burning blue smoke

the sea speaks a little more honestly

He feels her lingering fingertips brush against his side while he remains in his shift, but when she gives him space to turn back, the Flood starts the shift back into himself. Standing there briefly, feathered wings damp with water, he shakes them out away from Colt to not sprinkle her with more water if he doesn’t have to when the summer rain was doing a beautiful enough job on its own. His attention is on the sunset when he speaks, the one far off from the storm before he’s moving back over toward her - dropping beside her atop the hilly knoll they’d found, watching from his peripheral as she lays back in it.

He turns to her, then, as her question breaks the air, his crooked and scarred smile blooming on his face as his accented laugh paints the air. “Nope.” He admits, sighing before he sinks down onto the grass beside her, feathered wings flattening against the ground and the tips of his flight feathers brushing against her side in the process - a gentle, velveteen movement. “I got these when I was fighting a sea panther in Torchline.” He recalls, lifting the hand with all the lightning scars running along it.

“Some miscommunication happened and next thing I knew I was making glass under my feet on the beach. Goes all the way up my arm and halfway to my heart. Thought I was gonna die.” He snorts, his amusement flickering to something akin to snickering before he sighs and twists onto his side, facing her as he props his head up on a fist, the opposite one of the lightning scarred hand, the one that boasts the tattooed sleeve of rushing waves. “The one on my cheek is courtesy of my old man. The eyebrow? Ronin.” His smile is lopsided because of said scar, but it doesn’t stop him from raising a brow toward her as he asks his next question. “You wanna see the rest of them?” As if remembering himself, his smile softens a touch.

“It’s kind of a thing back where I’m from. Scars were like… A right of passage. So we wore them with pride, I guess. Never quite got that kicked out of my head.” He shrugs lightly, pulling the grey of his eyes from her back to the storm in the sunset, water dripping from his lashes as he blinks them away.

to those who are willing to drown

SUNJATA

COLT

The whisper of feathers over her skin sends a thrill rippling through her, breath hitching faintly as goosebumps bloom in the wake of it. She's still a bit sensitive from the wind-wild flight, nerves tuned to high alert beneath rain-slick cotton and the lingering echo of speed. The sensation fades, but another kind takes its place when he speaks—hairs raising with anxious disbelief along her arms.

“Holy shit, Sunjata,” she breathes, low and impressed, gaze tracing the branching pattern of lightning scars up his arm with newfound appreciation. “You’re actually lucky you didn’t.” Which speaks more to his sheer strength and abilities than luck alone.

As he ticks off the other two scars, her eyes track each one, imagining the moments behind them, though they matter far less than the fact he made it through. “Hell yeah, let’s see ’em all, sugar.” She grins, unrepentantly curious and greedy for this moment where the world feels a little slower, a bit nicer

She rolls to her side to get a better view, also avoiding the direct drizzle of the rain against her face. One arm stretches out under her head, the other tucking up under her chin. "There’s something to that, I think.” she murmurs, quiet with thought. Her amber stare lingers on him—towering, scarred, a man shaped by storms, and yet somehow still gentle, when the world gave him every reason to be cruel. “Too bad it’s only the hard things that leave visible marks. Would be nice to be scarred by love.” Sometimes, it could be one and the same.

I ain't sayin' that I always sleep alone
Done a little bit of midnight movin' on
I never let my heart go all the way
I never fall in love, baby, just in case

the sea speaks a little more honestly

The Flood nods, the smile on his face softening as the rain continues to drip down the side of his face into the stubble left behind. “Had help along the way.” His accent deepens, as if he’s unable to take all the credit for good luck and quick thinking. Because to be honest? He had neither. His luck had always been shit (hence his feat of advantage if he misses), and he was impulsive rather than thinking everything through. It’s how he got in so many shitty situations without seeing the easy way out.

He felt too much. A weakness, as his father had said his entire upbringing. A weakness that needed to be culled.

But here he is. And Shaju sits, hopefully, as a pile of bones at the bottom of the Arclight.

