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It was hard not to feel at least some type of way about Roathe.
The kid, for example, was quick to dismiss him and quicker to avoid him. It was impressive, really, the sixth sense they seemed to have to navigate their way around the Sanctum Anatomica without ever bumping into its newest residents. The tension in them disappeared once they reunited with the Lotus, already there, waiting for them by the pools in her lounge with a smile and a hug for her child.
The Lotus herself did not take Roathe's terse carefulness around her to heart. If anything, she understood it, and the Drifter was glad to not be alone in their worries, even if the kid chose to turn a blind eye to it all. The Cavia were glad to have more people to talk to, though the Drifter was not looking forward to the day Marie and Tagfer sat down to properly talk. Loid, when not looming and hovering, tried his best to avoid Roathe's pointed stares.
For the Drifter, though, avoidance wasn't an option.
“A shame this Orokin invention does not work with Infested blood... I could do this in peace and quiet. Well? What are you waiting for?”
Meeting him, talking to him, looking at him and being faced with all of that personality was… a lot. Different than descending into his memories and the twists and turns his trauma made of them. Different than listening to Marie's accounts of his behavior, or even Roathe's own. Because Roathe was just… a man. He snarked, and complained, and nipped and bit back whenever he was poked.
"I take no responsibility for the corruption that happens to my memories as they are filtered through the Drifter's psyche. I do not want to hear anyone whining."
But he was just a man.
When they had first stumbled into the portal Loid led them to, they had frozen in their tracks like the deer Eleanor liked comparing them to so much.
Marie and Lyon had thankfully taken pity on them, thanks to Loid warning them of their visit in advance, but remained on guard until all the proper explanations and presentations could be made. And through the barrage of questions and demands and worries, the Drifter had kept themselves facing the only one not hounding them.
The one Marie later explained was on “house arrest”, so to speak. Orokin, Protoframe, Vice Regent Grand Carnus, Heretic of Xata, the Devil of Tau.
Lounging on a chair and looking bored out of his mind.
It was hard to reconcile that with the knowledge of what he was and what he did, the armies he led and the battles he won. And that was not to say that he was weak now, or a sad view. He still carried himself with pride, lounged in his chair like it was a throne, looked down his nose at Lyon and insulted Marie to her very bone.
But the Drifter was expecting something worse, and that was their own fault. They couldn't blame Roathe for not being the monster every Orokin had played the part of. Or maybe he had been, and they just hadn't uncovered his memories that far yet. Roathe was more than content to already don that costume, flaunt his devil horns and carry the damnation and hatred like a crown.
But the Drifter was willing to keep going. No matter how many times they failed, and died again and again and again. They had suffocated, bled out, burned alive and more, but come on, they were used to that! And if it helped someone else for once? It really was no problem.
“Third time's the charm, as they say? Have at thee!”
The Descendia was a walk in the park after thousands of long, long years in Duviri. They would even call it fun. They got to hear Lyon and Marie bothering Roathe while getting their face smashed into the ground by a million enemies, and Roathe never failed to at least make them snort inside the security of their Warframes with his responses.
"Nine! Is this what it was like for you in Duviri, Drifter? Endlessly, tirelessly, dying? Come, let us dance!"
It was so great and fun, that they somehow forgot what Duviri could really be like.
***
They stepped through the portal and right into an argument echoing through the walls of the cathedral.
Roathe had apparently successfully goaded Marie into a tirade in Gaullique, and Lyon, even hunched over the altar, still managed to sigh so deeply it looked like he had lost a match in the arena. Any other day, the scene would have the Drifter fighting to keep their smile down and rushing to help keep the small ceasefire they always barely managed to maintain at the crypt.
But the Drifter's mind was still reeling. Those memories were once again brimming at the surface of everything else they had managed to drown while the Angels’ siren songs reverberated in their head. In the depths, one Angel wore twisted faces it shouldn't, and called and begged them to follow with voices they had been forced to silence.
Still; they smiled, told their lips to quirk and their eyes to crinkle at their corners. It had fooled enough people for long enough, so much it was now an easy expression to fall into. Though when Marie hauled what was clearly an insult Roathe's way like one would haul a boulder, they didn't need to make that much of an effort to keep it in place anymore.
And Roathe, in the middle of rolling his eyes, caught sight of them; still standing by the portal's edge, and feeling suddenly put on the spot.
