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𝐅𝐎𝐔𝐑𝐓𝐄𝐄𝐍

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It was a Friday afternoon some time in 2007 when Roman heard the knock on his dorm room door.

He stood up, sliding off his headphones, stretching out his muscles with a loud yawn. It was autumn, and the days were beginning to grow shorter, yet he always felt like he had nothing to do.

He'd thought the college experience would be different from high school, a vain idea in retrospect. At Yale, everyone's families were rich, and his own wealth seemed unremarkable among the sons and daughters and grandchildren of governors and senators and CEOs of mega-corporations. In military school, he'd been an oddity, scrawny and pale with the mouth of a smartass but eventually he'd worn the other boys down with signature charm and his bizarre, often irritating level of resilience. No matter how many times he'd been shoved out of the way into a row of lockers or told, in far more colourful language, to go fuck himself, he bounced back regardless.

But there was no light bullying in college, there was only social isolation. His reputation, or at least Logan's, preceded him. People treated him with caution, like he was liable to run at the first opportunity to leak anything they had said to his father. Waystar Royco's properties had either torn their parents to shreds or boosted them into further wealth and acclaim, either way it was a bad look to be seen fraternising with a Roy. As a result, he'd been to no orientation week keggers, received no invitations to fraternities and was yet to attend even one college party.

Somehow, though, he was fine or at least he told himself he was. He'd been blessed with a roommate who was a scholarship student, a kid named Yang who mostly kept to himself but wasn't above showing kindness to Roman when they did interact. He seemed completely unaware as to who Roman's father was, nor the legacy he was dragging around with him to each lecture. As Roman approached the door, he automatically assumed it was Yang coming back from an afternoon class. They were meant to grab dinner together at one of the local bars.

Instead when he opened the door, he found an unexpected sight. He barely had time to register Cora's appearance in front of him before she had pushed past him into the dorm room, the sound of her sniffles prompting him to close the door behind her. Slowly he turned, panic suddenly filling him. Something was undoubtedly not right.

"Hey ... " He said, stringing out the word as he turned to her. She had her back to him, her hands clamped to the sides of her upper arms. Her head was bent and her whole body was trembling as though she had caught a chill. Slowly he approached her as though she were a frightened animal, placing a hand on her shoulder. "Is everything alright? What are you doing here?"

Instead of a verbal reply, Cora suddenly dropped to her knees, burying her head into her hands. She began to sob violently, her whole body convulsing, rocked by a sudden storm of despair. Roman froze, unsure of what to do. It wouldn't be until much later, when the sun had set and the light of the moon came filtering through the water stained windows of the dorm room that she would tell him that her mother had died.

________

Saturday morning broke with the distant sound of hammering, followed by a chorus of yells. It wasn't a rare occurrence that his neighbours decided to be misanthropic pricks. From the bed above him Cora shifted, turning over beneath the blanket. Roman had opted to sleep on the floor, it had seemed like the gentleman thing to do, and he had paid for Yang to stay at a nearby hotel for the weekend. He didn't know how long Cora planned on staying, but he was hardly going to push her out after hearing the news. They hadn't spoken much after the admission, save for when Roman had tried to convince her to eat only to be met with stony silence.

Slowly he rose from the floor, moving quietly to the closet nearby. He changed shirts, ran a comb through his hair until it was sufficiently smoothed down, pulled on a pair of sneakers and stashed his keys in his pocket. He made his way outside, heading towards the nearby student cafe, cool air nipping at his cheeks.

He checked his phone while he waited in line, seeing several missed calls from Frank and Kendall, a few texts from Shiv.

[TEXT: Shiv] sorry i didn't know what else to do
[TEXT: Shiv] i'm flying back asap but she didn't wanna be around frank
[TEXT: Shiv] and she shouldn't be alone right now

He shot her a message reassuring her it was fine. Admittedly he could've used a head up. Shiv was in Europe, finishing up a French excursion. She'd given Cora the address to the dorm and she'd taken the train to New Haven with nothing but the clothes on her back. He found himself wondering if she'd bottled all of her shock and grief up for the 2 hours it would have taken to reach Yale, whether the moment she'd passed the threshold of his dorm had been when she'd finally let herself feel the burden of her emotions. The thought unnerved him, the idea that she trusted him enough to see her this way. He felt entirely ill-equipped to give her what she needed in her grief, whatever that looked like right now.