The feathers of his wings flex against her side again as she turns toward him. And with her approval, the Flood’s smile turns crooked, roguish, as he sits up to shed the wet shirt that’s already clinging to him. It’s a bit of a challenge, but he manages it, the rain hitting his skin with a cool warmth that drips down sun-kissed and freckled skin. His tattoos are fully visible now, the very same navy that matched his macaw shift that stays buried below. But the two compass tattoos on his neck’s northern points aim straight at her as he settles before her to point out each one. The burn scar on his shoulder, the one down the side of his neck, the circular sharkbite scars that crest above his hips where his pants still sit, soaked and clinging, and finally the scars that claw up his sides. “— And my legs are all fucked up from the time I got attacked by sharks.” Ending easily at the circular shark bite scars and not particularly elaborating any further, the next set he hesitates at.

The little NW carved into his skin against his ribcage. “Nate gave me this one. And we.. shared, this one.” He leans toward her, hand outstretched that still boasts the wedding band with a crescent moon sat atop it. The palm of his hand is scarred in a line, and as he gets into her space to explain, his grey gaze flits up to scan her face. “So, the place I’m from is called Korofi. And it was.. a backwards ass place in terms of rules. My father was the Arbiter and basically ruled a whole police region. So..” Rolling his eyes and letting the grimace bloom for a moment, his gaze finds Colt’s face again as he loosens up.

“Bloodline was important. And being a guy meant you had to be ruthless and iron willed and the sole provider. So the marriage tradition was that the guy would cut his palm and draw a collar in his own blood around his soon to be wife’s neck like a stupid little know your place.” The distaste is palpable in the low thrum of his accented voice. “But Nate and I adapted it. We did it to each other. A little piece of home but modernized.” And he’d kept both of them. Reminders of promises long since gone in the years that have passed.

He closes his palm and from where he’s settled in the rain and the water, it’s half hovering over her in order to show her the multitudes of scars, but the Flood draws silent as he waits for her reaction. He’d left a lot out, summarized it the best he could for a man that couldn’t utilize his words well at the best of times.

to those who are willing to drown

SUNJATA

COLT

The first graze of wing on skin had seemed accidental, just the effect of their close proximity. When it happens again, feather coasting over her side that peeks out beneath bunched up cloth, it feels entirely intentional. Maybe she just wants it to be, because if anyone can yank her out of her sleepless fits, where endless desert and darkness press in like a nightmare of feeling, it would be him. He doesn't operate the House of Midnight for no reason, after all. So as the shiver of sensation curls through her again, it drags a heat against her that has nothing to do with the season.

Her eyes follow his motions unabashed as he peels his shirt away, exposing a litany of scars that pinch her 'brow in thought. It's more than she expected, whether a sign that too many others heal theirs away whereas he wears them proud, or a symptom of his impulsivity, it's hard to say. Her smile slowly creeps in as he twists and turns and lays out every inch of his skin like a map, each scar a landscape of ruin she could chart her way across.

"Sharks?" Her brow ticks up, lips curling slow. "Wouldn't have guessed the Flood had rivals in the sea. Guess even the ocean tries to bite back." In reference to the scars on his legs, still covered by his pants, she sighs wistfully. "Guess I’ll just have to take your word for it and imagine those ones."

Her fingers reach out tentatively to trace the long line on his palm as he holds it close to her, smile fading into something thoughtful. The piece of him he shares with her she takes quietly, recognizing the rough edges of it. She knows the kind of hurt that sinks and lingers, a lesson you keep forever; hers just never showed on the outside. There’s something beautiful in the way he’s turned pain into art, his tattoos worn like chosen scars beside the ones life gave him without asking.

"Hmm, sounds like you're fortunate to have gotten out of such a place." Her voice is soft, but something darker coils under it, something familiar with being on the receiving end of that necklace of blood, that threat of control. "Places like that don’t always let go easy, and they sure as hell don't forgive you for surviving." What would he have become, if he stayed? Something broken and beaten into the mold, or would it have destroyed him to remain, resisting until he met the final punishment for such disobedience?

She hesitates as his fingers curl shut, her hand lowering to the grass between them, eyes fixed on his. "Who's Nate?" she asks, soft with the understanding the name carries some weight for him. Someone worth bleeding for, sounds like.

