heartbreak is one thing, my ego's another

your touch brought forth an incandescent glow, tarnished but so grand

"Oh okay." Flora chuckles under her breath, affectionately rolling her eyes. "I know." She adds, her own tone growing more sincere as she smiles girlishly down at him if only because he can't see it. That's what I love about you, she thinks. "I always feel safe with you," She says.

"Ooohkay tough guy." Regardless of whether or not it was true, at least Koa was speaking in more complete sentences and if nothing else, Flora was pretty sure that was a good sign. However as he leans against her, the Doubletake's breath stutters in her throat and her hands freeze; not because she's concerned about their closeness, but because she's worried it means he is starting to take a turn for the worse.

Turning her head in time to see his eyes closing, Flora leans back onto her heels, and, pulling her hand gently out of his, places her fingertips on the opposite side of his face to try and make his eyes meet hers. "Hey," she whispers. "You gotta tell me if you're going to pass out."

KOA

Koa's hand clenches automatically, futilely attempting to keep her hand from slipping off his arm. "Don't leave," he murmurs a quiet protest, making a sound that is not a 'mewl' because he's definitely far too manly for that. "But I'm tired," the Dragoon whines in protest, leaning his face into the palm that cups his stubbled cheek. Forcing his copper eyes to open, he once again makes her his focus, his attention rapt as he commits fully to taking in her face. He lets his hazy gaze sweep over her: the worry lines creasing her eyebrows, the way her jaw flutters with a tension she doesn't let leak into her voice. She cares, he realizes, cares enough to put this mask on, to think she has to pretend she's okay.

And fuck if that knowledge doesn't light a spark in the torch he carries, too hot and glaring for him to put it out.

Though his body still sobs its weariness, Koa forces it to straighten, to unfurl from the lump he so desperately longs to become. "I'm going to be fine," he promises, even managing a (mostly) real smile as he reaches for her, his knuckles brushing across her cheek. "The healing water'll take care of it, might just take a few hours for my brain to settle back in right. Prob'ly shouldn't be unsupervised, though." Which means she's stuck with him, at least for a little while.

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!

your touch brought forth an incandescent glow, tarnished but so grand

This was precisely the problem with the whole forgive but never forget mentality so many had preached to Flora. The, they only get one chance, or the mantras of slay queen! he doesn't deserve you! Enzo had said it, Ronin had said it, Sunjata had said it, Remi would have said it if I threaded with myself, her mother had said; only with Koa's cheek pressed against her palm and his body leaning against her own, gods but she suddenly couldn't remember the whys of the arguments they'd all made, no matter how reasonable it had sounded at the time. Instead, all she could focus on was the way his body, so wonderfully strong and brimming with skill moments before, now felt wonderfully boyish pressed against her.

Blushing as Koa's eyes drink her in the way only his can, Flora lowers her gaze for a moment as she tries to reel the edges of her smile back into place. "Sorry, there's a very strict no passing out rule back here." She murmurs apologetically, hazarding a quick look up at him that's meant to last only for a moment. Only then his fingertips are softly pressing against her cheek and even though she should look away, Flora can't seem to find her way out of the bronze sea of his stare. "No problem." She whispers, her voice utterly without shape such is the way his touch has unravelled her. "You should...uhm, probably drink some, as well." This was her cue to hand him the bottle, but between the pull of his gaze and the nearness of his mouth to hers, the Doubletake was as overwhelmed by the racing of her own thoughts as the pounding of her heart.

Kiss him!
Don't kiss him
Don't play games.
But what if it's real—
But how could you ever trust him?

KOA

The funny thing is, Koa might have said the same thing, were his position in this situation very much different. Had he been Flora's confidante he, too, likely would cheer her on to go do better, because you deserve someone who's 100% devoted to you, girl! But of course watching a situation and living it are vastly different. Koa knows he needs to distance himself, had vowed to do exactly that. He promised Flora he wouldn't hurt her; so why can't he escape her orbit, before they both collide again?

Her cheek is a balm on his busted knuckles, her eyes a drug he cannot quit. In the dim light of the Thieves guild, Koa's heart is being stolen; except how can she be stealing it, when it already belongs to her? When slowly over seasons he's completely lost his grip on the thing, allowing it to fall like sand into her waiting lap? Blame the healing fountain water, or the clarity brought by a good bump to the head; for once Koa knows as clearly as daylight, as well as he knows the arc of her cheekbone beneath his thumb, the smell of her perfume, the taste of her lips.

I want more from you, says his stricken face. I think I could love you, if you give me a chance.

