the person that you'd take a bullet for is behind the trigger

yeah I got heartbreak that I reminisce about

Flora doesn’t mourn the delay that never comes; doesn’t crave patience or worship or the slow, curling reverence that Jack can offer like a storm offering stillness before the flood. Not tonight. She doesn’t need foreplay when arguably this moment has been building, at least on her side, for weeks now.

The moment the fabric between them is parted—just enough, barely enough—and he surges into her with a force that steals the air from her lungs, Flora cries out, her mouth falling open against the damp skin of his neck. The moan is loud, guttural, desperate, nothing soft or sweet about it, and gods, it’s everything she’s needed and not nearly enough.

It’s not just the way he fills her—though that alone nearly wrecks her—it’s the echo of his voice that sears through her: You're mine. All mine. It strikes something deep and primal, something she’d buried under layers of silk and sarcasm, and now that it’s been unearthed, it won’t stop burning. The fire in her belly roars outward, not content to smoulder anymore. It licks along her spine and flares behind her ribs, every nerve drawn tight and trembling with the weight of him. Her shoes fall to the mossy ground with graceless abandon as she hoists herself up, wrapping her legs tightly around his waist, ankles locking behind his back like she intends to keep him there forever.

The bark bites at her gown, catching at the delicate threads and dragging tiny lines across her back, but she couldn’t care less. All she wants is more of him—deeper, harder, closer. She reaches for his jaw with shaking hands, fingers curling with possessive heat as she tilts his mouth back to hers. She moans his name against his lips, not able to leave bruising fingerprints against his skin the way he can with hers, but she can leave this at least. The sound of her voice, the whisper of want and need in the shape of his name that might just outlast a few bruises.

some real big things I still gotta figure out

Code 100% taken from the queeeeeeen herself, Sky <3

JACK

Gods - the word forms on Jack's lips without it ever finding his voice, given how Flora steals his mouth in a kiss so desperate that it makes something dark and possessive curl low in his belly; the same something that had him punching out some poor sap at the edge of the forest, the same something that had him sailing across a region at the barest whisper of Flora having been hurt. The feel of her sears along the delicate strands of his magic like a drug, one he's been without for far too long, and it's with the dull thud of her heels hitting the grass in his ears that he thrusts into her again.

She might well keep him there forever, if this fire could burn indefinitely, and though Jack's lungs scream for air, though the bark of the tree has frosted over and the ground around them is suddenly blanketed in soft, white flowers, he doesn't - can't - stop. The way her name had hit the air still echoes in his mind with each brutal snap of his hips, and he forces them to part if only so he might be able to hear it again, louder, unapologetic.

"Touch yourself," he invites, shifting only enough to make space for her hand to slip between them, to give him a front row seat to her building ecstasy.

fight so dirty but you love so sweet
talk so pretty but your heart got teeth

Code blatently stolen from queen of codes, Sky!

yeah I got heartbreak that I reminisce about

She doesn’t notice the cold blooming beneath her skin or the delicate frost climbing the bark at her back. Doesn’t see the petals opening all around them, soft and white and impossible, because Jack is everywhere—inside her, around her, crashing through her thoughts like a wave that never learned how to break. Later, she’ll remember the flowers. Later, she’ll smile at the way his magic spilled out of him, but for now? Now she’s pinned between the tree and the only man who’s ever known how to ruin her properly, and gods, it briefly occurs to her to channel Frey in order to pause the moment for her to properly enjoy it.

Her gaze locks onto Jack’s, her pupils blown wide with lust and love and something harder to name. She’s a mess already—chest heaving, lipstick smeared, legs trembling around his waist—and when he gives the order, her body obeys without question, like he’d hardwired the command into her blood. She lets go of his jaw only to slip her hand down between them, fingers trailing over the thick length of him just as he pulls back. Her touch is greedy and deliberate, sliding along either side of his cock with a teasing squeeze before she finds what she’s after.

