taking more from everything that ends

flora

Flora grins at Kaisel’s smooch, catching it in the air with a flutter of her fingers like it’s something she might tuck into her pocket for later. "The amount of things I should have faith in by now is a very long list," she drawls, lifting one hand to tick off invisible items. "And you’ll be surprised to know I haven’t managed to keep track of any of them."

Still, her eyes sparkle as she leans back into the pillows, lips curving into something radiant. "Good," she says brightly at his promise of a dance, "but if you step on my toes even once, you owe me a pedicure. And not the cheap kind." She waggles her freshly painted fingers at him as if to remind him of the quality she expects.

The next bit, however, has her snorting so hard she nearly chokes. "Drinking your feelings—valid," she nods with exaggerated solemnity. "But crying while you masturbate?" Her brows lift, sly and shameless. "I had no idea you were such a good multitasker. Impressive." Her grin is wide and wicked, the kind that makes it clear she’s storing that visual somewhere dangerous to be used against him later.

But when he brings up her stroke, Flora fixes him with a slow, arched look that practically screams is that what we're calling it? Sliding her legs off his lap and rising to her feet, Flora moves with that same dancer’s ease she always carries, swaying toward the kitchenette to refill both their glasses with ice water.

Returning, she hands him one glass with an arch of her brow. "If you want to get an even tan," she says innocently, "you're going to have to take your shirt off." She tips her glass toward the stairs with a cheeky grin, before peering innocently at him through her lashes. "So? If I do you, will you do me?" Flora waits just a moment before grinning, the urge to toss her water in his face nearly overwhelming. "With your sunscreen, I mean."

I want to be when you fall on me like night
I wanna kill the lights

Code blatently stolen from queen of codes, Sky!

Kaisel

One foot in the ground
One foot in the grave

Her fit sends him into his own, especially when she snorts, and he's clutching his chest for breath as the laughter goes silent, all the air spent but the humor unending. When he finally drags another breath in, the chuckles steadily dying out, his cheeks hurt from the wide and near-constant smile. "Not always," he admits, "but I have my moments."

He smiles meaningfully back in response to her look. If she has a better name he's all ears. As her legs slide out from under his hand he stretches them above his head and slides out of his seat too. Leaning against the table he lazily watches her pour their drinks. The hot honey returns, and he arches a brow as he takes his measuring cup in both hands and sips on it slowly. What is she getting at now with that innocence that is anything but. "I figured," he says easily, unbothered by his lack of clothing, just hers. "You might need to wear sunglasses once it's off," he warns with a grin. His arms have some color, but he can't say he spends much time sunbathing among all the brick and stone of his home.

If I do you, will you do me?
He holds her with his gaze over his cup, mind instantly racing at that suggestion. Do her, like do her do her? No, no, that's stupid. Use context. Shirts. She wants him to take her shirt off? Why, it doesn't look like one of her difficult tied-up ones. Because she wants him to take her shirt off? Wait, she needs to keep her fucking shirt on damnit. She won't though, will she? Of course fucking not, she's Flora.

She clarifies, and everything that had tightened inside him relaxes at once. Oh, yeah that makes sense. "Sure," he agrees with a shrug, moving towards the stairs back up to the deck, the water coming with him for emotional support. "You better not draw a fucking star or something with it though," he warns, not putting it past her to design something unmanly for a temporary sun-tattoo, as it were.

Going up the stairs goes much faster than navigating down them with her in hand. The sea breeze is there instantly, but so is the heat, though it's a nice graze of warmth against his skin for the moment, like he needs some sun. He sets his water down in a corner and grabs the sunscreen still next to his bag from earlier, cartoon-shark tank-top peeling off over his head in a fluid motion. "Alright, lemme see your back," he says as he turns back to her, squeezing out a dollop of white cream.

It's not the devil at your door
It's just your shadow on the floor

flora

The laughter has Flora doubled over with it, her stomach aching in the best way, and for a second—just a second—she nearly leans over and plants a big, wet, obnoxiously noisy kiss on Kaisel’s cheek. But no, that would be too much, or not enough? Either way, instead, she shoots him a sly smirk and purrs, "Guess I’ll just have to suffer through your pasty chest. I don’t want raccoon tan lines on my face from sunglasses."

