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Out of anyone she could have shared a room with in this shelter, Rose had to live with Tara.
Solid Ground isn’t a bad place to be in, and Seattle is a cool city. The roommate situation bothered her endlessly, though. Tara Markov does not make for a good roommate. She leaves her stuff everywhere (granted, so does Rose. But her mess makes sense, Tara’s is just chaos), she’s inconsiderate with her habits, and worst of all she’s terribly annoying.
Coming back from work, a shitty job waiting tables that Roy helped her find, Rose finds Tara laying in her own bed eating Rose’s food. Rose’s fucking food. That she kept in her drawer for herself. Fucking fantastic.
“Hey,” Tara says, hardly looking up from her book.
“What the hell?” Rose snatches the bag of snacks from next to Tara.
“Hey! I was eating that!”
“Why were you eating it? This is my food.”
“I got hungry and I don’t have money.”
“Well, you can’t have any of mine. And maybe you’d have money if you didn’t call our boss a cunt in front of the whole bar.”
“He was being a cunt.” Tara shrugs. “And I’m looking for a new job, just haven’t landed anything yet.”
“From where I’m at it looks like you’re sitting on your ass all day stealing my stuff.”
“Not everyone has someone who can just get them a job like nothing.”
“I already told you Roy would help if you asked,” Rose says, then adds under her breath: “I don’t know why he’d bother though.”
“What was that?” Tara sits up, staring daggers at Rose.
“Nothing, I didn’t say anything.”
“Watch it, Wilson.”
“Don’t fucking call me that again.” Rose bunches her fist.
“Or what?” Tara mocks.
“You’ll see.” She puts away her bag of snacks and walks away.
The next night she stands outside of their room for thirty minutes, waiting. She knows Tara by now, she knows the girl won’t resist the temptation when it’s laid so clearly in front of her. And she loves getting under Rose’s skin.
“Ew! What the fuck?!” She hears Tara say through the door and bursts in.
“Rose, what the hell is wrong with you?!” Tara yells, spitting up something into a napkin.
“What’s wrong with you? I told you not to touch my food.”
“So you put expired cheese in the queso? That’s disgusting.”
“I needed to prove a point.” Rose crosses her arms. “Stop touching my things.”
“Whatever, you’re a fucking psycho.” Tara grabs her jacket and storms out of the room.
“You’re a fucking thief!”
Things go smoothly on the days after that. Rose avoids any unnecessary interaction with Tara but continues to watch her like a hawk. One night later that week they end up getting ready for bed at the same time and Rose keeps catching Tara looking over at her while she washes her face.
“What is it?” She asks impatiently.
“Nothing, nothing.” Tara rolls her eyes. “I got a job today.”
“Fucking finally.” Rose snorts. “Try not to get fired this time.”
“Oh, shut up.”
“Move over, I gotta brush my teeth.”
Tara steps aside and gives room for Rose in front of the sink. Rose raises her eyebrows at the lack of bickering it took but internally shrugs. Maybe now that Tara works they’ll be able to get along better. Living together could even become bearable.
The moment her toothbrush touches her mouth Rose understands something is wrong, but she can’t put her finger on it. She makes a small confused noise, then yells and spits the toothpaste into the sink when her mouth begins to burn, the heat spreading to the back of her throat.
“What the fuck?!” She sputters while Tara laughs. “What is that?”
“Carolina reaper sauce. A little secret ingredient of mine.”
“That’s so gross! Why would you do that?”
“Figured you deserve some payback for the other day.”
“I was making a point about touching my things.”
“And I’m making a point, too.” Tara shrugs. “Don’t fuck with me.”
“You’re a total lunatic.”
“Says the crazy bitch that tried to poison me!”
“Oh you little–” Rose begins to say, but her instincts decide the time for words is over. She lunges forward and grapples Tara, dragging her out of the bathroom with her.
Tara grabs onto Rose’s hair and yanks it with force, yanking both of them to the floor and flipping Rose onto her stomach.
“Get the hell off of me!” She thrashes and manages to scratch Tara’s shoulder.
“Stop attacking me then.”
“Ugh, fine!”
Tara gets up and brushes her clothes off before walking away.
When Rose gets a tip off that her dad is up to something strange with a drug smuggling ring in the city, there’s nothing she can do but follow it. That asshole doesn’t deserve to be walking free. She knows it and so does he, and if there’s anything she can do about it she sure as hell is going to try.
