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This is Rosita. I'll hit you back when I can.

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She's not a soft woman; she's not as hard as she's had to become, either, though. She watches him, holding the coffee, smelling it, this thing that's become such a luxury that she can't even really tell if it's good or not anymore except it's better than what's been served in the cafeteria when she's bothered getting it there.

She doesn't smile, but she does sigh, does notch her chin at the refrigerator.

"Let's try it with the milk, then. Then sugar, see if it does anything weird."

"Alright." He opens the fridge. It's bare, for the most part, save a few bottles in the back, dark colored like beer. He brings out a small carton of milk and the sugar from the cabinet, placing them on the counter for her.

"Was this something you did before - drink coffee like this?"

Rosita is... friendly with Astarion. She's learned not to investigate too deeply into what a vampire might have in their refrigerator.

She steps over to set the mug back down on the counter anyway, and picks up the milk, turning it over in her hands for a moment.

"Yeah. I liked cinnamon and cream in mine though. Then black, then -" She shrugs.

"Those of us that are left aren't really picky, mostly. You should know he'll be happy with whatever you put in front of him."

Cinnamon. He's certain Archer has some in his kitchen. He needs to remind himself to ask.

"I know. There's coffee in the dining hall. I want to try something new here. He - well, this is true of so many people - deserves to have something more than the bare minimum. Our time here is short. Whatever comes next may mean that he goes back to black coffee, or no coffee, or nothing. While he's here, while this place is - as it is - he should experience at least some good."

"Yeah. I just mean -"

She feels how she wants to get angry again, or rather since she hasn't really stopped, to just... be a dick. That's not what she wants though. He's right: Jesus does deserve something nice, so she focuses instead on how the milk cloud roils into the dark of the coffee.

"I just mean the fact you think that at all will mean a lot. The effort is worth so much more than the end product. So don't stress."

He ducks his head a little as a nod. "Thank you, Rosita. That - helps, actually. I appreciate it. I haven't been with a human in a long time and I - do want him to feel loved."

He leans on the counter again.

I do want him to feel loved.

Rosita doesn't trust anyone here, and has no interest in trying. Not really. But Jesus is from home, Jesus is someone she already knows, someone she does trust has already chosen to trust. And he's talked about similar themes with her about this man.

She tries another cautious sip with the milk, flashes a thumbs up, and considers.

"Do you? Love him?"

"Yes, of course," he says with no hesitation. Love comes easily to Godric now. It's something he's had to work for, something he's had to want. There is vulnerability in it, of course. There is always the chance that he could be hurt, but he doesn't think too much about that any longer.

The pain is only proof that love had been genuine, and that's the feeling he's chasing.

"I know that he holds himself back, and that's fine. I know that he's been hurt. I know little about your world, but I know that relationships are hard fought and difficult to maintain for a thousand reasons. I am grateful for what he can give, and I will do the same in return."

Love used to come easily to Rosita - and she was willing to suffer for it to have it, willing to work for it. Anything good, anything worth having, is painful and hard.

Now it just hurts. Now she wants nothing that even looks like it, is not willing to risk it, but she watches him anyway.

"You have a partner though," she points out. "And someday, you'll leave here, I'm assuming."

"I do. Archer. We're - companions. We've been together a while." He leans back. "We have a home by the ocean. I've told Jesus that he's welcome to come, but he won't accept. We both know it. My life is - quiet. Peaceful. Each day is much like the one before."

He lets out an unnecessary breath.

"That isn't the life he wants."

That's not, she thinks, why he won't come. She's not going to say that though. Not to Godric.

"Seems like a difficult thing to be up against, partners with a life together. He says you have tattoos older than the Roman empire. You say you've not been with a human in quite some time."

Seems pretty novel. Pretty short lived.

He nods. "My ink is from my village. When my people were called Gauls. I have - a brand from the Romans, when I was their slave."

Godric links his fingers together in front of him, thinking. "I don't know what you mean by - 'up against,'" he adds.

She shrugs, stirring sugar into the coffee, trying that too.

God, it's so fucking nice to have these things again.

"Maybe give it a good think," she suggests. "That was like, France, right?"

He knows what others have said and he knows what he believes, but he's never noted anything amiss. Strange, but he makes a mental note to talk with Jesus again very soon, in case he's missed something. It might go well with the coffee.

"France, yes. I don't remember the exact place. My human memories are spotty, and it's difficult to put modern day geography on my village when all I know is that there was a small river or stream that led to the ocean. And it was close enough that Julius Caesar found us a threat."

"Yeah, well, by all accounts Julius Caesar was a dickhead, but I probably don't need to tell you that."

It's one thing to just... be aware that Astarion is over two hundred years old, but he's from a completely different world, so she can just take him at face value. This, though, is history she knows.

"I can't even wrap my head around what that must be like."

"It was hell," he says plainly, looking past her, over her shoulder. "If I'm very honest. When Jesus talks about having two different points in his life, the before and the after, that's - that's something I understand. Only the world didn't change suddenly, I changed suddenly. But there was the before, when I was a child who liked to eat apples and was chased by old women away from the berry vines, and the after, when I would follow the soldiers of war, picking off the ones who wouldn't make it and hating the world and everyone in it."

"There must be an after after too," she comments.

"You don't seem to hate the world and everyone in it now."

Or he's hiding it very well, which she's seen before, which is why she's still not able to talk herself out of being wary altogether.

"You're right, I don't. But that has been a recent change... and a more gradual one."

Being angry is exhausting, and he couldn't continue like that.

She wraps both hands around the mug, but leaves it sitting on the counter. Claiming it, savoring it, but not keeping it. She drums her fingertips silently along the outside of it, just once.

"Was your before and after when you were... what, turned?"

"Mm. My master was a cruel man, sadistic in many ways, but at least as a human I had the thought of death, or of running away, to comfort me. He stripped both of those dreams away in one evening."

He picks up the pot of coffee, silently offering her more, should she want it.

"In my world, Makers can always find and control their offspring. Death against his wishes and running away was nearly impossible. I spent nearly a century with him."

Rosita is often quick to show teeth, and it's not a bluff: she will back it up if provoked, if threatened. But the sharp edge isn't all there is to her, and she winces at the thought of that, shaking her head to the offer of the coffee even as she studies the surface of what she already has.

"That's awful," she says, simply, heavily.

"It was," he agrees, setting the pot down and folding his hands. "I killed him, though. I seized my chance, as I had tried a hundred times before, and I managed it. Escaped, and - well, the story goes on from there."

"Good," she says, succinct and bloody and sincere.

"Assholes should get what's coming to them more often."

"There is a time and place for it," he half-agrees. "I regret a great many deaths in my life. His is not one of them."

He looks over to her, eyes first on the mug, then her face, recalling her message to him earlier.

"I am not a violent man any longer. But that doesn't mean I won't protect myself or others by any means necessary."

She stands for the scrutiny, though she doesn't look up from the coffee. She can still feel him looking at her.

Once violence is in you, it never really leaves, she wants to say but doesn't.

"You didn't say anything wrong," she says instead. "But the whole system is bullshit."