The moment of confusion that clouds his face as he tries to parse out her "do you, do me" line is glorious. Flora watches it unfold like a drama in three acts, delight dancing in every curve of her expression. She doesn’t let him off easy, either. "You know," she muses with theatrical innocence, "if I did draw a star on you, it’d make a pretty solid pick-up line. I could send girls your way and you could tell them all about the sorts of wishes that were in your capacity to grant."

Up the stairs she goes with a sway in her hips, setting her water beside his before peeking over her shoulder. And when she sees Kaisel pull his tank top off in one smooth motion, her eyes sweep over him before she demurely glances away, hiding the slow drag of her gaze like it's a secret she means to savour.

"Alright," she hums as he announces his intent, stepping up before him. Her fingers slide beneath the hem of her oversized shirt and pull it up and over her head in a single, practiced motion, revealing golden skin and the glint of her pasties catching the sun. She doesn’t make a show of it, not exactly—but the way her bare back arches slightly as she gathers up any stray curls and lifts them off her neck is not unintentional. At least this time around she's still wearing her shorts, short as they are.

She shoots him a glance over her shoulder, one brow raised, the hint of a grin playing on her lips. "Try not to get too distracted," she teases lightly. "We’re protecting my skin, not giving you a religious experience."

I want to be when you fall on me like night
I wanna kill the lights

Code blatently stolen from queen of codes, Sky!

Kaisel

One foot in the ground
One foot in the grave

He laughs at the idea she suggests, because well it isn't bad, but gods no the idea of Flora helping wingman for him is terrifying. "What makes you think I need a star pickup line to help me out?" he quips with profound ego, casting her a dazzling smile over his shoulder as he finished ascending. "I've got game." Just don't ask Rebecca about it back in Stormbreak. He's still finding some of his clothes along the street corner where she'd chucked them out his window. They'd only been dating three weeks, and one week of that he'd spent in Torchline with Flora, which apparently was all the reason she was upset with him and took it out on his shit. Lunatic.

The sunscreen he's squeezing into his hand splurts out unexpectedly as she slides out of her cotton shirt, each delicate dip and curve of her revealed starkly and ready for his gaze. Though he half expected it, thought perhaps he could prepare for it, the sight of her like that brings back each damned moment of forbidden desire like a dog that won't stop biting. The clench of his fist against the bottle, a physical release for those reckless thoughts, has his palm bathing in excess cream. He notices and eases his death grip with a grimace.

He exhales, steeling himself as she glances over at him, a sunbeam of temptation that he cannot blame Frey for this time. "Shut up," he huffs, and smacks his lathered palm against the middle of her back like he might squish each harmless urge beneath it. His hand glides easily across the slope of her skin, skating on the pale lotion, and like a painter preparing a canvas he pulls the color across her with intentional strokes. It's easy at first, when he can smother her under the cream, a wall that separates him from the truth of her exposed body being right there. As it rubs in though, he finds himself needing to swallow, the burnished glow her tan revealed with each doubled-up pass. He could have stopped then, should have stopped then, but as if recovering her image from ruined clay his fingers continue to press against the contours of her back. His pulse is loud in his ears as he swipes the lotion near the edge of her shorts, and its careful as he winds across the span of her scar, a finger trailing off its knotted edge with tenderness.

It's not the devil at your door
It's just your shadow on the floor

flora

Flora meets his grin with her own sun-laced smirk, brows lifting like sails catching wind. "Oh, sure," she croons. "You’ve got game. It’s just, y’know, tic-tac-toe." Her smile widens, bright and teasing, but there’s warmth beneath it, affection carved into every mocking syllable like a love note passed in class.

The smack of sunscreen against her back jolts her, not unpleasantly, and she bursts out laughing. "Gods," she huffs through a grin, "you're supposed to warn the girl before you do that." But the amusement fades to something quieter as his hands begin to move, the cool drag of lotion quickly giving way to heat where his palms chase across her skin.

