[SE] walk right in the sight of a gun

JACK

"It's a risk," Jack agrees, leaning into the gentle press of her fingers quite without thinking about it; the time since they've been apart is still dwarfed by the number of days spent together, after all, when talking like this was as easy as breathing, and he can't help old habits. Scowling, his eyes brewing with storms that seem all the darker thanks to the tired smudges beneath them, he doesn't disagree with her analysis of the situation. Not when it comes to saving her, to bringing her back.

For the rest, though?

His hand reaches up, calloused fingers encircling her wrist, as if to halt her from distracting herself with fussing over his hair. "You have never been," Jack says, quietly and firmly, "and never will be dispensable, Flora. An' are you tellin' me, with bein' able to play sharin' is carin' with everyone's shit, that you couldn't lend out a dagger or two and take yourself outta their crosshairs?"

Raising his eyebrows, there's still acceptance in his expression, albeit very reluctant acceptance. "Just think about it," he says softly.

sometimes we put our hearts in the wrong places
(what the fuck is it doing between your teeth?)

Code stolen from Queen Sky

Flora

The brush of Jack’s fingers around her wrist stills her completely. Not because it startles her, but because some part of her heart somersaults at the familiarity of it. For a breath, her pulse tugs toward the old rhythm; the quiet yearning to lean in, to twine her fingers into his without thinking, to slide into his lap. But she doesn’t. Instead, she lifts her gaze to meet his, letting her thumb drag lightly along his knuckle before she stills again.

"I’m not saying I’m nothing," she murmurs, searching the sea-blue of his eyes, "but...I’m at least comparatively dispensable." She shakes her head faintly, not wanting to argue.

Her thoughts flash sharp then, a different current stirring beneath her surface calm. Her smile tilts, crooked and dry, and the glint behind it is bitter at the edges. Sure I could hand out my daggers, she thinks, the words flickering into his mind with wry precision, and teach someone how to call them back, but..Dahlia has a fucking office in Stormbreak, Jack, but no one’s ever gone to see her. She pauses, just long enough for the weight of her meaning to settle. Oh no wait, that's right. I have. Another pause. Pierce is the same. Not exactly hard to find. But so far? No one’s tried.

Flora steps forward, close enough now that the hem of her shorts brushes his knees. Her gaze drops to the hair she’s trimmed, the strands gathered across his shoulders like sea foam after a tide. "Like it or not," she says, her tone quiet and resolute, "If anyone else wanted to, they would have."

Her thoughts don’t scream it, but Jack will feel it all the same—the ache behind her defiance, the fear and duty that’s always pulsing just under the sparkle of her smile. The certainty that someone has to act, and the resignation that maybe she’s the only one reckless enough to actually do it.

I trace the evidence, make it make some sense
why the wound is still bleedin'

Code stolen from Queen Sky

JACK

Jack's eyebrows raise, suggesting that he very much does want to argue against that point, but in the end he merely releases a long, steady breath and uncurls his fingers from her wrist to let her continue. She steps closer and he doesn't stop her, his eyes dropping from her face as her words lance like arrows against his magic. His smile is wry, a little bitter, but understanding in the end. "I would hazard," he says, just to be a shit about it, "that your parents would have done a lot more if you had just skipped into Haulani when that barrier went up."

But of course, they all know just how she'd tied herself in knots over that little mess as well, don't they? Finding no further questions on his tongue, Jack's shoulders slump a little further; Flora is right - he hadn't liked what she had to say. But she has said it, and he has listened. Raising his eyes towards her, he tilts his head. "If there's anythin' I can do on my end to help, you let me know."

sometimes we put our hearts in the wrong places
(what the fuck is it doing between your teeth?)

Code stolen from Queen Sky

Flora

Flora rolls her eyes at his jab, the gesture as familiar as breathing, and though her smile starts forced, it doesn’t stay that way for long. "Which is exactly why I’m going to see them," she murmurs.

As Jack’s head tilts, his shoulders drawn by resignation, her hands rise almost without thought. She places her fingers gently against his cheeks, thumb brushing the edge of his jaw as she guides his gaze back to centre. The gesture is careful and unhurried, the kind of touch that holds the memory of something more—like reaching out to the ghost of a moment and finding it still warm. Her breath catches faintly, and for a suspended heartbeat she just looks at him, the rest of the world folding quietly around them like drawn curtains.

Then, with a softness that betrays everything she isn’t saying, she exhales. "Hold still," she says, not quite smiling. "Or I’m going to cut your hair crooked."

She lets her hand drop, breaking the contact, but the feeling doesn’t dissipate quite so quickly; instead still lingering like the warmth of sunlight after the cloud cover returns. "I didn't think you were planning on going to Pierce's party," she adds after a moment, trying for something lighter as her fingers slide back into his hair to finish off the final section.