Roman ordered two lattes and a couple of croissants, standing to the side as he waited for his order. His phone buzzed in his pocket, this time another call from Frank. He sighed under his breath as he lifted his Blackberry to his ear.

"Yeah?"

"Is she doing ok? Can I talk to her?"

Roman felt himself grow tense. He had a basic idea of how Cora felt towards her step-father through osmosis, he'd picked up on the little comments she'd made over the years and her general resentment towards her mother. He'd been curious enough a few times to ask Shiv what the deal was, and she'd always given a non-committal answer, "I dunno Rome, it's her business. Whose parents aren't fucked up?". At the time he'd agreed, yet he was distinctly aware that the kind of resentment that Cora's mother had bred was very different from the one that Logan had. Roman's opinion on Frank was mostly neutral, decidedly disinterested, sometimes oscillating into annoyance on the odd occasion that the man insisted on being overbearing with questions about Roman's future.

As Cora's step-father he'd never gotten the impression he was any more annoying than the standard adult, at least from the little Cora acknowledged him. It was in her insistence in pretending he didn't exist that he had gathered most of his idea of their relationship.

"I'm out at the moment. Getting breakfast. She was still sleeping when I left." Roman replied.

"Ah ... How much has she told you?" Frank sounded hesitant, clearing his throat as he spoke.

"Basically nothing," Roman said. "Just that ... Her mom's passed. Sorry, by the way, for your loss."

"Yes, yes. Thank you, Roman." Frank mumbled in reply. "Reagan ... Was in a car accident. She ... Well, anyway, they couldn't reach me so they called Delia next and ... To my knowledge she was there. When it happened. When she passed."

His stomach dropped at the admission, feeling a wave of nausea creeping up the back of his throat.

"Shit. Fuck." Roman muttered. "Ok ... Ok so like, that's not good."

"Of course not. I'm worried about her. She left without a word, she wouldn't let anyone stop her. But she needs to come back to New York. I can't plan a funeral alone."

"Ah ... Do you think she's even able to do something like that right now?" Roman muttered. "I mean she's an 18 year old whose mother just died. I don't really think she's in a position to do anything at all."

"I know ... But think about it like this. How much regret do you think you would carry if you had no part at all in your only parent's funeral?"

Roman sighed in resignation. "Right. I get it. I'll do my best but ... No guarantees."

When he returned he found her draped over his dorm bed like a well-worn coat, bottoms of her heels perched on the window sill, dark brown hair streaming down his sheets. Her eyes were open yet blank, barely reacting as he sat down beside her, hovering the brown paper bag over her head.

"I got you a croissant. And a latte." He said, setting down the cardboard cupholder on the bedside table. Cora closed her eyes.

"I'm not hungry."

"You didn't eat anything last night." He said.

"I don't think I'll be able to eat anything ever again."

Slowly he lowered the paper bag beside him. He found himself momentarily lost, pondering the different ways to convince her to at least take a sip of the drink. His eyes wandered to the bedside table, from the steam still wafting from the mouthpieces of the coffee cups and down to the handle of the bedside table's drawer.

Cora rolled onto her side as Roman moved to open the drawer, vague curiosity flickering in her dark brown eyes. With a flourish, he picked out the small metal box he used to store his weed, opening it in the same way a proposal box was unfolded, one hand beneath and the other clutching the open lid.

"Will you smoke with me?"

It didn't take much convincing.

Smoke soon curled in the sunlight that filtered into the dorm room, a thick haze settling as they passed a joint between themselves. Roman had never gotten high with her before, indeed he'd refrained from any kind of intoxication when Shiv and Cora would partake in any substances. As much as he shirked responsibility in his daily life, he preferred to keep his wits whenever the two were drunk, the guise of their intoxication was the perfect time to flex his position as an older brother without taking shit for it. Part of him felt guilty that he was letting himself get involved now, but he knew an exceptional situation deserved exceptional approaches.

Soon the stupor Cora had been in lifted, and she curled into a small ball on the bed, giggling she snaked a dark strand of hair around her index finger. Roman sat watching, lidded eyes low from the weed smoke, his eyes flickering from whatever shitty stoner comedy he'd thrown on Yang's shitty little tv to check on her, making sure she hadn't disappeared into her head. Every so often their eyes met and she would smile lazily. Eventually after some coaxing, she ate, sitting cross legged on the floor as she balanced the empty paper bag on her lap to catch small flakes of pastry.