“Drifter!” he greeted, grand and performative. A king welcoming in a jester into the halls of his palace. “Just in time. Marie was just about to curse my entire bloodline down to their first single-celled microscope.”
Marie scoffed and busied herself with her bottles and trinkets, but they didn’t miss the small smile she threw them over her shoulder.
Feeling properly welcomed, the Drifter made their way deeper into the church. “And you… didn't say anything that warranted all that at all?”
“What could I possibly say to deserve such a hateful spiel?”
Lyon sighed again. His tone suggested the Drifter had missed a good one. “You not so subtly called us mindless cattle bleating and nipping at your feet like mad Kubrow. Whatever that may be.”
The Drifter shrugged, tilting their head Roathe’s way. “Well.”
Roathe waved it all away, ready to say something else, but then he stopped. He tilted his head back into his chair, looking down his nose at them.
He then gestured at their face and crooked his finger; a dignified come-hither, but somehow without the necessary theatrics. The Drifter followed until they stopped at his little corner of the crypt. Roathe’s latest book was resting on the intricate table, and many, many more books waited in piles to be read too.
In the face of Roathe’s expectant eyebrow raise, the Drifter lowered themselves, bending at the waist so Roathe could reach them. Having those claws come near their eyes was worrying at first, but Roathe turned his hand and traced below their eyes with the back of his nails instead, feeling along the puffy skin.
The Drifter locked their entire body down before they could do anything awkward or strange like... shiver.
The only times Roathe ever touched them were in the Descendia, when they killed each other.
And to be fair, for the quickest moment, Roathe seemed just as surprised to be touching them.
Hard to coincide.
"And what is this, now?" Roathe asked, angulating his voice in a specific way that made them feel like a bug.
Which was a damned weird thought to have.
"Ah, that." The Drifter chuckled airily, successfully rising again without falling back with the force of it. "Duviri,” they explained, awkwardly. “This specific spiral always leaves me a little worse for wear than the others. But I… need to go back from time to time."
Roathe’s brows furrowed. "Do you?" he drawled.
"Yeah, that place will get out of hand real quick if I don't visit enough." The Drifter smiled. They hid their teeth behind their lips once they realized. It definitely looked more like a grimace. "I'm sure it's a metaphor for something else my subconsciousness is throwing at me but I'm... tired, honestly. Too much brain power for that."
“A… metaphor.”
“You know the Dark Refractory, and everything we’re doing there? It’s kind of like that, but… by the end of it you heal the dragon instead of slaying it?”
Roathe's mouth did something between sardonic and genuine. They belatedly noticed the comparisons they made between Roathe and the fucking dragon. They blamed Eleanor for that one.
“Ah, yes. The book.” Roathe picked up his own book from the table, turning it this way and that. “The book you turned into a pocket universe.”
“It’s not exactly pocket sized but, yeah.”
Roathe’s deadpan stare gave them another little reason to smile. Just a little, as a treat.
“I’m just feeling under the weather, it’s all. We all have our days.” When they checked, Marie was still busy moving a big artifact—that just so happened to be a sword of some type—with a grip that spoke of restraint. Roathe also watched her with satisfaction clear in his face. “So… what do you do when you’re down?” they asked, before Roathe could push Marie into throwing some of her vials his way.
“Eat some delicacy or another. Something sweet.” Roathe shrugged. Elegantly, if that was even possible. “Or spar and ruin someone else’s day, for a change.”
Before they could keep gaping like a fish, barely managing to formulate in their own mind the question of “you like sweets?”, Marie had come up with a good enough of a comeback to draw all of Roathe’s focus to his favorite activity available: verbal sparring and the annoyance of his ‘wardens’.
The Drifter was once again content to fall back and watch it all go down, but in their mind, a little seed had been planted in fresh soil.
All those gifts they had sent to 1999…
"Do try a little harder than that!"
The next time they walked through the portal, Roathe's last voicemail was still twisting their heart every which way.
He had sounded so… sad. So defeated but still keeping up that particular veneer of his. They had grown used to seeing him as the lounging figure, unbothered by the derision and hatred surrounding him day and night, but when he posed philological questions or wrote down metaphor after metaphor, just begging to be seen and understood, it made the shadow he cast smaller; the tips of his proud crown of horns round and dulled.