I trace the evidence, make it make some sense
why the wound is still bleedin'

Code stolen from Queen Sky

JACK

"Yeah, well. Maybe they can be the ones playin' target practice instead of you," Jack grumbles, though he doesn't push the point any further; at the end of the day, Flora's always going to do what she's going to do, and he's no longer in a position to properly argue the specifics with her. Instead, it's with mild surprise that he feels her hands reach for him, the captain uncomplaining as she sets him back front and centre, though a quiet smile curls across his lips.

"Even crooked, it's still better'n what I'd have done an' we both know it." Mainly because Jack doesn't have the patience to care about aesthetics when there's a region's underbelly to lord over - but that's why Flora had been a welcome addition to his little empire is many more ways than one.

As for the party, he raises an eyebrow at her. "I wasn't," he says, unable to recall if he'd ever spoken to her about it in the first place. "Now I am."

sometimes we put our hearts in the wrong places
(what the fuck is it doing between your teeth?)

Code stolen from Queen Sky

Flora

That the moment doesn’t turn into something more is probably for the best, and Flora knows it. Not just because she’s still holding a wickedly sharp blade, or because her eyes had stung not twenty minutes ago with tears, but because letting it linger would have made it harder to step back. Harder to remind herself of all the space that still exists between what they were and what they are now.

Instead, she presses a laugh into the back of her hand, eyes widening with dramatic disbelief. "Yeah, you can say that again," she agrees, incredulous and fond all at once. Snipping the last uneven end with a soft flick of her wrist, Flora takes a step back, surveying her work with a slight tilt of her head. "Alright, go on," she says, gesturing at him with the flat of the blade that he was clear to use his magic to brush away the lingering hairs.

It’s shorter than she would’ve chosen—Flora has always liked the way it curled when it was long and damp from the sea—but still long enough to tie up without all the extra weight adding additional heat.

When he says he’s going to the party now, presumably because of her, she doesn’t pretend to misunderstand. Her lips curl at the corner, dry and appreciative. "Well, you’ll know when I’m about to ruin it," she murmurs, her thoughts brushing against his magic like the flicker of a lit match.

I trace the evidence, make it make some sense
why the wound is still bleedin'

Code stolen from Queen Sky

JACK

Watching Flora work out of the corner of his eye, only as she finally steps back and gives him the go ahead does Jack let the stillness in the air recede. A breeze whips up around him to brush away the strands of loose hair, serving to cool them down from the oppressive morning heat as well, if only for a second or two. "Much better," he mutters, ruffling a hand back through his hair and giving the Doubletake a nod of gratitude. It's shorter than she'd have preferred it and longer still than he'd have left it, and if that's not a definition of compromise, he doesn't know what is.

"I can't wait," he drawls, dryly amused as he considers the fireworks that will go up when she makes her move at the pool party. Someone with better morals might have asked her to consider ensuring everyone else's safety, but that's for the Hadamas and Zaviens of the world.

Instead, Jack rises to his feet, pushes his sunglasses atop his head and shakes out his shirt before shrugging into it, leaving it billowing open. Beneath the bench, now visible but already beginning to melt, the layer of thick frost and jagged icicles betray his opinions about what Flora has told him. But he'd still been subtle about it, he'd argue. "Thanks," he says suddenly, "for tellin' me."

sometimes we put our hearts in the wrong places
(what the fuck is it doing between your teeth?)

Code stolen from Queen Sky

Flora

Flora chuckles dryly at Jack’s wry remark. "Mm," she hums, arching a brow with a glint of mischief. "Me too. It gives me an excuse to go shopping for something suitably skimpy, but that can also conceal a few key accessories."

As he rises, she steps stiffly back out of his space. Her gaze flickers to his as he thanks her, and for a moment her expression softens again—not into regret, but into something quieter. She hadn’t properly understood until recently just how much it had hurt him, being kept in the dark about her plans, and even if they were standing in the hazy middle ground between exes and almost-friends, it wasn’t a mistake she planned to repeat.

It’s only as she shifts to grab the knife from where she’d tucked it away that her foot catches on something unnaturally slick. She glances down, one brow arcing higher as she takes in the frost and icicles threading out beneath the bench like a bloom of frostbite in the middle of Longheat.

Arms folding across her chest, Flora levels a look at him so dry it could wilt a cactus. "I told you not to do that," she scolds with mock severity, gesturing at the frost with the dagger and waggling it in his direction, before deftly flipping it in the air and catching the blade between her fingers, offering it back to him hilt-first.

I trace the evidence, make it make some sense
why the wound is still bleedin'

Code stolen from Queen Sky

JACK

"I don't believe for a second that you don't already have at least three outfits that fit that description," Jack quips; having been lucky enough to see several of them at close range (and tear one of them to little more than ribbon and string, if memory serves), clearly Flora's need for extras goes beyond the necessary. "Still, I s'pose you can never be too careful when it comes to hidin' your knives."