I ain't sayin' that I always sleep alone
Done a little bit of midnight movin' on
I never let my heart go all the way
I never fall in love, baby, just in case

the sea speaks a little more honestly

Sunjata has zero qualms with personal space, especially right now as close and as drenched as they are. And everything Colt does seems reciprocal, not shying away from the light and gentle touches. So Sunjata invades her space to show her the scars, huffing a soft laugh at her quip about his rivals in the sea. “I was in my orca shift.” And sharks were really the only thing that would try and fuck with an orca, so somehow it kind of made sense.

But that’s neither here nor there, amusement flaring in the lines of his face at her response to imagining them. He could show her, eventually, but for right now he’s got more scars to list out. And eventually, lands at the one that meant the most. Not the scars received from betraying Safrin. Not the scar from him beating his father in their own one on one.

But the change of tradition, the difference from continuing a cycle or breaking the chains. “Nah. It didn’t. I got in with the resistance for a while before I appeared here.” And all the horrible things that had happened when he’d gotten caught there, the break he had to make for him and his sister.

It’s the question of Nate, though, that softens him. “He was my husband.” Sunjata says softly, gaze pulling away from the wedding ring to the scar on his palm. “He became a demigod for the Voice. He, uh, didn’t make it through the war.” And it had nearly destroyed him. He’d avoided seeing Frey because he couldn’t handle to see Nate in their face to the point he could only interact with them wearing a blindfold. It was only recently that he’d been able to do it without.

“I was lost after that. And usually I coped with the shittiness of things by drinking too much and sharing whomever's bed that was interested. Y’know, just to feel something else for a while.” He scans her face for a brief moment before his tattooed shoulders shrug. “I made the House of Midnight after that. Made sense, with me being Frey’s demigod, that I might be able to help everyone else that way too if they needed.” And now, with the ache of the years buried and his easy closeness with Hotaru, both of them demigods for the same god, the Flood returns to those coping mechanisms.

Only the alcohol doesn’t hit the way it used to. The sex still did, though. A boon, at least. “So yeah. If you ever need to forget about something shitty or just want a good time, I can be your guy.” It’s playful with the underlying truth glinting in the grey clouds of his eyes, an offer if Colt wanted to take it, if she needed it.

to those who are willing to drown

SUNJATA

COLT

He doesn't say it, not outright, not all the way, but she can hear some of the heaviness in that loss that he says near a whisper. Surprisingly, she knows the kind of grief he carries for missing someone he still wishes he had. Not because she misses the husband she's put into the ground, but because he'd changed, and she mourns for the man he once had been, the one he'd promised her he'd be. People can die in all sorts of ways, and perhaps none are so bad as the kind where they're still living, just as someone you no longer know. She'd prefer a body over such a ghost. Somehow she ended up with both.

He admits to how he coped, how he built himself around that pain, and she gentles with the understanding and the familiarity of it. He didn't let it bury him though, and gods knows she's always trying to do the same. "Yeah, I do know," she says without regret, just the acceptance of doing what you can to get by. "Love’s a funny thing. Leaves deeper wounds than fists ever could." The kind that take too long to come to the surface and be seen, but that hurt with almost everything you do. That's why, you just don't make the mistake of loving at all, and you're as unbruised as a fresh peach.

It's all a bit heavy. She pushes it out with a sigh, shaking her head to free her face of the gathered water that's started to bead up and streak down in rivulets. Well, there's no alcohol out here, so only one way to feel something different then. "How about tonight?" she asks, glancing from his myriad of scars to his steel eyes, one 'brow lifting up with the question. She isn't afraid, doesn't feel the risk of a mistake settling in like a thorn. He means something to her, sure, but he's not a risk. She won't fall for him, can't, and she's positive he won't do the same for her. So this is purely and simply something to try, something for fun, something to cure her.

Raindrops cling to her lashes as she leans in, slow and deliberate. Her fingers reach out to skim the edge of his jaw, tracing the path where water runs down to his throat. "Let's forget for a while."