She feels her breath hitch almost immediately. Her instinct is to arch back into his touch, like a cat curling into warmth, or a flower tracking the sun. The fingers that once gathered her curls begin to loosen, her body too focused now on sensation to maintain the pretense of nonchalance. But they’d said harmless. Harmless. And if this is harmless, she thinks, then she’ll let herself enjoy it. She’ll let herself want, because it feels good and it's harmless.

So when a soft sound escapes her lips—a low, breathy moan—it’s not meant to entice, not really. It just is; the product of warmth and touch and the way Kaisel’s fingers seem to know, without knowing, exactly how to soothe the parts of her she hadn’t realized needed tending.

And then he brushes over the scar.

Her hand comes around on instinct, curling around one hip until her fingertips find one of the old exit wounds. She inhales, shallow, her fingers brushing lightly against his own as they meet near the jagged edge of her skin. "They still ache sometimes," she says quietly, not looking back at him, fighting back the urge to scratch her fingers across the gnarled skin.

Then, suddenly lighter again, she tilts her head just enough to glance at him, her teasing smile slipping easily back into place like armour polished to a gleam. "Don’t forget the backs of my legs," she purrs, lashes fluttering over her shoulder.

I want to be when you fall on me like night
I wanna kill the lights

Code blatently stolen from queen of codes, Sky!

Kaisel

One foot in the ground
One foot in the grave

He breathes out a laugh at her remark, softly saying "sorry," before continuing the work. He only hesitates briefly at the groan that slips from her lips, both the carrot and the stick upon him. He stills as her fingers drift across his, hovering over the sealed damage without fear or shame. "I like them," he admits with a frail smile, only half aware of what hell she must have endured to earn them. In comparison his skin felt too unmarked, too soft and fresh, untested with pain and tenacity like hers had been. Even the one he'd worked through when they reunited, her healing touch had done too good of a job—all for the best, it wasn't one worth wearing like pride for the rest of his life.

They both seem to breathe and his eyes flick to hers over her shoulder. His 'brows furrow in confusion at first, because she can reach her damn legs. He almost says as much, almost tosses the bottle at those stupid eyelashes fluttering there, but he's certain if he does that she won't. So with a sigh, as if this is the hardest task she's ever given him, he drops to a crouch. Only when he looks up from the sunscreen on his hands to ascertain where to start, does he realize he's at the perfect height to regard the curve of her ass. In this new perspective it's impossible to deny the gravity it holds, and he finds himself unable to resist curling his hand at the point where the bottom of her shorts meets the skin of her leg. For the first time, he's grateful for her preference in short length.

Harmless, the word grinds unspoken between his teeth as he pulls his hand down from that tower of sin and lathers the sunscreen against the pillar of her leg to her heel, certain not to miss the tops of her toes either. Thinking perhaps this would be easier if he was blind, untempted by the gleam of sunlit skin that's normally covered, able to picture it belonging to someone other than his cousin's ex, his good friend, he pinches his eyes shut for the next leg. A good idea in theory, but more difficult in practice as he fumbles briefly to find the top of the other leg, fingers brushing ass instead of thigh. The bite of her jean against his skin has him jerking away though, huffing as he cracks an eye and sets his hands against the back of her leg and drawing down on the other one as he had before.

"Hows that?" he demands, glancing up for approval before rising back to his feet.

It's not the devil at your door
It's just your shadow on the floor

flora

Flora laughs too brightly, too quickly, like she needs the sound to scatter something heavy in her chest. "You're welcome to them," she says, her voice airy even as her fingers trail one last time across the silvery edge of a scar, brushing over his like a secret handshake. The touch lingers for half a breath, and then her hand slides off to rest lightly on her hip, fingers drumming faintly. "I’ve thought about getting them removed," she admits, quieter now, her voice barely audible beneath the sun and sea. Her gaze stays fixed forward, on the horizon beyond the deck rail, like it’s easier to look into the distance than at him. "Magic can erase them like they were never there. But—" she shrugs, and the gesture feels like an unfinished sentence, but she's pretty sure Kaisel can fill in the blanks.

She feels Kaisel move as he crouches behind her, feels the deliberate press of his hand to the back of her thigh, feels it in the way his fingers find the tender dip between hem and skin, hovering like a question they both know can't be asked. When his hand finally moves downward, she very nearly sighs with disappointment, her mind having fully prepped her to expect his fingers to follow the curve of her body between her thighs. Not that it'd be a good idea anyway; no one wants sunscreen there.

