Flowers and Badly Chosen Names
“What?” Tweedle Dumber stares at the stranger dumbly.
“Did you not understand?” The green-eyed stranger asks, and Rosalie is impressed at the sheer condescension the woman manages to put into her tone. Rosalie doesn’t think even she can match such levels of condescension, and she’s an expert at looking down on people and making sure they know it. And the stranger isn’t done, either, “You see, when a woman loves a woman very much-”
“I know what it means!” Tweedle Dumber becomes redder, and if he didn’t look like a tomato before, he definitely does now.
“Then you understand what you should do, now, right?” The stranger doesn’t miss a beat. “Although maybe that’s expecting too much from you, so let me spell it out,” the stranger makes sure to enunciate her next words slowly and carefully, perfectly ruby red lips moving slowly and clearly, “Get. Lost.”
Tweedle Dumber looks just about ready to explode, when Tweedle Dumb decides it’s his turn to make an ass of himself.
He gets even closer to Rosalie, and the only reason Rosalie doesn’t break his nose right then and there is because she’s just done her nails, and she admits she’s a bit curious about what the stranger will do in the face of this new situation. “Babe, why don’t you ditch that girlfriend of yours and let me show you what being with a real man is like.”
Rosalie is revolted. She wonders if this is what Tanya and her mate have to deal with every time they go out in public.
The thought only reinforces how very uncivilized humans are.
Tweedle Dumb turns back to the stranger, presumably to tell her off or say something cocky about showing Rosalie – the stranger’s girlfriend, apparently, and how strange is that since the last person who tried that hadn’t been able to move his neck properly for a good month - a good time, but upon looking at the emerald-eyed redhead he looks unsure as to whom exactly he should be hitting on, the blonde bombshell or the stunning redhead. Rosalie would be insulted if she weren’t also ever so slightly entranced by the stranger’s beauty.
Only slightly, though. Very slightly.
“I would suggest you take step back from my girlfriend.” The stranger smiles, but the baring of teeth looks more like a threat than anything else.
“And if I don’t?” Tweedle Dumb either doesn’t register the threat or doesn’t care, and gets even closer to Rosalie so that he’s practically breathing on her. Rosalie promises herself a nice, relaxing rose bath after this. She can’t believe she has to share air with this disgusting waste of space.
She’ll have Emmett pick up the roses.
The stranger opens her mouth to say something else, but Rosalie has had quite enough.
Rosalie is not a damsel in distress. Hasn’t been in a long time. The only reason she has been so silent this entire time is because the stranger was amusing her. Rosalie had found herself… curious, she supposed, about what the redhead would do next.
Vampires live long lives and sources of true curiosity are few and far between. When one comes up, they latch on until they are bored. So when the stranger came up, Rosalie chose to observe.
But Rosalie is tired of being quiet and playing submissive. It’s not like her. She doesn’t do it very well.
With no hesitation whatsoever, Rosalie stomps a beautiful stiletto-clad heel down onto Tweedle Dumb’s ever so fragile human foot. Not enough force to shatter it, but enough so that he’d really feel it. The big brute immediately jumps back from her, clutching his foot comically.
“Bitch! What did you do that for?” Tweedle Dumber yells at her, his partner still in too much pain to be mad, although Rosalie is sure that will come later.
Rosalie throws luscious golden locks behind her with a perfectly manicured hand. “He should feel lucky I didn’t aim for his balls,” She scowls, feeling her golden eyes glow a bit, the sudden spike in her bloodlust finally making something deep inside the humans in front of her subconsciously register her as predator and dangerous, “For getting so close to me, I should have made sure he’d never be able to have children.”
Grabbing onto the stranger’s wrist, Rosalie drags the uproariously laughing woman away from the idiots, one too stunned to move and the other still clutching his foot in pain.
.
.
.
When they step outside the bar and into the fresh air, the stranger is still laughing.
“It’s not that funny,” Rosalie pouts. She’s not used to being laughed at.
“Oh, but it really was.” The stranger manages to regain her breath enough to form words. She shoots Rosalie a sardonic smile, “You didn’t need me at all, did you?”
“Of course not,” Rosalie sniffs. As if she would ever need anybody else’s help.
The stranger laughs again, and Rosalie is sure the woman is laughing at her. She is not used to being laughed at.
“So what’s your name?” The stranger asks, “I can’t keep calling you ‘love’ and ‘darling’, now, can I?”
Rosalie’s response is automatic, “It’s rude to ask for someone else’s name without giving yours first.”
The vampiress scowls.
