these memories follow me around

KOA

Ah, Koa thinks, and there it is, the rotted root of it all. Flora's anger flares hot and bright, the rush of hurled accusations licking like fire across his mind. It's almost better, honestly, than the contrition she'd displayed before: at least this he can respond to, can hold onto and smolder over in the dark days to come. This was never going to be a clean break, something amicable they could smile and laugh about later on. Koa's pride is too great for that.

Flora's too, it seems.

"Ok, so now this is my fault." Scoffing incredulously, Koa runs a hand through his hair. "For the record, Flora, I don't think I'm better off without you. I- fuck, I love you, and I think - I thought - that we could make this work. That despite all the stupid shit that happened when we were kids, despite me seeing Soh and your dad threatening to kill me, we were figuring it out." Gone is the still, the quiet; now Koa can feel himself vibrating, nerves threatening to burst from under his skin.

He's pacing, now, turning from her, only to circle back again. He can feel the seals on his control loosening, threatening to spill viscera and a still beating heart all over her lovely shoes. "I told you I was serious and I fucking meant it. And I thought - I thought - you felt the same."

Again he laughs, hollow and desolate, the palm of his hand pressed against his head. "But it was never going to be me, was it? I really believed that... even though I knew you still resented me, I thought if I just tried hard enough, that I maybe I could prove--" Their past was always going to be there, working against them. He'd been a fool, ignored the signs, and now perhaps he deserves the dull ache in his chest. "And the whole time there was someone else, and I didn't even know. Gods, I'm such an idiot. I never had a chance."

With each love I cut loose, I was never the same
Watching still living roots be consumed by the flame

Code blatently stolen from queen of codes, Sky!

i could be the reason you can't sleep at night

"No, but—" Widening her eyes, Flora's fingers clasp against her arms, mirroring the instincts in Koa's own body to throttle, or grab, or shake. Gods why could they just never talk to one another? Why was this always so hard for them? "I'm allowed to be upset about things while still trying to move on." She says, trying to keep the exasperation from her voice and failing wildly. "And you don't get to act like making amends for being such a dickhead should get you a medal." Because he had fucked up, they'd both agreed about that and while forgiveness might have meant forgetting in Koa's books, it certainly didn't in Flora's.

Flinching as he says he loves her again, this time the words feel like a crack opening up between them, and every word offered in explanation or anger served only to widen the gulf. Shaking her head softly at the mention of Sohalia again and Ronin's lecture, Flora retreats a step, her tear-blurred eyes drawn to the cheerful sunflowers that seemed to be the only thing in the world to hold any colour anymore.

"No, it was." Supposed to be you. "You did." Flora interrupts the grief suddenly palpable once more against her throat like greedy fingertips looking to choke the words away before she can save them. "I never resented you—Koa, I—" Pressing her fingernails hard enough against her skin to leave little indents in an effort to keep herself from shaking, she bites down on a sob, her soggy aqua gaze lifting toward the sky. "There was...Koa something happened, with this guy I met. I don't want to get into it, but I got really hurt. My shoulder was fucked up, and emotionally...it..." Flora's young mind had split her time with Asta into two segments: the one before, and the one where they were friends. Though she could happily be around the butcher now, thinking about the before sometimes still had her wanting to drop to her knees in anguish and agony, as it did now. "..I was a mess, and Jack was the one who found me." She explains, the tears trickling down her cheeks now large and silent. "And then literally last week I almost died. Right on the beach. This...this void thing attacked, and..gods, it took both Ronin and Remi in the end to get us out of there." Releasing her arms and pressing her fingertips against her eyelids, the queen exhales shivery whimpers against her palms as the memory of the pain and the fear washed over her in slow, cold waves. "And he was there too." She whispers.

Knowing how it would sound, what Koa would say—oh so it's my fault for not being there?—Flora drops her hands, her face a crumpled and splotchy mess. Taking a step forward, she shakes her head wildly, her hair coming unspooled around her shoulders. "And that isn't your fault, I know that. I know that. But..." But Jack had been there, and it had changed everything.

KOA

He didn't want a medal, Flora.

He only wanted you.

