Chapter Text
In the early days after releasing the gods, Rook had found the music room. It hadn't exactly been hidden – she had noted the unusual shape and texture of the wall where the door rested pretty quick after arriving – but it had been a pain in the ass to open. Thankfully, Rook had come equipped with a desire to explore and absolute determination in the face of failure. If she had stumbled on the room naturally she probably never would have visited it again, but after all that work she could hardly ignore it. And it worked out: the music room had been a little haven for her. A corner to be alone in a space that felt simultaneously huge and like everyone was constantly bumping up against each other.
Not that she had any musical talent. Viago hadn't exactly been interested in nurturing any bard-like tendencies she might have possessed. He had been much more intent on testing how much hemlock she could consume before throwing up.
But now, her time was her own, and Rook sat at the piano testing out how notes from opposite sides of the keyboard sounded together. Sometimes, it was pleasant and harmonic. Sometimes less so. If she found a progression of three or more such chords, Rook might play them in a row as a crude imitation of a song. It was hardly groundbreaking, but there was something calming about it. Besides, she could never abide by silence. Her stilted playing was a better alternative to trying to quiet her mind.
The final chord trailed off as a grinding sound rang out. Rook almost didn't recognize it as the sound of the door opening because she wasn't accustomed to it doing so without her request. She pivoted on the bench, watching with trepidation. Clearly, someone had found her.
That worry was short lived, however, and melted to nothing the moment the man in the doorway was revealed. Lucanis was looking around curiously as the door rolled back, studying the circular door frame before investigating what lay beyond it. He saw her and smiled, in that order. It made her want to kick her feet and dissolve into giggles like one of the silly rich girls she had worked for long ago. She resisted the urge and instead settled for grinning in return.
“How did I know it would be you behind the secret door?” Lucanis queried.
“You know me. Never saw a door I didn't want to break into.”
He stepped fully into the room and took it in. “What is this place?”
“Some kind of music room," Rook joined in the observation, "I can't imagine Solas ever using it, but it does feel properly pretentious to have one just for the sake of it.” Her eyes refocused on him. “How did you find me?”
“I heard you playing.”
“Really?” Her nose wrinkled as she considered that, “No one has ever heard me before.”
Lucanis looked down at where his hands fidgeted together, though she still caught the shy smile on his lips. “Well, the Lighthouse is meant to provide, isn't it? Maybe…one of us wanted to see the other, so the Lighthouse led the way.”
That surprised Rook enough that she finally let out one of those ridiculous little giggles she had been fighting. It had been a losing battle, anyway; Lucanis always coaxed that giddy sweetness out of her sooner or later. She looked back at the piano keys and started playing her one chord again, pretending to only be mildly interested. “A torrid encounter in a hidden room? The Lighthouse is so scandalous.”
Lucanis chuckled lightly. “I didn't say torrid.”
“Hmm, a chaste interlude, then?”
“I didn't say that either.”
She laughed then, a full-throated sound with none of the girlish giggles. Truthfully, they hadn't had many opportunities to be alone since they first shared a kiss at the Dellamorte Villa. There had been so many disasters that needed attending and fires to put out that no time could be spared to tend the early bloom of their relationship. A quiet moment together had become a rarity long before they actually kissed. But here was one now, dropped in her lap, and she felt quite conscious of that.
Lucanis circled the piano and nodded to the bench, “May I…?” To which Rook inched over on the seat. She offered her fellow Crow enough room to sit while simultaneously not giving enough for him to create any distance from her. If he noticed, he didn't complain; Lucanis slid into the space between piano and bench, settling with his leg against hers. In spite of the layers of clothing between them, the length of her thigh still prickled at each point it met his. Rook could see him continuously glancing at her from the corner of her eye. As much as she wanted to grab him and ask why he wasn't kissing her right now, she waited. She could do this on his terms.
“You play beautifully,” he teased, making Rook roll her eyes.
“Shut up.”
“What? I can't appreciate the art form?”