It is not at the stranger however, but at herself. She’s so used to being a bitch she can’t stop, even when she wants to.
And… to her infinite surprise, she finds that she doesn’t really want to antagonize this woman. The redhead is interesting.
Rosalie apparently has nothing to worry about, because the stranger just laughs again.
“All right, all right, that’s fair. My name is Azalea,” She smiles. “It’s a bit of a mouthful, I know.”
Rosalie is distinctly reminded of her husband in the stranger’s easygoing manners and total lack of offense at Rosalie’s rudeness. The thought endears the stranger to Rosalie a little more.
“My name is Rosalie,” the vampire responds. And wait, is she supposed to say something after that? She hasn’t been introduced to any humans in so long – Edward’s human doesn’t count because Rosalie couldn’t (and still can’t) stand the quivering girl and so doesn’t make any effort to be pleasant – and can’t remember how introductions go. How do you even start a conversation with a new acquaintance?
“Did your mother’s line also have a ridiculous tradition of naming their daughters after flowers, or is that just me?” Azalea chuckles.
Oh good, the stranger – Azalea – spoke. Now Rosalie can just answer the question.
“No.” Oh, hell, Rosalie can’t just end it there, can she? She’s not so pathetically antisocial that she’s reduced to monosyllabic answers, surely? Why, that would make her like Edward’s human! Rosalie racks her brain for something to say. “My mother was simply fond of roses. She had a lovely rose garden back in the day.”
Thank God. Rosalie managed to say something that contributes to the conversation. Who knew talking to people was so hard?
“Wish my parents had named me Rose or Rosalie,” Azalea huffs faux-petulantly. “Now there’s a flower that is perfectly acceptable as a girl’s name. No odd looks there,” Azalea complains. “Violet, Jasmine, Amaryllis… there was even a Lavender in my class at school. If they absolutely had to name me after a flower, they could have very well used those perfectly normal, easy to pronounce names,” she gave a theatrical sigh. “But no, my parents decided on Azalea. Ah-zah-lay-ah. It’s difficult to say, isn’t it?”
Rosalie doesn’t think so, but then she speaks six different languages (She is perfectly aware she speaks the least number of languages, right after Emmet, amongst the family, but she frankly doesn’t see the use for more. Edward’s twenty-three is just excessive).
Despite the woman’s complaints, Rosalie gets the impression that despite her words, Azalea wouldn’t have her name any other way.
And besides, Rosalie somehow doesn’t think that a name as common as Rose (she won’t mention Rosalie because there is nothing common about her, not her name or anything else) would suit the stranger. She’d need something exotic, something mysterious, something that rolls off the tongue with just a little bit of difficulty. Azalea suits the woman.
“Azalea suits you.” The words come out unbidden, and Rosalie is glad she hasn’t fed earlier today because it means there’s not enough blood in her system to make her blush.
The woman’s gaze holds something unnamable, but it disappears in an instant, back to the light-heartedness of before.
“So you think I’m difficult, do you?” She teases. “Difficult name for a difficult person.”
“Of course you’re difficult, you idiot. I just met you and even I can tell that,” Rosalie gruffs.
Seconds later, she cringes inwardly when she realizes what she’s said. She’s pretty sure that social niceties dictate she shouldn’t insult the person she wants to get to know better within moments of meeting each other.
Rosalie and her uncontrollable tongue! Why is it that she goes from unable to say a word to cuttingly belligerent? Why does she have no middle ground?!
The vampiress is surprised to realize that she is disappointed at the fact she won’t be able to continue this conversation with the human – with Azalea. Perhaps she should have practiced her social interaction skills with those not worth her time, if only to be able to not offend someone she might actually not dislike.
Rosalie is so wrapped up in her own self-chastisement that she startles a bit when Azalea laughs again. “Well, you’re not wrong there. I know quite a few people that would agree with you.” The woman doesn’t look offended in the least. “But something tells me you’re no walk in the park either.”
Rosalie scowls, and is just about to protest when Azalea bumps into her playfully, not at all reacting even upon touching Rosalie’s freezing skin.
“Lighten up, princess.” She smiles, her friendly tone taking any bite out of her words. “Let’s go be difficult together. Come on, I still haven’t drunk enough tonight and we can’t go back to the bar where those two idiots are. I know a nice place around here that serves amazing cocktails.”
The woman starts walking away, ruby red hair swaying behind her and forming an oddly hypnotizing view.
After a few steps, she turns back to Rosalie, emerald eyes sparkling.
“Well? Are you coming or not?”
Rosalie doesn’t think anyone has ever talked to her that way before.
She goes.