that drip could turn torrential

// as long as there's bread and as long as there's an appetite //

“Mm, I see.” Relaxing into the hot touch that trails along the rough bark that map out his scars, the butcher starts to wonder if they could get away with anything more in the interim as they wait for the rest of the company to arrive — only to be interrupted by the chime of Flora’s voice and the butcher’s only apt description of what’s occurring.

It has him slipping up, the snicker-slash-giggle leaving him as his suggestion leaves him, made worse by the accompaniment that Danta offers alongside him. His tail tightens around his lover’s leg, as if it might be a reminder that they must be quiet if they wish to listen in, even if the butcher’s laugh isn’t much more than slightly loud breaths.

At the Maverick’s whisper, he snorts and shakes his head, bumping his jaw against the blonde Ancient’s head before he turns it fully to let his lips linger against his skin. “I do think that is far more embarrassing than my previous fear of crows.” He hums back as the flamingo bumps into the encantado again, the sound of rubber rubbing against rubber over the roar of bubbles and the low hum of the argument that drops off quickly.

“Mm, I do not miss our arguments.” He hums after pressing a kiss to his jaw in return. One of his hands drops down to brush gently against Danta’s arm under the water.

Astaroth

// as long as everyone you need is stepping in line, you are camouflaged //

Kaisel

In his experience, drinking cocktails is precisely for getting drunk. He bites that back though, not wanting to also get into an argument about drinks along with dicks. Especially since they can't seem to agree on what a 'shitty comment' means either, so perhaps they've been working out of different dictionaries this whole time, nudity just the first of many words they'll argue the color of.

The fight drains out of him the way heat does from cooling metal—slow, reluctant, leaving the shape of it behind. He doesn't rise to the questions that linger or the residual stings, but his arm still unfurls, leaving her exit clear. He expects her to take it, because hadn't that been why she'd warned him away from this, wanting to dodge this so she could enjoy the night? He hadn't stopped then, but he's stopping now, and maybe she could salvage something still.

For a moment, it seems she means to. His arm hangs at his side as she steps away, turns a bit, and clearly considers. It twists awful inside him that she would.

When she doesn’t—when she just stands there, folding in on herself instead of walking away—relief hits sharp and painful, air dragging across a fresh burn. She looks so damn small, shoulders curled, lashes trembling, and whatever armor he’d been building cracks in an instant. "Ro," he says softly, the sound rolling off the back of his throat. "I—" he says with a step forward, reclaiming the distance she just made, a hand reaching out. The rest doesn't matter, not if she's not okay.

She's here, though, at least, however small in body and word now. He inhales loudly, holds it for a moment, cheeks puffing faintly, then lets it out through his nose. "It feels too intimate, being naked, especially like that. It's close quarters, and not normal—for me." The words feel uneven and maybe no different from what he's already said, just without the heat to them now. "I'm sorry, but, I don't know how to just deal with that. It feels like you're asking me to share something that's supposed to be ours, and maybe it's selfish, but I don't want to share that." He swallows hard, holding her with his gaze if nothing else. Half-certain she'll laugh again that he can't just get over it, his features brace with a frown. "And, it feels like their comfort is suddenly all that matters to you now. Because maybe you can't hear yourself, but you've never been like this either."

Wanted me to fail out of spite, I didn't
All bark but they don't bite, they timid

Code blatently stolen from queen of codes, Sky!

flora

The whiplash of it all spins in her chest, leaving her disoriented, breathless, like she’s been tossed between waves and told to choose which one to drown in. When he reaches for her, she looks down at his hand—eyes shiny and lashes heavy with tears she’s still refusing to let fall—and bypasses it completely. She steps in, closing the space between them like it’s something she can't help but do, her hands lifting to cup his cheeks. A single tear breaks free, cutting down her cheek like the first crack in glass. She doesn’t wipe it away, but instead shakes her head and stretches onto her toes, pressing a kiss to his lips. It’s soft and trembling, warm with sorrow; brief, and barely there.

"I didn’t think it would upset you like this," she whispers, her voice fragile but honest, as if truth might help stitch the pieces back together. She'd imagined him grinning and ridiculous, stripping off his boardshorts with a showman's flair and twirling them above his head before flopping into the hot tub like a sun-drunk merman. Maybe doing the helicopter. Definitely doing the helicopter. That’s the version she’d expected; the one who always met the world with bright eyes and crooked grins. But this version? This sharp, distant one who’d told her to go? She doesn’t know what to do with him, but nor can she stand the distance between them.

