17: a kiss to distract! to Shaw!!
@ofexaltations
Smorch meme
In his defense, he really hadn't meant to try stealing from Shaw the first time. Or, at least, he hadn't meant to make a habit of it. Roderick had just been Roderick, too hot and too energized, and things had been...there. ( he meant to put them back, after. did, in fact, put most of them back after, even if he doesn't properly understand the point of having separate things when they're all going to die horribly sooner rather than later, haha ) Shaw, though. Shaw knew the tricks in a way that suggested he might have used them himself, and that made things interesting.
So. Roderick behaves himself...more or less, when it counts, and Frain puts up with bunking with him ( pretty as Roderick is, he knows he is terrible, terrible ); and they trade sharp-edged knowledge and dirty tricks.
Like this one: the way Rod sidles towards the bulkier man with a wicked grin.
There's nothing worth their time for ages, and he knows because his head doesn't feel like shit for the first time in weeks, the almost-comprehendable mutter of the dead quieted to a whisper. He'd like to enjoy it while he can before the company turns back to chase some other darkspawn vein, and that means getting fucked or fought. ( or drunk, but there isn't much chance of that out here, ha. )
“Hey Linshaw,” pause, wait for Shaw to look at him with what Rod likes to assume is fond tolerance, “you ever heard of the Orlesian Gambit? It goes like this—” A kiss with teeth and laughter, one hand tangled in the hair at the nape of Shaw’s neck, and one planted mid-rib to drift downwards past bruise and scar and healing skin until he can tangle his fingers in the berserker’s belt and— try to reverse pick his purse. Either Roderick succeeds and gets to grin at Shaw later when he figures it out, or he gets caught and sees what aggressive flirting gets him this time, or Shaw hurls him away entirely and he can tilt it into a spar. Or all of them or none of them or something he doesn't see coming. ( honestly, honestly, he is not particular in anything beyond the feel of Shaw's mouth under his and the sharp joy of being a little shit)