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+---- Thread: tryna get my Usher on but I can't let it burn (/showthread.php?tid=11928)
RE: tryna get my Usher on but I can't let it burn - Flora - 08-23-2025
Flora nods softly, the gesture less agreement than resignation, her curls shifting where they cling damply to her cheekbones. She’d been looking for him too, if only in that way someone does when they need to know where not to go, eyes tracing a path around a heartbreak and anger waiting to happen. Her voice is barely above the hush of the city behind them as she murmurs, [say]"I saw you., or at least I think I did. With Caly."[/say] With Clay was perhaps unfair, given that it had been a little group of them. Her words unfurl like tissue paper, weightless but already tearing. [say]"She was easy to spot, in that outfit."[/say] A humourless breath tries to pass for a laugh.But then she'd seen the rose appear and after grabbing it had disappeared lest anyone try and take it from her, so maybe she'd been wrong.
Kai's next words unravel something far deeper in her, such that her body trembles with the fragile effort of composure, a sharp bite sinking into the inside of her cheek as if she can anchor the sob threatening to break loose. Her gaze tilts skyward, lashes slick with gathering salt, as if the answers might be hiding in the blue above them. [say]"It’s not that simple,"[/say] she whispers through the tight press of her throat. [say]"I’ve loved Jack for years. It’s been years."[/say] The confession comes like an ache scraped raw. [say]"And you—everything with you has been so recent, so bright, so fast."[/say]
And yet, in her chest, love for him unfurls anyway, golden and breathless. She told Jack that it wasn’t fair to compare him to Kaisel, and now the thought rises again, unbidden, that the reverse is true too. She won’t weigh Kaisel against someone else’s ghosts. She can’t. But oh, gods—Jack had given her the space to sort out her feelings while she cried in his bed, whereas here Kaisel cradles her with hands that want to wipe away every ache. One gives her space to shatter, the other tries to hold her pieces together. Which is better? Was either?
The sob breaks free as his thumb finds her cheek, featherlight and full of meaning. It shudders through her, her shoulders trembling, her body caving into the warmth of his palms like she might disappear into them. Because that’s the cruelty of friends-to-lovers, isn’t it? She’s loved Kaisel all along, in that teasing, elbow-jabbing, secret-sharing way that feels like safety and sunspun gold. But lately, lately it’s turned molten at the edges—love beginning to gild, to grow teeth, to ask for more. When had the words 'I love you' turned into 'I’m in love with you'? Had it crept in during their sleepover or bloomed quietly between moonlight and laughter? Everyone said this was the right way, the better way. But did Flora even know how to believe in something that wasn’t difficult?
Maybe all those years chasing Jack had twisted her into thinking that if it didn’t hurt, it wasn’t real. That if it wasn't hard it didn't count. Or maybe it had just shown her that things that took time to build were the ones worth keeping.
She gasps softly as his hands tighten around her again, grounding her like storm anchors, steady in their desperation. Her eyes lift, meeting his, and the way they shimmer—like copper struck by lightning—nearly undoes her. His voice cracks, fighting to find its footing even as it pleads with her, and she hears the echo of everything he’s trying to offer. A future. A chance. Them.
It has her tears falling like rain, and though her lips move, trembling as they search for words, no sentence survives intact. [say]"Can we.."[/say] she breathes, the whisper barely surviving the tremble of her breath, [say]"can we not do this here?"[/say] Her hands shift slightly against his chest, not to push away but to plead. [say]"Please...just somewhere else. Anywhere but here."[/say] Because this, this is too sacred for an audience, and too shattered to leave exposed.
RE: tryna get my Usher on but I can't let it burn - Kaisel - 08-23-2025
It never seems to matter, what he'd tried to do. [say]"I think it was better...that we talked at the flowers instead of at the party,"[/say] he manages to get out, because her attempt at humor paints it plain. She even counts that as a thorn between them, and it's beginning to feel like she means to keep them wedged against her skin as a reason to hold him back, scoring them against herself when he even talks to someone else, and all the while she gets to fuck the man that leaves her broken and nearly killed him.
It's not that simple. It never has been for them either.
He thought it finally had become that—simple. That he loves her, that she loves him, that there's no one and nothing else in the way, but it only takes a few words to completely undo a dream. It's always ever been almost. [say]"So...he's had years to make you happy, and you're still—"[/say] crying in a street. It's all he can manage around the ash that fills his mouth as surely as the saline beads along his lashes. He tries, gods he tries to catch his breath, but it just keeps leaking out of every hole she's created in his chest instead.