When her fingers press against her clit the spark of it is immediate. Heat roars outward, licking down the backs of her legs, curling into her toes like her orgasm is trying to rise from the earth itself. The pressure builds so fast and so bright it almost hurts, stretching and gnawing at the bottoms of her feet, clawing up her spine in waves that make her gasp into his mouth. "Jack," she moans, the name not just spoken but given, shuddering out of her like a spell, like a prayer. Her forehead presses against his, her breath stuttering in bursts across his lips as she pants, needy and wrecked and utterly his.

"Gods, I want you to make me cum," she whispers, her voice raw silk, soaked in reverence and filth in equal measure. “"Please, fuck—Jack—" She bites down on her bottom lip, hard, the pleasure already fraying at her edges.

some real big things I still gotta figure out

Code 100% taken from the queeeeeeen herself, Sky <3

JACK

"Fuck--" The curse spills from his lips entirely without his permission, Flora's wicked fingers gliding between them to provide extra stimulation he absolutely does not need to get them both off. But gods, if he's everywhere to her then she's doubly so in return, her bliss mounting and reflecting into his mind like a mirror against the heat of the sun, until he's entirely burnt out from it and still left wanting.

The spark of raw pleasure that ricochets through her as her fingers find her clit has the captain clenching his jaw around an unsteady moan, and at Flora's command - make me cum - he's utterly heedless to do anything but obey at this point. Lips parting in a gasp, his fingers clutch at her thighs possessively, needily, and he hitches her up further against the tree with rough hands, tilting her hips just so as he bucks into her, hard and fast and relentless.

"Mine," he whispers, blue eyes alight with something dark and fey and already undone. "You're mine. Say it." The words spill out in a rush, barely coherent between his panting breaths, but the demand in his tone is clear enough.

fight so dirty but you love so sweet
talk so pretty but your heart got teeth

Code blatently stolen from queen of codes, Sky!

yeah I got heartbreak that I reminisce about

Flora shatters. Not slowly—not like glass cracking prettily in a windowpane or flaws appearing on ice—but like a star going nova, sudden and all-consuming. Flora’s orgasm crashes through her in a violent, radiant burst that tears through her limbs and hollows her out in the best possible way, flooding her with so much sensation it strips the ache and sorrow from her chest like it was never there to begin with. For a moment, there is no heartbreak. No history. No hesitation, only Jack.

The way Jack moves inside her and against her, relentless and devastating, his voice low and jagged as it curls around the edges of her pleasure and makes it burn brighter. His name is etched into her bones, and as the waves of pleasure crest and spill over her, Flora clings to it like it’s the only thing tethering her to this world. "Yours," she gasps, forehead pressed to his, her breath ragged and unsteady. "Yours—Jack—gods, I’m yours—I’m yours—" She says it over and over again, a breathless chant on the edge of breaking, giving it to him like it’s truth incarnate, whether or not it holds past this moment hardly seems to matter.

The fall is sharp and dizzying, her body tensing around him as her orgasm drags her under, clenching around him with frantic, fluttering desperation. Her back arches, her nails bite into the firm curve of his shoulders, and her mouth falls open in a sob of ecstasy that becomes his name. "Jack—" It leaves her lips in a moan, ragged and raw, as her eyes squeeze shut and the fey-blue-black tide of him pulls her down completely.

some real big things I still gotta figure out

Code 100% taken from the queeeeeeen herself, Sky <3

JACK

"Good girl."

As it always does, the moment Flora's orgasm seizes her, it all but pitches Jack over the edge into his own climax, fractured a dozen times and a dozen more through the lens of her ecstasy. Were it not for the tree they're braced against it would have dragged him to his knees, the captain pitching forward and drawing Flora down hard onto his cock as he cums, her name leaving his lips like a brand, like it's bruised him right down to the bone.