She turned her head to glare at him with narrowed violet eyes. In return he only smiled, which did nothing to quell the fluttering in her chest.
There was a moment of taut tension strung in between them, wordlessly wanting, before Lucanis broke it to look around the room once more. “So what do you use this place for, then? To be alone?”
Rook shrugged, pulling her hands to her lap. “I suppose. I mostly just come here when I need to think,” she paused before answering his unasked question, “but that doesn't mean you aren't welcome here. Or…anywhere I happen to be, for that matter.”
Lucanis made a small, thoughtful sound in the back of his throat. There was another quiet moment before Rook started to fidget. She was trying to be patient, but…why hadn't he kissed her again? Did he not want to? Had she dreamed the first one?
Before she could ask, Lucanis set his hands lightly on the piano keys. There was an angle of familiarity to his wrists as he pressed down, bringing the piano back to life. But he didn't stop there, and instead began playing, beautiful music chasing every movement of his fingers.
Rook’s mouth popped open as she looked at him in betrayed surprise. “You can actually play? Lucanis!” She crossed her arms huffily. “You can't be good at everything!”
He smiled, amused at her reaction, never breaking the stride of the music. “You know that I’m not,” he responded, voice so casual she almost didn't see the flush creeping across his cheekbones towards his ears. “Besides, you're witnessing the extent of my musical knowledge.”
Rook contemplated the blush as she looked down at his hands, tan against the ivory backdrop. She could see pale white scars criss-crossing his skin, note the roughness of his knuckles where the skin had cracked and healed and cracked again a million times over. A fighter’s hands that now played a sweet song with dextrous determination. And though she had questioned the reality earlier, Rook knew those hands had also touched her; they had gripped the curve of her hips, danced through her strawberry red curls, held her face more gently than she had ever been held before. That had not been a dream. Rook’s head slowly tilted to the side as she remained fixated on watching him play. He was fast but precise with each stroke, strong and gentle all at once. She started to picture, not for the first time, what those hands might do with her underneath him.
“I found the sheet music for this song when I was a boy,” Lucanis explained suddenly. Of course, in reality, it hadn't been sudden at all. It simply felt like a burst of sound because Rook had been quite lost in wondering if her body might sing similarly to the piano at his attention.
“Oh?” she interjected even though he clearly wasn't finished, as if responding would sweep her lascivious thoughts where they could not be perceived.
His eyes flickered to her but he didn't seem to notice anything amiss. “It was hidden away among my mother’s things. The things Caterina didn't have thrown out, I mean.”
Rook's attention snapped to his profile then. He had never mentioned his mother much beyond her label as Caterina’s favorite.
“I begged one of the servants who played to teach me how,” Lucanis continued, not missing a note as he did. “She resisted because she knew whose music it was but…I think she must have taken pity on me.” The tempo slowed, like a waltz gently melting into a lullaby. “Eventually she taught me this song, only this one, and I practiced every single day. If I wasn't training, I was playing it over and over,” a scoff sounded from the back of his throat, “Illario got so sick of hearing it that he threatened to deafen himself.”
Rook watched him as he spoke. He told the story in even measure, face calm, words careful. It would have been easy to miss the fact that he was showing himself; he was pulling aside a bit of curtain to let her glimpse at what lay beyond, mess and all. The realization momentarily ushered out all her lust and replaced it with sheer affection.
“It's beautiful,” she offered, wincing at the awkward sound of her own sincerity.
“Caterina found me playing it one day. She didn't say anything, but after that…I didn't have time where I wasn't training anymore.”
He pressed out a final chord, leading the song to its conclusion. A little sad, but gentle and sweet. A kiss goodbye, Rook thought with a small smile. “Huh.” Slowly, as though not to spook him, she tilted her head to the side until her temple was resting against his shoulder. “Well…if you want to practice it again…you can always come here. This place can be yours, too.”
He had grown equally still at her touch, almost as though his breath had been whisked out of his body. She felt his head turn slightly, breath ruffling her hair. Rook cleared her throat and added with sarcastic grandiosity, “Maybe someday your playing will be quite as good as mine.”