Time does not care for the depth with which he's dragged her into him, unless it's a count for when he might surface, which is feeling like never. She has been threaded into so many moments he has never bothered to wonder where the gold strands came from—it's always been her. Her hair on his clothes, her laugh layering with his, her face behind his eyes every night. Is she really going to tell him length is all that matters?
The sob that chokes out of her makes his hand hesitate, as if startled, before he presses it more firmly, gathering more while fighting back his own. He doesn't have the means to speak now without breaking entirely, so he just closes his eyes for a moment, chases down the gold that always shines behind them and lets the shine of it remain like a lighthouse in a storm. If almost is this hard to survive, perhaps anything more would kill them.
His gaze reappears with his words, with his grip, each dragged out like he's been buried alive in a grave that he doesn't intend to submit to. He can't keep up with her tears now, so they just fall, adding dark spots against their clothes like all the unfortunate stains that had come between them and led them to this moment. Kaisel blinks, glancing around her for the first time, as if aware for the first time since their dance started that there's a world around them still. [say]"Y—yeah."[/say] The sounds cracks from barely parted lips, but whether she heard it or not he starts to shift, pulling his knees back under him, lifting her along as he rises, though on her own feet now. He can barely manage his own, he can't risk adding hers to the mix or they'll never make it anywhere.
He doesn't know this place, he moved here for her, but he just starts walking. Away from the music, from the bubbles, from the color of people still caught in joy. He keeps a hand, selfishly unwilling to relinquish her. His stride is uneasy, like perhaps he's forgotten how and every step is a conscious effort, and gods does it ever feel like a walk to the gallows.
RE: tryna get my Usher on but I can't let it burn - Flora - 08-23-2025
She nods silently, a small, fragile gesture of agreement that costs far more than it seems. He’s right; she’d have blown him off at the masquerade if he'd found her, armour already cracked and crumbling under the weight of everything she'd worked herself up about to speak with him properly.
A hiccup breaks through her ribs, not quite a sob but close enough to shake her, her shoulder pressed into his side as if she might hide there, as if that might be enough. But nothing feels like enough anymore—not her apologies, not her choices, not even this terrible, truthful ache that refuses to quiet. Her voice slips out low, uncertain, so quiet he might not even hear it unless he's still listening like he always does. [say]"Would it matter to you? How long it had been, how hurt you were, if it was me?"[/say]
Because that’s the marrow of it. The rot beneath every beautiful thing they’ve tried to build. Flora had waited for Jack in all the ways Kaisel could only promise he would wait. It wasn't just lip service, for her to say that she'd rather be wrecked by Jack than be without him; she'd lived it, burned through it for years now. What was poetic and sweet coming from Kaisel's mouth had been Flora's hell, but gods, that's what made it so impossible to walk away from. She’d wanted someone who made her cry and bleed and burn, because at some terrible, unhealed level, that’s what love had always meant to her. Not because she wanted the wreckage, but because she didn’t know what to do with anything soft; anything that wasn't storm blue and hard-won.
When Kaisel stands, her relief is so immediate it feels like air flooding back into her lungs, but it makes her dizzy instead of sure. Standing on her own feels wrong now, like the ground isn’t where she’s supposed to be anymore. Her knees tremble under the sudden demand of her weight, and she holds tighter to his hand, her fingers twining fast and thoughtless around his like a lifeline. Her gaze flits up, and despite the storm of salt and sorrow that clouds her eyes, she offers him the first direction she can find.
[say]"We could go to the water,"[/say] she whispers, unsure, [say]"but I know you hate the sand. The Sugartide’s not far, but...the house is closer."[/say] She watches him for a sign—any sign—of what he needs, because gods know she’s lost her own compass in all of this. The moment stretches long between them, brittle and burning, and she does nothing to break it except keep holding his hand like it might keep both of them from falling all the way apart.
RE: tryna get my Usher on but I can't let it burn - Kaisel - 08-23-2025
[say]”No.”[/say] The first certain, loud thing he’s managed for what feels like the year that he’s been falling off the top of the world. Time doesn’t seem like it should keep so much weight with her when he can’t even tell the difference between minutes and years now. [say]”No, the water’s fine,”[/say] he clarifies with a fainter voice, strength coming and going like a breeze through him. He would not like to tarnish all the places he fell in love with her with this. Best to add it to all the reasons he hates the sand. Maybe then he could just stick his head under the water too.
When he’d decided he’d be willing to ruin everything that mattered to him to be with her, he didn’t really think that meant all of him too. Not this fast anyway.