I ain't sayin' that I always sleep alone
Done a little bit of midnight movin' on
I never let my heart go all the way
I never fall in love, baby, just in case

the sea speaks a little more honestly

“Yeah. It really does.” Gods knew he’d taken punch after punch, blade after blade, and yet the pain of losing Nate had been enough to undo him so completely that breathing day after day seemed nearly impossible. He’d spent the next few months incapable of caring for himself, of eating to the point that he’d had to resort to his attuned shifts to eat and ensure that he had enough to keep trekking on.

But that was years ago. And he’d figured out other ways to deal with it. Trying to right the wrongs of his past. And so far? It had worked out well enough - if you don’t count the infection. Good intentions that had gone south so quickly.

But those thoughts vanish as he watches the water slip away from her face with a shake of her head. The question is soft, and he tracks her attention as it drifts from his scars to his eyes, her brow raised with the question. She leans in and he’s a pillar, tilting his head slightly into her hand when it traces the edge of his stubbled jaw. “Tonight it is.” He agrees with a low, accented hum.

This is where the Sunjata that she knows will start to change, a touch more of that Frey blessing burning through him. He scans her face before he shifts again, wings flexing as he uses them for balance to lean back over her, closing the small amount of space between them. He presses a kiss to her lips, testing and gentle at first before he braces over her with his elbows and presses in for a greedier, the rain pouring down around them in rivets now. One hand finds her side, warm and scarred pressing in against the soaking wet nightgown she wears, held just above her hip.

He doesn’t know how she wants this to go, but he knows Colt well enough to know that she was fiery and strong willed. If she wanted to take the reins here, he’d let her, but he does wonder if she’s the type to want to be taken care of when she almost always took care of everything else.

In which case, Sunjata can certainly provide.

to those who are willing to drown

SUNJATA

COLT

His response is immediate, if measured. It's a new thread to tie between them, and though not unpracticed with the material, it's something that takes a second to place. This isn’t some slow-burn buildup—no shy looks or overthought words, just fire and need. She is a bundle of dry grass that ignites the moment the spark of his kiss sets against her. There's an unrelenting need unspooling in her to push the weight of the desert out, and she'd have him for the heavy lifting.

She settles like a pale shadow beneath him, pressing back into the wet of the grass, barely felt against the ongoing parade of rain overhead. Everything is soaked, even the coil of his muscle as her hand slips up his scarred arm, her other sliding across his stubble to curl against his drenched hair, holding him to her unnecessarily. He's with her, she can feel it with the second catch of his mouth, the intensity increasing in the way she's hungry for. Her eyes flare, starved for him even as he leans down and erases nearly every inch between them. It's a gap she beckons him to fill as one leg hooks over him, clothing bunching further beneath the grip he sets to her side.

"Don't hold back," she warns him, well aware of his herald. She doesn’t want this slow. Nothing careful or gentle. She wants to be exorcised—purged by the angel above her before the demon that's cozied up inside wins.

I ain't sayin' that I always sleep alone
Done a little bit of midnight movin' on
I never let my heart go all the way
I never fall in love, baby, just in case

the sea speaks a little more honestly

It’s easy to slip into, easier still when she reciprocates so perfectly. Her hand is warm along the slick wet of his arm, the muscles bunching as he hovers over her. He withdraws from the kiss, hearing her warning, huffing a breathy laugh against her neck as he nods, stubble scraping gently against her skin. Sunjata withdraws, then, only slightly. Enough to get his hands beneath the silky, soaking nightshirt and to answer her warning with a low, accented hum.

Peeling it up to reveal her stomach to himself and the elements, Sunjata curves in, water dripping down the bridge of his nose to land on her before his lips find her skin. Pressing a series of kisses there as he works with both his hands while his wings plant in the grass to offer stability, he’s able to slip her shirt off and lean down, lips and tongue finding one of her breasts to tease before moving onto the other, before he’s withdrawing enough to help her slip out of her shorts and the rest of her clothes.

