"Oh… oh no," Roxie said aloud, glancing down at the mixing bowl. "Do you have yogurt? I didn't even think to look…" She stepped toward the fridge again, flustered. "I'm sorry—I should have checked—"
-----
"Top shelf," Dianna blurted, shooting upright on the couch like someone had lit a firecracker under her ass. "Plain regular yogurt, still sealed. Next to the weird pickles."
Roxie blinked. Then smiled, so relieved it was almost bashful. "Oh. Good. I just—it's kind of important for the sauce. But if it's weird I can make it without, I didn't mean to—"
"It's not weird. You're good. Sauce away." Dianna waved her hand vaguely toward the fridge like she was bestowing a royal blessing.
Roxie nodded, still looking faintly embarrassed, and returned to stirring.
Dianna collapsed back into the cushions, heartbeat doing a little skip.
Thank fuck she had gone shopping. If Roxie had offered to cook dinner and seen the state of the fridge previously, Dianna might have had to fake a power outage and commit arson to avoid the shame. But no, dinner and her dignity was saved thanks to fermented milk proteins, purchased on a whim.
The ceiling above her spun faintly. Or maybe that was just her brain catching up to what she'd done—what she was doing. She'd known the moment Roxie stepped into that kitchen that she was in way, way over her head.
Roxie moved like a memory being rewritten. Like someone trying very hard not to take up space and still somehow filling the room by accident. All six-foot-whatever of her, happy and reverent, sleeves pushed to the elbow, ridiculously long hair caught in a loose tie at the nape of her neck.
And she cooked. Earnestly. Carefully. Like this wasn't just dinner but a benediction.
Dianna turned her head toward the kitchen entrance where golden light pooled in soft oblongs across the floor. The sounds were ordinary—knife against board, a spoon tapping the side of a pot—but they felt almost... domestic.
Which was ridiculous. It had been, what, less than a full day since she'd first seen the girl flat-faced on the ground after falling off of a bus?
She pressed the heel of her palm to her eye and exhaled slowly.
No. Don't do this. Don't get stupid about it. She just needed a place to stay, and Dianna had one, and it made sense.
It wasn't about Roxie's height. Or her arms. Or the way her voice had gone all quiet and mortified over a tub of yogurt. It wasn't about how Dianna wanted to grab her by the collar and pin her against the fridge just to see what would happen.
…Okay, maybe it was partly that.
But it wasn't just that. That was the part that bothered her.
Because Dianna wasn't the type to wait. Not for anything. Not for anyone.
And yet here she was, stretched across her dead benefactor's very expensive couch like a strung-out Victorian ghost, listening to a near-stranger hum softly while mint and dill braided themselves into the air.
Her stomach growled. Her pulse did something similar.
Oh yeah.
She was in so much trouble.
Dianna hadn't meant to drift. But gravity was a funny thing, and Roxie Shapiro had her own field of it.
She found herself perched at the kitchen island without remembering sitting down, cradling her glass of water like it might steady her, as the smell of mint and dill wrapped around her like steam.
The giantess moved with a serenity Dianna didn't understand. There was no rush in her gestures, no fuss. Just long limbs and quiet precision. Measured. Womanly. Complete.
Dianna felt a strange ache low in her chest, like she'd come in thirsty and didn't know for what.
"So what's your major?" she asked, because words were safer than silence. She tried for casual. It came out hoarse.
"Art History," Roxie answered, turning slightly, her tone modest—apologetic, even.
Dianna blinked. "Huh. I wouldn't've guessed that."
"No one does," Roxie murmured with a small smile, glancing down as she chopped. "They always expect something… bolder. Engineering, or law. Something loud."
"And instead you chose to… look at paintings?"
Roxie didn't flinch at the oversimplification. She just paused, knife suspended mid-air, eyes soft and faraway.
"I chose to study beauty," she said.
Dianna stared.
Roxie set the knife down, fingers resting lightly on the countertop as if even that had its place in some silent composition.
"I remember the first time I saw Monét in person," she said quietly. "It was one of the water lilies. Huge—like it wanted to eat the wall. But when you got close, you saw the brushstrokes. The colors weren't colors. They were light. Motion. Faith in the idea that something fleeting could still be worth capturing."