[say]”I don’t know,”[/say] he says as they move, the pace becoming something that strikes him as distant, the way the fold of her hand is a touch he can’t quite feel any more. Why can’t he feel anything anymore? He’s outside of it, watching this Kaisel and this Flora walk like there’s something still worth heading to. [say]”I want to say no, but I—I don’t know.”[/say] Her earlier question, he means, one he’s been silently picking apart. [say]”I’ve never—I’ve never had to make that choice, or feel that kind of hurt.”[/say] Maybe she’d teach him.
[say]”I just know, I’m willing to give you everything,”[/say] All that he has, at least. He glances over at her, and even now, tear-soaked and brittle, she manages to set something shimmering in him. It’s an ache too deep for him to properly get a handle on it, but it shifts towards her whenever she’s near, drawn like an unseen force he can’t escape, sensible as it might be to.
He begins to list them off, just in case it isn’t clear, and each once starts to pull out quieter and more afraid, because imagining them now, when Jack’s shadow is cast over them, feels like a horror instead of a romance, loss instead of gain. [say]”Time that would be all the years ahead of us,”[/say] because he can’t conjure ones that have already passed. [say]”Adventures all over Caido…to see the whales, and the lights in the sky, and naps over clouds.”[/say] That, and more, whatever they could dream up. [say]”Happiness built up in our home, dances in the kitchen, games every night, laughing until we run out of air.”[/say] Arguments over silly things they’d make serious, and serious arguments they’d turn silly under the weight of their love.
He doesn't know how to give her any more than all of it, so if it isn't enough, then he's got nothing left.
RE: tryna get my Usher on but I can't let it burn - Flora - 08-23-2025
She smiles at his answer, faint and aching, but real nonetheless. The ocean has always been her soft place to land, her breath between storms, and if Kaisel will follow her there—even now—she’ll take it. She feels the distance too, not just in the stretch of their arms or the slow steps they take, but in the shimmerless quiet between each word. A kind of cold that has nothing to do with weather. Something that bloomed between them when things got too sharp, too honest, too fast.
But then he speak, and gods, it’s a song she already knows. Not because she’s heard it before, but because every lyric lives somewhere in her already—woven through her ribs, nestled in her throat, folded into her smile. She can see it all so clearly, the life he offers: pancakes and arguments, cloud-watching and late mornings ruined by love. The obnoxious declarations, the way he’d introduce her as his favourite person in the world to every stranger who so much as asked her name. It’s a kaleidoscope of colour she never knew she’d wanted until she had it, and now—now that it’s here—she aches with how badly she wishes it was simple.
Because Kaisel is a future she could reach out and touch. But Jack is her past, her blood-soaked, storm-tossed, diamond-cut history, and letting that go isn’t just grief—it’s erasure. There’s too much between her and Jack, too much spilled already, too many promises made and broken and made again. It’s not just that she’s still in love with him. It’s that her soul, the battered, stitched-together thing that it is, still recognises his shape, and more importantly, can't ever forget it.
Flora doesn’t stop until the sand turns wet and hard beneath their feet, the hush of waves curling close enough to taste. Her cardigan slips from her shoulders, catching the wind before tumbling to the sand, her shoes kicked aside like she might outrun the weight of them. And then she turns, tries to pull Kaisel down beside her with hands that are suddenly unsure if they have the right.
[say]"I want that life with you,"[/say] she says, softly. It feels like truth gilded in glass. [say]"I’ve pictured it too. You nagging me to get dressed, me pulling you into bed instead. Fighting over pancakes. Laughing until our stomachs hurt."[/say] Her voice trembles, but she doesn’t stop, turning to find the amber of his gaze like it might anchor her, might save her from what she has to say next.
[say]"I know I’d be happy with you."[/say]
But..
She looks out to the water then, lets her breath ride the salt-soaked breeze. The light is dancing across the surface like stars trying to be waves, and for a moment it calms her—just enough to be able to continue. To make sure he understands why she hasn't reached out to claim all that he's offering.
