Me, in a previous post: an au where Rose cuts her hair off and strigoi Dimitri is pissed.
Me, in a different post: Dimitri has a lock of Rose's hair.
In this au, Rose likes to braid her hair before training and after their first lesson, Dimitri points out that her braid is all messed up and crooked.
The next time they meet, Dimitri offers to help her and ends up doing a perfect braid.
It becomes part of their routine. Before each training session, Dimitri will gently braid Rose's hair, his fingertips skim longingly along her neck and spine during his moments of weakness. Then after each session, he helps her undo the braid while they cool down and discuss what moves to work more on.
During the cabin scene, Dimitri tenderly unbraids her hair, his lips grazing the back of her neck, his fingers tracing down her spine.
Afterwards, she asks him to redo her braid so they can steal an extra moment together. Dimitri agrees and once he's finished, he gently tugs on her braid three times, a silent I love you.
When they're attacked by stigoi in the woods and Dimitri gives her the code word, they don't have time for one more kiss, but Dimitri does have time to caress her braid, his eyes burning with a silent message that Rose understands. He's reminding her that the braid is part of her Guardian uniform. He's telling her to be the warrior she was born to be and she does exactly that when she defends the school.
Before the caves, Rose pulls Dimitri aside and presses something soft into his hand. Dimitri looks down and sees a coil of Rose's hair, set into a thin braid.
Rose: I know you once told me to never cut it, but it was only a small section and it's for good luck.
Dimitri raises the lock to his lips and kisses it before kissing Rose.
Dimitri: Hmm... I was wondering why you took your braid from the cabin out.
Rose: How did you know I took my braid out?
Dimitri: Because Roza, when I braid your hair, it never comes out crooked like your current one.
Rose rolls her eyes affectionately then turns her back to Dimitri: Well, you better hurry up and fix it Comrade, we've got strigoi to hunt down.
Rose's braid on the trip to the caves is perfectly straight and neat. Meanwhile, Dimitri has one hand in his duster pocket, fiddling with a smaller, messy version.
A horrific battle take place in the caves, everyone too distracted trying to survive to notice Dimitri has a lock of dark hair wrapped around his knuckles while he clutches his silver stake.
When Dimitri opens his new red eyes, he sees another strigoi standing over him, toying with a familiar braid, musing about how wonderful it smells and how delicious a meal it's owner might make. Those are the last words that strigoi ever says and Dimitri guards that lock of hair obsessively, knowing it's owner would be so much more than just a delicious meal if given the chance...
Rose hasn't taken her braid out since the caves. How could she? It was the last thing Dimitri did for her and she couldn't take it out until he was rescued, until he was with her again to redo it. She needed him back to help her braid her hair. She needed him back to watch her kick ass in her qualifiers. She needed him back so they could be Lissa's Guardians together. She needed him back to love her. She needed him back...
Then Mason appears and confirms Rose's worst fear. Dimitri wasn't coming back. So, knowing that she now has a promise to keep, Rose says goodbye to Lissa, gets a plane ticket, and grabs a pair of scissors.
Dimitri has been hearing rumors of a rouge Guardian loose in Russia, torturing and killing strigoi. At first, he's certain it's Rose, but after one strigoi returns, reporting that the Guardian had short hair, he's not as confident. Rose wouldn't cut her hair, she would never, but Dimitri can't fight the nagging feeling that maybe, just maybe, he isn't the only one of them with a new look.
Dimitri stands in the shadows, watching Rose spin and laugh in the middle of the street beside a human woman. His eye sight is flawless, he can see with perfect clarity that all her wavy locks have been cut off and he hates it.
Then he gets closer to her, she hesitates, and he hates it even more. His Roza would never cut her hair. His Roza would never hesitate. But as pissed as he is, he knows there's an easy solution. His Roza would come back to him and she would be improved, immortal, he was certain of that. First, he just needs to buy some time with Galina so Rose can correct her impulsive and stupid mistake...
Rose lives in a euphoric daze. She counts time not in days or even hours, but by how often Dimitri comes to her. How often she feels the divine rush of his fangs sinking into her flesh...
Then Adrian appears in her dreams and she wakes up. Looking at herself in the mirror, Rose is shocked. She sees the dark circles under her eyes. She sees the bruises and bite marks covering every inch of her neck. But perhaps most shocking of all is her hair. It had grown so long, it was almost back to the same length it had been before. When had that happened? Why hadn't she noticed?
That night, terror rolls through her when Dimitri's hand combs through the loose waves, brushing them aside so his fangs can scrape along her neck. "Finally" He breaths in relief, not noticing Rose wince as he bites down.