Tara finding out about it was not part of the plan, and it seems there’s no dissuading her from joining the fight against him.
“I don’t need your help,” Rose insists for the sixth time that day.
“Come on, I want to take him down just as much as you do. You know I do.”
“That doesn’t mean I want you to join me on this. I’m doing fine on my own.”
“Don’t you think it’ll help our chances of putting his ass behind bars?”
“I think you’re only getting in my way.” Rose sits up in her bed and turns to Tara with a stink eye. “You don’t help me with anything, so just leave me alone.”
“I want him gone, Rose.” Tara’s voice shakes as she speaks. “Please. You can understand, better than anyone.”
Rose hesitates at the candor of Tara’s voice and bites the inside of her cheek. “You really wanna help me?”
“More than anything in the fucking world.”
She sighs. “Fine. Let’s do this. Come check out what I know.”
Tara rushes to get up and sits next to Rose on her bed. “Where’d you get these files?”
“Dick helped me out. I think he feels bad over… you know, so he’s been keeping tabs on him and noticed activity.”
“I can understand that, he has his own motivations.”
“He sent them over and I got them printed at the library. I gotta get myself a computer…”
“I get that.” Tara laughs. “I wanted to do community college online, but I don’t have anything to start with.”
“Well, now you can start saving money, right?” Rose looks at her and smiles.
“Yeah.”
The eye contact between them lingers for a moment. Rose studies the sweet and gentle smile on Tara’s lips, the crinkle of her blue eyes, the way her blonde hair falls over her shoulder.
Tara’s cough snaps her out of her thoughts. She tucks her hair behind her ear and says: “So let me see what you got and we can plan for something, yeah?”
“For sure.”
They sit for the rest of the night and talk about the information they have. His plans, his associates, the weaknesses they already know he has. This conversation turns into bringing up memories of him, very quickly becoming a series of long-winded rants about how much they wish he fucking died. The stories Tara tells bring chills down Rose’s spine with how similar they are to things she remembers herself. Family sure is strange.
Tailing him goes unbelievably well. Turns out that with a shared goal Rose and Tara can work together better than a well oiled machine, a marvel to behold. They track his every move around the city, each location they spot him in, every person he speaks to gets their picture taken not long after, they get his routine down to the very last detail. They know exactly where and when he is going to be every single day.
Setting up the sting is when anxiety begins to bubble up in Rose’s stomach. The idea of failure in this mission continues to float in and out of her head, her blood freezes over and over again when she imagines what will happen if he gets away. When she thinks of who he could hurt next.
“Okay, he’s about to go into the alleyway,” Rose whispers that fateful day. She and Tara are posted on the rooftop above where Slade is supposed to meet with multiple drug suppliers that have been smuggling laced heroin into the city.
“I know,” Tara replies under her breath. “I’ve been to this place with you every time.”
Instead of replying, Rose nudges Tara’s side to get her to be quiet. Familiar footsteps echo down the narrow alley over the sound of water dripping from a pipe nearby. She knows these footsteps, she’d recognize them in her sleep. Rose is unsure of why her father’s steps are so distinct. Maybe his shoes, maybe his attitude, maybe something else entirely. All she knows is that hearing them for the first time in eons makes every muscle in her body tense involuntarily.
This happens every time she sees him again, god fucking dammit. Being around him turns her into something she does not recognize, a starving stray cat who has even a slight inkling that someone is coming nearby and threatening it. Because he does threaten her, his very presence does. Rose is working tirelessly to tear herself away from what he taught her to be and every time she is around him every hair on her body rises, her heartbeat thumps in her ears, and the risk she will forget everything she’s been doing to get away from him grows enormous. That manipulative bastard.
Over the sound of the blood rushing through her veins Rose remembers the girl crouching next to her. She finds Tara looking exactly how she feels; her hair is frazzled, her eyes wide and her knuckles are white as she grips the short wall in front of them.
“We should go,” Tara manages to say with a hoarse voice. When Rose focuses on her face enough she finds tears brimming in her eyes. “Now.”
“We can’t,” Rose hisses back. “Who knows when we’ll get another chance like this? We have to take it.”
“No, no.” Her hair swings around vigorously when she shakes her head. “I can’t. We can’t stay here, we have to go.”
“What the hell are you talking about?! Are you chickening out?”