"Probably," he agrees huskily, though it isn't the bottle of fountain water he wants to put to his lips. Her mouth is so near his, and he finds he can't look away from it, can't stop leaning, pulling, aching for that chance---

A chance she has to give to him. One he doesn't deserve.

It's painful, pulling back from her. The gravity that's always coursed between them screams in its defiance, furious with this unexpected display of self-control. Gently, tenderly, he pulls her hands off of his face, cupping them between his palms. "Flora," Koa begins, unsteady, trying to calm his quickened breathing, to ease the pounding in his heart. "I don't--- I want---"

He's usually so good with words; how, then, does she always seem able to render him a blathering half-mute?

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!

your touch brought forth an incandescent glow, tarnished but so grand

Maybe what Flora reads in the dragoon's face isn't entirely faithful to what he's penned—there's a good deal of I've been an idiot in the twitching of his brows and no shortage of Sohalia means nothing to me in the flush of his cheeks as well as the attraction she can't help but miss—but gods she can't seem to pull away.

She doesn't want to.

Leaning forward ever so slightly, Flora's lips have parted entirely of their own accord as she inhales a soft breath, filling her lungs so that when Koa's lips finally meet hers, she won't have to come up for breath too soon. It isn't a first kiss by any stretch of the imagination, but something about the circumstances has it all feeling fresh and new. That he can't simply read her mind is as wonderful as it is vaguely torturous, and the tension of it all has a delicious heat kindling in her belly.

But then Koa's pulling away and the coral blush on the queen's cheeks suddenly flares with heat as if she'd been slapped. Her lips form around confused half-syllables that she can't give voice to if only because the breath she'd taken is now being held hostage in her lungs.

I don't -- want you
I want -- Sohalia
Oh. oh.

Sniffing in a breath that only overfills her lungs all the more, Flora has to bark out an uncomfortable cough as she pulls her hands out of his. "Sorry, no, yeah. I don't know what I was thinking." She whispers, dropping her eyes and giving her head a little shake. Reaching for the water, she thrust it into his lap before moving to stand. "I'm just...going to get you a blanket, for.." Where Flora was planning on getting a blanket or what the purpose was, not even she knew, only needing some sort of excuse to pull herself away.

KOA

Maybe he can't read her mind, but as Flora flushes and her expression drops, he finds he doesn't need to. He can see it clearly on her face, as well as if she'd spelled it out. Can sense the change in body language, the way the air rushes out of the room. He's fucked up, again, or nearly so, his inability to articulate around her threatening again to culminate in a flurry of devastated feelings and misunderstandings and shattered dreams.

And then she's standing, and turning, and gods if he can't feel her slipping from him, the rush of her attention and the quickened desire threatening to sour into bruised egos and empty beds. She always does this, and he always lets her, and so they go around and around, an endless dance of youth and longing and anger and hurt and desire and pain---

"Flora, stop." The world spins as Koa rises, snatching for Flora's fleeing hand. He grits his teeth, trying to focus, because gods he's not letting this happen again. "It's not that I don't want to kiss you." He's tugging, gently, praying she'll let him pull her around toward her, that she will look into his face and see how hard he's trying, how earnestly he wants her to understand. "But... if you'll give me a chance, I want to do things right. No running. I'm done pretending this is just hooking up. That I don't feel the way I do."

The way I think you feel, too.

"And if you don't want to, that's okay, too." And though it hurts worse than his head wound, he forces himself to smile at her, to make it clear that he means it, he does. "If you don't feel the same way, I'll understand. If you need time to think about it, I can wait. And if you want me to leave Torchline and never come back..." he sighs dramatically, placing a hand upon his heart in mock-sacrifice, desperate to inject some levity into this brawl-and-concussion-induced-heart-to-heart. "It'll be devastating to my tan, but I'll find a way to survive."

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!

your touch brought forth an incandescent glow, tarnished but so grand

Though on this occasion in particular Flora hadn't been trying to run just to see if Koa would stop or follow her, that his hand was suddenly tangled around hers caused a breathy little moan to escape her lips as she spun around, her heart suddenly in her throat. Disantly she thought that they should have been standing out in the rain or on the beach at the very least, with Flora in a nice dress and Koa with his hair pushed back from his eyes looking impossibly handsome. That's where they should have been having this conversation, instead they were hidden away with Flora looking tired and Koa's sweatshirt hopelessly bloodied.

"No, I do feel the same." Flora interrupts, her fingers suddenly clutching desperately at Koa's. "I...I really like you, I just didn't know—" That she was competing with someone else? That there was a time-limit? That she was meant to declare her interest in some more official capacity than moaning his name on the Rainbow Road for all to hear? That just thinking I love you wasn't enough?

