[SE] wearing that same smile

I like shiny things, but I'd marry you with paper rings

The problem with trying to recreate Deepfrost activities in Torchline is, of course, the heat. Standing barefoot in the middle of the kitchen, Flora stares down at the increasingly sad drift of shaved ice on the counter with a look of wounded offence. The Halovian activity book lies open beside her beneath the stained-glass wash of morning light, its pages bright with cheerful illustrations of children in scarves building perfect snow forts, throwing perfect snowballs, and generally living lives that have clearly never included humidity.

Spice, for her part, looks deeply pleased with herself, at least. "Yes, okay, technically you are doing amazing," Flora says, pointing the cheese grater at the little white dragon with all the authority of a queen addressing a valued but slightly smug member of court. "This is not about your performance, babe. Your ice is gorgeous. Very artisanal. Very luxury cocktail bar. It’s just that whoever wrote this book has clearly never had to make snow in a tropical kitchen with kitchen tools and dragons."

A neat little block of ice sits in a bowl in front of her, already slicking the ceramic with cold water as the edges soften. Spice huffs another pale breath across it, frosting it back into firmness with a pleased little chirrup, and Flora immediately attacks it with the grater again, curls of ice skittering across the counter and catching in the ridges of her tight waffle-knit shirt. She is dressed, despite the weather and the general lack of snow within several hundred miles: longjohns tucked neatly beneath her shirt, a winter pom-pom hat perched over her golden curls, and an expression of total commitment that would have been heroic if she were not currently muttering at frozen shavings.

"Okay. Okay, that’s kind of something." Scooping the shaved ice together with both hands, Flora presses it into a lump, frowns as half of it crumbles wetly through her fingers, then scoops it back up and tries again with the fierce optimism of someone who has absolutely decided this is going to be fun whether physics agrees or not. The snowball, when she finally manages to form it, is not exactly round. It leans slightly to one side, but as Flora lifts it in both palms, Spice gives an approving trill, hopping along the counter with enough excitement to send a scatter of ice crystals across the children's book.

"We're gonna get him so good," she whispers, glancing toward the doorway before crouching low behind the kitchen island, her pom-pom bobbing once before she yanks it down with one hand and clutches the snowball carefully in the other. The marble is cold against her shoulder where she presses herself beneath the counter, and though she has to tuck her knees awkwardly beneath her, there is a deep and immediate satisfaction in committing this hard to something this stupid.

"Kaaaaaaaaaaai?" Flora calls, pitching her voice loud enough to carry through Wildering House, sweet and innocent in a way that will probably immediately make him suspicious. "Can you come here for a second? I need help with something." She waits, biting the inside of her lip as Spice creeps closer to the edge of the counter above her, tail twitching with treacherous delight. The second she hears him close enough, Flora rises in a rush of longjohns, curls, and winter hat, laughing already as she winds her arm back. The snowball leaves her hand in a bright, icy blur, badly packed and half-shedding.

and I hate accidents except when we went from friends to this

Code 100% taken from the queeeeeeen herself, Sky <3

No way you can deny, you feel the most alive when you are terrified

Although the lilt in her voice catches in every possible web of his spidey senses, there is a reason he is not in feature films like Tom Holland is. Technically, there's many reasons he isn't, but a main one would be this: blatantly ignoring the shivers of warning. Curiosity, and the desire to be helpful, will always trump suspicion.

"COMING!!!!" he shouts back down the house, like some off-water game of Marco Polo they always end up playing among the various wings and hallways of her fortress of friendship and haunted company. The answering call is swiftly followed by a series of loud thumps and one hissing owwwwww before Kaisel comes sock-sliding over the tile and around the corner.