She sinks back down onto her heels, her hands slipping from his jaw to rest over his chest like she’s trying to feel if the heartbeat beneath it still matches hers. "I still don’t really understand," she murmurs, and the words feel like a failing. She didn't understand if it was nudity in general, or because the hottub was small, or if it was Danta and Asta, or if it was her, or some combination of it all. In the long run it probably mattered, but right now her skin still echoes with the way his voice went cold, and she still feels the splinters of just go buried beneath her ribs, opening up old wounds and exposing her deepest insecurities to the starless night. "But we don't have to go in. I want to stay with you."

When he says she’s never been like this either, her breath catches. Her lashes flicker upward, something defensive stirring, but it dies quickly, drowned out by the sickly feeling of being in an actual fight with him. She shakes her head, her voice barely more than a whisper. "I’m sorry." She swallows, her arms curling in slightly as if she might hold herself still against the shiver that keeps rising in her spine. "Their comfort isn’t all that matters to me," she says. "At least...not more than yours."

I hope you're wetting your appetite, finding your way into someone's eyes
I hope you're dreaming in black and white, and seeing in colour

Code blatently stolen from queen of codes, Sky!

Kaisel

He'd wanted nothing more than to gather her in his arms and press this away, but he hesitated to crowd her, uncertain if she might snap at that too and not sure he could remain whole if she did. So when she rejects his hand, turning his offer into something even better, for the first time since Astaroth said yes about being naked, he feels like he can take a full breath.

The kiss itself feels too brittle for it to land right, built from wariness and tears trying to break apart. It's the gesture that matters though, and while her hands cradle his face, his settle on her sides. As she relents back to her heels, his palms skim behind her, arms winding around her back, pulling her into a full body hug. His face slips over her shoulder, burying into her hair with a sigh. He doesn't do anything for a while except hold her as tight as he can, steadying with every inhale that draws her in with it, sea salt and bonefire smoke.

In time, his grip slackens a bit, but he doesn't pull back much, just enough to rest his chin along her shoulder and hum in thought to her words. "We should have a code phrase, or word," he mumbles, soft with consideration of the distance to her ear as much as caution over all the fresh bruises they earned from each other. "Something to tell us we need to stop and reset. Because you're always what matters most, and I never want to do this again." An emotional safe word, if you will.

His fingers curl against her back, a soft exhale skimming against her neck. He's been trying to figure out how to say this differently, searching for the core of it inside him, not always able to understand the why behind feelings, especially not at first. "I think," he starts, dipping back into what she'd said. "I was mostly upset that it felt like my concern was being brushed off. And it was the first time it's ever felt like you didn't have my back." He's not trying to blame her, just walk through the escalation of it all.

"I don't need you to always say I'm right, but I need you to hear me out, at least." If anything, he wants her to tell him when he's being an idiot, because he has those moments too. Maybe this is one, in some ways, but whatever her opinion about his discomfort with it, that's not the idiot part here. "I mean, I'd float with hundreds of dicks, for you, if I had to. I just need you to understand how much I'd hate it the whole time."

Wanted me to fail out of spite, I didn't
All bark but they don't bite, they timid

Code blatently stolen from queen of codes, Sky!

flora

As his arms wrap around her, Flora closes her eyes and exhales like she’s been holding her breath for hours. She melts into him, her arms slipping around his middle as if she can anchor herself there and pretend none of the space between them had ever existed. Her bare feet shift slightly in the sand, scootching forward, inch by inch, like she's trying not to just stand with him, but in him, trying to fold herself into the shape of where they used to belong.

His heartbeat thuds beneath her cheek, strong and familiar, and it seems to set everything back to a cadence that feels whole again. Nodding softly against his chest, she whispers, "That sounds like a good idea." Her voice is hushed, threaded with the last tangle of tears. "Maybe something like...I dunno, something about Rupert."

As he starts to speak again, she arches back just enough to see him, just to catch the shape of his mouth as he tries to explain, the slant of his brows as he fumbles through the why of all this. Her hands press lightly against him as her gaze searches his face, and when he tells her how it felt—brushed off, alone—her lips tremble into a sorrowful frown. Not because she’s bracing to argue, but because she finally hears it.

Her fingers curl into the fabric of his shirt, clinging. "I’m so sorry," she breathes, pulling back just far enough to place her palm against his cheek, fingertips brushing the edge of his jaw like she might be able to soothe the sting of it all. Her eyes—wet, wild, unwavering—search his copper gaze with aching clarity. "I never, ever want you to feel that way."