Floar reaches out to cover his hand in both of hers, cradling his fingers between hers like something sacred. [say]"I love Jack."[/say] The words burn on the way out. [say]"And the way I love...it doesn't give up. I don’t let go. When I give my heart...it stays. Through the ups and the downs, through death even. He and I...we’ve been through everything. And even if it wasn’t good or healthy or right, even if it almost destroyed us both, it’s still... there."[/say]
Her eyes close, the salt of the sea and her tears blurring together. [say]"I don’t know if Jack and I are too late this time. If all of this—the change, the trying—it came after too much damage. But I can’t pretend it’s not still inside me."[/say] She holds tighter to Kaisel’s hands, grounding herself in his warmth, in the steady strength of him. Her voice softens as she continues, the words edged with a quiet kind of urgency. [say]"If you and I were together, if I choose this—us—I’d not walk away when it gets hard. I won’t fall out of love with you just because things hurt. My love...it roots deep. It stays through every storm. And if I give that to you, you have to understand what it means. That I’ll fight for us. That I won’t let go."[/say] And it was because of all of that, that Flora couldn't walk away from Jack with the ease that Kaisel was asking of her.
A breath shivers through her, the ache in her chest too wide to name. [say]"But I need to know I’m not choosing you just because it’s easier. Or safer. Or sweeter."[/say] Her gaze rises again, wet and unflinching. [say]"I need to choose you for you. Because you deserve that. And..."[/say] Trying to keep the tremble from her voice and opting to look at him with teary eyes rather than releasing his hand to wipe at them, Flora exhales a quiet and broken sob. [say]"..I don't know how to do that right now."[/say]
RE: tryna get my Usher on but I can't let it burn - Kaisel - 08-23-2025
He falls easily enough, hasn't stopped really. The sand will stick to everything it touches, much like her words, leeching color out of every little bit of the world. He leans back into the shore, feet to the waves that break nearby, wondering when they might creep up and claim him too, if he lays here long enough.
Everything she's trying to say to make it all land softer only drags through him that much sharper. She's thought about it too, their life together. Says she'd be happy, that she wants it, but she won't take it. She'd rather the echo of heartache she's dressed up as love, because at least hurting is something familiar. That's the core of it—she's not willing to risk anything for him in the end, and he'd just thrown it all in.
This must be what love is then—one person always willing to give it their all, the other asking for more.
He lets her hold his fingers, but none of the feeling reaches him. She can't hand him warmth while also describing ice. A little bit of life flickers to the surface, like nerves responding to a jolt out of habit, when she says if she chooses them. He tilts his head towards her, searching for some sign amid her gaze that she's still unsure, that there's still room for him, because everything so far has only sounded like you'd be great, but I choose something worse. Here he thought hurting her had been the one bad thing he'd done, but maybe he ought to do it more, if that's the only thing she accepts.
Through all of it, she holds onto him, and for the life of him he can't imagine why. His attention falls to that, this anchor of their hands. Not the tears that flow freely from her, a mirror to his own quiet streaks. Not the way grief has turned her gaze into a maelstrom, or the shake of her shoulders that move with the effort of saying goodbye like he should be grateful. Just her hands. The place it had all started. Every passing touch to his arm, each lean against his side, all the tousled hairs—they'd all been with those hands. Fingers laced in his as they ran through a bar she gave up for him. Tickles she weaponized when any other kind of contact felt forbidden. Nails tracing warmth against his bare skin on a night that couldn't quite last long enough.
He exhales softly.
[say]"What are you afraid of, Ro?"[/say] he asks her quietly, the faintest squeeze pushing around her fingers. When he'd been unwilling to leap for her, he hadn't realized it then, but he'd been scared. Worried that she wouldn't want that from him, anxious about the strain it'd put on Koa, nervous about the hurt it'd cause Caly. Now, though, he has already survived that hurt, that strain, and he has already made that jump. So what, exactly, is she scared of?
[say]"Because, it sounds to me like you're saying, you can't give up on Jack because you love him, even if it's awful. And it sounds like, you could love me just as deeply, but it feels too easy to trust?"[/say] And yet, she hasn't let him go, either. She'd rather stretch out this ruin if it'll be their last, and isn't that love in the end? A flick of his eyes back to hers, holding steady even as the wreckage breaks off each of them. [say]"So you're scared of choosing wrong? Of giving up on hurt that could turn good, or good that could turn to hurt?"[/say]
RE: tryna get my Usher on but I can't let it burn - Flora - 08-23-2025
His question catches her breath on the inhale, like her lungs weren’t expecting the shape of it. Afraid? That hadn’t been the word in her head. She’s been angry, heartbroken, unravelled—but not scared. Or so she thought. [say]"It’s not always awful,"[/say] she interrupts softly, the first thing she needs him to know.