Unlike Flora, he is not prepared in the slightest for the Deepfrost she's determined to descend across the house. This means he is fitted in his divine-adjacent (read: holey) tank top, a dark violet that is proudly stamped with WHITE KNIGHT WORKOUT SURVIVOR in white and stark lettering. His loose gym shorts are in much better shape, although the drawstrings seem to be purely ornamental as one is nearly pulled through the hole and the other is dangling low enough to threaten beating out the edge of fabric on the leg it swings against, suggesting it's only the faint hug around his hips keeping them on at all. The thin towel around his shoulders could almost pass a scarf, if not for blots of sweat he's dabbled off his temples time and time again with it.

It definitely means he is not prepared for the snowy assault in the kitchen. He'd considered a pickle jar in need of beheading, his muscles her valiant savior, or perhaps something too tall for her to reach properly and his hands could happily fit against her ass to hoist her up high enough. Any number of possibilities for ways he could help her, really. It seems instead she'd help herself to a cheap shot.

In the midst of his gallant arrival, Kaisel has just enough time to clock the too-excited dragon on the counter before it's too late. Flora's already popping up from behind the counter, golden hair reminiscent of an explosion, her aim always deadly no matter the device. "Help is hee—" Still fighting for balance after his Risky Business entrance, all Kaisel can manage is a widening of his eyes before he is promptly pelted in the face with the cold and wet smack of the slush-ball.

For a moment he is too stunned to do anything but sputter. Bits of ice tumble down, already half-melted, decorating the floor in micro-puddles. It slides down his face and collects beneath his shirt, which quickly reinvigorates some motion back into him as his spine stiffens before he folds over, attempting to let gravity keep the ice away from contact with his chest as he dances around and tries to shake it loose. "You are SO gonna get it!" The threat is out before he has any semblance of a plan, but the look he shoots her from the corner of his eye, alight with challenge and adoration alike, promises something.

Kaisel

I'm a daredevil on the highway to hell

I like shiny things, but I'd marry you with paper rings

For just a second, Flora nearly forgets to throw the snowball. It isn’t fair, really, that Kaisel comes sliding into the kitchen looking like that, all loose shorts and bare legs and a dark violet tank top that has given up on modesty in several important places. He looks ridiculous, yes, especially with the towel slung around his shoulders and his socks carrying him too fast over the tile, but he also looks so warm and alive and hers that Flora’s grin catches somewhere softer before it sharpens again.

Then the snowball leaves her hand, and it smacks him full in the face with a wet, icy splat, and whatever tender little thought had begun to bloom in her chest is instantly drowned beneath her delighted cackle. Flora claps a hand over her mouth, but it does nothing to stop the sound of her laughter as slush slides down his face and disappears beneath the collar of his shirt, leaving him sputtering and folding forward while Spice trills triumphantly from the counter.

"Gotcha," Flora gasps and then squeals in response to this threat, already scrambling backward around the counter with her bare feet skidding against the tile and her curls bouncing wildly beneath her hat before pointing toward the floor as she continues to back away, her grin still bright enough to count as a hazard all on its own. "Careful!"

Spice, entirely unburdened by guilt, trills from the counter like a tiny accomplice accepting applause as she exhales another stream of frost, having covered the kitchen floor in a wide sheet of ice across the tiles. Flora steps onto it with the confidence of someone who has decided that momentum is the same thing as control. Her bare feet slide immediately, longjohns and tight waffle-knit shirt twisting with her as she throws her arms out for balance, but instead of stopping she lets herself go, laughing hard enough that the sound echoes off the cabinets while she skims across the ice in a reckless, triumphant glide.

and I hate accidents except when we went from friends to this

Code 100% taken from the queeeeeeen herself, Sky <3

No way you can deny, you feel the most alive when you are terrified

Her laughter serves as the beat for his interpretive dance, the ice his inspiration. The cold is sharp and biting, but gone just as fast, the small crystals needing very little to tip them all the way into a melt. Return fire is the immediate revenge he craves, but he's rather without the means to provide such a cold dish at the moment, having no dragon back up of his own. He's absolutely docking best girl points from Spice for this blatant abuse of power.