When the recording ended, the Drifter packed themselves up and paid 1999 a visit. Aoi had mentioned something about sweets she wanted them to try if they were available that week, and it just so happened that a certain holiday was going on, they later found. Aoi and Amir were more than happy to help with their specific self-made mission.
Their steps were drowned out by Marie’s soothing singing and Loyd’s feather pen writing into his leather-bound journal. Old habits died hard.
The Drifter looked down at their hands, fighting back a cringe at the cute heart-shaped box. But it was fine. This specific representation of a heart didn't get to exist until way later, and the Orokin would never settle for anything anywhere this simple to represent emotions as deep as Stars Days was supposed to.
Friends gifted each other on Stars Days too, Auntie Ticker had said. They held on to that and treaded lightly deeper into the cathedral.
Roathe, unsurprisingly, wasn't up to entertain much other than the book in his hands. His tail laid still by his feet for once.
The Drifter didn't bother his contemplative silence. They stopped by his table, set down the box, and moved on to ask Lyon what new furniture he had managed to find for them this time. The gilded telescope he presented immediately caught their eyes, and Lyon received a nice pen that didn't ruin everything he wrote with blots when his hands eventually started shaking.
While they traded with Marie, the sound of unwrapping reached their ears, and the Drifter focused on Marie and the artifact she was gladly explaining about. They left her with a wave and a kubrow (“A wolf from the wolf? Drifter!”) floof, and more things to beg the kid for the next time they passed by the Dark Refractory.
Later, while they kissed Kalymos goodnight and checked KIM one last time before turning in for the night, Roathe's quick messages sent them off with a smile. Kalymos mocked them with a louder purr on seeing it.
Roathe:
They were, surprisingly, not poisoned.
And a couple minutes later, as they were already snuggled in with Kalymos’ purring head resting on their chest:
Roathe:
Thank you, Usurper.
"Mm, did that hurt? I do hope so… Well? Wake up! Again!”
Roathe:
Your little Kubrow gift has inspired the happiest of musical moods upon our sycophantic botfly.
Roathe:
I have half a mind to curse you out. But she has also turned most of her attention to positioning it in various places, or dotting it with jewelry, and conveniently forgets to preach my ears off.
Drifter:
Would you like a floof too?
Roathe:
Tempting.
Roathe:
But no. I do have an image to keep, and cuddling a little kavat will not do.
Roathe:
I do wish we could have some music here that did not impose such a constant tax on her voice. For her own sake, of course. But, oh well.
"Good form... nicely done."
The next time they were free, they stepped through the portal with a musichord.
“And what in the hells is this, now?” Roathe asked, glaring at the little holographic Octavia dancing on top of it.
“Music,” they happily explained. Pushing some books away, they deposited the musichord on Roathe's table and popped their back. For something so small, it acted like all the Quantum memory inside of it equated into its weight. They could feel Marie and Lyon’s curiosity on the new technology, but the two chose to keep their distance. “I downloaded… um. Almost everything I could think of? There's a lot for you to explore, if you feel like it, or…”
Roathe, for all his glaring, had quickly picked up how to use the technology as he flicked through title after title. They definitely must have had something just like it in the days of old and glory, they supposed. Probably less purple and more gold, though.
“...Or, there's also some imperial compositions we would hear and learn in the… yeah. I thought you would like those too.”
Strings sounded from the speakers. The Drifter hid their eyeroll well.
It was a calming, romantic tune: a slow tempo, soft strings and synthesizers and melodies. Roathe sighed and tilted his head, like a Kubrow wanting to hear something better. It brought their attention to his ears, and the shape of them, and the lighter rose they tapered into at their tips.
The Drifter smiled. Roathe turned to them before they could hide it.
“You must know a move or two, no?” he asked, quirking an eyebrow. When they couldn't formulate a response in the span of three seconds, Roathe opened his arms and splayed his palms, expectant. “Go on.”
The Drifter blanked. But the strings, in a section of crescendos, brought to mind gilded masks, twirling courtiers and multicolor clouds swirling in the, actually, endless skies. Unthinkingly, they lifted a hand, their palm facing Roathe. Some of the Hex might have ‘high-fived’ them.
Roathe huffed and mirrored them, though without touching. Had he pressed closer, his armored palm would probably have swallowed theirs.
“Demure.”
“I’m sorry, we didn't have many dance classes in the Zariman,” they grit out, fighting off embarrassment of the highest level because Marie and Lyon were right there. “I didn’t know we’d have a test today. I'm just going by what I read in that book, really.”