Lucanis laughed; she both heard it and felt it pool across the top of her head. “You’re very sweet. Do you know that?”
“How dare you spread such vicious rumors about me.”
He chuckled again and shifted his body away so that her head was free floating for a moment. Before she could be disappointed that he was moving away, his palm cupped her cheek. He was turning towards her, facing her on the little bench. Rook tilted her head enough to look at him curiously past her lashes.
Lucanis smiled softly, searching her face with eyes as rich and deep as the earth. “Your secret is safe with me,” he promised quietly. His head tilted slightly to the opposite side, revealing his intentions the second before he leaned in and kissed her.
She had almost forgotten how badly she wanted this in the previous gentle moment, but it rushed back in perfect clarity as his lips touched her own. It was soft, unhurried, perhaps on the edge of questioning. Rook made sure that question was answered with an enthusiastic “yes and please don’t stop.”
She could taste the coffee he had most likely been drinking moments before stumbling on her. Rook pulled his lower lip in between hers, filling her mouth with the flavor. She didn't think she had ever given a moment’s thought to coffee in her entire life before him, but now she knew she would never smell it again without thinking about Lucanis Dellamorte.
Even though the kiss had been slow and gentle, Rook noticed he was still slightly breathless when they parted. He swallowed before saying quietly, “I…have to get used to that,” he admitted sheepishly, “that I can just…kiss you.”
Rook grinned stupidly because she wasn't capable of doing anything else at that moment. “You're welcome to practice that too, you know.” She tipped her head to steal another taste of coffee from his lips, “Anytime you'd like.”
Lucanis laughed breathily. He was unable to hold her gaze for long and his eyes kept darting to hers, then down, then back again as though he were afraid to look at her too long. A man dying of thirst trying not to drink it all at once.
“Rook, you should know…though I’m sure you've pieced it together by now…” He slowly, nervously, tucked a loose curl behind the point of her ear before drawing his hands away. “I've never…had anyone like you before. In my life.”
Rook had a sense of where he was going but still found herself joking, “To be fair, I'm a hard act to duplicate.”
“That’s not– well, that's also true, I suppose,” he angled his body back towards the piano. “But what I mean is that I…” The struggle for words was clear on his face before he murmured his faithful standby, “Mierda…”
Though it was adorable to see the Demon of Vyrantium so flustered in her presence, Rook put him out of his misery. “You've never had a relationship before.”
“Correct.”
“Alright. Well,” she laughed in spite of herself, “I'm not exactly coming in with a sterling reputation for it myself. I’ve had– done– you know,” she rolled her wrist in a gesture that indicated nothing and everything, “but for an actual relationship, I.. um…I’ve never been so good at keeping people around.”
It was surprisingly uncomfortable hearing herself admit that aloud. It was something she had always known, of course; her track record of fleeting dalliances proved that. But it was one thing for the thought to exist in her mind and another to have it out and exposed. Especially to someone who she so desperately wanted to “keep around.”
To his credit, Lucanis seemed genuinely baffled by this admission, as though he could not possibly picture who wouldn't want her. “I…I suppose I assumed…”
“And how dare you!” Rook accused with a wide grin, “Maybe I've been saving myself for the Demon of Vyrantium!”
He groaned in embarrassment, shading his face in his hand. “Rook!”
“The nights I would scribble in my journal – ‘Lady Demon.’ ‘Serah of Vyrantium!” She was giggling at his distress, playfully trying to peer past his hand and see if he was blushing again. However, it was cut short by his hands raising to hold either side of her face. The growl that came from his throat was devoid of any genuine anger as Lucanis smothered her teasing with another kiss. Rook smiled ridiculously against his mouth.
She pulled back only far enough to say, “You just discovered kissing me to shut me up, didn't you?”
“I don't know what you're talking about,” he murmured, each word brushing against her lips. Before Rook could protest, he preemptively hushed her once more. After that, she couldn't seem to recall if she had anything to complain about after all.