“Rose come on, let’s go.” Tara tugs on her arm. “We can’t do this. We’ll fail.”
“No we won’t, we planned for this. We’ve been preparing for months. You wanna waste this?”
“Just…” Tara sighs and the tears in her eyes begin streaming down her cheeks. “Please just listen to me.” She heaves and hyperventilates. “Let’s go.”
“But– I–” Rose stammers for a moment, helpless in her attempt to find the words.
“Let’s go already!” She pulls Rose again while yelling.
In an instant they’re on the ground hidden from the sight of the alleyway below. Rose pushes Tara down with her hand against the other girl’s mouth.
“What are you thinking?” She whispers. “Do you want him to catch us? Are you working with him again?”
Tara shakes her head again and tries to push Rose off of her. She rolls off and finally takes her hand away.
“I’m not working with him, I swear. I just… I have a feeling. Please trust me. We have to go.”
“Well, yeah we fucking have to.” Rose huffs. “He probably heard you. If we don’t get out of here right now we’ll get killed. Or captured.” The two shudder in unison at the second word.
“Let’s head out.”
They crawl across the roof and make a quick jump onto the next one. The way back to the shelter is agonizing, the two only take a few steps at a time before checking to see what’s around them. Rose jumps out of her own skin at every sound, even the wind in the leaves makes the hair on her arms rise.
They sleep in silence that night and not a word is said in their room for the next few days. They ghost around each other without exchanging a look, without breathing the same air for longer than they have to. Rose spends every day throwing looks behind her back, jumping when the door of her workplace opens. She eats in her coworker’s car and sprints back to the shelter at the end of her shifts. She crashes onto her bed every night and falls asleep in a moment from exhaustion.
A few nights later, when her body is close to crashing, Rose returns to find Tara sitting on the edge of her bed playing with her hair. Her eyes are glassy and far away, her lips chapped and bleeding, and her clothes are a mess. Upon closer inspection Rose notices she’s not playing with her hair, she’s pulling it out. It occurs to her she hasn’t seen Tara leaving their bedroom since that night.
She tosses her bag to the corner of the room and slowly walks across to her bed, not taking her eyes off Tara, who doesn’t seem to notice her.
“What the hell is wrong with you?”
At the sound of her words Tara jumps back and finally looks up, pulling her hand away from her hair.
“When’d you get here?” She mumbles.
“Just now. Have you been sitting here all day?”
“I don’t…” Tara scrunches her eyebrows. “I don’t think so.”
“You’re a fuckin’ mess.” Rose shakes her head.
“No, I’m not!” Tara raises her shoulders and bunches her fists. “I’m fine.”
“Then what happened the other night?” She slumps down on her own bed. “We almost had him.”
“We weren’t ready.” Tara shakes her head vigorously. “We should have tailed him longer.”
“Well thanks to your freak out, we can’t even do that. He’s gone back underground.”
“What?”
“He heard you, I guess. Figured out someone was following him around. Who knows when he’s gonna pop up next?”
“I– I can’t–”
“What happened, Tara? We had him. I thought you wanted him gone.”
“I did! I do.” Tara buries her face in her hands. “I don’t know what happened. I just… I froze.” She whispers. “I saw him and I froze. I wanted to move, my body wouldn’t let me.”
“Huh.” Rose leans back on her palms. “Your hair’s a mess, have you just been pulling it since?”
“I dunno.”
“Well your ends are totally fried, you gotta get a haircut.”
“I don’t have the money for that.”
Rose watches Tara for a moment. She watches her shaking hands and the way her lips purse at the end of every sentence, the healing wounds on them from nervous biting, her bent back.
“I’ll do it.” She reaches for her drawer and pulls out a pair of large scissors.
“What?”
“Let’s go to the bathroom, I’ll cut your hair.”
“I’m not letting you near my hair.” Tara recoils at the preposterous suggestion. “You’ll shave it off or something.”
Rose rolls her eyes. “I’m not gonna do that, I’m not that petty.”
“You totally are.”
“Well, it’s not like you can cut your own hair. Come on, I promise I’ll help.”
“You do?” She gives Rose a questioning look.
“Yeah. You’re a total mess, I won’t kick you while you’re down. But you can’t be walking around looking like this.”
“I…” Tara looks at the ground for a moment and grabs her sheets. “Fine. But if you mess it up I’ll kill you.”