“Why, not to worry, then.”
Roathe’s hand easily swallowed their wrist. The move was already enough to stun them, since their body immediately locked up, ready for a fight—but he then pulled them forward. The Drifter stumbled and only didn’t fall by sheer practice with getting thrown around. They opened their mouth with a few select words to share, but Roathe chose that moment to spin them.
They could have been more graceful, but at least they didn’t fall on their face. Marie whooped and clapped from her own little corner as the Drifter finally found their footing again. “A little warning, please?”
“Since you asked so nicely,” Roathe smiled, his voice saccharine. In a blink, his smile dropped. “Spin.”
This time, with the swoop of strings, the Drifter was ready to focus on their feet and follow the direction Roathe threw—no, spun—them to next. When they stopped, Roathe stood by their side. They blinked. Roathe's armored arm linked with theirs.
“Pivot.”
Together, they spun and did a more graceful version of a march as one, following the swelling of strings and soft voices leading the melody. Roathe’s armor under their gloves wasn’t as blistering hot when he wasn’t trying to turn them into cinders. From this close, his profile was even more striking than usual. When Marie let out a gleeful laugh, the Drifter focused back on their feet.
“Two step, right.”
When they missed a cue, a little tap from the flat side of a sharp tail was all it took for them to change the foot they moved, or tilt another way, or stay and match Roathe's pace.
Roathe expertly led the dance with the ease one would breathe, and his face carried the easiest smile all the while, the one that crinkled the pronounced lines around his eyes. Marie, now hovering by Lyon’s table, spun herself in her own twirls and some upside-down swirls. Lyon, for his part, was content to drum his fingers on the altar while he still focused on his tomes.
It was some whim that had them spinning away from Roathe on their own, trying their best to embody as much of Gyra and what little they had ever managed to catch of her in the Zariman. It was a long shot, of course. But it wasn’t long before Roathe followed them, shadowing their movements with a lot more grace and pomp until they stood together again.
The Drifter opened their hands in a silent request, but when Roathe hesitated before he made to place his hands in theirs, they lifted both of their arms instead, smiling a light, teasing thing.
Roathe laughed but obliged, and spun in place as if their hands guided him. Graceful as anything, even with all that bunk.
From the altar, Loyd let out a loud curse in Gaullique as Marie successfully pried him away from the tome and into a subdued dance of their own, laughing as she spun and spun.
***
They didn’t need to worry about Marie and Lyon being bothered with the music filling their halls.
When they dropped by to visit, they sometimes caught Marie humming a familiar tune, by now ingrained into their mind until their fingers bled and their shawzin could strum its tune perfectly well. And Lyon, with the poise of someone ignoring a lounging predasite watching them through entertained, slitted eyes, sometimes took the initiative to approach Roathe’s side and poke and press at the buttons of the musichord until it played more of those soothing compositions.
The Drifter had a problem, and that problem had just read their message confessing that, hey, maybe they were starting to care about him in a different way than just… normally caring. About a friend.
Roathe was on the brink of an emotional breakdown, they needed to—to reassure him somehow.
Roathe's voicemails piled up with each new stone they turned in his memories. They learned things they kind of didn't want to, things they definitely didn't need to know, heard names they thought they could forget, got glimpses and different angles about things that would put the kid in a murderous mood. And with each voicemail, Nitokh’s name was becoming a new favorite word to curse out in their dictionary.
They slumped in their chair, shoved their face into their hands, and ignored Kalymos’ loud, smug, satisfied purring.
Sure, Albrecht. That was one way to make their heart grow a little more.
"When we wake, I'm drowning you.”
The Drifter was never one to back off.
They had lived many, many, many years, tortured at the whim of their own mind getting away from them, then crawled their way out of self-made spirals to freedom and Teshin still alive and well. They had hunted and killed Archons with nothing but a bow and the security of the Shadow’s aid should they misstep. They had crawled into the Helminth’s maw and into an entire mess that was not theirs, and pulled a solution out of clenched fists while bleeding out on the floor to fix it.
But when Roathe pressed an advance on their carefully maintained front, they found themselves falling back. When he stepped a little closer and they stumbled away into a safer distance, when his voice did that thing that was just… endearing and silly, when he smiled at them, sometimes flashing his fangs when he laughed so hard he threw his head back—
As much as Roathe had his fun batting them around, the Drifter didn’t reach for him. Roathe was like a kavat; big, growled, his tail said a lot about his state of mind.
