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

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"Yeah, they got me too. There were SIN guards in the mix," she answers, taking another sip of her mezcal.

"And they were there when we got out, too. They were acting like they didn't know anything, but there's a split there now. If we can get our foot in the door, maybe we can finally start making a dent here - or at least getting some leverage."

"Jesus said you were going undercover."
She laughs properly now. "My way has got us absolutely nowhere, but this? Kinda sounds like a game changer to me. I want in."

"That's my hope," she admits.

"And it had to be me. I'm the only one both willing and with a clean record. I can get through their training. But I'm the only LIER - they're looking at me super close, every minute of the day, waiting for me to fuck up. And I'm probably gonna have to do some smaller bullshit to get in the way of the bigger bullshit. So that's what I wanted to make sure you knew: it's the long game, being associated with me right now. People on both sides aren't gonna like it."

"Ro, I can't even get a damn gig as a singer. It's my fucking - I don't know? Ability? Power? Whatever. It's why I'm called Canary. And - and I can't even get a gig in a damn bar. I've been told to go be a prostitute instead." She rubs her temple.
"Being seen with me is dangerous, I guess. But being seen together, doing the whole dominant and submissive shit in public? It's gonna help us both out. And - and I'll do it. In public. Whatever we need to do, so long as behind closed doors, we're equal. Partners. In it together."

"Ro already, huh?" she echoes, the corner of her mouth quirking in a wry smirk.

"That's another thing we need to talk about. What you want and what you don't want in a pairing. Like, what you actually want and don't want. What you need. I have another contract but he's been here a lot longer, he has all his own assets, I'm just a name on a paper. I have some resources now. I can swing another contract that's a little more equal."

Dinah looks down, chuckling shyly. “Don’t read anything into it. Everyone gets a nickname. I drove Rackham mad calling him Mr R.”

Her smile fades and her expression becomes serious. “I don’t want anything off you. I’m not here for money or a room - hell, I don’t even have stuff here any more. I just want - I don’t want to end up in the zoo for nothing, you know? For every argument or quip or - whatever. It’s fucking frustrating not to be able to bite back even in private. Or just say what I think in private. Because I get it. You’ve got a reputation to build. But in private? I don’t wanna walk on eggshells, you know?”

"I don't mind. People just usually don't." People are intimidated by Rosita back home, and it means most of them don't try to get close to her even if they're prone to it with others.

It's another reason she is, very faintly, a bit disappointed by another contract partner that only needs her name on a piece of paper, but she brushes it off after only a moment.

"I can promise you I won't ever send you to the Zoo, or to prison, or - I mean shit, I'm not here for that unless it's some kind of play we both agree on." She prefers honesty, prefers to know exactly what people are thinking even if she doesn't like it.

"How much has Jesus told you about where we're from?"

She doesn’t mean it like that, but she also has her hang ups about becoming dependant on someone or ending up in debt to someone again.

“Are - I mean, I am - but are you up for that? Like getting to know each other like that?”

She’s surprised. She’d half presumed Rosita just wasn’t interested like that, and she’s way too insecure to to bring up the topic herself.

“Thanks though.” She smiles shyly though again it fades. “He said something about a zombie apocalypse end of the world shit. Was he like, a cult leader or something?”

"Do I have so many friends that I couldn't use another one?" she chuckles, dry for no reason that she'd expect Dinah to understand, so she just drains the rest of her drink and sets the glass aside.

"That's part of it though. The contract. If we want it to be, it is. If we don't -" She shrugs. "I know you don't know me very well, so I'll just say that I would rather we just. Be honest. Be straight."

But the idea of Jesus as a cult leader makes her laugh. "No. It's just what everyone calls him. He did lead a community - that's what we have now instead of cities. Communities. But they voted him in and all, it's not cultish at all."

Dinah laughs too. She's never really had many friends, though the number's growing the longer she stays in Duplicity.
"Yeah, I guess. I've never had it written in before. I mean, Faith and I were in a relationship: we didn't need it, and before that, it was Roman..." She tails off.
"Would you wanna? Kiss me, I mean? As a start?" Because she would. Kiss Rosita, she means. Maybe get the other woman to loosen her guard just a little, just enough to let the knife at her hip sit on the bedside table.

It's a question that brings out another side to Rosita's smile: something warm, something softer. She lets her eyes trail over the features of Dinah's face, not trying to hide it at all, not rushing. Confident, though - and she has seen it aimed at her before, she knows to be careful not to assume these days - not entitled.

"I would," she says, the smile lingering. Absolutely she would. "You're gorgeous, and I like the fight in you."

There's more to talk about, but this is important, so Rosita doesn't mind spending at least a few more moments on it. "Would you like to kiss me? All that Dom and Sub and quota and contract bullshit aside."

"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."

"Yeah, how come?" Dinah's not going to persist in calling Rosita that, but she does like winding people up too to provoke reactions.

She moves to the couch, curling up on one end. "I don't care what you call me. Di, D, Canary... whatever you like."

"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."

Mostly, though, it's the first.

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."

"S'okay."

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?"

Edited Date: 2023-02-02 09:36 am (UTC)

“It’s my momma’s name. She was a vigilante. I kinda inherited it, I guess?”

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.”

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."