“I’d love to see you try.” She snorts.
They make their way to the bathroom and Tara sits on the toilet with a plastic bag in her hands. Rose grabs a piece of her hair and holds it from the point above Tara’s shoulder.
“I’m gonna have to cut it here.”
“That’s so short!”
“Well, everything under that is pretty much destroyed. I can make it work, your hair has a lot of volume, we can layer it or something.”
“Are you sure?”
“Like, sixty percent sure.”
“That’s not a lot.” Tara bites the inside of her cheek.
“I can leave you with this rat’s nest on your head if you don’t like what I’m doing.”
“Fine, fine.” She rolls her eyes. “Just do it quickly.”
“I’ll do my best.”
The only sounds in the room when Rose gets to work are the buzzing of the shitty fluorescent lights, the snipping of the scissors and the rustle of Tara’s hair falling into the bag. When Rose looks up at the mirror to check what to do with the front she finds Tara with her eyes shut tightly.
“You okay?”
“How is it looking?” She winces at the next lock of hair Rose cuts.
“Pretty good. The back is mostly finished, I’m still figuring out exactly what I should do with your bangs.”
“Do not give me bangs,” she warns.
“Not straight bangs, don’t worry. You couldn’t pull those off in a million years.”
Tara opens her eyes at that. “I totally could.”
“Absolutely not.” Rose laughs. “They don’t fit your face.”
“Fuck you.”
“You might wanna reconsider cursing at the person holding scissors to your hair.”
Tara huffs and closes her eyes again. “Just get this over with.”
“Don’t worry, I’m working on it.”
The tip of Rose’s tongue sticks out as she continues cutting and styling, sinking into her work and forgetting whatever is going on outside. Tara’s hair is finally starting to take shape and her plans for the front are working out well.
When she finally looks up from what she’s doing again she finds Tara watching her from the mirror. Her face is inscrutable but Rose doesn’t recognize any of the malice and contempt Tara normally looks at her. If she didn’t know better about their relationship she’d say Tara’s expression has some affection to it.
“How are you liking it?”
“Better than I thought. Are you finished?”
“Almost. I just gotta do the side here. You should wash it once I’m done, though.”
“I know, I’ve gotten haircuts before.” She rolls her eyes.
“With the state of your hair when I started, I’m not sure you’re telling the truth.”
Instead of any biting banter, Tara just delivers a soft laugh and stays silent again. Her blue eyes pierce through Rose even from their reflection in the mirror. Tara’s unwavering focus on her makes something inside her stomach twist. Rose isn’t sure she dislikes the sensation.
“Okay, done!” She takes a step back and smiles. “What do you think?”
Tara gets up and begins to play with her hair, turning her head to check the sides and back. Rose gave her a simple and short shag cut, it frames her face well and brings out her best features.
“Wow.” Tara laughs. “It’s… pretty great. Looks good.”
“Told you I know what I’m doing.”
“Whatever.” She rolls her eyes. “Thanks for saving my hair.”
“It’d be a shame to go bald at such a young age. And your hair is pretty.”
“Thanks.” The ironic, snarky smile on Tara’s lips exchanges for a surprised and genuine one.
“I’m going back to our room, I think.” Rose places the scissors down on the counter and walks away. She hears footsteps behind her and Tara joins her side. The two girls sit together on Rose’s bed in silence and exchange a quick look. Rose has no clue what she’s supposed to say next, she has an inkling suspicion Tara’s in the same boat.
“So what happened?”
“I don’t know,” Tara sighs. “I told you, I just froze.”
“But how? I mean, we had him, he was right there, Tara.” Rose looks up at Tara to find her wide brown eyes brimmed with tears once again. The meaning of the phrase “doe-eyed” dawns on her in an instant and her heart twists.
“I can’t explain it. I saw him and everything else stopped and I just remembered everything. Hasn’t that ever happened to you?”
“Not really,” Rose responds without thinking but furrows her brow. Has it?
“Come on.” Tara straightens up and hugs one of her knees. “When you see someone walking the same way he does. Or talks the same. Don’t you freeze?”
“I guess.” She shrugs. “But that’s when I’m not on high alert. You knew this was coming and still couldn’t do anything?”
“It’s not like I wanted that to happen.” Tara huffs. “You’re acting like I sabotaged it on purpose but you said it yourself. I want him gone.”