And you waited for him to come to you.
The Drifter did not pity him, they knew it would break Roathe’s heart to be pitied. They knew how much it hurt too, the implication of being seen as weak when you were nothing but. But with Nitokh and all Roathe had confided in them, his feelings, his lack of agency—
It made it hard to not feel guilty instead.
They pretended they didn’t see Roathe noticing, didn’t catch that eyebrow raise, or the smile.
It was nothing. It was fine.
“On your knees. Where you belong."
It was not fine. They were fucked.
They had messed up at some point.
It was no surprise. Maybe during their chats, or maybe while talking face to face, or maybe it was something they didn't do instead of what they did. But the day was going very well, all in all.
Trusting their charge in the Drifter's care, Marie and Lyon had left to explore the depths of Entrati's extensive libraries at the behest of Loid and his quest for more useful things he could find and later exchange for Voca to do… whatever it was he did with them. The crypt, while quieter, didn't seem any emptier without the two there.
Roathe was a presence beside them. The Drifter kept a respectful distance from him without tripping into ‘acting like a stranger’ as Aoi put it, but even then the warmth emanating from Roathe’s body beckoned them closer. This wasn't the first time they got to spend a little while idling away with him, reading something, talking or just standing by the table while Marie and Lyon filled the silence for them. Now that they were alone, however, it was a little harder to ignore the little voice in their head telling them to reach for Roathe’s hand, or caress his hair and find out what it would feel like, or not step away when Roathe playfully flicked his tail at them.
They stayed right where they were, kept their hands to themselves, and kept their eyes away from Roathe’s tail, his face, his eyes, his nose and—
Roathe flipped through the pages of the latest book the Drifter had managed to find for him. It was a bestiary on deep-sea marine creatures in the System, they had been told. Roathe had felt a sudden curiosity about a different subject than usual, and the Drifter had not so subtly dropped everything they were doing to pester Ordis about where to find anything like that. In the end, Loid and the endless rows upon rows of books he knew like the palm of his hand had been their salvation.
And while almost all of it had already been flipped through, Roathe's attention still seemed to be elsewhere. They saw it in the way his brows furrowed, his eyes stared holes into the pages; in the way his hand, the one not gripping the book, drummed sharp claws into the table. Most telling, though, was his tail cutting arcs in the air behind him.
Flick, swish, flick. The Drifter focused on their own tablet, reading through reports of the damage their latest skirmish had left on the Railjack. One day—they swore, glaring at the book in Roathe’s hand in the corner of their eyes—they would ask Roathe how he read those things, where each page was just a different eyeball staring back at you. But they didn't feel like making an idiot of themselves today. Roathe was being unusually amicable, letting them stay when he could have shooed them away for some rare moments of peace, alone and in blessed silence for once.
It could have something to do with their last round of messages on KIM. And their impromptu confession a few chats past. That, or Roathe was just that hardheaded and didn't want to admit he liked the company, regardless of them being zealots, a very chatty giant bird, or a void-born anomaly who braved the hells of his mind.
Flick. Flick. Flick…
Cephalon Cy very politely demanded they upgrade the turrets and armor of the ship before they were downed into an early grave by the smallest of cosmic drizzles. The Drifter made a note of their next acquisitions with a pang in their heart. So many materials they did not have...
“I need you to be honest with me.”
The Drifter pulled themselves away from the screen with a start. They turned the tablet off and leaned into the table, facing Roathe's proud and distracting profile. “Alright?”
Roathe snapped the book closed, then delicately placed it down with a thump. He nudged it with his fingers; to the left, to the right, a soft tap on the bottom half so it laid perfectly straight.
“Am I so disturbing a sight?” he asked, with the subtlety of a careening carriage. “Do I disgust you? Is it the skin and the armor, or the tail? Do you fear getting burned and cut?”
His voice, quiet and level, managed to make them startle like a bomb had gone off.
“What?” The Drifter asked, still faced with Roathe's stubborn profile and downturned eyes. “Wh—No, no! You’re—you’re very—I, uh. I’m sorry for being forward? But you are very much handsome and just… wow? Where did this—”
“Handsome and… ‘wow’. Noted,” Roathe repeated, unimpressed, by the cant of his brows. “And you will not touch me, because?”