She shook her head, smiling like she still didn't quite believe it.
"I cried," she added, almost sheepishly. "Right there in the gallery. I couldn't help it. It felt like someone had caught the breath of God in oil and canvas."
Dianna had no reply.
She hadn't expected to be gutted in her own kitchen by a woman ( even is she was built like a Greek depiction of Aphrodite) whispering about brushstrokes.
It made her feel off-balance. Like she'd been looking at Roxie all wrong.
Like she'd mistaken the frame for the art.
She swallowed hard. Her throat felt tight.
"That's… really gay," she finally managed.
Roxie laughed—a quiet, breathy thing that curled around the room like incense.
"I know," she said. "Isn't it wonderful?"
Dianna smiled, crooked and stupid and maybe a little bit in awe.
And somewhere, without warning, the hunger twisted. Not just for skin. Not just for sex.
But for softness. For something more. For someone who could look at a smear of pigment and see divinity.
She ducked her head and reached for the napkins. Her mouth opened, just to fill the quiet—
"Please tell me what else you love like that."
Silence.
Dianna froze. Her hand clenched around the napkins.
Roxie looked up from the rice, startled. Their eyes met. Something flickered.
The burner hummed softly beneath the pot. A faint breath of dill rose through the air.
Dianna wanted to crawl under the counter and die.
"…I mean," she started, desperate to claw it back, "you don't have to—"
"I'd like to," Roxie said.
Quiet. Unshaken.
And then she turned back to the stove, as if it had been nothing at all. As if Dianna's soul hadn't just cracked open like an egg in her own goddamn kitchen.
-----
Roxie looked up from the pot, spoon still in hand.
"Please tell me what else you love like that," Dianna had said—quiet, but not small. It hung in the air like incense, clinging to the steam.
The words landed with more force than they had any right to. Not just because of what was said, but who had said it.
Roxie blinked.
No one had ever asked her that before. Not really. Not like that.
Her old friends—her guildmates, her fellow Capes-in-training, her classmates—they were kind, even fond of her in the casual way of people who logged on more than they showed up. But they didn't ask. Not the quiet things. Not the sacred things. They talked strats, stats, jokes, headlines. Never brushstrokes. Never beauty.
She stood still, the scent of dill thick in the air, hand resting on the edge of the counter like it could anchor her in the moment.
Dianna wasn't even looking at her. She was fiddling with a napkin like she was trying to kill it, chewing her lip like she regretted speaking.
But she had spoken.
And now Roxie's chest felt tight, in a way she couldn't quite name.
"I'd like to..." she began, voice softer than she meant it to be.
Then stopped.
She looked at Dianna again. Really looked. The cropped blonde hair with its purple tips. The punky posture. The bare legs curled under the stool like some unapologetic jungle cat who didn't know how much space she took up in a room—or maybe knew exactly and reveled in it.
Roxie had never met anyone like her. Never met anyone who saw her like this, either.
And for some reason, she wanted to give her the answer.
Even if it came out awkward. Even if it came out raw.
"I love the way fresh ink smells," she said, slowly. "Right when a book is new, and the pages still feel like they're breathing."
Dianna stilled. And the words started tumbling out of Roxie's mouth like a burst dam.
"I love mosaics. Especially the old ones." She started talking with her hands, glancing constantly at Dianna as she spoke. "The ones where some of the tiles are missing, but you can still see what the artist was trying to say. That hope in the incomplete."
She stirred the pot absently, but her eyes had gone soft again, glassy and distant.
"I love the weight of cathedral silence," Roxie murmured. "The kind where you can hear your own heartbeat echoing off the walls. And… I love the way rain sounds against stained glass."
A beat passed.
"I love when music doesn't have lyrics, but still feels like it's saying something. Like Bach. Or Debussy."
She exhaled through her nose, cheeks a little red. Her bangs had fallen out of their tie again, but she didn't fix them.
"And I love it when people make food for each other. Not fancy meals. Just… something simple. Something with care. It's like a little prayer, I think. Even if they don't know it."
Another silence fell.
It wasn't awkward. It was reverent. Like they'd stumbled into some invisible chapel and neither one knew how to leave.