She draws in a trembling breath, the wind beading her tears into her lashes as she turns her gaze back to the ocean. The salt air tastes like memory and mourning. [say]"I don’t know how you’re supposed to walk away from love once you’ve found it. I thought Jack and I had reached that point. I thought we were done.."[/say] A tear slips down, and she rubs it away with the curve of her shoulder, voice cracking as she confesses what’s nearly broken her to carry. [say]"Jack is a fight I've never walked away from, and now that he’s trying—really willing to try—how do I pretend that doesn’t matter? That it didn’t take everything to get here? That it doesn't deserve one last chance?"[/say]
Flora turns her face to him again, eyes full of Kaisel’s reflection and everything she’s holding. [say]"But you’re the joy I didn’t know I needed. Being with you feels like colour I’d forgotten existed."[/say] Her voice breaks, not from doubt, but the unbearable truth of it all. [say]"And I want that."[/say] She squeezes his hand, hiccuping back a sob. [say]"There’s no scale for this. No right answer. And I wish there were, because I am trying. But this isn’t a choice between right and wrong. It’s two pieces of my heart, both real, both whole."[/say] It wasn't even halves of her heart, it was just different shapes of it, and the love within that promised vastly different futures.
RE: tryna get my Usher on but I can't let it burn - Kaisel - 08-23-2025
It's absurd, that she can't seem to hear what she's saying, that she's weighing a fight against joy. Kaisel loves fighting as much as the next man, but he can't imagine a world where he'd choose that over the joy of colors remembered, especially not in love.
The hurt of it all has started to become normalized, like a wound that's subsided to just an ache alongside each hum of his pulse, numbing gradually. Or maybe that's just the inevitability of bleeding out, it starts to hurt less the closer you get to the end. Supposedly freezing to death makes you happy—maybe that's why the ice mage has such a grip.
[say]"When will it be the last chance?"[/say] he wonders aloud, not unkind with it, but honest. [say]"Because if you thought the last one was it...and now there's this one, who's the stop another from cropping up?"[/say] Which definitely implies that he thinks there will be another reason for her to need a chance from him. Could even say he's begging the spirits for it in the back of his mind.
What he really means is, will it always be Jack? Will she always pick past over future?
Although, perhaps for the first time, it's sounding like she is torn and not just tearing him with the news. He's so fucking scared to hope again though, because he could build resolve for ruin and find a life that way, but to give him hope, there's no greater cruelty.
[say]"Don't pick now, then,"[/say] he offers softly, watching all the cracks that she's bearing and wishing he could be strong enough to close them up by telling her to go, to pick Jack then and try, and that he'd still be here when it failed. He's not quite that sweet though, not so selfless as to manage it. There'd be no one else he'd find if she left, but he'd be changed for it, and he might not have anything left to give her even if she eventually came back. [say]"Give it time, to untangle."[/say] He could wait for that, and stay whole enough.
He sighs, like he already knows she'll refuse it. [say]"You're always on the move. Try standing still, with this, and see what emerges."[/say]
RE: tryna get my Usher on but I can't let it burn - Flora - 08-23-2025
The colour drains from Flora's face so quickly it feels like it might never return, leaving only the watery gleam of her eyes to catch the light. Kaisel’s question hits her like a skipped heartbeat—one of the ones that doesn’t come back for a long, aching moment. Her voice is a whisper when it finally does: [say]"I don’t know."[/say] It’s not a defence. Not an excuse. Just the truth, bare and fragile as glass.
Her thumb moves without thinking, brushing lightly over his hand as she looks down at where they’re still laced together, fingers still knotted like nothing between them had frayed. [say]"He’s never tried before,"[/say] she murmurs. [say]"Not like this, anyway."[/say] Her throat works around the next words, and gods, she knows how they must sound. [say]"I know you must hate hearing this,"[/say] she says, quieter now, like the sea might carry it away before it can hurt him too deeply. [say]"But if it were you—if the roles were reversed—I’d fight just as hard for you."[/say]
And maybe that won’t help. Maybe it’ll only make things worse. But it’s all she has. The one last truth she can give him to prove that her love isn’t cruel just because it refuses to fall neatly into place. That it isn’t heartless, even if it’s tearing them both to pieces. That if he thinks she’s a fool for holding on, then at least he’ll know she’d be that same fool for him.
When he tells her not to choose—not yet—Flora’s breath catches audibly in her throat. It’s too much. Too kind. Too understanding. Her fingers tremble where they rest in his, like the weight of his grace is something she hasn’t earned and doesn’t know how to carry. Her eyes fall to his mouth for just a second, lips parting with a broken breath like maybe she wants to kiss him—to say thank you with her hands and her body and all the things words can’t carry.