Then, the line about floating with hundreds of dicks escapes, and Flora lets out a surprised little laugh, quiet and sweet and laced with all the relief of something breaking loose. Her smile blooms slow and radiant as she leans in, not for his lips this time, but to press the tip of her nose gently against his. Her voice is still soft, but this time it shines with a relieved bloom of affection. "I guess we need to have a talk about boundaries at some point, huh?" she murmurs, her smile growing a touch wider. "Maybe not tonight, but before the next accidental dick festival."

I hope you're wetting your appetite, finding your way into someone's eyes
I hope you're dreaming in black and white, and seeing in colour

Code blatently stolen from queen of codes, Sky!

Kaisel

To say he's aghast that she offers Rupert's name of all the words in the world to be part of their secret code is not a strong enough for sentiment for the way he reels back in body and soul. "Rupert!?" he demands in a whisper so wild and forced it cracks in his throat. A laugh, finally, rolls at his shoulder for a moment.

"I suppose he is a thief of good things, so it fits," he begrudgingly admits. "So, what, we say time to kill Rupert?" His 'brows lift, but he shakes his head shortly thereafter. "No. That's all the time." If he ever got his hands on that toad... "What about, Rupert said the same thing?" Something they might be able to fit in, even if others were involved. Who knows, they might develop a whole host of codes in time.

As it fades into the more serious matter though, and he feels her shift beneath him, his hands loosen further to give her the freedom to move. He's certain he could stand out here another hour at least doing nothing but holding her close, though the distance enough to find her eyes again is its own comfort. Or, should be—they're glassy with the mist of all that's been said too wrong tonight, and that pulls on him.

He leans against the brush of her palm, warm and gentle. One of his hand lifts to settle overtop it, eventually pulling each one of her fingertips to his lips for a brief kiss. "I shouldn't have said some of the things I did," he murmurs, his hand slipping from hers to brush a thumb along one of her tear tracks, as if smudging it away now could keep more from ever falling. "I'm sorry for that." His tendency to go down swinging when he feels backed into a corner shouldn't be something she ever has to deal with.

A fragile smile makes an appearance at her laugh, sitting more in earnest as her nose skims his. His wrinkles back in a light laugh at dick festival, and his head nods subtly, hair shifting as it bunches up with the friction of the movement. "That'd be a good idea," he agrees easily, lightening with each step towards rebuilding something stronger than before. "Where does that leave us tonight, though? We should be with your friends, and my comfort is not above your comfort." So it's a bit of an impasse, if he wants them clothed, and she wants them, or at least herself, not.

Wanted me to fail out of spite, I didn't
All bark but they don't bite, they timid

Code blatently stolen from queen of codes, Sky!

flora

Flora can’t help the spread of her smile at the sheer indignation radiating off of Kaisel; his horror at the name Rupert flaring like a torch in the night. The way his voice cracks in whispered protest makes her bite at her bottom lip to try and contain it, but it’s useless; she’s beaming. When he finally lands on a usable phrase, her nod is solemn but her eyes are bright with mischief. "Perfect." Her fingers toy with a loose thread on his shirt, and then she adds with a small twitch of her lips, "But for every...let’s call them code-red words, we need good ones too." Because there was no way they were going to have secret phrases that only meant one of them was on thin ice. "Like, if I say, ‘there was a sale on gummy worms so I bought a whole sack full,’ that actually means I want to run away and fool around with you as soon as possible." It also might literally mean that there had been a sale and Flora had bought out the merchant, but she'd be fine with it should there be any misunderstandings.

The pad of her finger presses gently to his lips just as he kisses it, and when his apology comes, quiet and rough-edged, she only nods. Not because it didn’t matter, but because something in her doesn’t want to hold onto it. Like if she leaves it unspoken, it won’t echo between them anymore. The things he said hadn't been cruel, not really, but it hadn’t been him either. That’s what had startled her most, and why she was so keen to simply forget it had happened.

So when he asks what they should do about tonight, she exhales sharply through her nose, giving it only a moment's consideration. "Fuck ’em," she murmurs. "We’ll get the spirits to bring down some fluffy bathrobes and drink refills and they won't even know we left."

Her smile fades a touch then, not from withdrawal, but from the sheer intensity of her sincerity, and when she lifts her gaze to him, she nearly melts. It isn't just because he’s handsome, though gods, that's no small part of it. That low-burning bronze of his skin that looks molten from the firelight, the tousled mess of his hair where his fingers had tugged through it, the slight heat still clinging to him from frustration (or maybe from her). The flicker of amusement still soft at the edge of his mouth, the warmth kindling in his copper eyes like light striking the inside of a seashell.