Settling for lurching around the counter as she scrambles back behind the barrier of safety, he catches the puddling block of ice beside the cheese grater. His ammunition awaits. All he has to do is snatch her up, counter her attack, and evade the guard dragon parading about with far too much pride for such a tiny body.

"Oh, you're not gonna fool me," he declares with the swagger of a man moments from disaster. Having paused his approach, trying to lull her into a false sense of security and gauging which direction she might flee, his pursuit is committed when she moves. Assuming she's dipping, he dives, and there's no dodging. His feet hit the floor-ice directly behind her as he reaches, only for traction to abandon him immediately.

"WHO000oooA—!" The yelp breaks loose, sharp with surprise as momentum carries him straight into her. One arm hooks clumsily around hers while the other windmills uselessly through the air, colliding into her back and promptly discovering that stopping is no longer an option available to either of them. They go skidding together across the tiled rink in one tangled disaster of limbs, socks, and dislodged dignity reminiscent of a scene from Bambi.

His laughter breaks suddenly and full, swiftly evacuating all breath and the immediate focus of vengeance. "What!" he demands with the rush of disbelief and excitement she always coaxes free with such ease, leaning breathlessly against her shoulder as the ridiculousness of the situation finally catches up to him. Only now, with her bundled in longjohns and the pom-pom hat bobbing wildly atop golden curls while they careen across the kitchen, does the full picture settle into place. "What have you done?" he manages between laughs, tightening his hold instinctively as gravity threatens to send them both skating onto their asses. "Is this you testing out a new renovation for the house? Wings for every season now?"

Kaisel

I'm a daredevil on the highway to hell

I like shiny things, but I'd marry you with paper rings

As Kaisel hurls himself after her with all the confidence of a man who has not yet accepted that the kitchen has become a hazard, Flora only laughs brighter. She makes no real attempt to get away, though there is a half-hearted twist of her shoulders, more instinct than escape, and for a second the ice carries her just far enough ahead that his fingers slip along her sleeve instead of catching properly. Then his arm hooks around her, yanking her back against him in a messy collision of warmth and cold tile and startled laughter, and whatever balance either of them might have claimed to possess vanishes immediately.

"Oh—shit, Kai—" Flora gasps, but the warning dissolves into another laugh as they skid forward together, her bare feet sliding uselessly over the frosted floor before she's grabbing onto him with both hands, fingers twisting into the soft, hole-worn fabric of his tank top as if that is going to help either of them stay upright. It does not, not really, but it gives her something to hold onto as they careen across the kitchen in a tangle of longjohns, loose shorts, and increasingly poor decisions. Her pom-pom bounces wildly with each uneven glide, and she presses herself closer against him when their combined momentum tips sideways, laughing into the curve of his shoulder as if this had been the plan all along.

Spice chirrups from the counter, far too pleased with her contribution.

Their slide begins to slow near the far stretch of counter, the drag of their feet finally winning against the ice. Flora’s grip loosens by degrees, though she keeps one hand curled against him, not quite ready to give up the warm, ridiculous closeness of it. Her curls have fallen loose beneath the winter hat, her shirt is dusted with melting frost, and the kitchen behind them looks less like a festive activity and more like a mess they'll have to eventually clean up. Still, when she tilts her face up to him, her expression is all innocence.

"What d’you mean?" Flora asks, fluttering her lashes with shameless sweetness. "Don’t you like it?" She glances around the slick floor, the abandoned cheese grater, the half-melted block of ice, and Spice preening on the counter, then looks back at him as if this is all an entirely reasonable way to spend a morning.

and I hate accidents except when we went from friends to this

Code 100% taken from the queeeeeeen herself, Sky <3

No way you can deny, you feel the most alive when you are terrified

It's only because her middle name is definitely grace that they survive the initial slip and slide across the kitchen. Momentum alone seems to be the savior in place of balance or skill, each of them gripping each other like the poster of a comedic horror film, powerless to help each other or themselves for the time being, but better for it because at least it's together.