But she doesn’t. Surely that would be too cruel, too cold in a way she won't be able to bring him back from. So instead, she nods. A tiny, barely-there motion, like she’s scared it might shatter whatever fragile thread is still holding them together. Her eyes fall again to their hands, where her grip has only tightened, as if letting go now would be the last and worst mistake. [say]"You deserve my best,"[/say] she whispers, raw and honest and aching. [say]"And I wish I was better than this right now."[/say]
RE: tryna get my Usher on but I can't let it burn - Kaisel - 08-23-2025
The faintest scoff slips free, light as the last air bubble from a drowning man. [say]"No, you wouldn't."[/say] It's said firm, crisp with absolute certainty. [say]"I would never put you in the position that you'd have to."[/say] Not the least of which is because they'd never have the chance to, since she isn't willing to try and see what they could be. He's sure though that it would never lead to that, if she did.
Every remark he makes, every angle he tries to tilt for her, it doesn't seem to matter. It keeps circling around to Jack asked her first, Jack's been with her longer, Jack's gonna play at house with her and super duper promises not to break her things this time. Well, who's he to top a super duper promise?
[say]"Funny,"[/say] comes to precursor to something that's never funny. [say]"I thought we weren't making assumptions about what the other needs, or wants, or deserves."[/say] He brings his other hand around, reaching to clear the line of salt that's catching the sun on her face. He holds it there after the fact, thumb slow with its drag, tracing the shape of her one last time. [say]"I just want you. All of you, as you are. Best, worst, happy or sad, sweaty after running or grumpy after not enough sleep. I want you curled up in the bed when it's cold, and wind-tossed on deck, sunburnt."[/say] If only wanting and wishing had been enough.
His hand slips away with a sigh. [say]"Mostly, I just want you to be happy, however you manage to find it."[/say] He closes his eyes and listens to the surf, to her unsteady breaths, to everything coming undone in the worst way. [say]"Tell me when you are, then I'll know my wish finally came true."[/say] Because that's all it had been about, from the start. Her happiness.
He lets silence sit for a minute, cold and soft as snowfall. Something he could bury himself in. Finally, he whispers something he half hopes she won't hear. [say]"If you're waiting for me to go, it'll have to be you, Ro. I told you before, I'm not leaving."[/say] He tilts his head back to look at her, for what feels like the last time he'll truly get to. [say]"Even now."[/say] She'd be the one walking away from this, not him. Leave him here to die on the beach, please.
RE: tryna get my Usher on but I can't let it burn - Flora - 08-23-2025
It’s the contrast that stings the most—that Kaisel lets everything show, wears his hurt like a heartbeat she can’t ignore. Jack may have held his pain behind his eyes, locked behind polished words and restraint that only cracked in the quietest hours, but Kaisel lays it bare here in the open, bruised and brilliant in the full light of day. And gods, it’s more than she deserves by far.
Her eyes drop, heavy with guilt, lashes sticking together where tears still cling. When he says he’d never put her in this position, her head tips slightly, the smallest movement, a quiet agreement that she doesn’t have the grace to voice aloud. Jack hadn’t meant to corner her though, not exactly—but intent doesn’t matter when the outcome still leaves someone bleeding. Biting the inside of her cheek until it stings, she turns her face toward him, not in protest but in softness, in apology.
[say]"I’ve already hurt you,"[/say] she says, low and wrecked, the words struggling free on an uneven breath. [say]"Of course you deserve better than this."[/say]
She doesn’t reach for him right away, not until his hand comes up to brush the tears from her cheek, a gesture so impossibly tender it steals whatever strength she had left. Her own hand moves instinctively, covering his with a soft, trembling pressure—but he pulls too soon, and her hand is left sinking slowly into her lap. The sea is her only anchor then, vast and merciless, and she turns toward it, blinking rapidly against the fresh heat in her eyes that threatens to spill over all over again.
If she trusted herself not to make it worse, not to let the shape of a kiss be mistaken for a decision, she’d lean in. She’d cradle his face the way she once did when words weren’t needed. Gods, there had been a time when a brush of her fingers or the press of her nose to his shoulder had been enough to fix things. He’d once reached out with just a toe, and that had been all it took.
But not now.
Now every gesture feels too loud, too final, too easily misunderstood. She can’t offer him a promise she might break—not with her hands, not with her mouth, not with her body. So instead, she sinks against his side like the tide rolling home, letting go of his hand only to wrap her arm tightly around the one closest to her, hugging it against her chest as though she might fuse their warmth together through sheer will. Her face presses into his shoulder, her tears soaking into the fabric there, salt and sorrow and the last remnants of hope she’s trying desperately not to crush beneath her weight.