Time passed slow and thick like molasses, minutes spanning hours. Day disintegrated into night into morning. Yang stopped by to pick up his books and Roman handed him an envelope of cash for the rest of the week as Cora lay sleeping. He accepted the money wordlessly, only momentarily glancing over the stranger in his roommate's bed, before departing for class. Roman rang one of the campus advisors to tell them he'd be out sick for the rest of the week.

When she cried, it was like a storm breaking, a thick rumble from her throat and her eyes would spark, bright as headlights before they were submerged into the depths her misery. Nose and cheeks glowing like warning signals, the tears would stream and cascade and her whole body trembled as though caught in the most violent of winds. She would fold then, onto whatever surface would accommodate her grief; the bed, the floor, the mildew ridden shower with its water stained glass. And there she would exorcise the inexorable, a thousand demons that would dissipate from her exhausted body, only to sneak back in the quiet afterwards.

More often than not though she remained silent, eerily so. It was like the force of shock that she had felt when she knew there were no other conclusions but death had stretched like an elastic band, with the hospital at one end and Roman's dorm room on the other. Shock had winded her of everything that kept a body ticking along, her blood and her breath, leaving her flimsy as the shed skin of a snake, purposeless and light as a thimble. Sometimes in the dead of night, when they'd both long said goodnight, Roman would hover his ear above her, as if he were checking to see if she were still alive. Every time he did this she would pretend to be sleep, her eyes squinted only to see his outline, before he returned to his spot on the floor.

Sometime on Wednesday evening she asked him if he could find alcohol and he agreed without much thought. He'd long had a fake ID, and so he made the trip to the liquor store, picking up a bottle of raspberry vodka and some soda to mix it with. Back in the dorm, they started with plastic cups but soon graduated to drinking from the bottle, passing it back and forth.

The alcohol was more efficient when it came to sparking conversation, and soon Cora was speaking more than she had since she had arrived in front of him. It also became apparent that she could drink him under the table, throwing back the vodka like it was water, and Roman wondered whether it was all those nights of sneaking at wine coolers that had given her the tolerance.

"Since when did you drink like this? You could give Kendall and his meathead friends a run for their money." Roman quipped as he watched her throw the bottle back. She screwed the lid back on the top, exaggeratedly rolling her eyes as she shot him a look.

"You're just a lightweight." She replied, leaning towards him as she swayed ever so slightly.

"Yeah yeah yeah, yuck it up. Fucking smartass." Roman murmured, the scent of raspberry vodka hanging in the air between them. He was close, closer than he had ever been to her before. Ghosts of memories hung in the air between them, each lingering gaze, all the times when one of them had looked at the line of their friendship and considered crossing it. Throughout the years, he had been truly confused as to how he felt about her. He was aware that anything serious between them was an impossibility, Shiv would have killed him for one, and besides, he wasn't entirely convinced anyone could ever truly accept him.

She cleared her throat suddenly, stepping off the bed. She stretched her arms, the shirt she was wearing riding slightly upwards to flash the pale skin of her stomach. She had taken to wearing his clothes, clad in his t-shirt and boxers, her own clothes sitting in a pile at the other end of the room. She glanced over her shoulder and Roman hurriedly fixed his gaze to the half empty bottle of vodka.

"Do you remember that CD you made me, for my 16th?" She said suddenly. Roman nodded in response. "Did you burn it on your laptop?"

"Yeah. I still have the files."

"Can you play it? I kinda wanna listen to some music."

It didn't take Roman long to find the folder on his laptop, he knew exactly where it was. As he waited, bent over his desk that had gone unused since the previous week, his mind drifted back to the time that had proceeded since Cora's 16th.

Their friendship really hadn't been the same since then, something had been knocked loose. He couldn't lie and say it hadn't been a contributing factor with his choice to spend the remainder of his time in high school on campus. Somehow the thought of seeing her in person and pretending as if he didn't know about the nature of her and Arthur's relationship felt impossible. For a while, Shiv became certain that something had happened between them in the bathroom and had grilled him on the rare weekend visit back in New York. Eventually she'd dropped it after what felt like the millionth reminder that Cora had been sick minutes before Shiv had burst onto the scene, but even then he could hear the suspicion lingering in her voice.