Still, she lets herself enjoy the ghost of what didn’t happen, the almost-touch as much as the real one. When his fingers smooth over the arch of her foot and between her toes, she wiggles them with a smirk, clearly not as ticklish as him. The second leg makes her roll her eyes and grin to herself, and when he finally rises, she throws a glance over her shoulder that’s equal parts innocence and wicked amusement. "Passing grade," she pronounces, as if she’s a sun-drenched school master bestowing praise, before rubbing in the excess on her sides and thighs that had been left because, gods forbid, he touches her front. Then she reaches out, palm open for the sunscreen.

"Your turn," she says, turning slightly toward him as if inviting him to argue with her about it (all while having to look at her), or turning around.

I want to be when you fall on me like night
I wanna kill the lights

Code blatently stolen from queen of codes, Sky!

Kaisel

One foot in the ground
One foot in the grave

"Wow, harsh judge," he complains as he passes her the bottle. Thank gods she doesn't ask him to attend to the front of her body in the same manner, he's entirely certain everything would become harmful if he had to let his fingers linger anywhere near her chest, or the arch of her hips rising up from her shorts. Though, there's perhaps the slightest flicker of disappointment in his eyes as she turns towards him and he's granted a tease of what he might have had.

"I expect a 10/10" he says with a pointed wag of his finger. He turns away from her, one lingering glance offered to her sea-green eyes before offering up his back to her work. He's trusting that she hasn't gotten more ideas from the star brand and won't let the sun bake in a dick design like a summer tramp stamp. "Alright, do your worst," he says, bracing for the cold application of her hands and the sunscreen.

It's not the devil at your door
It's just your shadow on the floor

flora

Flora raises a brow, the very picture of mock disapproval. "A 10/10?" she echoes, clicking her tongue as she snatches the bottle from his hand. "Sorry, babe—my sunscreen services don’t come with a happy ending." A devilish smile curls her lips.

But when he turns his back to her and says do your worst, well. Looking back, he'll really only have himself to blame.

With zero ceremony and even less grace, Flora squirts a generous splat of sunscreen directly onto his back. It lands in disjointed, messy globs—between shoulder blades, near one kidney, across the small of his back. The bottle is tossed aside with a thunk of finality, freeing her hands for something far more satisfying. "Hm," she hums to herself, smacking one of the dollops with her palm and leaving behind a satisfying, sloppy white handprint like a brand. "My worst?" she repeats under her breath, trying to parse exactly what he thinks that might be.

Then she rises up on her toes, delicate and deliberate, reaching for the tips of his ears. "These always get burned," she murmurs as if sharing a closely guarded secret, fingers gentle at first—before her voice drops low and syrupy. "So easy to forget." The movement is entirely necessary. Definitely not orchestrated. Not at all. But as she stretches, the gravity-defying globes of her breasts, covered only by the glinting pasties, presses lightly against the warm skin of his back as she stretches herself against him in order to make sure the tips of his ears are 100% safeguarded from the harmful rays of the sun.

Dropping back down to her heels with a nonchalant hum, Flora makes a slow swirling pass of her fingers up the centre of his spine, gathering the scattered dots of lotion into a single slicked trail like a river being coaxed into form. She starts at his shoulders, smoothing her palms over the tension there, fingers digging in just enough to feel the resistance before coaxing it away. The junction of his neck and shoulders gets special attention, her thumbs working in slow, confident circles and while she doesn't add the sort of pressure that would force the muscles to relax, she relentlessly teases them with various patterns to coax them into softening, using heat and friction and the oil from the sunscreen to her advantage. Then lower—her hands sliding over the curves of muscle behind his arms, the stretch of ribs. She shifts her weight to lean more fully into the motion, letting her forearm glide down the length of his back in broad strokes, pressing into each muscle with unhurried focus.

She pauses at the base of his back, where his waist narrows, thumbs pressing firmly just above the waistband of his shorts. "If you think you're going to get laid at my party, you could always take these off too," she says, breath curling warm against the middle of his back. "Nothing worse than a bare white ass when you're trying to look hot for someone."