[say]"I told you I’d always be here,"[/say] she whispers, voice nearly lost to the wind. [say]"And I meant it."[/say] Not like this, not in this broken and bleeding version of togetherness, but it’s all she has to give him now. No olive branch. No fix. Just her—clinging, crying, and trying, despite being the one holding the knife that was killing everyone.
RE: tryna get my Usher on but I can't let it burn - Kaisel - 08-23-2025
He doesn't have the strength to pretend he isn't still breaking under every glance, every curl of their fingers, every word that lands like it could be the last. He doesn't have a light left to turn on and shine for her now. He would though, if he could. Keep her from folding in further, keep her aloft even if he's going under. [say]"You didn't meant to,"[/say] is the one thing he can assure her with. Sometimes, intent is what matters the most, even if it still stings. Then, unspoken except for the gaze he pours into her, you don't have to.
This would scar, but it could still heal, if she let it.
[say]"I don't want better,"[/say] he whispers it like a secret, even though he's told her already, but maybe the quiet will make her listen all the harder. [say]"I don't believe there is better. You're the top, Ro."[/say] His best moments have been with her, and while this isn't one of them, it had been no so very long ago, and she's given him far more of those.
He's surprised when she doesn't depart but instead tucks in closer. All the things he can't give her right now, but this he can, he can hold her. He'll press her to his side like the pressure could keep it all from draining out, even if she's the one that put the hole there. The arm she doesn't have a hold on fits overtop her, fingers splaying against her back with slow, drifting passes of his fingertips as she cries.
His jaw works back his own grief, but its strain is apparent in the way his voice cracks past his teeth. [say]"But you won't."[/say] He exhales, something shaky that threatens to buckle under the weight of breath. [say]"Every time you're with him, you won't be."[/say] Although he'd never have expected her to be available at his side every time, being with Jack is something else entirely.
He'd tried being her friend once after wanting more, it didn't work out well for either of them. [say]"I can't—I can't just be next to you if you go to him, Ro."[/say] There's a wild sort of panic that sits heavy on his chest, forcing him to gasp a bit harder for every inhale. It feels like he's choking himself, like each word is another finger of his curling against his throat. He doesn't want them to be real, the words he's saying, doesn't want to mean them, but he can't just pretend he can recover from this and love her quietly and secretly again. [say]"I won't leave, but...it won't be the same."[/say] It'll be empty.
He'll show up for her, if she needs him, as a soldier, as someone who can, but little more. He can't find it in him to even imagine laughing with her again if it means waving goodbye while she skips away to the Ark. It's not even that it's Jack, it's that it's not him. He gave everything, and if she won't take it, he's got nothing left afterwards.
RE: tryna get my Usher on but I can't let it burn - Flora - 08-24-2025
It hits her like surf striking reef, all at once and too hard to brace against—her breath seizing, her ribs aching with it, emotions shivering up from somewhere deep inside her like a current pulling her under. Not the sea this time. Not the horizon, not even herself. Just him. Kaisel. His voice, the crack of it. His arm around her, steadfast even through the breaking. Kaisel, who stayed. Who never needed to be begged or convinced or coaxed. Kaisel, whose affection had always come freely. Kaisel, who loved openly even when it hurt like hell.
And suddenly it’s all so clear—achingly clear—not just the differences between him and Jack, but the weight of them. All the moments she’d spent holding her breath beside the captain, loving him in secret, tucking her tenderness between the cracks of his silence and hoping he might one day find it. Her first I love yous had been swallowed back for seasons, trapped in the garden of her mind where she prayed he wouldn’t notice, because if he did, the words would be treated like a curse. The way it had taken death to shake those words loose from him, and even then they’d never been spoken sweetly, never softened into anything warm or daily or alive. They'd been shackled. Not devotion.
Why had it taken her leaving to matter? Why had it taken her brightening, her mind mended, her laughter easy again, for him to remember he wanted her? She’d been the one to reach out every time: at the masquerade, aboard the Sugartide, on the Ark. Always her. Always begging. He'd known what she needed and wanted from him for years, and only now was he willing to offer it? She'd given everything—her joy, her pain, her presence—and he'd never met her halfway until now, when she was already worn so thin she didn’t know if she had anything left to offer.