Roman slumped back onto the bed and placed the laptop on the bedside table, draping his legs horizontally across it as they skipped through the first few songs playing from the grainy Dell speakers. Cora lay on her back, head tilted to the ceiling, eyes closed. Eventually the beginning of Red Hot Chili Peppers' Porcelain cut through the air and she slid off the side of the mattress, finding her feet and beginning to slowly sway to the music.

"I listened to this the night after the party. All of it obviously, but especially this." Cora admitted, running a hand through her hair. She pushed a strand of dark hair behind her ear as she slowly turned toward him. "I was angry at you, for the party ... And for being obviously fed up with me."

"I wasn't fed up with you." He said quickly. Cora waved a hand at him dismissively.

"Fed up with my shit then. And I get it. You're the only one who knew and then you saw me just ... Just go back to him like that. You probably didn't understand why and honestly I don't either."

Though he was watching her in profile, he could see the glimmer of tears threatening to fall. He remained still, despite wanting to reach for her, stopping only from the fear he felt thinking back to that night. He'd felt a real sense of pain when he'd seen the bruises, and frankly he'd wanted to go downstairs and give Arthur a blackeye, despite the fact the other boy had been almost a foot taller than him. It would've been worth it, to show him what it felt like to be made to feel as small as he was sure Cora had felt. It hadn't been his place, and he'd known that, but he'd had to do something.

What he'd done, no matter how justified he'd felt, still haunted him in the back of his mind. The lie, the impotent lie, that Naomi and Arthur had hooked up was one he'd always been scared would come back to bite him in the ass. It hadn't been helped by the fact that it was a product of Shiv's falsehood. It was what they had argued about before he'd knocked on the bathroom door, the fact she'd gone through with it, yet he'd done the same thing not even five minutes later.

"I just wanted to feel like someone loved me, I think." Cora continued. "I ... never felt like my mom did, she couldn't get away from me soon enough. I think my grandma does but I don't return her calls so she probably thinks I hate her ... Frank's ... Well he's just around because he has to be."

"Frank cares." Roman said, clearing his throat. He felt awkward for sticking up for his dad's coworker, but at the same time, he couldn't let her keep going without interjection. "He's just ... An awkward old guy."

"I think I freak him out." Cora replied, laughing softly, her bottom lip quivering. "And he never had kids of his own so I doubt he really wanted one that was already fucked up. I have Shiv, but we never talk about the serious stuff, and sometimes I think she hates me and sometimes I think that, well, I hate her."

"I don't blame you."

"Shut up." Cora turned herself towards him and Roman could see clearly now the tears in her eyes. "I was listening to your dumb mixtape after thinking you were never going to talk to me again. And I listened to the first bit with all of my songs, that were all perfect, and then I listened to your side ... And it was so stupid but honestly it felt like you were trying to communicate something to me, and at the same time not. Because I don't know if you were trying to say something specific or if ... If you just saw me, who I am and everything, and just ... Made something tailored to that, you know? Does that make sense?"

He felt his mouth grow dry. He did know what she meant. It had been the thought that he'd had when he was writing down the song list and downloaded them off of LimeWire. He was well aware that this was the kind of gift that said something, but what that something was, he hadn't been sure of himself. It was perfectly analogous to how he felt about her. She drove him crazy, she annoyed him, she enthralled him, she was the only person who didn't seem disturbed or bothered by his presence and yet she pushed him away. Over the years he'd felt equal parts sure that she had a crush on him and positive that she wanted nothing to do with him.

Sometimes it made him uneasy, the idea that anyone could like him in that way, when he was so certain there was simply nothing about him to like. How could a person ignore all the obvious signs about him? His cynicism, his fragility, the insecurity that he felt was written all over him in permanent marker. Surely only someone deluded could find that attractive. And yet sometimes he would catch her looking at him and feel the a strange sensation in his chest, a glimmer, a spark. What if, it said, what if I'm not as bad as I made myself out to be, what if someone could see something in me.

"And it's been hard. Because even if you were trying to say something, it would ultimately mean ... Nothing, right?" She said, beginning breaking out into hysterics. Suddenly he wasn't sure if she was about to burst into tears or to start howling with laughter. Roman stood upwards, quickly steadying her with a hand on her shoulder. Cora took in a ragged breath, wet with tears, as she let out a burst of laughter. "B-because Shiv, she said ages ago that we c-couldn't jus- Th-that it br-broke girlcode an-"

"What are you doing listening to Shiv?" Roman said. Suddenly he felt like laughing, a jolt of relief surging through him. He'd always been confused by the constant push and pull of her behaviour and it was as though he were watching the truth unfold in front of his eyes. Cora's eyes flickered up to meet his.