“Well we can’t find him anymore, so what do we do now?”
“We wait. And try again.”
Rose wants to punch Tara in the face for the simplicity of her words, for the helplessness they exhibit. She wants to do something to show Tara how wrong she is, to prove to her there was something to be done. But she does know what Tara is talking about, and she does know there is nothing they can do until he resurfaces but wait and work and hope for the best.
“Fine,” she mutters.
“I really am sorry.”
“I know.” She looks down and bites down on her tongue. “Can I ask for a favor?”
Tara hesitates. “Maybe.”
“Next time we hear about him I want your help taking him down. For good.” Rose whips her head up with the sharpest gaze she can conjure and a devilish smile. “We can get rid of him, whatever it takes.” She puts her hand out and looks at Tara in silence.
“Are you sure I should help you again?” Tara’s voice has the subtlest quiver to it and she arches her eyebrows. “I could fuck it up.”
“We’ll be ready. I know it.”
The eye contact shocks Rose, ten thousand volts make currents through her bloodstream from the top of her head through her spine all the way to her fingernails and the soles of her feet. Every hair on her arms and legs stands guard and she can’t look away from Tara.
“Yeah, okay,” Tara says softly and shakes her hand. If the eye contact was electrifying, then what was going through Rose now is surely a fire. Every last callus and scar on her hand burns its imprint on Rose, leaves a mark she could never forget.
They don’t let go. Rose doesn’t know if she can. The moonlight and street lantern filter in through the thin white curtains and cast gentle shadows on the wall behind Tara, lighting her face softly. They’re sitting close enough for Rose to find every speck of color in Tara’s eyes, to hear her breathing. It takes her a moment to realize she’s trying to match it. Tara moves first, shifts their hands to lace her fingers through Rose’s. Her fingers sit between the grooves of Rose’s knuckles and she understands they were always meant to be there. She makes the smallest movement to the side and their knees brush. They both perk up and laugh.
“It’s a deal,” Rose whispers, as though speaking too loudly will shatter whatever is happening here. The tension forming between the two girls is imperceptible, it’s reverent and shy. A wrong movement will shatter the magic of the moment into a million pieces.
“Deal.”
“You’re still holding my hand.”
Tara’s lips curve up to a nearly invisible smile. “So what?”
She can’t take it anymore. Any of this. Rose lifts her other hand to hold Tara’s chin and leans in to kiss her. Despite being the one initiating the moment, another spark jolts through her when their lips finally meet. Something does shatter, she was right to think it could. But when Tara moves even closer and wraps her arm around Rose’s neck, embracing her, she comes to the conclusion it was worth breaking. So fucking worth it. She doesn’t let go of Tara’s hand, she doesn’t know if she can. Even the thought of it makes her stomach twist.
Tara’s warm enough to set Rose’s entire being aflame, she could turn into a pile of ashes on the floor of the cramped room with no complaints as long as Tara kisses her one more time. She needs one more, that will be enough.
When Tara does kiss her a second time she changes her mind. Maybe one more, one more will surely do it. Her lips are soft and raw from picking on the whole day, her arm is so real around Rose’s neck, her hand still holding on for life. But maybe one more kiss won’t be enough, maybe no amount will. Rose doesn’t want this to stop at all. There’s fear in that realization for a moment, but when she tries to back away Tara chases her back into the kiss; maybe she’s scared like Rose.
Rose lets her hand travel from its place on Tara’s chin around her neck and up into Tara’s short hair, carding her fingers through it as she gently bites down on her bottom lip. The soft satisfied sigh Tara lets out makes her braver. Rose releases Tara’s hand through the pain it brings to wrap her arm around her waist and bring her closer while biting harder. Tara’s satisfied reaction makes her heart do backflips in her chest. Even with all the sensations going through her, Rose finds room to be pissed at that.
Tara finally pulls away with heavy breaths and before Rose has time to complain she finds herself laying on her back with Tara climbing on top of her to straddle her. Her blonde hair hangs around her, the moonlight giving it a halo glow.
Rose doesn’t move, neither does Tara. They can only look at each other and wait. What are they waiting for? Rose tries to ask herself but she can’t come up with an answer, hypnotized by the girl on top of her.
“Do you wanna go on a date this Friday?” Tara finally breaks the silence.
“Yeah, sure.” Rose grabs the fabric of Tara’s shirt and pulls her back down.