Pleasure shudders through him over and over again, burning and exquisite, and as he thrusts into her a final time, it's with his fingers and lips gone numb. The world blanks out, completely and utterly silent, and it's with a sudden and shivering inhale that Jack realises he's entirely forgotten to breathe through these past few moments. He shifts enough to nose into the side of her neck, breathing her in, his arms slipping around her as if worried to lose even a fraction of what he's managed to claw back.

Without the world around them in range to bleed back into his magic, Jack believes this might be true bliss; this endless moment stretching into a night freckled with lanterns and will-o-wisps. He can't find it in him to speak, to ruin it all with reality. Not again.

fight so dirty but you love so sweet
talk so pretty but your heart got teeth

Code blatently stolen from queen of codes, Sky!

yeah I got heartbreak that I reminisce about

There is no rush to fill the silence that lingers between them like breath suspended in warm water, a hush so complete it almost glows; soft champagne light unfurling slowly across the landscape of Flora's mind, streaked through with cherry-red warmth. There's no need to try to control her thoughts because for once, they don't scramble to be heard. They sigh into being, like petals loosening at dusk, too gentle to fracture the silence she knows Jack's magic afford him in moments like this.

It used to be something she fought against—this stillness, the demand that her mind might be quiet so that Jack could enjoy it—but now it’s reflex. A reverent kind of hush, a surrender not because she has to, but because it feels good to fall into something comfortable and well-worn. As Jack breathes against her neck and she lets her body stay soft in his arms, boneless and golden and held. Like with other recent ill-advised pairings, Flora knows this both does and doesn't change things between them, but she doesn't speak the thought, and, unlike with so much of what came before with she and the captain, no part of her jumps to try and define what it means for them now. There’s nothing to pull apart, no shape to give it that wouldn’t immediately be wrong.

Instead, she lets the truth of it stay exactly where it belongs: warm and full in the cradle of her chest, locked into the ache of her thighs and the raw curve of her lips and the distant, cooling sting of bark along her back. Her fingers remain tangled in the fabric at his shoulders, not dragging him closer but not letting him go, either—just tethering him to her like a lighthouse anchors light to shore.

She should say something clever. Something bright and sharp to break the spell and let them segue smoothly back into reality, but gods she can't seem to find the words. So all Flora manages, voice rough and sweet and too full of breath to bite, is a quiet laugh against the side of his head and a softly whispered, "Fuck you, Jack", the same way he’s said it to her a hundred times before, half-exhaustion and half-love, too fond to ever really mean it.

some real big things I still gotta figure out

Code 100% taken from the queeeeeeen herself, Sky <3

JACK

The laughter that rumbles from Jack's chest is all fond exasperation fringed with the weariness of the very well-fucked, the captain straightening up from the tree ever so slightly, but keeping Flora clasped against him. "Took the words right outta my mouth," he mutters, voice as rough as his body is spent, and it's with clear reluctance that he shifts them enough to carefully set her back down on her feet.

And even then he still doesn't release her, not really; his hands glide around her waist to tug her corset back into the correct position, pinning it there with the press of his body whilst he reaches around to properly lace it for her again. Only once he's satisfied with it does he draw back a little more, one hand lingering on her hips while the other lifts to fix her makeup - as much as it can be fixed without fully sitting down to reapply it, anyway.

He doesn't need to linger after that, and yet he does, fingers teasing a stray leaf out of her curls and fixing a crooked feather on her gown. His lips part as if he's about to say something, before he thinks better of it, instead dropping to one knee to reach for her heels so he might help her to step back into them.

fight so dirty but you love so sweet
talk so pretty but your heart got teeth

Code blatently stolen from queen of codes, Sky!

yeah I got heartbreak that I reminisce about

Flora peers down at the captain, at the mess of his hair and the impossible blue of his eyes framed by that copper-washed mask, and despite the looseness of her limbs and the faint sting of bark pressed into the backs of her thighs, she feels steadier than she has in weeks. The landscape of her thoughts remains wide and calm, but the threads of cherry red that have hummed quietly beneath the stillness begin to deepen, shifting into a warmer, more complicated shade—love-stained magenta, stitched through with things she can’t quite separate: memory and fondness and a softness she thought she’d put away for good.