"Shut up." Her laughter feels like a betrayel—of the moment, of her feelings, of how childishly fucked up all of this was—but Flora can't help her smile as she reaches out to playfully slap away the hand over his heart. "You aren't allowed to make me laugh." She scolds.

Wanting little else than to simply stretch up onto her toes and place her lips upon Koa's, throwing caution and heartache to the wind as what inevitably happened in her brother's romance novels, instead Flora forced her eyes to lower—no, gods, not to his lips—in an attempt to follow his lead and break them out of the cycle they'd found themselves in. "I just...I don't know how I'm supposed to forget how it all feels." She murmurs softly, staring at a smear of blood on his sweater and thinking that she should tell him to take it off so that she could wash it before it stained.

"I don't want to be, like, on our wedding day still bringing up shit from the past, you know." She adds, laughing softly and hazarding a look up at him through her lashes.

KOA

"You do?" Even though he'd known it - or strongly suspected, at least - having confirmation is something entirely different. I really like you is a thunderbolt in his brain, sending a surge of electricity dancing from the throbbing head to his tingling toes. He brightens, visibly, a warm glow suffusing his sallow skin, his grip on her tightening as he fights the urge to pull her in against his chest, to abandon further mature conversation in favor of pressing his lips to hers.

He laughs when she does, bright and boyish despite the pain still radiating from the wound on his head. "But I love your laugh," he protests automatically, firelight dancing in his metal eyes. In that moment he thinks he would give anything to keep her laughing forever, to hold them on the precipice of actually trying to make this work---

But ah, reality catches up then, with Flora's eyes dropping away from his. He doesn't stop her, though he desperately wants to, to clasp her chin and raise her face up and kiss away those fears. Ignoring the mess they've made of their relationship- that's what's made things go so wrong. If Koa wants this to work, he will need to be patient. To prove he's choosing her; to let her choose him.

Except then she's talking about their wedding, and Koa turns a hysterical shade of purple as panic blows whistles in his ears. His laugh is strangled, though not with any sort of displeasure. It's not as though he dislikes the thought. But- "Kinda early to worry about all that, isn't it?!" Still a man, still a boy; the idea of marriage is a distant and vaguely terrifying prospect, especially given where they are now. "Maybe we start somewhere smaller? I still owe you dinner. Y'know, as congratulations for being Queen."

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!

your touch brought forth an incandescent glow, tarnished but so grand

"Yeah, like a lot." Flora says, feigning annoyance at having to even clarify with a little roll of her eyes, though the warm glow of colour on her cheeks and the pirate smile on her lips suggests she isn't anything less than thrilled to finally be saying those words out loud. For weeks if not months she'd talked to anyone she could about her feelings for the dragoon; why had no one ever suggested to her that perhaps she should tell him how she felt?

"Yeah, well.." The queen huffs affectionately, her nose scrunching slightly before the gravity of the situation is tugging her eyes away from his and onto the—out, out damn spot—blood staining his collar.

"I'm a virgo planner." Flora interjects with a laugh, squeezing his hand and offering him a crooked smile. if Koa thought that Flora wasn't the sort of girl to dear diary her wedding plans after nothing more than a fleeting glance in a crowded marketplace, he didn't know her very well at all. "That's right, you do, don't you?" Gods, it felt like a million years since she'd received his congratulations and his offer of dinner. So much had happened since then, but perhaps more importantly, so much hadn't. Though Flora was seriously considering Jack's offer of what it might be like to have someone at her side who, though he didn't love her, could give her everything that she wanted. Maybe power and security was better than clutching for some girlish notion of finding the one and living happily ever after, but just now with Koa's had still in hers, it didn't feel quite so far away.

"I think I'd really like that. I could...come up to Stormbreak and meet you? If that's easier..?"

KOA

Why didn't anyone suggest they just talk? Actually, no- someone did (thanks, Ronin), which is really how they've wound up here, Koa forcing himself past his insecurities to finally voice the way he feels. And even though he knows it could well get him murdered (thanks, Ronin), the young Dragoon finds he's elated, buoyant with the confession's weight off his shoulders and the potential of a future that could, now, come. He may not have a wedding scrapbook or the names of his kids picked out, but that doesn't mean he's not a dreamer. All he's ever wanted is a goal, a reason.

Maybe it could be her.

"It's a date," Koa promises, ardent gaze never leaving her face as his fingers continue to trace hers. It's about as un-romantic a setting as possible, with the Dragoon concussed, his blood on Flora, the bar a disaster beyond the hidden door. And yet to Koa it's absolutely perfect, an apt culmination of their years-long dance. He has no idea, of course, about his competition, no way of knowing that even now Flora's deciding between him and a blue-eyed Captain. As far as Koa is concerned, this is the beginning of their happily ever after.