Roxie finally glanced back toward the barstool, a crooked smile playing at her lips.
"That's probably more than you wanted to know."
Dianna didn't answer right away. Just stared at her like she was watching a miracle assemble itself, piece by piece, out of flour and light.
Roxie looked down again, suddenly flustered, and gave the rice one last stir.
"Anyway," she said, voice tipping shy, "food's almost ready."
But the blush on her cheeks lingered like candlelight.
-----
Dianna didn't answer.
She couldn't.
She just sat there, elbows braced on the island like they were the only things keeping her upright, while Roxie turned back to the stove like she hadn't just opened her ribcage and let a whole goddamn cathedral fall out.
Is this woman real?
She blinked. Once. Twice.
People didn't talk like that. Not real people.
Not people who looked like that—like a seven-foot goddess in baggy jeans and a half-unraveled ponytail, stirring herbs into rice like it was a sacrament. Not people who could probably snap a steel bat in half with their pinky and then start waxing poetic about stained glass and the way silence hums in old cathedrals.
Nobody could be that fuckin' wholesome.
Nobody should be.
It was unbalanced. Unsafe. Like standing too close to a bonfire and suddenly realizing you'd left your soul too flammable.
And the worst part?
She meant it.
Every damn word. Roxie hadn't been trying to impress her. That wasn't flirtation. That wasn't a line.
That was just… her.
She meant the ink. The food. The damn Debussy.
Dianna's throat worked around a breath she didn't remember drawing in. She rubbed her palm against her thigh and felt nothing but heat and static.
She wanted to kiss her.
God, she wanted to crawl over that kitchen island and kiss her so stupid neither of them remembered how words worked. She wanted to bite her lip and taste the sweet little shyness and holy sincerity until Roxie forgot how to stir rice altogether.
But she didn't.
Because she couldn't.
Because this girl, this tall, blushing, unreal woman with art in her blood and cathedrals in her bones—
She was the kind of thing you didn't touch unless you meant it.
And Dianna didn't know what the hell she meant yet.
So instead, she tucked one leg up on the stool and leaned her cheek against her palm, heart pounding, trying to look casual and very much failing.
"Alright," she said, voice tense but steady. "You're officially the weirdest girl I've ever met."
Roxie glanced over her shoulder, brows raised.
"That's not a bad thing," Dianna added quickly. "Just. Y'know. If someone wrote you down in a book, I'd say they made you up."
Roxie glanced over her shoulder, lips twitching at the corner. And then—God help a poor sinner—Roxie bit her bottom lip.
Soft. Almost sheepish. Like she hadn't just casually detonated Dianna's brain ten seconds ago.
Dianna took a sip of water to cool the fuck down.
And immediately choked on it.
"Holy shit—!" she sputtered, doubling forward, fist thudding to her chest as she coughed. A small arc of water hit the counter with a splash, and she wheezed past it, one eye squinting like she'd just been pepper sprayed.
Roxie turned around fully, wide-eyed. Apparently ready to leap in to help if she was needed. "Oh my gosh—are you okay?!"
Dianna waved her off between hacks, face flushing hotter than it already was. "Fine. Totally fine. Just forgot how swallowing works for a second. Happens all the time. Super normal."
She straightened back up, still coughing under her breath, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand like she hadn't just committed social arson on herself.
Roxie looked like she was trying very hard not to laugh. "Should I bring a Heimlich diagram to dinner?"
Dianna pointed at her with mock sternness. "Don't make me laugh while I'm dying."
But Roxie was already plating, scooping rice and herbs and crisped golden tahdig onto mismatched dishes with gentle focus. She laid out utensils like it was ritual, like it mattered.
And somehow, it did.
The tension hadn't vanished—just softened into something warmer. Something manageable.
Roxie maneuvered a stool to the opposite side of the bar and sat. A clink of silverware. The aroma of mint and garlic and toasted grain wrapped the room like a blanket.
They sat across from each other at the island, plates warm between them, steam curling in gentle ribbons from the sabzi polo.
Dianna lifted her fork, half-raised it to her mouth—and paused.
Roxie's eyes had fluttered closed. Her fingers moved in a practiced gesture, slow and reverent: forehead, chest, left shoulder, right. The sign of the cross, drawn across her body with a softness that made Dianna's chest cinch up.