I want to be when you fall on me like night
I wanna kill the lights

Code blatently stolen from queen of codes, Sky!

Kaisel

One foot in the ground
One foot in the grave

"Flora!" he admonishes, choking out a laugh because what!?. "Pretty sure that'd be an 11/10," he considers thoughtfully, "Or maybe a 12, 11 is just a happy, no ending."

Then it comes, and much like the exposure of her tits yet again, he expects it, and is powerless to actually endure it. His skin shivers away from the drips of sunscreen that splash like abstract design across his back. He tenses and squirms, and has half a mind to reach back behind him and toss the bottle overboard as hard as he can. She does it for him though, albeit with much less gusto, but the slap of her hand clear across the middle of his back is no improvement. He jerks forward, jaw clenching against the cool splatter of lotion sent scattering all along his bare skin. It had been a poor choice of words, he realizes now, but there's no take-backsies if he has any hope of saving a modicum of face.

Expecting her hands to remain along the expanse of his back, the only place he actually needs her help with, he's surprised when her fingers instead coast along the edges of his ears. Sensitive in an unexpected manner at such delicate, atypical touch, the hairs along the back of his neck lift up, goosebumps racing across his skin. The feeling of her pressed against him forces his eyes shut, a deep breath brought in and held, like she's about to have him walk the plank instead of reaching up on her tiptoes to finish his ears. Fuck, he needs to get a grip. He can't be reduced to such juvenile weakness. This is Flora he reminds himself—it's harmless. An accident, most likely, in this case.

His breath spins out, an audible quiet as she returns to her heels and winds the cream down his spine. Her hands are masterful in a different manner as they knead and roll ache and tension from him in deliberate design. With each swipe of her palm and press of her finger, more of him seems to melt under her, and his head sinks forward in surrender to her touch. The hunger that curls up low in his gut can appreciate what more her deft hands might do, what else she could unwind, but he wrestles those ideas away as he forces himself to think of sand-covered toes instead—a distraction to avoid any strain against the front of his shorts.

Under Flora's hand, what's taut soon turns supple, and Kaisel exhales deeply, peacefully. That is, until she lingers at the edge of his swim trunks, her question drawing a glance over his shoulder at her. "I think I'd need more than one sunning to fix that," he laughs, and steps away from the heat of her with an appreciative smile, feet images only able to take him so far with the threat of her behind him. "Perfect, thanks Flo-ro, now let's lay out before the sun is gone," he says as he spreads out a towel. "Don't forget to do your front," he reminds as he plops down, looking pointedly at the bottle she'd tossed.

It's not the devil at your door
It's just your shadow on the floor

flora

Flora barks a laugh, bright and utterly unrepentant at his choked-out laughter. And gods, it really is like something off a set—the golden light, the slow drag of hands over skin, the hissed breaths. In a porno, Kaisel would’ve shucked his swim trunks off, and when Flora asked for the tube of sunscreen, he'd have turned with all the subtlety of a bad actor and handed her his cock instead. Guess you'll have to work a little harder to get the rest out, he’d say, smug and gleaming and oiled to hell. In one of Mateo's cheesy romance novels, he’d pivot, fingers threading suddenly through her hair, dragging her into a kiss she’d melt into before the chapter cut off.

Instead, Kaisel steps away with a laugh, too wise to let her get up to whatever dastardly plan she had next (namely using the tip of one nail to doodle a flower somewhere on his ribs), and Flora just sighs with exaggerated disappointment. "Coward," she mutters fondly.

Scooping up her wine glass and his measuring cup of water, she gives a sharp whistle—and Spice appears from wherever she’d been sunbathing, exhaling a delicate stream of frost that laces the glasses in shimmering condensation. Flora sets Kaisel’s beside his towel with a dainty little clink, and instead of obeying his order to do her front, she simply flops face-down onto her own towel, cheek pillowed on her arms. "Nah, I’ll just burn to a crisp," she mumbles into the crook of her elbow, half-smiling, half-muffled.

"How long’re you in Torchline this time, anyway?"