The poor, naïve fool.

"I'd very much like to kiss you now," the Dragoon declares through a grin like sunshine, "If the offer still stands."

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!

your touch brought forth an incandescent glow, tarnished but so grand

"..'k." Flora can hardly get out even just the one letter such is the laughter at the back of her throat. It makes it impossible to do anything with her mouth other than smile stupidly at him, leaving her blushing even more furiously than she had been before.

Was now a good time to mention to Koa that Remi had proposed to Ronin when he was concussed...?

"I'd—" Gods but she couldn't stop smiling. Uttering a small scream of happy frustration in the back of her throat before tilting her head back slightly and laughing, Flora tugs her hand out of Koa's but only so she could twine both arms around his neck and draw his mouth down to hers.

Though she'd kissed the dragoon before, this time felt different. It felt new the way freshly washed sheets did: not brand new, but comfortingly clean and welcoming in a way that made everything feel right and safe. It felt like the sun coming out from behind a cloud and returning colour to an otherwise drab landscape before filling it with heat. It felt like warm summer rains that soaked into your skin rather than beating down on you.

It felt like home.
It felt like love.

KOA

If we're going by that story, Flora, then it's your move to propose. Would Koa agree in his current state?

Alas, we may never know.

He's still grinning when Flora comes in for the kiss, though his mouth is quick so shift and accommodate the familiar shape of hers. Familiar and yet wonderfully new; it's a kiss for the future instead of the past, tender and hungry and full of potential. Koa slides his arms around her waist, pulling her body up against his. It reminds him of their first time, years ago: when, caught in a sudden summer shower,  they'd huddled, laughing, on a narrow stoop. Their eyes had met and all at once it he knew he wanted nothing more than to kiss the water off her rain-soaked lips.

Broad hands splay over her lower back, maximizing their contact, keeping her close. Koa's older now, more experienced, and yet he still feels that warm bloom of wonded as he tastes her coral mouth. He holds her now like he held her then, tender and wondering, intimate rather than simply lustful, marveling at how well she fits within his arms. He doesn't want to lose this moment.

It feels too close to love.

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!

your touch brought forth an incandescent glow, tarnished but so grand

Standing on her tallest tiptoes (standing in my tallest heels, love, shining just for you) as if she might just melt into Koa, Flora very nearly raked her nails into his dark hair before remembering, only just, about his head wound. It left her fingers feeling wonderfully frustrated as they sought for something to clutch and tug—as if they didn't know exactly what might fit such a role—before settling on the muscles of his shoulders.

There were both too many words for the way he made her feel, and yet not enough by far. His lips tasted sweet, like summer, even on this, the darkest of nights. His arms felt strong and sure around her, but rather than guided by the needs and wants of her own thoughts as Jack's were, his were guided by instinct and feel. The imperfections, the way his hands or lips didn't just suddenly go to the places she yearned for them to be, left space for tension and heat to build; it was what made it feel genuine. What made it feel like love—

Breathless against him and wanting nothing more than to continue making out like the horny starcrossed lovers that they were, Flora forces herself to pull back if only to give them both the opportunity to breathe. Nearly overcome with the giggles such was her unfettered joy at being in his arms without any sort of pretense hanging between them and with it all on the table, Flora buried her giddiness by pressing her face against his chest.

Ahh, but then, further down the timeline there was the Sohalia and Jack of it all: one newly returned, and one staking his claim, both about to make serious waves.

KOA

He'd like to sweep her off her feet and onto the couch for appropriate youthful ravishment. Problem is, he's still feeling decidedly unsteady, and the couch bears splatters of his blood. Not a particularly romantic combo, but hey. They're making do.

Koa lands a final kiss before letting her pull away, breathless and beaming and feeling the thrumming of his heart in his chest like a wildfire. She tucks against him and he holds her there, raising his arms to wrap around her shoulders, fingers caressing loose coils of hair. Even now he can't get enough of her, continuing to rain thoughtless kisses upon that golden crown. He'll hold Flora there for as long as she lets him, shielded against the Real World by a bubble of giddy, giggling ardor.

Again he presses his lips to her temple. "I should have done this five years ago," the young Dragoon laughs, wistful and wondering at the past they could have had. If only he'd known what she was thinking sooner, how closely their desires truly aligned.

And if only he could foresee the fragility of this moment, a soap bubble surrounded by gleaming thorns. Jack, and Sohalia, and Dahlia, and the Family---

For now, Koa's happy to remain blissfully ignorant. But that can't last for long.

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!