As they slow and her grip relaxes, confidence in his legs returns steadily. He stands more properly instead of half-tipping over, as though trying to shorten the distance of his inevitable fall. Laughter sweeps away into a smile that's difficult to shut as she shrugs this all off like it's a mundane feature of the house. It might not be for the home, but it is rather customary for her to elevate the ordinary into extra.

"Like it?" he scoffs in immediate response, attention lifting from where it'd fallen to properly admire the sparkling floor around them. "Flora, only you could come up with customizing Deepfrost just for us to enjoy." It's said with a fondness that can't help but spill over into the bond, utterly enamored with her creative flare on homemade Halo. "I love it!" The declaration is punctuated with a splay of his hands, the gesture wiggling out finger fireworks. It's brief, little time wasted before swiftly reaching back towards her. His palms cup either side of her face, gently pulling her to him, the movement only partial as he leans in to close the rest. He kisses her with enough enthusiasm to immediately lose his balance again, causing a tangled noise in his throat that breaks the affection into another low laugh.

Pulling away to see her, his adoration sharpens. "Ok wait wait. We really gotta put this to the test." Spoken like a man with a plan, he glances around for something suitable. "We need something we can turn into a sled." Which is not a sentence that leads to responsible outcomes, leas of all when set indoors.

Kaisel

I'm a daredevil on the highway to hell

I like shiny things, but I'd marry you with paper rings

Flora snorts laughter under her breath, the sound softer than the grin still tugging at her mouth as she looks up at Kai. It isn’t that he’s wrong, exactly. Maybe only she could decide that a tropical kitchen needed its own private Deepfrost, but the adoring look she gives him says plainly enough that he could have done the same thing if he’d had a tiny frost dragon at his beck and call.

When his hands cup her face, Flora tips easily toward him, her smile pressed into the first second of the kiss before it gives way to something warmer. One arm slides around his waist while the other curls over his shoulders, fingers slipping into the damp towel at the back of his neck as she kisses him back with bright, helpless affection. What he won't be able to see is the way her palm opens behind him.

Spice, still perched on the counter like she’s been waiting for her cue, chirrups once and drops a cold little mound of fresh snow into Flora’s waiting hand. Through the bond there is probably just enough mischief to warn him that something is happening, but not nearly enough time to do anything useful about it. Flora breaks the kiss with a laugh already rising in her throat and shoves the snow straight down the back of his shirt.

Her eyebrows lift as if the problem of the sled has only just now reclaimed her attention despite her continued giggles. Still holding onto him with one hand, she tilts her head and looks around the kitchen with a thoughtful little hum, her gaze moving from the chairs to the bright spill of sunlight beyond the open doors. "Welllllll," Flora says slowly, drawing the word out as her smile curves again, "we could cut the legs off a chair?"

She lets that sit for half a second, as if it is a perfectly normal suggestion made by a queen in longjohns standing on an indoor ice rink. "Orrrrrrr use one of the floaties from the pool? The big Tumsea ones?"

and I hate accidents except when we went from friends to this

Code 100% taken from the queeeeeeen herself, Sky <3

No way you can deny, you feel the most alive when you are terrified

Something flickers through the bond. Not the warm bath of affection or the soft sigh of embodied peace, although rarely has it ever been that. It's something much more urgent, and before his suspicion can properly settle, he has all the answers he needs, and then some.

Snow slides down the back of his shirt with ruthless efficiency. The reaction is immediate and violent, his entire body jerking upright so quickly that he nearly drags them both off balance with the force of it. "FlorUH!" The accusation arrives somewhere between a shout and a gasp. His shoulders hitch instinctively against the cold, as though he might somehow fold himself around the problem and contain it before it continues its merciless descent.

Abandoning her entirely, he twists away, pulling his hand free of hers to yank his shirt over his head, clawing away the thing that's trapping the cold to his skin. The result leaves his hair sticking in every direction, shirt bundled in one hand while the other gracelessly swipes behind him in an awkward angle to try to free the lingering patches that are melting against his heat.