The Drifter found themselves struggling to breathe normally at the simple word. Touch. Their mind supplied more than enough ideas of what that would entail.
“You… you want—” They floundered, staring at the table and Roathe's fingers, still playing with the book and—oh, okay. No. Just the table. “I don’t know how?”
Roathe huffed, in that particular little way that meant they had said the wrong thing. The Drifter reached for him immediately. Their hand landed on his armored wrist and saved the book from any more prodding.
“No, look." They lowered their voice and lowered their head too, trying to capture Roathe's eyes for this. "You are not a tea cup. You can very much kill me if I do something you don’t like, I know that, and I trust you to also cuss me to an early grave if I do something that hurts you."
They didn't want to be just another Nitokh in Roathe's life. It wasn't that tall of an order, but by now, they knew how hurt he was, could imagine how deeply each little crack she managed to scratch into his carefully molded armor probably went, and the thought of even accidentally reminding him of what he lived through the smallest miscalculations...
Roathe was still looking down, at where they connected now. Just as well, they despaired in their mind, keep a respectful distance to try and make sure Roathe was comfortable and doesn't feel like just a piece of meat… and then give him a whole other type of complex!
The Drifter didn't let themselves flinch away. They took a deep breath and mumbled their way through saying, "But… you know what happened in the Zariman.”
“Yes.”
“I was a child then.” A scared child, eager to forget everything and escape to a wonderful world where nothing truly bad could ever happen. And yet, they still went back from time to time, for the same reason. “And... then I got to grow up in Duviri with all its... charms, and after finally managing to leave with some help, I stumble into a system controlled by a tyrant and Archons to hunt and avoid. And the Lotus almost killed me more than once.”
Roathe's fingers flexed. His claws dug into the table, letting out a tiny sound where the sharp points met wood. “Indeed.”
Okay, maybe not mentioning Ballas and Margulis would be a better idea when they were skirting around this kind of problem.
“But after that,” they braved on, “I get to have a few moments of peace in the orbiter with the kid and Umbra, until Albrecht goes and creates more problems. Boom; now I’m responsible for that time and those people too, who are constantly under attack.”
Roathe’s eyes flicked from their hand to their face. “From one battlefield to the other,” he patiently contributed.
“Yes. And then you three show up and Loid messages us about our newest headaches, because this time, it’s not just me who’ll go trudging into deep waters—”
A metallic sound reached their ears. With a start, they realized they had been tightening their hold on Roathe's wrist. Or, the bracelet of his armor. They loosened their fingers with an apologetic dip of their chin. “Okay, so, all this blabbering is just to say: I—I don’t know, Roathe! I didn’t get to live or learn about… socializing or… or romance while being executed! The book was for children, then Duviri became a painful game of kavat and kuaka and then a big therapy session, alright? I’d rather get decapitated hanging upside down again than ask the Lotus, or Teshin, or… or the Hex for advice!”
The crypt stayed silent once they finished their little outburst. Shame crept up their entire body until it consumed them, and the portal, teasingly swirling by the exit they wanted very much to run to, was the place they chose to face instead. “I… I’m not disgusted, Roathe. Disgust is the last thing I feel about you.”
…Sometimes it brings me peace to think that if even that lord of depravity can find a companion, there is hope for the rest of us, hm? Ha!
…Why is it then, that in all great fables, those who commit The Greatest Evils are left to rot alone?
…Is there some place in your heart that has come to think fondly of me?
Was it too much to hope that maybe this conversation was skirting around a very specific thing? They hadn’t once considered that maybe Roathe could also feel something for them. And wasn't that a flaw of theirs again? Putting him on some kind of pedestal, incapable of feeling something like infatuation or… or love for them?
Or Roathe had just noticed their sudden aversion to staying more than a proper distance away from him and it ticked him off. Considering the way he described his new body in their messages, they could see why he would be upset.
Damn it. Well used to bending their head for the executioner's blade, the Drifter leaned their weight on the table and waited.
Roathe's pensive hum was quiet to their ears, but they could still feel it, alright. Like thunder. Like an atomicycle. Like Kalymos purring when she got the attention she deserved. They knew they felt like purring when Roathe settled a careful hand on their back.
“And so you are just… adrift.” Roathe smirked when they turned away from the portal to glare at him. “Keep giving me that look and you’ll learn a thing or two.”
