Fear of God | Rossian

"ROSIE! Stop!"

The shake made her flinch, her shoulders raising slightly up across her neck as her lip trembled, her eyes wide and full of fear. Not of him, though he'd...never raised his voice at her or touched her like this. It made her go silent instantly, her body rigid in his grasp as her breath hitched in her throat. She didn't move her gaze from his, not sure what was coming next. For once, she couldn't read him and Rosie didn't know what to make of it.

"Just...stop. Fuck."

He let her go and she immediately backed away from him, wanting to put space between herself and his pacing. When her back touched the wall, she leaned into it, her fingers brushing against the wall idly, trying to ground herself in the sensation of cold stone against her skin. His jolt had snapped her out of the panic that was taking over, and now she was left with her words hanging in the air above them.

There was an ache in her chest that Rosalie couldn't push down. It was an ache of exhaustion, of defeat, of being so completely spent on watering dying flowers. She knew it as she watched him pacing in front of her. He was never going to meet her where she was. Whether because he couldn't or refused to - did it really matter? The outcome was the same.

And she didn't know what to do with that.

"Do you trust me? Do you?"

"I trust you," she answered immediately, not needing even a second to consider his question. Her blue eyes held his as he cupped her face, wishing he could read all the thoughts that lay behind them. She trusted him more than anyone else, despite everything. It broke her heart to feel that he didn't trust her, with his heart, his vulnerabilities, his thoughts. He'd said she had his heart, but was it really hers if he pulled away every time she reached out?

She wouldn't voice it. He wanted her to stop.

"Good. That's all I need. Just that. Not the worry, not the crying. I need you to let me handle this and...and I need to know you trust me to handle this--to take care of you, take care of us. I don't need to hear that you think you'll lose me, not right now when I'm trying to be strong for the two of us. I just..."

Her lip trembled again, understanding what he meant, but it felt so silencing. It felt like a rejection - not of her love, but of her way of loving. She wasn't crying because she didn't think he could handle all of this. She was crying because he kept shutting her out, when all she ever wanted was in. His thumbs brushed against her cheeks, catching the tears that ran down them. He couldn't listen to her fears, couldn't take them on. He needed her to just accept that he would be able to handle all of this - her family, the threats, her. Her throat stung as he pressed his forehead against hers.

"I need to hear that you think I've got this, that you think I really can."

All she'd ever done was believe in him. Didn't he realize that? When everyone else - when he doubted himself, she was always his biggest cheerleader. She was always the one watching him with stars in her eyes, seeing the man he was underneath the boyish grins. She always recognized his strength, his greatness, his ability to be bigger than his circumstances. She had never once doubted him.

It felt incredibly invalidating, and Rosalie could feel her heart breaking in real time. He needed to feel like the man in all of this. He didn't want a partner at his side. He wanted her to stand back so he could take the lead.

She knew how to. It's what she was raised to do.

She nodded, steadying herself and pushing her emotions back down her throat, deep into the pit of pain the surged through her chest. She could do it. She would do it for him, if it's what he needed.

"I know you can," she said softly, barely above a whisper. "I've never doubted you, in anything."

The moment Rosie recoiled, he felt it.

He was fucking up, again.

Cassian had barely survived the news that he might have been a father and knew he hadn't handled it well either. His girlfriend had needed to be held through it and allowed to shed the strong emotions that had swelled inside her, and he'd shut down. The boy wasn't handling this news any better. Never, in the history of the time they'd known each other, had he ever raised his voice at her, let alone grabbed her like that. It was a chord that tried to strike, but in the larger chaotic symphony, it only got lost.

He should've felt awful. There was even a whisper of an apology owed as he watched her shut down in real time, but he remained firmly in the grasp of the spiral that continued to drag him down.

Cass should've noticed the warning sirens blaring as Rosie shut down before his eyes, and with a clearer head, he would have. In his frenzy, only the strongest of messages could get through. In this case, it was that she believed him and in him.

The boy could feel his muscles trying to melt, but the adrenaline remained, making it all but impossible for him to really come down from his dizzying high. She knew he could and never doubted him. Cassian exhaled deeply. He didn't know what to do or how he would fix this one, but at least he had her in his corner, believing that somehow, he'd find a way. That locked things in, didn't it? Now he had to have an answer. It was no longer his own faith that he held in his hands, but hers, too, and that was something precious.

"Thank you," he replied in his own low whisper.

In the moments when it all felt too big and overwhelming, he would replay those words, reminding himself that he had a great girl he couldn't afford to let down. There was far more at stake than had ever been before. It wasn't just angry parents and unnecessarily rigid groundings anymore. His life was in the balance as it had been on the docks. Cass didn't want to die any more now than he did back then. In the same way, he wasn't trying to hear those screams Rosie had emitted while she'd held him.

It was all fucked, all the way around, but...there weren't many other options. What was the alternative? Leaving her alone? Letting them win? Losing the first girl to show him that it was okay to just be who he was?

It shouldn't have been a decision he had to make, but his mind was made up.

"I'll figure this out. We will." He kissed her, both to assure her and himself that he had any sort of chance at all.

Finally, he let her go. "Need me to walk you back to your common room?"

She never dropped his eyes from him, trying her hardest to read him, to find any semblance of the comfort Cassian usually gave her without even trying. He was frantic, she could feel the wild energy radiating from him, even as he exhaled, a deep desperate breath. She didn't move, her back still staunchly against the wall, and her arms at her sides. She couldn't if she tried, frozen in place now by the pain the impaled her chest.

"Thank you."

She didn't answer, swallowing hard and finding herself at a loss for words or anything that she could respond with. There was nothing to say. He'd made his position - and hers - clear, and she wouldn't fight him on it. He needed what he needed, and it was her job as his girlfriend to ensure he had it. He wanted her support - that was all.

Rosalie felt like she was drowning, water seeping down her throat and into her lungs with every panicked breath she tried to take. And yet, in the same breathless instant, she was pushing Cassian above the surface; holding her silence, pulling inward, so he could be the one who stood unshaken.

She understood he was scared. He wouldn't say it, but she knew. How could he not be? Again, this boy's life was turning upside down because of her, and she was asking him to hold her through it. She recognized in that moment how selfish she must sound to him. Everything that had happened to them had been because of the way her family operated. Because of her last name, and what it represented.

Of course he raised his voice to her and shook her. He was at the end of his rope, and somewhere along the path of their relationship, Rosalie had become too much and taken too many liberties.

"I'll figure this out. We will."

She couldn't return his kiss, instead wiping quickly at the last of the tears that fell from her cheeks as she slipped away from the wall and his grasp. The intrusive thoughts from earlier in the year were back; she could hear them echoing in her head as he asked her if she needed him to walk her back.

Needed? She didn't need anything. From him or anyone else.

"No."

It was all she said as she pulled open the door and left him standing in the closet alone. She moved quickly, not giving him the chance to grab her again as she walked swiftly for the staircase, her arms wrapped protectively around her and her eyes dull with something they'd never reflected before.