To anyone else, what follows might look entirely normal. A man helping a woman redress after slipping away for a rendezvous. But to someone who knows Jack—really knows him—every motion is charged with something far more intimate than sex, a sweetness that is rarely seen, and gods, it nearly steals the breath from her chest the same way his kiss had.

She already knows there's love between them; knows it’s never left, even when they did. They said as much the last time, but now, as Jack fusses over her with quiet hands and doesn't try to pretend otherwise, her thoughts flush with the warm shimmer of gold. Not longing, not yearning, just...gratitude. That it’s still here. That there's some part of them that remained, even after everything.

Then he drops to one knee, and her mind—treacherous, theatrical thing that it is—leaps with no small amount of absurdity to the same thought it had when he bought her that stupid white gown: Is he proposing? It’s ridiculous, of course, wild and uninvited, and so very Flora. She stifles a laugh as she places a hand lightly on his shoulder to balance, sliding one foot back into the heel he offers. "Sorry," she murmurs, too breathless for it to be convincing, the apology catching on the remnants of a laugh that never quite escapes.

But she doesn’t move her hand from him or pull away once both shoes are on. Instead, she lets her fingers remain, light but present, and watches him quietly, as if trying to memorise this moment—not the heat, not the sex, but the care. "Bassian can never find out about this," she murmurs softly, her lips twisting with amusement and fondness both, knowing how much it would break the big man to get his hopes up of the pair getting back together, only to have them dashed by reality.

some real big things I still gotta figure out

Code 100% taken from the queeeeeeen herself, Sky <3

JACK

Unable to help himself as the wildly unlikely - not for the first time - roars to life in Flora's mind like gasoline thrown onto a dying fire, Jack laughs. Properly laughs in a way the Doubletake hasn't allowed herself to, the captain gazing up at her with an incredulous smile, the crease of his brows hidden behind his mask. "For a start, if I ever proposed to you with a shoe, even I know you'd be well within your rights to beat me to death with it," he tells her.

I bet you'd still say yes though is what he opts not to say, because the shoe is still there and those heels look sharp and she's caught him at a disadvantage on one knee. Still, eventually Flora is a few inches taller but just as graceful, and Jack sinks back to peer up at her for a moment, his cloak pooled around him like liquid darkness. "If Bassian does find out," he says, smirking and getting himself back on his feet, "we both know it won't be from me."

Jack doesn't say it, but the look on his face, even masked, is all too telling - he's already envisioning the hushed conversations between Flora and her besties. "Is this the part where you gotta walk outta the woods thirty seconds before me?"

fight so dirty but you love so sweet
talk so pretty but your heart got teeth

Code blatently stolen from queen of codes, Sky!

yeah I got heartbreak that I reminisce about

Flora finds herself laughing along with him, helplessly, breathlessly, that rare kind of laugh that bubbles up straight from the belly and leaves her flushed anew, cheeks pink and lips parted as if his joy alone could undo her. Jack’s laughter is such a rare and disarming thing, sharp and wild and real, that for a moment she can’t tell if she’s warm from the sex, or just the aftershocks of being in his orbit.

Rolling her eyes with exaggerated affection, she places a hand on her hip, looking down at him with the kind of smirk that could only come after sex and a well-timed punch to the heart. "Please. If you proposed with anything at all, I’d probably check to make sure you weren’t having a stroke," she quips, though her tone is so full of fondness it softens the edge into silk.

