i chase the sun (it chase me) by geralehane on ao3
tw:blood, vampire chaennie
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Falling in bed with Jennie is as easy as falling in love with her, but it is infinitely less terrifying. Rosé doesn't need to be good; doesn't need to feel her heart again after living without it for so long.
Jennie is calm through all of Rosé's storms, and Rosé never knows about the scars she leaves.
♡♡
Jennie finds Rosé when she is a young, reckless vampire. She finds her during one of her careless feeds, blood smeared all over her chin and neck, two bodies long cold at her feet, the third one held up by Rosé's steady hand. Jennie finds Rosé smirking and ripping and falling apart.
(Rosé finds Jennie in longing gazes at night, in lips curving against her skin, fingertips marking the insides of her thighs)
Rosé doesn't need Jennie. Rosé is capable; she is strong; she is young. She has an eternity of bad decisions and no accountability ahead, so she doesn't need Jennie.
(But she finds she wants her)
(Jennie smells like winter and feels like summer)
Jennie is wisdom and patience and Rosé finds that annoying and infuriating, she tells herself (she can deal with something in her lower stomach, sudden and hot, but she can't deal with something in her chest, aching and longing and hurting her until she looks at Jennie or touches her or makes her smile)
She doesn't need this; she doesn't need anyone. She hasn't needed anyone since Noah made her and left her and all that remained was a monster.
(But she wants her)
Falling in bed with Jennie is as easy as falling in love with her, but it is infinitely less terrifying. Rosé doesn't need to be good; doesn't need to feel her heart again after living without it for so long.
Jennie is calm through all of Rosé's storms, and Rosé never knows about the scars she leaves.
"It's not what you think it is," she warns Jennie, warm, still panting Jennie, as she puts her dress back on. Jennie nods. Jennie doesn't speak much, Rosé has noticed.
(She tries not to pay attention to a soft tug on her heart as she thinks that, because vampires aren't affectionate; that's not who they are)
It's really, really not what she thinks it is, she tells herself as she slips into Jennie's bedchambers at night, her dress already pooling around her feet by the time she reaches Jennie's soft, greedy hands and soft, greedy lips.
Rosé takes too long to realize she's been right all along; it's not what Jennie thinks it is, because it's not just sex anymore.
She's in love with Jennie. Jennie doesn't know that.
(Yet, Rosé tells herself)
(One day, Rosé wakes up in her arms and she doesn't need this; but she never wants to leave)
Rosé loses Jennie because of her own countless mistakes, past and present and future. Rosé watches as Jennie is dragged away, beaten, bloody, broken; she watches and watches and watches and she wills herself not to look away because it just might be the last time she ever feels her heart beat before it stills again, and she doesn't find it in herself to believe when Jennie's ragged whisper of 'we will meet again' reaches her.
Jennie, turns out, is old and powerful and regal. Rosé, turns out, isn't enough to shield the old and powerful and regal Jennie from prejudices of her clan.
Jennie is gone and Rosé is lost.
(She hates Jennie for saying they will meet again, because that's exactly why she can't ram a stake through her heart; because Jennie made a shaky whispered promise and Rosé silently promised to wait for her in return but waiting hurts and hoping sucks)
(She hates herself for never whispering her love to her because she has something to hold on to but Jennie doesn't. Didn't. Doesn't.)
Jennie finds her several centuries later and it's in the alley behind a sleazy bar and there's blood everywhere but it's not Rosé's fault, and that's what Rosé sobs out before collapsing into Jennie's arms, and Jennie doesn't doubt her for a second.
(Jennie never doubts her, not even when Rosé's hands shake as she pours herself a shot, not even when Rosé stumbles on a syringe and makes no move to sweep it under the rug)
(Everything is Rosé's fault and everyone knows it but Jennie. When Jennie finds out, she refuses to believe it, and Rosé's long dead lungs expand for the first time in over a hundred years)
Jennie is right, and Rosé was right all along, and they finally get to escape the war and the clans and the scolding gazes that have become fleeting glances over the time (but Rosé still remembers Jennie beaten and bloody and broken and she doesn't want to take any chances)
(Jennie discovers Rosé through hushed whispers and awed gazes and tender touches, because Rosé didn't get to do that the first time around and that's the biggest regret of all her countless regrets)
(Jennie isn't and never can be one of them)
"It's not what you think it is," Rosé whispers the first night she gets to hold Jennie again after all these years, her naked skin bathed in moonlight and Rosé's tender gaze.
(She feels Jennie tense up and tightens her hold on her in return.)
"It's not?" Jennke's voice is hoarse; Rosé would blush if she could, because Jennie is hoarse because of her and the knowledge spreads possessive warmth through her no longer hollow chest.
"Never has been. Except for the first time, maybe."
Jennie's chuckles are full and wonderful.
"I'm not one for riddles, Rosé."
"I'm in love with you."
Jennie is warm and still panting and Rosé has never seen her as deliriously happy as she is in that moment and she's so, so proud that it's because of her.
"I'm in love with you, too."
"Duh." Rosé loves the way Jennie smirks; loves the way Jennie swats at her shoulder, the way she pins her under her body, the way she is up and ready for round five or was it six or seven?
Rosé loves Jennie.
(It doesn't feel scary anymore).
