Chapter Text
Until the mug came down on the table with a soft tp, porcelain meeting wood with barely more sound than the scratch of the pen across paper under her hands, Rook could not have said with any certainty who or what was in the room with her. As it was, she stared at it blankly for a long moment. Then the wondrous smell hit her and with a small, wordless exclamation she grabbed at the cup, bypassing the handle to wrap a hand around the body of it instead. The glazed surface was almost unbearably hot against her skin. She lifted it anyway, too desperate to care.
Her throat burned with the first gulp of coffee, warmth dropping through her like she'd swallowed a hearth stone, and she slugged back a second mouthful on the heels of the first. The rich, bitter flavor shocked through her, as scalding as the heat. Shoulders she hadn't realized were tense dropped down into an easy line; her breath came out as a long sigh, and she brought her mug in against her chest to cradle it with both hands like she could press it through her sternum.
The sound of a huffed laugh brought her eyes up. Lucanis was looking at her with such a warmly exasperated expression that she straightened instinctively, wincing as the motion brought a chorus of every bone in her back cracking in turn.
"How long have I been at it?" Rook asked, wincing again at the creak in her voice. The answer wouldn't be good, whatever it was.
"Four… no, five hours since dinner," he said, and leaned back against the edge of the table beside her. He held his cup by the handle, his fingers easy on the delicate loop. The sip he took was small. "If you're not planning on sleeping anyway, I thought you might want a cup."
"I want a sharp blow to the head, but coffee'll do," she groaned. Lucanis laughed outright; she elbowed him in the hip. "Oh, yeah, really funny. Ashur, Strife, and Viago are all playing a cute game of 'whose is biggest' with each other through me, and if I don't convince them to start acting like fucking adults the world probably ends. I thank the Maker every single day that Evka's normal, Isabela couldn't give less of a shit, and Emmrich's handling things with the Mourn Watch."
"I'll talk to Teia. We'll work on Viago." When Rook looked at him, startled, he shrugged and gestured with his mug to the missives and draft replies she had covered the table with. "There's little enough else I can do to help with all of this."
"Well, you brought me coffee, too," she said, making it a joke, and took another frowning drink to cover for how ill at ease she felt. Everyone was more than pulling their weight, and all she had to do here was write a few letters. But if he could get Viago to unclench, maybe the others would follow… Strife, at least, might lower his fucking hackles if given the opportunity to not be the first to do so. And she really wasn't being fair to Ashur, poor blighted bastard. That one was her fault, and if he wanted to throw his weight around a little, well, there wasn't much she'd left for him to do in his own ruined city. Maybe Neve could have a word with Tarquin, figure out some way…
"Rook…" Lucanis began slowly, the sound of his voice pulling her out of her reverie. Andraste's tits, she really was tired. She scrubbed at her face with one hand and waved at him with the other to continue. It was the one that held her mug—nearly empty, she noticed, and having noticed she tossed the end of it back like a shot of spirits. It wasn't really hot anymore, but it was bracing and she needed the support; by the look of that furrow on his brow, there was some soft concern coming, the kind that she didn't know how to handle at all. He hesitated again, and then, to her complete bewilderment, finished, "Do you… like coffee?"
It surprised a full snort out of her. "Are you kidding? It's great. It's a hot kick in the ass. It has me more awake than I've been in hours, and maybe now I can finish at least one usable reply before I give up for the night."
That, for some reason, only deepened Lucanis's unhappy frown. "But do you like it? Itself, not its utility?"
"What is this?" Rook asked a little helplessly. "I might pick something different if we were talking about enjoying my evening, but this'll see me done with these fucking letters. What more could I ask for?"
"I—no, you're right. I'm sorry. I'm glad I could give you something to make your night a little easier." He reached over and gently took her cup from her hand. "Do you want company?"
"Thanks, but no," she said, eyes narrowed like the explanation for his strange question would appear on his face if she just looked hard enough. "I'm self-conscious enough about how shit I am at this without you witnessing how many sheets of paper I go through."
Lucanis, shook his head, smiling faintly. "I'd be the last to judge. Words have never been my strong suit." That sounded like bullshit, but Rook let it lie as he stood and stooped to press a kiss to her hair. A warmth as comforting as the coffee bloomed in her chest. "Good night, graja."
"Good night," she answered in a small voice, and turned back to her work before she could convince herself it could wait. Just one, one letter—maybe to Strife, while she waited to see if there could be any nudging of the other two. The old bastard reminded her of some Senior Wardens she'd served under, and while that didn't make him any less of a pain in the ass it did mean she maybe knew how to approach him. She pulled his missive, her previous attempts at a reply, and a fresh sheet of paper toward her, and started again.
It was impossible to know how much later it was when she put down her pen and pressed her aching fingers against her aching eyes. She needed to look at the fucking thing after she slept, run it by Bellara for her opinion, but she was pretty sure what she had in her hands would function. Andraste fucking wept, that's all she could ask for. The rest could come after. For now, she was done.
A chorus of cracks and pops sounded as she stretched with a groan, then sighed heavily and stood to scoop up the papers she'd strewn across the whole end of the table. She missed knocking a mug over by inches. A mug—
Rook blinked at it blearily. A mug…? Hadn't Lucanis taken hers? She reached out to grab it, hooking her fingers through the handle at the last second as she noticed the steam curling gently from within. It was, she found, sitting on one of those little heating rune-squares Bellara had whipped up at some point after a whole lot of Neve bemoaning cold coffee, but that wasn't what it smelled of at all….
As tired and worn-through as she was, the first sip nearly sent her to her knees.
There was just a little bitterness to it, enough to cut through the sweetness of the chocolate. She rolled it across her tongue, her eyes fluttering closed. The the rich flavor was as luxurious as the warmth, and she found herself savoring it for a long time before she took another sip.
The pantry door was closed, of course, when she opened her eyes, and Rook studied it for a moment before she looked down at her haphazard pile of drafts. The sound of tearing paper was loud in the quiet room. Her fingers protested dully as she once again took up the pen.
I liked it a lot, she wrote, and slipped the note under Lucanis's door. When she gathered her papers it was with exhausted, clumsy hands, but her fingers were careful on the handle. She took another sip as she left.