The night Rose escapes, it's raining. As they face off on the bridge, Dimitri can smell her adrenaline, her blood, and the rain soaking her long hair. She is wild and fierce. Her eyes burning. Her heart pounding. Her hair the perfect length. She is his Roza again and Dimitri knows that if she doesn't surrender to him, then only one of them is walking away tonight.
As the water rushes up around Dimitri and drags him under, he can feel the searing pain over his heart and the braid, a token of luck, desperately clutched in his hand.
When Rose returns to her life, she stops wearing her hair in a braid. Why shouldn't she? Her fight is over, after all, her heart is broken, and she could never quite get it to look right anyway. So, with her waves loose and wild, she passes the final tests, graduates, and then opens a mysterious package containing a silver stake.
Dimitri has been watching, waiting, planning and he knows that one way or another, things will end in this warehouse but even he's not prepared for the blinding white light that engulfs him.
He tries hard not to look at her while he sits in that cell. He tries so hard but he fails and the sight of her shakes his very core. She's just as he remembers. Determined. Fierce. Wild. Beautiful. Her hair loose, framing her face and cascading down her back. His fingers twitch with the urge to run his hands through it, to be close to her again, but then he remembers the last time he touched her hair in Russia and he feels sick.
Dimitri watches Rose silently shatter as his words sink in "Love fades. Mine has" and a small part of him longs for the little braid she had pressed into his hand when everything still made sense, a token of luck, of love and comfort, but it was gone, taken from him when he had been restored and arrested.
They're traveling together, hiding together, and Rose feels like she's going insane. His words from the church relentlessly play over and over again in her mind but there are moments when she sneaks glances at him from behind a curtain of her hair and she'll find him already watching her with something that looks like longing.
Dimitri knows he shouldn't be looking at her but he can't stop himself. Gradually, one heartbeat at a time, he had begun feeling again and ever since that night when he saw her hair in the moonlight and was reminded of all the beautiful moments they shared, well, he knew he couldn't deny it anymore. He was still in love with her. He would always be in love with her.
The words pour from his mouth like a sacred confession and he watches her body tense and her eyes widen as she processes the meaning. Then she's moving closer and closer until they're touching. He body radiating heat against his, her hair falling around him. He's enveloped with her scent, her taste, her love.
Rose can feel Dimitri running his hands through her hair and she revels in the sensation. His hands in her hair, his body moving against hers, his scent mixing with her own, his taste captivating her tongue. She revels in all of it. Revels and then demands more. More. More. More.
Dimitri gently runs his fingertips through Rose's hair and across her body, relishing in the warmth of her, knowing that she is resting with her head on his chest, listening to his heart and savoring every beat and the words he spoke to her at the cabin return to him, just as true in this moment as they were then.
"I love you, Roza. I'll never let anything happen to you. Never again."
Silently, Rose rises from her place on the bed, riffles through the nightstand drawer until she finds a sewing kit and takes out the scissors and a spool of red thread.
Dimitri watches silently as Rose haphazardly braids a small section of her hair, carefully cuts it then ties it off with the thin thread.
She repeats his words back to him, a loving vow, while tying the braid around his wrist. Then, to her surprise, she watches as Dimitri takes the scissors and thread from her and does the same.
They climb out of the car, ready to go to court and end this mess once and for all and Rose is a nervous, Spirit wracked mess. So, after discreetly tugging on Dimitri's duster and pulling him aside, she asks for his help with a braid.
Now with a silver charm around her neck, Dimitri's braid around her wrist and her own hair battle ready, Rose is able to enter the mass of Moroi fearlessly and deliver the truth.
Dimitri hears the shot echo through the room and sees Rose not hesitate to place herself between Lissa and the danger and for a moment, a very brief moment, he's proud of her but then he watches her body crumple and fall to the floor. Dark red, the same color as the thread on both their wrists, blooms across her chest and slowly creeps out from underneath her, staining the polished tile and soaking into her hair.
Dimitri watches Rose sleep in the hospital bed, her skin still a little pale but at least the blood had been washed from her hair, thanks to Lissa. Now it was sprawled around her, damp and drying while a rhythmic beeping marked each heartbeat. Just as she had done mere hours ago, Dimitri listened and cherished the sound.
When Rose opens her eyes, she feels a familiar warmth encasing her hand, Dimitri's voice near her head and as her vision focuses, she sees him next to her, his eyes tired but relief in his smile.
"Sleeping Beauty awakens."
Rose gently squeezes his had then smiles mischievously before opening her mouth.
"Pretty sure Sleeping Beauty got a kiss when she woke up, Comrade."
Dimitri chuckles, he wasn't sure exactly what to expect when Rose woke up, but her flirty response tells him that she's going to be just fine.
So, mindful of her still healing injuries, Dimitri tenderly slips a hand into his Roza's hair and kisses her sweetly.
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