Once he’s managed that, his hands find his own belt, water dripping down along his skin and wings. With a bit of flare from his water magic, it’s far easier for him to remove his pants, revealing himself to her and all of the rest of those shark bite scars that litter his skin. Another scar is there, a puckered one long since healed on his inner thigh, from a different world.

to those who are willing to drown

SUNJATA

COLT

He's accommodating, aware of every movement, masterful in his acquiescence. It tugs on her desire and little by little the smell of peppermint and sea salt that's clung to him like the memory of campfire smoke begins to fade into something else, something woody and rain-rich, a sun dappled river instead of the ocean and it's night. The hew of his stubble against her leaves a mild sting that has her biting at the edge of her lip in appreciation. It’s not pain, just something raw, the skin there heightened for everything that follows.

The drape of his wings around her sends her eyes tracing along their curve. There’s rain still coming down around them, drumming steady against feathers and skin alike, but underneath it’s warmer, darker, like he's built something just for them right there in the grass. She stretches into it, hands skating along his shoulders, fingers drifting down the edge of the feathers, droplets flicking free with the movement.

Underneath the canopy, her nightshirt peels away easily, exposing her to the storm and his mouth both. His lips and tongue find her and a shiver cuts right down through her center. She arches up into him with a sound she doesn’t bother to stifle, greedy for more, her body slick with rain and want. The rain-cooled air makes her nipples stiffen, but it’s his mouth—hot and sure—that makes her squirm. She fists her hand in his hair, not to stop him, never that, but to keep herself grounded as his mouth threatens to send her drifting away into the rain. Her hips tilt against him, an ache for more that he's already mindful of.

When he moves to rid them both of what’s left, she lifts her hips to help, watching with half-lidded eyes and a grin that borders on wicked as more of him is revealed—including the rest of those scars. “Now I don't have to imagine,” she murmurs, a hand reaching to trace one near his hip, fingers featherlight against the raised skin. Her touch trails lower, exploring the full map of him now that he’s uncovered. She hums low in her throat at his arousal, appreciative. Her palm curves around him, heat blooming like coals stirred to life—and it’s her own body that answers, aching low and steady.

I ain't sayin' that I always sleep alone
Done a little bit of midnight movin' on
I never let my heart go all the way
I never fall in love, baby, just in case

the sea speaks a little more honestly

One thing that Colt will realize very quickly, is that each touch to the feathered wings makes him hyperaware. Not for anything bad, but it’s like he comes alive. It sparks a shiver down his spine as he slips the soaked nightshirt from her skin, indulging himself in her skin. The sound she makes is music, flaring through the quiet of the rainfall as he hesitates only momentarily as her hand fists in his hair, as if waiting to see whether she does keep him where he is.

But it doesn’t, he realizes, withdrawing to shed them of their clothes, it’s with his own wicked and lopsided grin that his hands find her again, brushing wet blonde strands from her face as she explores. “Nope. Allllll out in the open.” He purrs, his voice harboring a thicker version of his accent.

Her hand is warm against the cold that the rain and storms have brought and it has his breath hitching, cock throbbing against her touch as he sucks in a breath shortly after and drags his hands down her sides. His hips roll against her hand in a gentle motion, before he’s picking her up to drag her into his lap, arms and wings winding around her to give her the ability to move without falling, to allow herself to get comfortable as he surges in again, a free hand finding her breast again to tease at the stiff nipple found there while he buries his face into the side of her neck, dragging his teeth along her rain slick skin. His hip twitches against where he's pulled her, the tip of his cock pressing against the edge of her thigh while his other hand focuses on trying to align them with or without her help.

to those who are willing to drown

SUNJATA

COLT

She notices the twitch of his feathers again, same as earlier, but this time there's more intent behind it. Interesting. There’s power there in that sensitivity, but she’d be damned if she wasted it so early. Best to save it for when she wants to make him fall apart.

That thickened drawl of his sharpens her grin. “Gods you sound good,” she breathes, head tipping slightly to the side as she feels the pulse of him in her hand. “You moan with an accent too?” She wants to hear it—wants to hear him in all the ways she hasn't before.

