She pulls her hand back and this time Rook listens to the itch in her fingers - she reaches up, slow enough that Neve can pull out of reach if she wants, and wraps her fingers around the other woman’s.
Warm, Rook thinks. She feels silly for being surprised. She jerks her head down toward the Swan, now bathed in dusk and an evening in full swing, and shifts her hand to lace her fingers through Neve’s - but when she tries to pull the arm closer, Neve holds firm. Rook wonders if she’s gone a step too far until she sees the small smirk playing on Neve’s face.
“This isn’t how you ask a girl to dance,” Neve chides softly.
Rook laughs and hopes it sounds natural. “Of course! Forgive me. Miss Gallus, would you do me the honor of letting me step on your feet in your own apartment?”
Neve gives a snort and takes a step forward, close enough that Rook can rest a hand on her waist and give their joined arms a more comfortable bend. As they begin to move side to side, Rook shifts closer, until she’s able to slide the hand at Neve’s waist to the small of her back. There’s a half-second where Neve seems to freeze at the contact.
“Too much?” Rook keeps her tone light, her grip loose, but her heart is pounding and she’s remembering every girl who’s ever told her not to rush and that she needs to calm down and - oh. Neve’s laughing.
“Most dance partners just get nervous getting this close. Me stepping on their feet has some larger consequences than them stepping on mine,” Neve replies, nodding down at her prosthetic.
Rook almost laughs in relief and it shakes her tongue loose. “I mean, that sounds like a skill issue. I just feel where your weight’s going and I don’t put my foot there, it’s not that different from fighting.” She doesn’t fight the grin this time as she moves her arm the rest of the way around Neve’s waist.
Neve’s eyebrows raise at that. “So you’re saying you could take me?”
“In a fight?” The words are out of Rook’s mouth before her brain can sort through them and her loose tongue is charging ahead, now. “No, Neve Gallus, I couldn’t take you in a fight, but I’d have an ice time trying.”
Neve swats Rook’s arm lightly for the joke, but her expression’s shifted. Her eyes have narrowed a bit and the corner of her mouth has tilted just enough that Rook has the odd feeling of being a nug in crosshairs. Neve closes the space between them - her free arm is reaching around Rook’s shoulders, the tips of their noses are brushing, and her next words are in a voice that rattles Rook’s thoughts to pieces.
“And if it weren’t a fight, Trouble?”
A heartbeat.
It’s the space of a heartbeat before Rook moves. Both of her arms go around Neve’s waist as she pushes their lips together. It’s a warm press, almost embarrassingly chaste, and she feels Neve grin against her mouth before murmuring “Cute.”
And that’s like a match dropped on oil, somehow.
Rook puts her hands back on Neve’s waist and pushes the other woman’s back against the wall as gently as she can manage in her eagerness, and she’s dimly aware of Neve’s voice breathing “Well now” before Rook’s mouth is against hers again, but this time it’s hard and hungry. She feels Neve’s hand move into her hair, pulling her close and holding the back of her head, inviting her to push.
So Rook pushes. She pushes out the space between them, pushes her leg between Neve’s thighs, wants to push this as far as Neve will let her take it, wants -
- wants to scream at the sharp knock from the door.
Neve pulls her arms back, covering her mouth with a hand and muffling a laugh that seems to say “How are you surprised?” Rook puts her palms on the wall on either side of Neve’s shoulders and steadies herself with a deep breath.
“Think I could take him in a fight?” Rook asks as another knock sounds through the room.
“Not over my carpets you can’t,” Neve laughs, giving the other woman a push toward the door.