Something happened. I was hurt. A chill rushes up through Koa's body, the sharp edge of his pain briefly dulled. "Are you--?" okay? the Dragoon begins to interject, a hand raising upwards, a step half-taken towards her, all anger forgotten in a surge of concern, of protectiveness over the Doubletake. But then the second half's revealed, and Koa's heart and movements falter, frozen in a wave of guilt. Jack (that was his name) had been there, and had been there again, when Flora almost---

"You what?" He isn't sure what feels worst. The plunging, icy stream of terror, to learn she'd nearly died? The red-hot wound to the chip on his shoulder, guilt and inadequacy that he hadn't been there, hadn't even known the danger she faced? Or the bitter slap that is realizing there's someone else who had? That Flora's life is full of other people, better people, people she chooses to turn to and trust?

His voice is dry and tired and cracking; he's reaching his breaking point. "I didn't- I didn't know. You never told me." Which is terribly unfair, of course, but then again, so is life. "I would have--" Have what? Come to Torchline, hours later? Held her in the aftermath? It hadn't been him he'd taken her fear to, hadn't been his arms she'd sought comfort in. He hadn't been there, and so he'd lost.

"I think I need to go." He isn't looking at her, can't look at her, because to see her tear-stained face and trembling shoulders would break his heart all over again. Koa's arms shake with the urge to wrap them around Flora, to pull her close against his chest and carry all her pain. 

But that's not his job anymore, is it? She's chosen someone to be her protector, and it isn't him. Closing his eyes, Koa inhales a long, steadying, and stuttering breath. "I don't... I can't keep doing this, Flora. It..." It hurts too much. "Here--" He thrusts the fistful of sunflowers toward her, their stems thoroughly crushed by his iron-tight grip. "I'm sorry."

With each love I cut loose, I was never the same
Watching still living roots be consumed by the flame

Code blatently stolen from queen of codes, Sky!

i could be the reason you can't sleep at night

"I know," Flora admits, her eyes pressing tightly closed against the tears that snarl behind them; she knows he'd have come if he only knew, knew that she hadn't told him. They're each a step closer to one another now but they might as well be worlds away for the distance between them, and against it the queen finds herself once more wrapping her arms around herself. Not normally one prone to gestures of self-soothing, Flora finds she can't help herself just now. "It all happened so fast..the monster, my Dads having to step in...even after they took me to the fountain, it still took days to get back on my feet." She'd spent the entirety of that time with Jack to be fair, but nearly dying at his side had changed something between them; perhaps it had just made it impossible to ignore any longer. It wasn't Koa's fault that he hadn't been there, but maybe it wasn't Flora's either.

It was selfish of her to have forced him to stay as long as she already had, and while it would have been monstrous to ask him to linger longer, the words were on her lips, her eyes already wide with tears as he thrust the sunflowers toward her. Choking on her pleas, Flora reaches for the bouquet before she's even aware of it, her fingers flinching as they brush against the crushed stems. "Koa—" But what was there to say? In what world could she possibly explain to him the fickleness of a young heart, and how it had chosen the dangerous older man rather than the young golden knight? A man who'd merely tolerated her presence for years, rather than the one who'd adored her from the start? A man who didn't even love her back, rather than one who did?

"—I'm so sorry."

KOA

Maybe one day Koa will have a similar bonding experience. Maybe he will nearly die at the side of someone he cares for, will find himself with an inexorable bond that dulls all others with its strength. And on that day he'll come back to Flora, light-hearted and warm with forgiveness and love, and tell the Doubletake, I get it. I understand it all, now.

That day is not today.

He doesn't want to go. He cannot bear to stay. As long as they stand in this mocking sunlight, as long as they rage and fight and cry, as long as their hearts are breaking in unison, at least they're still a them. Limbo is a terrible place, but it's better than being alone. He looks at her with hapless sorrow, wondering desperately where he went wrong, what could have been done to fix it.

The flowers pass between them with the weight of a wax seal, a final punctuation at the end of the story of them.

Everything from here, Koa knows, is part of the after, and as loathe as he is to let go of hope, he knows it must be done.

Knowledge doesn't keep the hollowness in his soul at bay. Empty handed, empty hearted, the young Dragoon teeters over the void alone, Flora and her sunflower face and her youthful love on the other side. "Yeah. Me too," he answers hoarsely.

And then he turns and walks away, the broken pieces of his heart left in the before.

[fin]

With each love I cut loose, I was never the same
Watching still living roots be consumed by the flame

Code blatently stolen from queen of codes, Sky!