But it’s more than that. It’s the way his arms still hold her like they mean it, even after all the hurt. It’s the way he’s always there, even when they crack open. The boy who would float in a sea of dicks for her, miserable but present, and somehow still hers through it all. And maybe it’s ridiculous—maybe it’s so them—but in this moment, with his hands warm on her spine and the lantern light catching in the flecks of his gaze, she thinks there’s no one in the world she’d rather fight with, so long as it always ends like this.

"You’re the only one I want to be with tonight," she says, quiet and sure, her voice thick with everything she hasn’t said yet. "We’ve had enough people interrupt our moments for one evening."

I hope you're wetting your appetite, finding your way into someone's eyes
I hope you're dreaming in black and white, and seeing in colour

Code blatently stolen from queen of codes, Sky!

// but i'm weak, and what's wrong with that? //

"Your fear of crows was entirely valid," Danta whispers back, head tilting into the brush of Asta's lips against him. "I wonder if Kai experienced some trauma with dicks in the past. Ooooh, maybe we could help him to get over it. Yours is great, so I'm sure he'll love it." Grinning and relaxing further against the butcher, he strains to listen for a few moments longer, but finds (boringly) that there are no further dramatics shouted out into the night.

Sighing, he resumes his gentle caress along the other man's scarred chest. "You don't? Some of them were funny, looking back." Not many of them, albeit. "I bet if we argued now it wouldn't be anything like it was back then." Indeed, even the few times they've clashed tempers since Asta had awakened have been tame compared to prior times.

"...I think they've either stopped arguing or they're killing each other," he says a few moments later, of Flora and Kai. "Do we need to go check?"

Dantalion

// boy oh boy I love it when I fall for that //

Kaisel

The Rupert phrase solidifies between them like a promise to do better, a verbal handshake, and a webbed foot slipping in too. A 'brow cocks up as she continues though, painting Rupert red and extending something else a little more green, not toad green, but gummy worm green. "Okay, but you better be careful throwing out a phrase like that. Won't matter where, when, or what we're presently doing, or who we're presently with. I'd pick you up on the spot and we'd be gone." Which, might be her exact plan, but if she means to test it just to see, he's letting her know he'll gladly fuck up anything else that's happening to go code green for her.

She selects door number three, one he didn't even think was an option. His surprise is brief, a streak across his features and in the curl of his hands against her, before it melts into something like relief. Not that he doesn't want to spend time with her friends, but that after everything that's just happened, something simpler sounds perfect. "Is that all it takes to distract them?" he wonders with a small laugh, enamored with both her genius and the easy way she'd drop things for him too.

He gets caught in the look she gives him thereafter, leaning back enough that he can see every small thought sparkling at the corner of her eyes, each detail of affection creasing the corners of her mouth, the way firelight curls warm and bright against the line of her cheek giving her a golden blush. There’s still salt on her lashes, but the smile that meets him is soft and sure, and gods, the sight hits him harder than any of the things they said tonight.

His thumb traces a slow, unhurried path along her spine. The motion is feather-light, reverent, like he’s trying to smooth the night itself away from her skin. He can feel the rise and fall of her breath against him; the heat where their bodies meet and the cool whisper of air between them where they don’t. Each inch he touches steadies him.

"Alright," he agrees, smile surefooted now as it spreads wider in response. He swings around to be beside her now, his arm looping around her waist, his other extending to paint a picture of all their potentials. "We could go lay around at get drunk at the build site, bless the grounds with a sack full of gummy worms. Orrrrr park the Sugartide above here and try to see who can stack the most marshmallows on their horns, give up, lay around and get drunk with a sack full of gummy worms. Of course, there's my house, and we could, lay around..." Turns out maybe he mostly has the same idea, just different settings.

Wanted me to fail out of spite, I didn't
All bark but they don't bite, they timid

Code blatently stolen from queen of codes, Sky!

// as long as there's bread and as long as there's an appetite //

“Ooh, perhaps you are onto something.” He drawls, smirking slightly before the snicker leaves him again and he presses another kiss to his temple. “You flatter me, darling.” As he usually does these days, adding to the ego the butcher thrives off of. They wait a few seconds to see if they hear anything else, and with nothing but silence pouring over the area, the butcher finds it relatively boring – choosing instead to relax with the continued touch to his chest.