I want to be when you fall on me like night
I wanna kill the lights

Code blatently stolen from queen of codes, Sky!

Kaisel

One foot in the ground
One foot in the grave

He glances at the frosted drink in appreciation, "thanks Spice!" he calls out as she drifts by like an icy bomber, the edges of her breath curling against his skin with a refreshing coolness. He glances over his elbow as Flora flips next to him, stubborn as ever. "Bruh," he says with a fluttering eye roll. "You gotta take the sun more seriously Flo-vo, otherwise you actually will burn to a crisp, and although I love you, I will not attend to your potato chip body. I will however, say I told you so every chance I get."

With a groan he hoists himself onto his forearms and crawls/wiggles towards the abandoned bottle, too lazy to stand up once he made it down to the deck's level, although arguably this requires way more effort to accomplish. Careful not to flop around too close to the glasses, he reaches with a grunt for the bottle, fingertips brushing the edge tauntingly. "Dunno," he calls over his side to her, voice thin with the strain of reaching. "As long as it takes." One finger manages to press down on the edge, at risk of tilting and flipping it away from him as much as pulling it towards him. "C'mooooon" he begs under his breath, until he finally manages to slide it towards him. Relieved, he relaxes, flopping fully onto the wood, just his toes by the towel still.

He tucks it between his elbow and side as he begins to wriggle in reverse—a much less graceful maneuver that requires him to duck glances under his arm to make sure he doesn't kick the glasses or end up throwing it back on Flora's head.

It's not the devil at your door
It's just your shadow on the floor

flora

Flora doesn't even bother lifting her head at first—just snorts into the crook of her elbow like she’s been personally attacked. "Okay, number one," she drawls lazily, "you’re obligated to love me even if I’m a potato chip. It’s in the friendship clause." She holds up an imaginary scroll between two fingers, complete with a royal flourish. "Number two, I have personally witnessed you eat an entire bag of potato chips after insisting you weren’t hungry, and number three—how else am I supposed to become an old leathery sea witch if I’m not hot and bronze now? Hm? Think, Kai."

She glances sidelong just in time to see him launching into his patented sunscreen rescue crawl, and instead of helping, she props herself up on her forearms and watches. Her gaze tracks every grunt, every squirm, every pathetic reach like it’s the most compelling drama of the season.

Only when his hip drifts perilously close to her head does she sit up in a flash, shoving him to the side with a yelp and a shove. "Oi! You absolute barnacle," she cries, swatting at him like a cat. "You’re about to be the Sugar Tide’s first man overboard if you don’t get that ass under control."

She flops back down again with a huff, cheek once more pillowed on her arm. "Anyway. As long as it takes, huh? That’s a real cryptic answer for someone who nearly dislocated a rib for sunscreen."

I want to be when you fall on me like night
I wanna kill the lights

Code blatently stolen from queen of codes, Sky!

Kaisel

One foot in the ground
One foot in the grave

"Didn't saaaaay I wouldn't love yooooou still," he interjects with a sing-song disagreement, throwing the words back to her without looking. "Just saying I wouldn't help your wrinkly ass sunscreen then." What'd be the point by then really. "Also—pretty sure they make potato chips addicting on purpose. I actually wasn't hungry!" Doesn't matter how small the issue, Kaisel will argue his point until everyone's dead on the hill. Only Flora's threats of continued tickles got him to stop earlier, and that uneven edge he'd never quite heard in her voice before when his compliments came on too strong.

As she shoves against him he goes limp, rolling to the side in a jackknife position, like a sardine that had just flopped onboard. He's grinning though, the stretch of it making his eyes squint. "No one can get this ass under control sadly," he bemoans, as if it's the greatest hardship of his life thus far to attempt such. He rolls over more onto his back, shifting his shoulders a bit to get more comfortable, as he slaps some sunscreen on his palms and rubs it into the top of himself. 

"I dunno what to tell you," he sighs dramatically. He opens his mouth as if to say more, but seems to think better of it and instead focuses on the application of super important sun protection to his legs. He doesn't really know how to tell her he isn't leaving until she's okay, because this little trip to her boat to check in on her, it told him she definitely is not.

It's not the devil at your door
It's just your shadow on the floor