"I ... I don't know!"

A bout of giggling overtook them then, uncontrollable laughter shaking through the both of them.

They both fell onto the bed and rolled onto their backs, eyes faced towards the ceiling. Roman's stomach muscles ached from the effort of the laughter, massaging his jaw with his fingers to loosen the strain. Slowly, their breathing fell in sync, their chests rising and falling as they both stabilised. Roman wondered if he had ever felt this level of euphoria before. Slowly, he turned onto his side, propping his head upwards with his hand, looking at her in side profile.

"So ... What did Shiv say was so bad?"

Cora's eyes flickered to him. She paused, before she rolled onto her own side, mirroring his position. Dark glassy eyes searched his as she slowly began to speak.

"She said I couldn't like you." Cora breathed. "But I couldn't help it. ... I think I did since I met you at the wedding."

"Me?" Roman said, giving a snort as he shook his head in an attempt to obscure the rosy blush of his cheeks. "You liked little old me?"

"Yeah, I did."

"You did?"

"I do, Roman." She let out a shuddered breath at the omission. "Like a lot. Like ... As much as I've tried to not, I still ... do."

"That's pretty fucking unfortunate." Roman replied.

"Shut the fuck up." Cora replied, blushing. "Jesus, I shouldn't even be saying this shit. I should've just kept my fucking mouth shut because of course you're just gonna crack some shitty jo-"

He pushed himself upwards, leaning forward to kiss her and stealing the words from her lips. She squeaked against his mouth from the shock. She tasted like the vodka raspberry and Sprite, her hair soft as silk as he smoothed it from her face, clutching her cheek with his hand. Dizziness flooded his system, like his mind had been invaded by a cloud, slowing his thoughts and making him feel buoyant. He realised as she kissed him back that he was holding his breath, as though the mere exhalation of air threatened to unravel the moment from his grasp. More than that, something primal had awakened in his brain, a hairline trigger that had gone un-grazed for some time yet the alarm it sounded was deafening.

Roman jerked away from her, a wave of nausea rolling through his core as he jerked upwards, breathing hard as his thoughts finally caught up to him. They came as an undecipherable wall of emotion; fear, confusion, guilt, lust, aversion all smothering rational thought. He felt her hand on his shoulder faintly, the sensation of her lips brushing the edge of his ear.

"Are you ok?"

He swallowed, the lump in his throat bobbing as he did so.

His eyes found Yang's bed, left made and unattended. The thought their cohabitation couldn't last forever reared its head in full force. Despite the circumstances that had brought her to him, their time spent together had been the happiest he had had in a long time. He had been, he realised now, existentially lonely. College had felt like maybe it would be a reprieve from his household, from the shitty military school he'd been shipped off to, but without the pressure from his father or the daily obstacles his siblings brought, he felt unanchored and directionless. On the darkest nights, when he found himself unable to sleep, he wondered if this emptiness would last forever. Did he truly have nothing outside the dark web of his family and its empire that was worth aspiring towards? At the end of the day, what did he actually want? The answer certainly didn't feel like college, which merely felt like an exercise in ego. He'd been born into money and connections after all, a degree from Yale was bragging rights and partying, neither of which he'd especially felt the benefit from.

It had been like a fog, not obstructive to him but nonetheless ever-present, a feeling of dread that creeped in when he let his guard down. When he'd seen her though, and understood the gravity of her situation, he'd allowed himself to care. No one had ever trusted him enough to let him look after something, much less a whole person, and he'd been ignorant to the weight that purpose could gift. Not the amorphous and benign kind of purpose but the real stakes and real consequences kind of purpose.

That had done something to him, something he couldn't even attempt to understand. All he knew was being around her had made him feel opaque, like he was no longer a mere passenger in his own body.

"I, uh, yeah I'm alright." He muttered, daring to shoot her a glance. Concern shadowed her features as she met his eyes. "Really, I'm fine."

"Ok ... " She murmured. "Ok, that's ... You know we don't have to do anything if you don't want to. We can just forget that even happened if you want."