Back to the portal their eyes went. “Yes, yeah, okay. I’m completely out of my depth. But… I know I like you, and I want to see you happy, and I’m more than ready for whatever that takes.” Heat filled their face again, but they took comfort in Roathe's hand, still there, settling on their shoulderblade, warm even through their own, milder armor. “But I don’t want you to pick up the slack, Roathe. I don’t want this to be one-sided.”
“It already isn’t.” The hand travelled upward, tickling the back of their neck and staying there. “I have lived many lives and many trifles, and gotten wounds that will probably never heal into scars. But you already know about all of it, you have seen me at my lowest, reduced to the point of begging and lashing out, and you are still here. Isn’t that all that I can ask for and more? And all I have to do is be patient and help nudge you along?”
“When you put it that way…”
“I am certainly not dismissing you. I know you learn quickly.” Roathe's hand soothed them with soft caresses. “So all this distance was just your attempt at... what? A demure courtship?” Roathe said it like the word was foreign on his tongue. Maybe it was, when applied on him. But then his eyes suddenly widened, and he shook his head with a smile. “Ah, I see. The gifts, the conversations, the probing, the declarations…”
The Drifter fought off the need to squirm—because, yes? They had been courting him, hadn’t they? Almost a textbook definition of it. At least in the books they were allowed to read in the Zariman. “And if it was?”
“I would say that I am charmed. Terribly so.” Roathe tilted his head, holding their eyes. “And that by Orokin standards, this courtship has been happening for long enough.”
Their heart did a weird little somersault move Marie liked doing a lot. “Sorry?”
“Don’t be.” Roathe’s face came just a little closer as he leaned in. They didn’t know his voice could be that soft. “It’s good we got somewhere today, isn’t it?”
And then he was pulling away, putting some distance back between them.
Roathe smiled innocently at their confused blinking and turned back to his book, handling it with a lot more care. He also went right back to the first pages.
The Drifter laughed under their breath but followed Roathe’s lead, settling down once again and turning the tablet back on. They still didn't have all of those materials, but the thought of going out there hunting for it didn't seem so exhausting anymore.
It did feel a lot better not to have that current of tension in the room. The Drifter breathed easier, felt their shoulders sag, let their weight rest on the table. They turned their head to watch Roathe actually get invested in his book, his brows furrowing at whatever he read or saw in that eye, now secure in the knowledge that they could and Roathe wanted to be seen and wanted and… and touched.
Their eyes fell to the hand between them Roathe kept resting on the table. Dancing with him had been one thing with his armor as a barrier, and feeling his touch on their skin just now had been… really nice, but just… holding his hand?
Roathe was either genuinely engrossed in the book or letting them save some face when he didn’t react to them sidling closer.
While they focused on their stealth, Roathe's chest revved with a loud purr, so suddenly they almost startled away, mistaking it for a growl. But Roathe still focused on his book, even if the corner of his mouth ticked up and the hidden smile showed in his eyes.
Once close enough to feel the heat of his body again, they channelled as much of Roathe's own nonchalance as they could and faced the tablet. Carefully, slowly, they set their hand close to Roathe’s. A little nudge, and their finger almost touched his—
The contact had Roathe freezing like he had been shocked. Along with a subtle warmth, the Drifter felt the whispers of his tail subtly angling towards their torso. It would’ve been a quick death, all in all.
They followed the warmth of it lowering, moving down their back and legs, until it settled loosely around their ankle. Roathe's chest rumbled again, and his tail brushed against them in a way they would call apologetic. They could only think of a Kubrow nudging the hand they had snapped at.
They both looked up from their hands at the same time.
The Drifter didn't care if their smile was too dopey, or if ‘hearts’ showed in their eyes or however the saying Aoi liked went. Roathe's smile wasn't anything like his sarcastic sneers or the baring of teeth they got to see when they faced each other in his mind. They wanted nothing more than to burn the sight in the back of their eyelids, keep it close to the warmth in their chest beating along with their heart. He was just so... beautiful, so handsome and...
Lost in their mind, too busy admiring Roathe's face, it somehow escaped their notice when he moved closer.
The Drifter blinked, and the book was once again closed and resting on the table. The hand on theirs was not the same it had been, and now rested over theirs instead of side-by-side. The Drifter looked up again with a question in their eyes, but the tail lingering by their feet wrapped around their ankle and pulled, just enough to have them turning and pressing both of their hands to the table, catching themselves before they fell.