Then came the whisper, almost inaudible but unmistakably tender:
"Et nomine Patri, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti..."
She finished the gesture, exhaled, and picked up her fork.
Dianna blinked. Slowly lowered her own.
"…You just—do that. Even when it's just me," she said, not teasing. Just… surprised.
Roxie looked up, blinking like she hadn't realized she'd been seen. Her smile was a little sheepish. "Yeah. I mean—it's a habit. I've believed since I was little. I don't even think about it anymore. Just feels wrong to eat without giving thanks to God, you know?"
Dianna didn't know. Not really. But something about the way Roxie said it, like it was the most natural thing in the world, made her want to.
"It's not just for show, then," Dianna said, voice low, gesturing toward the taller woman with her fork "The faith thing."
"No," Roxie said simply. "It's not."
She didn't expand. Didn't sermonize. Just tucked a loose bit of black hair, that refused to stay, behind her ear and gave Dianna a lopsided smile, like she hoped that was enough.
And to Dianna's utter confusion—it was enough. No proselytizing, no speeches. Just an explanation and a living faith. That was it, take it or leave it.
Dianna took another bite, chewing slowly, deliberately. The crisped crust of rice shattered like glass between her teeth, then gave way to soft layers steeped in dill and something citrusy—sumac, maybe? She didn't know. Didn't care. It was divine.
But not half as divine as the woman across from her, sitting there with her hands folded neatly in her lap, like she didn't realize she'd just served up the kind of meal people wrote poetry about. Her shoulders were hunched the slightest bit, like she was bracing for a bad review.
Dianna set her fork down gently. "You know this is, like, stupid good, right?"
Roxie blinked. "Oh. I mean—it's not perfect, I haven't made it in a while—"
"Rox. Babe. This is better than most restaurants. I'm serious."
A faint flush bloomed across Roxie's cheeks, up to the tips of her ears. She ducked her head, smiling into her plate. "Thanks. My mama used to say a woman should know how to feed the people she cares for. It stuck, I guess."
Dianna almost groaned. Unfair.
And yet—it didn't feel like a line. It didn't feel like performance. Roxie said it like it was just the truth. Like love and care were things you demonstrated in servings and spices, not status updates.
And Dianna… couldn't stop watching her.
The way she cradled her glass with both hands. The way she shifted her legs awkwardly under the table, still clearly not used to the space. Her smile, uncertain but genuine. Her eyes, luminous and too soft for a world this cruel.
Dianna didn't say anything for a moment. Just drank. Not the water—though she took another careful sip of that, lest her lungs betray her again—but her. The sight of her. The being of her. Like she was something holy and real, all at once.
She needed this.
And she hated that she needed it.
Not sex. Not a release. Not a body to pin or be pinned by. She'd had that before. Shallow connections and pretty faces, all gone by morning.
What she needed now was something she hadn't even known she'd been starving for.
A friend.
A real one.
Though if the other part came along later Rodgers knew she would die of joy.
And across the table, Roxie needed something too. Dianna could see it, even if Roxie hadn't said it out loud. That hunger behind the nerves. That bright, painful hope—like maybe, just maybe, she'd finally met someone who wouldn't flinch when she spoke too much, or too earnestly. Someone who wouldn't stare when she stood too tall or took up too much space. Someone who didn't think her softness was a flaw.
Dianna's gaze softened. Her voice, when it came, was low. Intentional
"So," Dianna said, spearing a forkful of rice but not lifting it, "you said you appreciate art… but do you do any?"
Roxie blinked, caught mid-chew. She swallowed quickly and dabbed her mouth with the edge of a napkin, like that was the most serious question she'd been asked all day. Maybe all week.
"A little," she said after a pause. "Not like… amazing or anything. I sketch. I paint sometimes, when I have the space. Haven't really had the time lately, But yeah. I do."
"What kind?" Dianna leaned forward, propping her chin on one hand. She looked like she was lounging, but there was nothing lazy in her eyes.
Roxie hesitated, then smiled—soft, slow, in an almost mousey way that didn't hide anything. "Landscapes, mostly. Skies. Water. Light on leaves. I like trying to catch those quiet moments that feel like… grace. Like the world is whispering, and you can almost hear it if you're still enough."