A gasp slips free as he lifts her, less from the surprise, more from the way it feels—being handled like that, like she's just a feather that's drifted off his wings. He holds her with the ease of rising water—inevitable, encompassing, the kind of force you don’t resist but yield to. Her legs slip easily around his waist, knees drawing up as they fall to the grass, the press of his erection along her thigh rousing a fresh wave of want that starts low in her core and rises up to her throat.

She's barely got her seat before his mouth finds her breast again, his teeth following along with all the intensity she demands. She arches into him, back bending against the support of his arm or wing, she isn't sure with her eyes half shut against the starburst of pleasure his scruff tracks against her skin, the roar of the downpour threatening to swallow the sound that punches out of her that’s half-moan, half-pant.

The blunt nudge of him draws an immediate answer, a hand flexing into his shoulder as she rises faintly, tilting her hips until she feels that certain press that flares her desire. She sinks onto him with a broken moan, every inch of him stealing breath from her lungs. He’s the Flood in more ways than one—relentless, expansive, rushing through her in a way that leave nothing untouched. Her forehead tips briefly against his chest before she pulls back to look at him, holding his gaze for a moment, the storm in her eyes as loud as the one around them. “You feel even better than I imagined,” she murmurs, hand curling around the back of his neck for stability.

I ain't sayin' that I always sleep alone
Done a little bit of midnight movin' on
I never let my heart go all the way
I never fall in love, baby, just in case

the sea speaks a little more honestly

“You wanna find out?” He purrs, his voice low and husky, playful with the undercurrent of everything about himself that screams Flood. It’s a deep rumble that pours and vibrates, accompanying the effortless lift of her into his lap. He focuses on her wholly, not the rain that continues to fall gently around them, not the way that the world feels like it’s paused solely for him to take his time in ensuring her arousal.

The weight of her against his wings have them bracing, granting a smooth and soft surface for her to use however she likes, even if the touch sparks more shivers down his spine. But it isn’t until she finally sinks down onto him that he can answer her previous question. His hands drop to her hips, his chin lifted to make room for her to press her forehead against his chest, the rumble of a moan spilling from his throat. Very much Sunjata, very much tinged in that accent.

"Gods, Colt." She feels perfect, forming and molding against him but still very much herself as her head tilts back and his tilts down, eyes heavy lidded and dark as the storm clouds ahead as he holds her gaze. Rain drips from his face and eyebrows down onto his long lashes, spilling over when he blinks and one hand lifts to cup her cheek and jaw. It’s a momentary stillness, allowing time for them to get used to each other, before Sunjata’s surging toward her and stealing another searing kiss. His hips rock into her with another thrum of a sound breaking out of his throat, helping her where he can with the hand still at her hip.

to those who are willing to drown

SUNJATA

COLT

“There it is,” she says low and rich, her voice textured with an unrestrained gasp. It’s that moan—the one marked by his accent. It lights something primal in her, because while it’s his sound, it’s hers to summon. Admittedly though, her name on his tongue, said like that, sounds infinitely better.

He’s beautiful in all the ways that undo her—scarred and strong, wild and wanting. A force of nature cradled between her thighs. When his mouth crashes to hers, in tandem with the full buck of his hips, it nearly wrecks her. She groans into him, a sound broken open with pleasure, her grip tightening at the back of his neck as if she can anchor herself there and actually survive the storm of his making. "Sunjata—fuck." The words barely drag out between her teeth, nearly swallowed between kisses and the panting rhythm of their breaths, strained with want and response to each roll of his body.

Each thrust drives deeper, and she meets him with every one, hips pushing back to match his pace, her need rising and coiling hot and tight inside her. She wants it all. Every inch, every sound, every layer of arousal he builds into her. The pressure inside her rises, a wave growing taller around him, because of him. Her stray hand reaches for the fold of his wing, fingers skimming with intent—light and purposeful—to draw him into this crest with her. "More," she pleads of him, ducking away from his mouth to tip her head on his shoulder, unable to function beyond getting lost in the feel of him.

I ain't sayin' that I always sleep alone
Done a little bit of midnight movin' on
I never let my heart go all the way
I never fall in love, baby, just in case