Roman took in a shallow breath, shaking his head. "It's not that." He said slowly, then changed tack. "I mean ... It is that. I've never done that before."

She seemed taken aback for a moment, her eyebrows rising. Moments later though, her face softened into a smile, dark eyes creasing at the corners.

"Not much action at military school?"

"No shit."

"Honestly I just ... Well, I just assumed when we played that game in the closet. I thought in a way you'd done everything then and there and just ... Yeah." She shrugged her shoulders. "It made me feel not so bad when I ended up doing it."

He suppressed a wince. "That'd be stupid."

"I guess." Cora responded, her voice taking on a wistful quality to it. Her mind seemed to float somewhere else briefly. "I just liked you so much that it felt like the wrong thing. And yeah, you don't have to repeat yourself."

Silence settled, letting the music fill the space between them. Eventually he turned to her, a sigh on his breath but his mind resolute.

"Tell me to kiss you." He said, his voice low. Cora giggled softly, hesitating.

"What do you mean?"

"Exactly what I said."

She considered this for a moment. "Fine. Kiss me."

He obliged, pressing his lips to hers, taking her in like a man starved. The rest unfolded like a dream, hazy at the edges, each moment blending into the next. It wasn't until he felt himself inside of her for the first time and heard his name leave her lips that he felt a sense of clarity, bliss stoking fire. He would wonder why he had waited so long and yet known deep down that no other time would have been as apt as then.

The next morning when he woke up, she was gone.

He found the clothes of his that she had been wearing folded in a neat pile at the end of the bed, the partially drunk vodka bottle beside the laptop on his bedside table but otherwise there was no evidence that she had ever been there. He called her three times that day; as soon as he found his phone, then again three hours later when he could feasibly assume she was back in New York, and one more time at 9pm. On the call in the night, he left a message, "Hey. It's me. I just ... Are you ok? Because I'm just checking in to see if you're ok. So if you could maybe just, I dunno, give me a call back or a text me or, fuck it, even an email just letting me know that you're alright, that'd be cool. Thanks. Bye."

It was met with a silence that stretched from one day, to two, to a week. Roman took the train to New York on a Sunday, arriving at his father's home to find Shiv helping Marcia with the flowers for the funeral reception.

"What's the deal with Cora?" He'd asked in the strained, faux nonchalant way that one poses a question they shouldn't be asking. Shiv turned around from a display of petunias.

"Uh, her mom just died Roman. What exactly do you want from her?" Turning back to the dark flowers, she scoffed under her breath. "You're the one who knows best. We don't even know if she's going to turn up to the funeral."

Cora did turn up, arm in arm with Arthur, dressed all in back. Roman couldn't take his eyes off of her, the way one cannot resist looking at an accident by the side of the road. She did not attend the reception afterwards, but no one seemed especially surprised, least of all Frank, who placed a heavy hand on Roman's shoulder, nursing a full glass of whiskey. Despite everything, he had worn his grief with a strange air of grace.

"Thank you, son, for looking after her." He chuckled, the tone of his voice distinctly bittersweet. "Even if she hasn't shown you just yet, she's grateful."

"Yeah. Guess I'll have to wait and see."

It was radio silence for months. Christmas came and went. Eventually she did call, though Roman missed it. He'd been at a frat party on campus and hadn't felt his phone vibrating in his pocket. On his walk home, accompanied by Yang and the haze of weed smoke in his lungs, he checked it to find her name staring back at him.

"Anyone I know?" His roommate asked, glancing at the light of the phone screen.

"Just that girl who showed up last year and stayed with me for a bit." Roman replied.

"Oh shit, yeah." Yang snickered. "What happened there?"

"Not much." He said with a shrug, clicking the buttons of his phone as he blocked her number. "You know how it is."

[ 𝑨𝑵: i know this is very THIS ACTION WILL HAVE CONSEQUENCES haha. i hope my portrayal and framing here makes sense and isn't super ooc.

my goal with roman & cora was to give a good enough basis for this moment to have happened and to still make sense canonically from everything we've seen on roman in the show. i really like the ambiguity his sexuality has and i don't want to take away from that. i also didn't want to take away from the emotion of the chapter by being too overt with the actual deed but i do need to add the mature tag to this soon bc cora's gonna go off the rails a bit hahaha.

also i know i'm writing it but omfg i wanna kick cora for her dumb choices :') i hope you guys like her as a character and think she fits the world. ]