They righted themselves, but seeing as Roathe was still there and coming closer, they backed up until the table didn’t let them move any more, the edge digging into their lower back. So Plan B was leaning into the table and crossing their arms, affecting a ‘cool pose’, as Amir would have put it. With that secured, they tilted their head back and met Roathe's eyes with the same question still at the forefront of their expression.
The hand they had once touched came down onto the table by their side, effectively boxing them in. Roathe held their eyes when he reached past them, for some reason choosing to move his hand under their arm to do it, which left that hand up in the air and aching to reach forward to touch his shoulder, or his face, or trace those lovely lines in the corner of his eyes.
With a rustle of sound, they realized he was searching for a book from the stack behind them.
They almost turned around to help him because that specific stack he had built was a hazard and only hadn’t fallen and brought all the microscopes down by some miracle, but Roathe was really stretching to get it, and his chest plate was that close, shy of pressing against their front and that was—a lot. Very warm. In the inherent chill of the crypt, he was very warm. Lots of clinking and jiggling too, from the chains at his waist. The Drifter floundered, lost on what to do, where to put their hands or even where to look.
Roathe still watched them, hovering closer than ever, so much they felt the puffs of his breath against their skin. His eyes were the purest, softest silver, and it contrasted so nicely with the dark sclera…
“What…” The Drifter finally managed. “What’s going on.”
“Hm?” Roathe raised his brows. “I am being patient,” he said, and as he pulled back with a book in hand, he used its gilded corner to tilt their chin up. “I will gladly lead the dance, Drifter. But it is you who must dictate the pace.”
They gave in and set their hovering hand on Roathe's shoulder, close to his neck. “You know I don't have the best tempo.”
“I wouldn't mind.” Roathe tilted his head, encouraging them when they moved their hand to the nook of his neck, pressing and caressing the dark armor there with their thumb. “Not at all.”
It took the smallest nudge to pull Roathe closer. He went willingly, dipping his chin and leaning down. Their heart could have beat its way out of their ribcage if it wanted, but the Drifter smiled back at the quiet rumbling in Roathe's chest and leaned in—
The portal sputtered and whirled, breaking the quiet of the crypt and announcing the arrival of company. The Drifter startled, but caught themselves before they could push Roathe away or phase right through the table and probably through the floor itself. At the entrance, Marie was happy about something, and her voice carried beautifully in the silence. Lyon responded with quiet hums.
“...How lucky is this find, Lyon? Oh, and how pretty! Did you see Monsieur Loid’s face? He—oh.”
Marie stopped, floating by the many chairs, where she set down her many tomes and one curious statue. The Drifter smiled awkwardly and waved at her and Loid's high eyebrows. It could have been worse. They could have arrived a few minutes later.
Roathe's rumblings finally tipped into growling territory. He rolled his eyes and looked away, but also didn't move from where he pinned them to the table.
The Drifter pressed the hand they had pulled away in their scare back on his arm. It successfully pulled Roathe away from his vengeful scheming, and he looked down again with a cocked brow.
Now, the Drifter was no courtier skilled in the arts of seduction or any such thing. But when they smiled and let their fingers dance over Roathe's arm, they were pretty sure the message translated well enough. Later.
Roathe’s high brow fell again. He blinked. And then he smiled; a sharp smile they were already familiar with but that had their heart skipping a beat in a whole different way with him standing so close.
That damned book was still in Roathe's hand, and switching hands, he opened it again and held it up, hiding them both away from Marie and Lyon's eyes. That specific book thankfully did not have eyes in its pages, and the Drifter rose to the tip of their toes and surged forward before their chest could explode with so many feelings and warmth and—and love.
Just like they had imagined, had dreamed of, Roathe's lips were soft, full and warm. That first, impulsive peck was sweet and short, though enough to have them weak at the knees, and glad to have the table holding their weight.
Sharp claws carefully cradled their jaw, tilting their head and angling their mouth when Roathe pressed forward and was every bit the commander.
Their ears picked up the sounds of many things falling to the floor and a curse in Gaullique; definitely Lyon, and more Gaullique but rapid-fire and excited. But they were a little busy keeping up with Roathe's lips and hands and purrs and growls.
The crypt wasn’t so quiet anymore, but the Drifter couldn't complain. Not with their arms so full of such a complicated, difficult, infuriating and lovely man.