"Yeah. Without the contract and shit. Like, if we just met, like normal people? Yeah. You're really pretty, but like, fierce? Tough. You remind me of a woman I knew from back home."
Dinah goes over to where Rosita's sat, and bends so that they're face to face. Slowly, she closes the space between them, until their lips meet.
Rosita doesn't move - not in a stiff way, she watches Dinah come closer with close interest, admittedly some of which is just habitual watchfulness, but not all. She sits still and lets Dinah come to her, lets her decide when and where and how much to touch.
She lets Dinah be the one to lean in but once their lips touch she's picking up her end too. She kisses back, one hand raised - slowly, carefully, used to twitchy trauma survivors and their myriad insecurities and fears - to brush the backs of her fingers along the other woman's neck on her way to resting that hand there.
She lets it be sweet, lets it be slow, lets them get to know each other just a bit better.
It's weird, kissing someone who isn't Faith. Dinah hasn't kissed anyone else, even in Duplicity, for a long time. But Rosita's hand is comforting, nice even, as it finds its way under Dinah's dreads. For now, Dinah doesn't try to deepen the kiss. She needs to get used to it, needs to get over Faith properly and she doesn't want to lead Rosita on when her heart's not healed.
After a couple of minutes, Dinah pulls away and smiles sheepishly. "That was really nice," she says. "And I'd like... like to... you know? Get to know you more? I mean, if you want to? If you don't mind slow?"
Rosita knows a little about what's there behind Dinah, casting her in its shadow; she wouldn't expect she knows even half of it though, and for all her reckless confidence when there's a fight in front of her, Rosita knows how to watch her step, too. Dinah doesn't deepen the kiss, so Rosita doesn't either, just letting it be what it is - and, perhaps more importantly, not be what it isn't.
When the other woman pulls back, Rosita presses her lips together for just a moment like she can hold the warmth in a moment longer, fingertips stroking lightly over her skin once more before dropping away, too. She smiles.
"I don't mind slow," she assures her. "Or no, if you change your mind about this. But yeah, I think I'd like that too."
Dinah smiles, warmth and sadness mingling together. She really likes Rosita as a person so far, and genuinely wants to get to know her better. But -
"I gotta be honest, Rosie, and it ain't you at all. Faith's only just gone and that's why... you know?" Her smile fades. "She was the first person I loved. I - we had a future, you know? So I don't wanna - I don't wanna rush into things when I'm not - when I still love her."
When everything's raw and new and sore. She can't bring that pain to Rosita and whatever this might turn into.
"But friends... with benefits? And... and we'll see, yeah? Just... I need time."
The smile dims a bit when she calls her Rosie, but she hears her out. It'll keep, especially when she hears her start talking about Faith.
Rosita is already shaking her head by the end.
"Hey - you don't need to explain to me," she says, genuinely. "It's yes or it's no, and that's that. Love's important. You decide one day you need a warm body so you feel a little less alone, I got you. You decide the next you don't want anyone within five feet of you, it's cool." She dips her head a bit to catch Dinah's eyes with her own: "Yeah?"
Which also means - "And any sex is separate from the contract. It's something we do to keep safe here, and I take that seriously. That doesn't go away unless you intentionally, knowingly, deliberately fuck me or mine over."
Dinah nods. "Thanks. But I wouldn't do that. Use you? I'm - shit. I know there've been stories and shit about me from Roman but I swear I'm not like that. And I won't fuck you over. I told you, it was Jesus's idea, to help the damn plan. But it's my choice too and you seem... normal? Sane? It's fucking hard to come by here but I appreciate it."
"I don't think you would, or we wouldn't be having this conversation." Rosita is clever and canny, but she's not much one for manipulation; she doesn't lie or lead people on to get what she wants. She never has.
Although she almost laughs at the accusation that she's both normal and sane. She nods towards the couch.
"How 'bout we just talk for a bit? Start there." A beat. "I'll open: I don't like being called Rosie."
"A shithead ex used to call me that," she shrugs, moving to take the other end, able to move around the knife in a thoughtless way that speaks to how accustomed she is to having it exactly where it stays even when she sits down and makes herself comfortable.
"Didn't like it before that though. Sounds like a doll. And like - rosita is already kind of the Spanish equivalent of rosie? So it sounds weird to me, too."
That's a way to permanently stop Dinah calling Rosita 'Rosie'.
"Hey - I'm sorry." There's a beat. "I think Rosita's pretty. It's better than Dinah anyway. All I used to get as a kid was, 'You want fries with that shakes, honey?'" She chuckles. "Back home, I was Canary, but here, it's always Di or D."
Rosita frowns a bit. Nothing on the D/S finder has hit her particularly hard yet, just made her roll her eyes and wish they'd leave her out of it, but she doesn't know if that's because she's not bothered by old world things anymore or if they haven't been trying as hard as they seem to with other people.