She gestures, then, to the riot of white blossoms scattered all around them. Her brow arches, golden and pointed. "Sure you won’t," she echoes, dry as rum and twice as warm. "Because you're so very subtle with your emotions these days." But, knowing what he'd actually meant, Flora offers him a shrug that almost looks innocent. "It’s only fair," she says, voice light but honest. "I told them all the bad things, seems right I tell them the good, too." Biting at the inside of her cheek, she adds, "the really good things."

At his question, her grin turns wicked, all sin and satin as she steps closer. "Pfft, I said I was going to start the drama since no one else was going to." But even Flora isn’t so reckless as to face the whole masquerade looking like she’s just been thoroughly fucked against a tree. "But, I probably should go and find Niki," she continues, reaching up to brush her thumb along the corner of his mouth, wiping away the smears of red she’d left there earlier. The gesture is soft and entirely unhurried, as if her fingers are reluctant to leave him.

"He's the one with our makeup bag, and this," she gestures to her face, her hair, the state of her back and dress, "is more of tell about what we did than just walking out of the woods with you."

some real big things I still gotta figure out

Code 100% taken from the queeeeeeen herself, Sky <3

JACK

It's a strange moment, for them to share such open and easy humour with one another - the type of moment that was rare even when they'd been properly together, and Jack finds himself wishing they'd had more of them. Flora's thoughts are a delight when they are like this, and the captain would be content to walk the dappled gardens of her mind indefinitely. "A fair comment, but it still wouldn't be a shoe," he tells her, a little stubbornly, though in reality something like this would have almost cemented it into truth for the future.

As for the blossoms, Jack clears his throat and pointedly doesn't look at the carpet of flowers that have apparently appeared over the past few moments. "Those were like that when we got here," he tells her smoothly, the lie a blatant one, but given that she still hasn't slipped the ring back on her finger, who's to know, Flora?

"And so long as the good things aren't wrapped up in a backhand, I'll survive," he concedes, brushing the moss and loose dirt from his knee where he'd leant down before her. Really good loses its charm somewhat when it's followed with but he's still an asshole, after all.

Scoffing - and falling quietly still as her hand reaches for him, Jack quietly allowing the same fuss he'd just given out - he tilts his head ever so slightly down towards her. "You just said Bassian can never find out about this," he reminds her, waiting until she's finished before reaching out to gently slap her backside to get her to move. "Go on, go find your ghost. There'll be enough drama with you leavin' alone."

fight so dirty but you love so sweet
talk so pretty but your heart got teeth

Code blatently stolen from queen of codes, Sky!

yeah I got heartbreak that I reminisce about

There’s a question that blooms quietly at the back of her throat—what would it be, then?—but like Jack, Flora doesn't ask. She holds it on her tongue, rolling her eyes instead in soft, familiar affection as she watches him pretend the flowers are nothing at all. "Oh, I see," she murmurs, voice feather-light and utterly unconvinced, her gaze sweeping across the carpet of white blossoms with theatrical awe. "Well, I was rather distracted when we got here." Her smile that follows is sly, knowing, touched with something far gentler than sarcasm.

Jack's request, though, about the backhand has Flora sipping in a breath and nodding. Because for all the sharpness and swagger, what people often forgot was that the captain had feelings that could be hurt. Not often, not easily, but deeply, when they were.

The slap to her backside is met with a smirk and a roll of her shoulder, the gesture more fond than flirty. She takes the cue without complaint, turning toward the glow of the masquerade with one last lingering look cast back over it all. There’s no stolen tender kiss, no parting touch of fingers. No what does this mean? or did you like it? or will you stay?

But as she steps back into the shifting shadows and the flickering light of lanterns and laughter, her thoughts still echo with the sound of his laugh. Still hum with the heat of his hands. Still carry the shape of his voice like a low tide curling at her ankles, and just before she moves out of range, her mind reaches back, soft and playful and full of mischief. We should do that again, she thinks, the words like a casually blown kiss through the darkness.

~FIN

some real big things I still gotta figure out

Code 100% taken from the queeeeeeen herself, Sky <3