Dianna stared. "Jesus," she muttered. "You're serious."
Roxie tilted her head, eyebrows scrunched in polite confusion. "Of course I'm serious."
"I just…" Dianna blew out a breath, laughed under it. "Nobody talks like that. Not in real life."
"I get that a lot, I have a tendency to over-spiritualize everything. I see importance because I want to. " Roxie said gently. "It's okay, I think."
She glanced toward her bag in the corner of the living room, then back at Dianna. And the moment cracked open—not guarded, not coy. Just utterly guileless.
"I—I have my sketchbook. If you want to see?" she said. Her voice rose a little at the end, unsure but hopeful. "It's in my duffel. I keep it with me. I don't know, it's just—when I'm nervous, or thinking too much. I draw."
And there it was again: that bright flicker under everything, the quiet thrill of being seen, and maybe—finally—safe enough to be known.
Dianna froze for half a second, like she'd just glimpsed a rare bird landing on her balcony. Roxie—this towering, earnest, luminous girl—was offering her a piece of her soul, unprompted, unguarded.
Something in Dianna's chest tightened. It wasn't lust this time. Or at least… not just that.
"You sketch when you're nervous?" she asked, voice softer now. "I like to play music. I'm a singer and a bassist in a band." She cleared her throat and pushed forward. Normally she had no problem bragging about being a musician but this felt off somehow. She wasn't trying to pick her up. Just being honest and that made the words sticky. "Guitar. Bit of piano when I could sneak it. I was awful at lessons, but I could always play by ear."
Roxie blinked in surprise, her expression blooming like a flower turning toward light. "Really?"
Dianna shrugged, not quite meeting her eyes. "Yeah. Wasn't much of a sharer about it, but… you saying that just made me think. Maybe it's the same thing, yeah? That quiet space. Something to hold onto. Creating something out of nothing. "
Roxie smiled, slow and wondering.
Dianna gave a small, crooked grin in return, then leaned back on the stool and nodded toward the bag in the living room. "Go on then. Let's see it."
The sketchbook was already in Roxie's hands before she'd even finished speaking. She moved like she was afraid the moment might disappear if she took too long. By the time she returned to the island, her expression was glowing—shy, but lit from within, like she was walking on air.
Dianna's heart did something strange in her chest. Tight, bright, and scared.
She reached out for the sketchbook.
"I won't judge," she said, suddenly earnest. "Promise."
The sketchbook landed between them with a soft thump, pages still warm from Roxie's hands.
Dianna opened it slowly, like she was handling something delicate.
The first drawing was a charcoal still life of fruit in a ceramic bowl—technically flawless, shadows so soft they looked touchable. She turned the page. A street scene, maybe somewhere in downtown Miami, drawn in painstaking perspective. Palm trees, shadows curling like fingers over sidewalks. A little boy feeding pigeons. A couple caught mid-laugh.
Another page. A cathedral dome, rendered in colored pencil, the shading of the stained glass painstakingly layered to catch the illusion of light. The ink was patient. The lines steady. Nothing smudged. No second thoughts.
Page after page. Architectural studies, classical statues, museum interiors. Portraits, mostly from memory—people on benches, in cafes, at bus stops, no one looking directly out of the page. All beautiful. All restrained.
Dianna's mouth opened slowly. "Holy shit, Roxy."
Roxie flushed. "They're not that good, I—"
"They're incredible." Dianna's voice was soft, eyes still moving over the details. "You could—like, this is textbook-perfect. You're like, scary good."
Roxie didn't answer at first. Her fingers curled nervously in her lap.
Dianna kept turning pages, softer now. Slower.
And that's when she noticed it.
Everything was safe.
Every composition, balanced. Every face, poised. Every building, symmetrical, every scene rendered from a calm, clinical distance. Even the messy things—wrinkled paper cups, peeling paint on an alley wall—were filtered through a lens of exactness. Controlled. As if drawn from behind glass.
There were no rough sketches. No experiments. No failures. No feelings that weren't pre-measured.
Dianna felt it like a pinch in the chest. Not disappointment, not really—just…
Sadness.