"Fuck 'em," she says, deceptively simple even though she knows it's not. "Anyone outside of that ever use it on you? And Roman, obviously."
"Zsasz." She rolls her eyes. "I was 'little bird', 'little fucking bird', 'birdy', 'tweety'." Dinah mimics Zsasz sneering her name. "At first anyway. We kinda fell for each other? What's that thing called? When you fall for the guy who's hurting you? Anyway. It was Di after that."
"A terrible idea?" she chuckles, but it's not judgmental. Rather, she says it like someone who's had a few terrible ideas of her own, because she has.
"You wanna tell me a little about Faith?" she asks, willing to take no for an answer. Most of the people where she's from don't want to talk about the dead for good reason; but where she was from before that, they honored them, and Rosita is still deciding which way she wants to be now.
"Fucking worst. Roman fucking hated it. Fucking tried to drown Zsasz and fucking followed me to my new gig and fucking -"
He'd raped her. He'd stripped her, and Zsasz, and raped Dinah whilst Zsasz held her still and tried to take her mind off it. Dinah shakes her head and lets out a shaky sigh.
For a beat, she's quiet. "Faith was... we bonded over the shit we'd been through. Shit childhood. Growing up on the streets. Men who rip out your damn soul. We just... got each other. She'd made mistakes. I was making them but... we just got it. She was cute. Funny. So god damn beautiful. She said she didn't care, but she did. And when we kissed it just felt... right."
Rosita waits while she's quiet, watching but not afraid to look down at her glass of water, to give Dinah the time she needs to decide what she's going to say about it. She's already said plenty. Rosita doesn't need to make her relive the details unless it's something Dinah does herself.
What she chooses is to talk about Faith, and Rosita leans her head in her hands and listens.
"Those things have a way of sealing people together. How long did you know her?"
Rosita's lips quirk; she's never been in love with someone who loved her back, not really. She'd thought she knew the feeling Dinah is talking about, but in the end she was just an idiot, every single time.
“Is love ever something to regret?” Dinah smiles wistfully. “I just regret being sent home. We could have had longer. Just a little bit longer together. One more drink on the beach. One more kiss at sunset. One more morning waking up beside her. I’d give anything for that.”
Yes, she thinks, but doesn't - wouldn't - say. Everyone needs something to keep them going. It doesn't have to be the same thing that does someone else, so Rosita doesn't say it.
Instead: "That's always, though. That's life everywhere. I think when you're actually, really happy with someone, you'll always want more."
"Buffy sent me a real sweet picture. She must've taken it of me and Faith at some point."
Dinah scoots closer and shows the photo of her and Faith, lost in each other's gaze and each other's smile, to Rosita. Faith's a few years younger than Dinah, lighter skinned and dark hair.
Rosita leans over to see, and she's not so hard that she can't smile when she sees something like that. When she's glad, genuinely glad, that Dinah has something like that to keep. So many people where she's from... don't.
"Everyone I knew from before the virus hit is dead," she answers almost dismissively at this point; it's just a daily fact, one she's either processed or been forced to move past or both. Normally she'd leave it there, uninterested in trying to talk about ghosts she already buried or explain what her life was like back home to someone who didn't live it, but she looks at the picture again; Dinah has told her about Faith, about Zsasz, about Roman, about the terrible things Roman has done. Rosita can give up a story or two in the interest of more equal footing in a contract.
She sucks the back of her teeth, thinking, trying to decide.
"No one ever looked back at me like that. Not and meant it." No one is out there in the world, the last one or the next or this one, wishing they'd had one more kiss from Rosita Espinosa. "But there were a couple I might have thought were it for me."
"Man, I'm sorry." It's an inadequate thing to say really. Everyone she knows is dead. At least Dinah's been left, this time at least, with friends and with the knowledge that back home, people are waiting for her. Huntress and Montoya are waiting for her to lead them again. People need her. Rosita doesn't seem to think the same.
"They turn out to be assholes? I mean, you don't have to tell me. But you've listened to my shit when you don't have to. So if you wanna... I'll listen. Always."
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handleyourshit) wrote2032-07-23 01:51 pm
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Dinah goes over to where Rosita's sat, and bends so that they're face to face. Slowly, she closes the space between them, until their lips meet.
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She lets Dinah be the one to lean in but once their lips touch she's picking up her end too. She kisses back, one hand raised - slowly, carefully, used to twitchy trauma survivors and their myriad insecurities and fears - to brush the backs of her fingers along the other woman's neck on her way to resting that hand there.
She lets it be sweet, lets it be slow, lets them get to know each other just a bit better.
