[se] wish i didn't know

flora

Their fingers brush, and for a moment Flora's try to tangle against Koa's, only the angle is all wrong, the movement too fast, and quickly her hand is back on the couch. As is his. Like two teenagers their fingers are laughably close with neither able to make the first move despite having quite literally have fucked each other in public before. They always had been idiots, though.

"I mean, I get it. We...weren't really anything." She admits softly. "And I was there, I saw how cute you and Sohalia were—" Trying to hide the hiccup of dejection that expanded in the back of her throat with talons that twisted her stomach with a cough, Flora swallows dryly and lets her eyes slip toward his hand on the edge of the couch. "And...obviously I get why you chose her. She's sweet and kind and beautiful, and.." Rolling her eyes despite the tears itching at the backs of them, the Doubletake does her best to smile. "..she was the new queen and you were an up-and-coming soldier. It's right out of a fairytale." Free of animosity, Flora's voice was low, and sad, and resigned. She could take Koa's hand now, could even honestly tell him that she wasn't angry anymore, but what would it really change?

"Whatever the reason..." Fragility, fear, the fact that Koa and Sohalia simply ran into one another back then more than Flora and Koa did. "..you still picked her."

Over me, going unsaid.

My house of stone, your ivy grows
And now I'm covered in you

Code blatently stolen from queen of codes, Sky!

Koa

I don't want to wonder if this is a blunder

He considers interrupting her. Protests rise into his mind at multiple points as she continues on,  but for some reason Koa decides, for once, to hold his tongue. Maybe he's finally becoming mature, learning patience and empathy.

Maybe he's finally leveled up his emotional maturity skill.

"I didn't know you were an option." His smile is sad, a muted thing, understanding of what lies hidden between her words and her face. "And now I'm too late, aren't I?" It's a rhetorical question; he knows he is. There's no bitterness in his voice, no animosity: just a quiet understanding, acceptance of his fate. He had a chance and didn't know it. And now it's slipped away.

A lapse into quiet, surprisingly comfortable now that they've finally spoken. It's a relief off Koa's shoulders, a weight removed; he feels like an idiot for not having said anything sooner, but still, he's glad to have done it now.

"Well," Koa says eventually, looking up to Flora with a tilted head. "I'd like to stick around and help with your ankle, if that's okay. But if you want me to go, I'll understand." The ball is in her court. "Just... please tell your dad not to kill me?" he adds, running his hand through his hair with a nervous, boyish chuckle.

When I kiss your lips I want to sink down to the bottom of the sea

Code blatently stolen from queen of codes, Sky!

flora

"Wh—" Flora, of course, has no problems interrupting. "So when you found me on the Rainbow Road? That was just...just sex for you?" Given their history maybe the queen shouldn't have been surprised, but it hurt more to imagine meaning that little to him than the pain from her twisted ankle. As tears shimmered in her eyes anew, Flora bit the inside of her cheek trying not to let the realization that maybe where she'd seen blooming romance, Koa had just seen fuck buddy, contort her face too obviously.

"It's not too late." The chill in her voice very much suggested that the words didn't mean quite how they might have sounded out of context. 'You just..made your choice.' then, the way words and arguments sometimes snowball on their own, anger flared suddenly in the queen's cheeks. "You'd..you'd been with me and you chose someone that you hadn't even..." Clicking her teeth together in order to stop herself from implying that just because he hadn't fucked Sohalia that whatever they had was any less meaningful, but gods deep down she felt that way.

"We had something, Koa. I know you felt that." Why he thought she wasn't an option she didn't know, and maybe, didn't want to.

Because then this all might have been her fault.

Swallowing thickly, Flora wipes the tears away from her eyes under the guise of hiding a yawn. "I just want to go to bed." She murmurs softly, feeling defeated, stupid, and very, very alone. "If you help me upstairs, then...we can be even. You know, for it having been your fault I fell in the first place."

The smile that parts her lips is precarious in its honesty, and gods if doesn't have her heart fluttering in a way she could no longer understand. Reaching for him without looking, knowing that the sober maturity in his copper gaze would be her undoing, she wrapped an arm around his shoulders that he might help ferry her up the stairs and into her bed.

Alone.

Probably.

~FIN

My house of stone, your ivy grows
And now I'm covered in you

Code blatently stolen from queen of codes, Sky!