Work Text:
Rook didn't usually look pained when Lucanis asked if he wanted dessert.
He usually said things like, "What are you, new?" or, "Is it poisoned with love and affection?" or, "Do bears shit in the woods?" while holding his plate out expectantly. Harding always found that last one particularly funny, for some insane reason.
Now, however, Rook was leaning back in his chair, pushed about as far away from the dining table as he could get while still technically sitting at it.
"'M good, thanks."
"Shit, Lucanis, did you actually poison him this time?" Davrin demanded, a forkful of torta di limon pausing halfway to his mouth.
Lucanis ignored him, setting the pie server down to peer closer at Rook. His skin looked waxy, his normally bright eyes unfocused.
"Rook, are you…ill?"
Rook shook his head, then winced, stifling a small burp.
"Oh, he's definitely gonna hurl," Davrin warned, scooting his own chair back.
Lucanis continued ignoring him. "Was it something you ate?"
"We all had the same thing," Davrin pointed out, ever helpful.
Lucanis made zuppa di funghi. The ingredients were all fresh: morels Harding had foraged earlier that day in Arlathan and bright green Trevisan parsley he'd bought himself at the market for a garnish. The same shade of green that now tinged Rook's face.
"Y'know, Harding and Taash did run off pretty fast after dinner," Davrin continued through a mouthful of torta.
Lucanis's stomach flipped, unsettled by the realization.
Everyone had cleared out fairly quickly, leaving Rook, Davrin, and Lucanis to finish the wine and enjoy dessert. A dessert Lucanis had made especially for Rook. To apologize for…himself. For everything. He'd thought…
Davrin started cutting himself another piece. "And Neve left all the dishes."
She never abandoned dish duty.
"And Emmrich—"
"He said he had reading to do," Rook spoke up in Lucanis's defense, sounding distinctly woozy.
"I'm just saying…"
Lucanis had thought he was making a grand gesture with this dessert. He'd thought the flutters in his stomach were nerves. As his pulse began ticking up and his guts twisted again, he knew he'd thought wrong.
"Harding did say those were morels, right?"
Mierda, he'd ruined everything. He should have examined them closer. He should have—
The sound of Rook vomiting into his empty wine glass echoed through the dining hall. In the stunned silence that followed, Rook placed the glass gingerly on the table. Partially-digested bits of parsley floated on top of the grey-brown sludge. He met Lucanis's eyes over the table with a weak, but earnest, smile.
"Dinner was really good, Lucanis."
"It was poisoned!" Davrin crowed.
"By accident!" Rook was steadfast, and Lucanis's heart swelled even as his own gorge rose.
He turned on Davrin, who was still smugly eating. "Why aren't you sick?"
"Warden constitution."
"Want me to puke on him?" Rook offered with a bleary wink.
That's when Lucanis realized, as he placed a hand over his mouth and hurried to the sink, that he loved Rook. And that grand gestures come in all shapes and sizes.