And gods, when she asked him if he could make her happy, he hadn’t even said yes. Hadn’t promised to do everything he could. Hadn’t even said he wanted to. Just a deflection, something raw and honest and entirely not enough, but entirely Jack. That’s not for me to decide. But it was. It had always been. Not to guarantee her happiness—no one could—but to try like hell to build it with her. To want it for her as badly as he wanted her. He could have said he’d give her everything he had, every last scrap of himself to try. Instead, all he'd said was that he’d try harder than before.
And gods, that difference mattered now. That difference was everything, because Kaisel had never tried with half of himself. He didn’t ration it. He gave all of it—his hands, his heart, his honesty—even when it carved him raw. He didn’t guard his love like it might bankrupt him. He spent it. On her. Always.
A breath shudders free from Flora, ragged and sudden, her vision blurring not from the tears but from the clarity—finally, finally—burning through the fog she’d been walking in for too long. Her grip on Kaisel’s arm has gone too tight and she releases it with a shake of her head, blinking herself back into the moment, into the feel of him beside her and the sound of his breath and the ache in both their chests.
[say]"Kai…"[/say] she whispers, and his name on her lips feels like something sweet. Like something that had been waiting for a home. Her gaze flickers up to his, and without thinking—without needing to think—her body moves. One leg slides across his lap as she twists, settling her astride him in the sand, as natural as breathing. Her hands rise to his face, palms warm against his cheeks, cupping him like she could hold him in place and not let him fall apart. She tilts his head toward hers, her thumbs trembling where they rest just below his eyes. Her heart stammers in her chest, lips parted to taste the air between them. Then she kisses him.
It isn’t graceful. It isn’t soft. It’s a little too hard, a little too fierce, made frantic by grief and regret and everything she still can’t say. [say]"No,"[/say] she breathes against his mouth, shaking her head with a desperation that trembles through every inch of her. Her hands aren’t gentle—they cling—because this isn’t something she’s willing to lose without fighting for it. [say]"No, you're not going anywhere."[/say] She breaks off again, but her lips find his once more, and this time the kiss is slow and certain and real.
She'd said she couldn't lead another war, but with Kaisel, she thinks maybe she won't ever have to, but gods even if she did, she'd never be fighting alone.
RE: tryna get my Usher on but I can't let it burn - Kaisel - 08-24-2025
The way her grip falls from him feels like perhaps she's finally decided it's time to make the final blow. Now that it's here, looming, he's suddenly afraid to have it. Can't they just keep stretching out this shattered moment? He'd rather stay caught in the planes between possibility and destruction, where nothing's safe, but nothing's done either—the fall instead of the ground.
His name feels like the trigger pull, and his eyes shut against it. He'll already feel it, he doesn't need to watch it too.
A chill comes in quick as her body unwraps from him, the length of his side that had her heat now exposed to the coastal air. It's brief though, because then he feels her fit around him anew, the confusion of it pulling his gaze back to the world, to her. Her hands find his face with a soft and careful tenderness that threatens to pull more of him apart, because he's braced for the hollowing finality of it, not this gentle farewell that means to ghost itself into every good memory of her touch he has, like he'll never forget the feel of this one.
Anxious for breath, the pull of it paused to let the pain in his chest settle around her thighs, he doesn't have space to gather it again before her lips are on his. A hundred thoughts drift past, most tarnished with fear or despair, feeling like this is her personal touch as she twists the last bit of life from him, a black widow dressed in gold. One rises to the surface of the river though, a selfish, self-destructive one that shimmers with a hope too fragile to exist on its own. It only takes shape under her touch, trying to scoop up the shards of all this and reassemble it into a picture worth looking at.
He inhales a ragged sound through his nose, the death of a sob, as his lips part cautiously beneath hers. The way he returns it lacks all the energy of what she gives him. It's slow, trembling with worry, but it's returned nonetheless. No, she murmurs, a chord that he feels strum through them both. In the minimal space between them he searches for clarity from her, but there's just the curtain of her hair and the grip of her hands, firmer now, pressing the cracks back together through sheer strength. [say]"I know, I—"[/say]
What he says dissolves under her mouth, just cotton candy words. As has always been best between them, touch reassures him in a way her voice fails to, because the fact there's another kiss, the fact it feels like one built to last instead of one trying not to leave, that answers everything. Maybe that's just the brilliant light of his hope rising up at the heat of her, blinding sense, but he'd prefer to stagger around without sight if it means more of this.
His hands slide up her thighs, fingers curling around the edges of her hips, anchoring her against him like either he or she might drift into the sea otherwise, and that would be fine as long as they're together for the riptide. The kiss melts him. Harder edges soften, press back with an aching want that pleads for this to not be the last.