A few arguments flit in front of his mind as Danta offers his own viewpoint on their arguments, allowing him a moment to lift one of his arms from the heated water. There’s the pale band of scar tissue where his shackles had sat, and above it two little pale rings from Danta’s lava wyrm shift that one time he’d bit him – after an argument about not returning home on time, if he recalls correctly. “I think we have come a long way with our communication.” He pauses, inspecting the little scars and offering a dramatic sigh before he sinks back and tugs Danta closer, almost partially into his lap.

Without any further yelling from down the way, the butcher nearly forgets they’re supposed to be eavesdropping as he presses a kiss to the Maverick’s nose, withdrawing enough to glance back toward the pathway to spy movement. “Mm, I think they are alright. Unfortunate, for I would have loved to truly give him a shadow puppet show he would never forget.” His voice drops and drips full of mischief, before he’s claiming a very much needed real kiss from Danta’s lips.

Astaroth

// as long as everyone you need is stepping in line, you are camouflaged //

// but i'm weak, and what's wrong with that? //

"I'll do much more than flatter you if we're left alone much longer," Danta mutters with a smirk to himself, the words spilling out automatically even as he continues to try and peer through the steam to see the missing couple, since they can no longer hear their theatrics. Distracted by the way Asta lifts his arm to show the small scars - a perfect fit for a lava wyrm's sharp and pointies, correct - Danta scoffs out a laugh and swats a bit of water at him.

"I don't think we were together then," he says in his defence, even if in all honesty, they may as well have been. His lips part to continue, only for the words to die on his tongue as the butcher half draws him onto his lap and silences him with a sudden kiss. Moaning softly into his mouth and shifting automatically to sit astride him, it's a relief that Asta thinks Kai and Flora are fine, because Danta is rapidly forgetting they exist.

"Speaking of our improved communication," he purrs, tail flicking playfully beneath the water, his fingers plunging into the back of raven dark hair, "I'd very much like it if you fucked me in this hot tub, you know."

Dantalion

// boy oh boy I love it when I fall for that //

flora

Flora beams, the delight that radiates from her brighter than any torchlight, as if Kai had just handed her a brand new superpower; one crafted entirely from his enthusiasm and very enthusiastic attraction to her. Her eyes gleam with mischief, lips quirking upward as she hums beneath her breath and drawls, "Good to know." And gods, does she mean it. A phrase that could summon him to her side at any moment, that says this is mine without needing anything more? That’s not just code. That’s a spell.

As for distracting the Ancients, she glances over her shoulder—only to find Danta practically in Asta’s lap, his hand likely somewhere that wouldn’t be mentioned in polite company. Rolling her eyes fondly, she turns back with a laugh. "I think them being left alone and unsupervised is distraction enough," she murmurs, leaning in close. "They went from hating each other, to not being able to tell one another how they felt, to wildly in love. I’ll tell you the story sometime."

She slides her arm around his waist just as he curls his around her, their bodies fitting back together like puzzle pieces finally slotted back into place. Her gaze lifts to him like he’s the only star left in the sky, and she grins with mock contemplation. "Okay. Those are all great ideas," she says, clearly pretending to weigh them but already looking far too pleased to be wherever he is.

Her attention snags then on something tucked into the bushes. Blinking, Flora steps away just long enough to reach down and retrieve a small, gleaming egg, its surface catching the firelight. She frowns lightly, brow furrowing. "Huh. The spirits must’ve done it," she murmurs, holding it out for Kai to take before slipping her arm back around him.

Together they walk toward the hot tub, just in time to catch Danta and Asta becoming... exquisitely cozy. Flora barely gets a glimpse before she squeals and turns, pressing her face into Kai’s chest to muffle her laugh. "House spirits will bring robes down for when you’re done," she calls to them with a giggle, voice slightly muffled. "We’re going inside."

Then, without missing a beat, Flora looks up at Kai, aqua eyes sparkling. "Oh hey," she says oh-so-casually, "did I tell you about the killer deal I got on gummy worms at the market?" The shriek that follows is all delighted surprise as Kai sweeps her feet from beneath her immediately, just like he said he would, cradling her close as he strides toward the house, and Flora throws her arms around his neck, laughing all the way.

---

Flora picks up the egg and gives it to Kai!

~FIN

I hope you're wetting your appetite, finding your way into someone's eyes
I hope you're dreaming in black and white, and seeing in colour

Code blatently stolen from queen of codes, Sky!