There was something missing. Something vital. Like the art was trying to be perfect, not honest. Like the heart behind it hadn't been given permission to show up.
She didn't say that part aloud.
Instead, she gently closed the book and rested her hand over it.
"Roxy," she said quietly, "this is… some of the most beautiful stuff I've ever seen."
Roxie looked down at the counter, cheeks flushed pink. "I just… like to make things nice. That's all."
Dianna nodded.
But in her chest, something was stirring. A quiet little ache.
She wanted to ask what Roxie would draw if no one was ever going to see it. What would happen if she messed something up. Let it be ugly. Let it be hers.
But that wasn't a first-week-of-knowing-someone question.
So she just squeezed the edge of the sketchbook instead. And opened her mouth to crack some joke about playing at her first gallery opening. Some cheesy melodramatic pick up line. But her damned mouth betrayed her.
"What would you draw if no one ever saw it?"
------
Roxie watched as Dianna closed the sketchbook, her fingers resting lightly on the cover like she was sealing something away. But she didn't push it aside or slide it back across the counter. She just sat there, quiet for a beat too long, like she was chewing on something she wasn't sure how to say.
And then, soft as a question asked in a church pew:
"What would you draw if no one ever saw it?"
Roxie blinked.
The air in her lungs stilled.
It wasn't teasing. It wasn't playful. It wasn't even curiosity, not really. It was—earnest. Strangely, unsettlingly earnest. Like Dianna wasn't just asking about art. Like she was asking about her. Asking about the her nobody ever bothered to look at, and Roxie felt herself stutter inside.
Because she knew. She knew exactly what she would draw. She saw it sometimes when she closed her eyes: fire and ocean waves, a ship half sunken and small trembling hands clinging desperately to a floating door. A half remembered moment in a far away place where she saw her mother sleeping beside a door she'd barricaded with a chair; the dizzying bigness of God in the chapel ceiling; an iron face in a mirror that wasn't hers yet.
But she didn't draw those things.
Because what if they were bad? What if she got it wrong? What if someone looked at them—at her—and didn't understand?
What if she failed?
Roxie opened her mouth. Closed it again. The heat rising in her wasn't shame, exactly. It was older than that. Something bone-deep and brittle. Something like fear.
"I… I don't know," she said finally, too quietly.
But it wasn't true.
And she knew Dianna knew it wasn't true. The Aussie's gaze didn't flinch, didn't press, didn't smirk. Just stayed right there on her, steady and open, like she could wait all night.
Roxie looked down. Smoothed the edge of her sketchbook with trembling fingers.
Her voice, when it came again, was barely a breath:
"Something honest, I think. But I'm not… brave enough for that yet."
-----
Why had she asked that?
Fuck.
FUCK.
Dianna kept her face as neutral as possible, but inside, her brain was spiraling like a siren had gone off in her skull.
That was too much. That was way too much, Rodgers. What the hell was that? A damn therapy prompt? Jesus—
She glanced at Roxie, who had gone very, very still. Her long fingers were fidgeting with the edge of the sketchbook, eyes down, expression unreadable in the worst possible way.
Oh no. Oh no no no. She's gonna cry. Or pound your head through the damn table. Or worse—
But she didn't do any of those things.
She just… said softly, "Something honest, I think. But I'm not… brave enough for that yet."
And that might've been worse.
Because it wasn't the sound of someone offended, or fragile, or angry. It was the sound of someone raw. Someone holding a truth so close to the chest that saying it out loud might crack her wide open. Like she was made of eggshells and faith and no one had ever bothered to ask what was inside.
And Dianna felt her own panic twist into something sharp and strange.
Because she hadn't meant to cut that deep. She really hadn't.
But now that she had, all she wanted to do was take Roxie's hand and promise—swear—that it was okay. That she didn't have to be perfect. That someone still wanted to know her, even when she wasn't.
Even if Dianna didn't know how to say that yet.
So instead, she offered the only thing she could think of. Something small. Something human. She was going to say that art is sometimes beautiful when it sucks. But she needed to steady herself first.
She reached for her water glass with a slightly trembling hand and muttered under her breath, "Cool. Good job, Rodgers. Real subtle."
And knocked the glass directly into her lap.