Falling quiet as she steps back away from him a fraction, the captain doesn't bother with I told you sos or if onlys. Knowing what she was planning with Dahlia might not have saved what they'd built between them, even if he hadn't been kept in the dark, but he'll be the first to admit that the knowing would have definitely helped. Instead, following her gaze to the bench and the tiny section of Halo he appears to have carved out beneath it, Jack offers Flora an audaciously innocent shrug.

"I didn't," he says, sly and amused, especially knowing that his response will have one particular ring on her hand heating up. "It was like that when I sat down." Reaching out to accept the knife, he tucks it into his boot where it belongs and flashes her a crooked smile. "Good luck with your skimpy assassin outfit hunt."

sometimes we put our hearts in the wrong places
(what the fuck is it doing between your teeth?)

Code stolen from Queen Sky

Flora

Jack’s last line earns a sideways smirk, one brow arched in challenge. "Maaaaaaaaaybe," Flora concedes, flipping her hair back with exaggerated flair. "But I’ve also got a very limited closet onboard now. Something had to give, and I figured I'd be needing my extra pair of sunglasses more than my assassin's garb." She flashes a breezy grin, like talking about murder plans and fashion in the same breath is the most natural thing in the world. "Besides, if its the last outfit anyone sees me in...I’m not going out in anything less than impeccable."

But then he lies—boldly, shamelessly—and her eyes widen in theatrical disbelief. "You didn’t," she repeats flatly, echoing his feigned innocence as she jabs a finger toward the frost-bitten bench. "You definitely did, and I swear if my ring singes my finger again I'm throwing you in jail."

The teasing falters, just slightly, as her gaze catches on the tilt of his smile and the quiet shift in the air between them. The moment is warm and strange, like the echo of something they used to know how to do, but now it’s over.

She tucks a lock of hair behind her ear, fingers lingering a second too long at her temple. "It was nice to see you," she murmurs, casual but soft, before glancing sidelong at him and adding, "you know, when we're not screaming at one another."

I trace the evidence, make it make some sense
why the wound is still bleedin'

Code stolen from Queen Sky

JACK

"Aimin' high," Jack says with a mock nod of realisation. "Understandable. For the record, though, it ain't gonna be the last outfit anyone sees you in." Not if he has anything the fuck to do with it anyway. "An' it's not like you couldn't make seaweed an' driftwood look good, so maybe don't waste too much time on it."

So far, so truthful, if Flora would like to check her ring for confirmation. But oh, then he's being threatened with jail, and Jack's smile isn't something he can help; wicked and belonging more to a shark than to a man, he spreads his hands as if to say you got me. "It'd be my first time," he says - and yes, he's being honest about that. "I've heard it's quite nice, given how much of a paradise Torchline is these days."

But he can sense the wind-down of this strange little moment between them, the captain reaching up to adjust his sunglasses back down over his eyes. "I'd like it on record that between us, you do most of the screamin'," he quips. "...But yeah. I was good to see you too, Flora. Don't do anythin' I wouldn't."

sometimes we put our hearts in the wrong places
(what the fuck is it doing between your teeth?)

Code stolen from Queen Sky

Flora

Jack’s reply leaves her cheeks tinged with heat, though Flora masks it well. The corners of her mouth twitch as her thoughts flare bright and warm, golden tendrils curling like sunlight across still water. "Thanks," she says, the words shaped like a purr, half coy and half pleased despite herself.

As for jail, she snorts delicately and lifts a hand in a lazy flick of her fingers. "Give me five minutes and I could list a dozen things you’ve done that would land you there if you're keen to see the inside of it for yourself."dd

She watches as he lowers his sunglasses, and her eyes narrow—not in annoyance, but amusement. "I want it on the record," she murmurs slowly, "that you’re 100% of the reason I scream." Tilting her head, her thoughts flicker from gold, to ripe, vivid garnet, edged in heat and memory. Jack was the reason Flora screamed when she was angry, but he was the reason for her other streams as well.

Her gaze drops a fraction, then lifts again as goodbye weighs heavily between them. She gives Jack one final nod, holding his gaze just long enough for the moment to mean something. It does to her, at least. "Hope your head feels better." Then she turns, heading back toward the dock and her little ship, and in her wake: cool water. The rush and hush of the waves, the dappled sunlight through seafoam, the weightless drift of being rocked by the sea. While Flora might not be able to fully soothe the storm between them, for the next 60ft or so, she could at least leave him with a little sliver of sunshine.

~FIN

I trace the evidence, make it make some sense
why the wound is still bleedin'

Code stolen from Queen Sky