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After a couple of minutes, Dinah pulls away and smiles sheepishly.
"That was really nice," she says. "And I'd like... like to... you know? Get to know you more? I mean, if you want to? If you don't mind slow?"
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When the other woman pulls back, Rosita presses her lips together for just a moment like she can hold the warmth in a moment longer, fingertips stroking lightly over her skin once more before dropping away, too. She smiles.
"I don't mind slow," she assures her. "Or no, if you change your mind about this. But yeah, I think I'd like that too."
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"I gotta be honest, Rosie, and it ain't you at all. Faith's only just gone and that's why... you know?" Her smile fades. "She was the first person I loved. I - we had a future, you know? So I don't wanna - I don't wanna rush into things when I'm not - when I still love her."
When everything's raw and new and sore. She can't bring that pain to Rosita and whatever this might turn into.
"But friends... with benefits? And... and we'll see, yeah? Just... I need time."
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Rosita is already shaking her head by the end.
"Hey - you don't need to explain to me," she says, genuinely. "It's yes or it's no, and that's that. Love's important. You decide one day you need a warm body so you feel a little less alone, I got you. You decide the next you don't want anyone within five feet of you, it's cool." She dips her head a bit to catch Dinah's eyes with her own: "Yeah?"
Which also means - "And any sex is separate from the contract. It's something we do to keep safe here, and I take that seriously. That doesn't go away unless you intentionally, knowingly, deliberately fuck me or mine over."
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Although she almost laughs at the accusation that she's both normal and sane. She nods towards the couch.
"How 'bout we just talk for a bit? Start there." A beat. "I'll open: I don't like being called Rosie."
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She moves to the couch, curling up on one end. "I don't care what you call me. Di, D, Canary... whatever you like."
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"Didn't like it before that though. Sounds like a doll. And like - rosita is already kind of the Spanish equivalent of rosie? So it sounds weird to me, too."
Mostly, though, it's the first.
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"Hey - I'm sorry." There's a beat. "I think Rosita's pretty. It's better than Dinah anyway. All I used to get as a kid was, 'You want fries with that shakes, honey?'" She chuckles.
"Back home, I was Canary, but here, it's always Di or D."
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Obviously she understands Di or D - and she certainly understands shithead kids and the shithead things adults say to them too sometimes.
However - "Why Canary? The voice thing?"
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It was about all she inherited.
“Roman called me Little Bird. I fucking hate that name. Makes me feel weak and shit. But you know that’s what they use every time on that DS finder.”
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"Fuck 'em," she says, deceptively simple even though she knows it's not. "Anyone outside of that ever use it on you? And Roman, obviously."
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"You wanna tell me a little about Faith?" she asks, willing to take no for an answer. Most of the people where she's from don't want to talk about the dead for good reason; but where she was from before that, they honored them, and Rosita is still deciding which way she wants to be now.
Cw non consent
He'd raped her. He'd stripped her, and Zsasz, and raped Dinah whilst Zsasz held her still and tried to take her mind off it. Dinah shakes her head and lets out a shaky sigh.
For a beat, she's quiet.
"Faith was... we bonded over the shit we'd been through. Shit childhood. Growing up on the streets. Men who rip out your damn soul. We just... got each other. She'd made mistakes. I was making them but... we just got it. She was cute. Funny. So god damn beautiful. She said she didn't care, but she did. And when we kissed it just felt... right."
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What she chooses is to talk about Faith, and Rosita leans her head in her hands and listens.
"Those things have a way of sealing people together. How long did you know her?"
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“But you know when it just feels right?”
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"Do you regret it now?"
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Instead: "That's always, though. That's life everywhere. I think when you're actually, really happy with someone, you'll always want more."
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Dinah scoots closer and shows the photo of her and Faith, lost in each other's gaze and each other's smile, to Rosita. Faith's a few years younger than Dinah, lighter skinned and dark hair.
"So what about you? No hopeless love stories?"
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"Everyone I knew from before the virus hit is dead," she answers almost dismissively at this point; it's just a daily fact, one she's either processed or been forced to move past or both. Normally she'd leave it there, uninterested in trying to talk about ghosts she already buried or explain what her life was like back home to someone who didn't live it, but she looks at the picture again; Dinah has told her about Faith, about Zsasz, about Roman, about the terrible things Roman has done. Rosita can give up a story or two in the interest of more equal footing in a contract.
She sucks the back of her teeth, thinking, trying to decide.
"No one ever looked back at me like that. Not and meant it." No one is out there in the world, the last one or the next or this one, wishing they'd had one more kiss from Rosita Espinosa. "But there were a couple I might have thought were it for me."
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"They turn out to be assholes? I mean, you don't have to tell me. But you've listened to my shit when you don't have to. So if you wanna... I'll listen. Always."
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