"That's it!" he hisses, gaze sharpening on her as he tosses his shirt aside, the towel gone aksew and having dropped to his feet with all of this. It's the burning look of a man with two scores to settle with his wife now, and the dedication to carrying them out without further delay.

He lunges towards her again, reaching with both hands to grab her to him and hoist her up to his shoulder, kicking and screaming if need be. While the suggestion of removing the legs from one of the chairs might have earned genuine consideration in a different setting, whatever she says rolls right off him for this moment, as though an executioner who has learned to ignore the beggars that try to worm themselves off the chopping block.

Coincidentally, his plan will coincide with an answer, but sleds are the least of his worries for the time being. Instead, he's quite focused and intent on wrestling Flora to him and together, lurching out to the pool where he means to heave her in as if she's no better than a corpse in need of disposal. "Stay out of it Spice or you're next!" he threatens the accomplice in what is probably a futile attempt at sounding in control when he's clearly outnumbered and potentially outmatched.

Kaisel

I'm a daredevil on the highway to hell

I like shiny things, but I'd marry you with paper rings

For all that Kaisel is clearly offended, Flora’s first response to him yanking his shirt over his head is not fear so much as an immediate and deeply appreciative pause. Her teeth catch against her lower lip as her eyes drag, slow and shameless, down the revealed lines of his chest and the warm, hard cut of his abdomen, and through the bond her amusement brightens into something pleasantly scarlet. "I just thought you could use some cooling off," she purrs, her lashes lifting as her smile turns wicked. "Since you’re so hot—" The last word barely makes it out before it breaks into a squeak, because then he is lunging for her and Flora is twisting away with a burst of laughter that makes the whole attempt at escape feel more decorative than sincere.

Her bare feet skid over the last of Spice’s frost as his hands catch her, and though she flails with all the dramatic urgency of a woman being wronged in her own home, she does very little that might actually stop him from hauling her up and over his shoulder. "Kai!" she protests, one hand braced against his back while the other reaches uselessly toward the counter, her laughter making a mess of any real authority. "Assborn, this is unacceptable! I am your queen and your wife and the creative director of this entire Deepfrost experience—" Somewhere in the struggle, her pom-pom hat slips free, tumbling onto the wet tile.

Spice, predictably, takes the abduction as a personal invitation to escalate. With a sharp little trill she launches from the counter and flies ahead of them toward the pool, circling back to send pale, halfhearted streams of icy air across the floor near Kaisel’s feet. They are more nuisance than attack, glittering briefly over the tile before melting in the Torchline warmth, but Flora immediately clutches at him again, half to keep herself from slipping and half because she is laughing too hard not to.

and I hate accidents except when we went from friends to this

Code 100% taken from the queeeeeeen herself, Sky <3

No way you can deny, you feel the most alive when you are terrified

Ordinarily, the chance to be admired, especially by her, would have stopped him in his tracks. He's not one to waste such an opportunity, and he would have suggested a variety of his best angles to be properly seen from. This is not ordinary though, because twice now he's done the icy jig, and he's completely convinced the blush slipping through the bond is an attempt to make it a third time. She can gawk at him from the pool.

"Oh, so you don't like me hot?" he throws back at her, clearly unmoved by her most recent ploy, the very same one that's unraveling to his pursuit. "You want me cold?" The last word slips free like a threat, promising he'd go John Wick on her ass over this, the theater of the dangerously low croon potentially lost beneath her exuberant laughter.

As he successfully wrangles her in his grip, he flops her over him like she's nothing more than an uncooperative sack of potatoes and not the squirming, half-resisting shape of his wife. His name rises like it alone is a command, but consider this the uprising then. "Trust me baby, this hurts me more than it hurts you." All the villainy he can muster to his voice accompanies their solemn march outdoors, deeply apologetic that it's come to this, but forced by her own hand no less.

A smile cracks through the mask of sociopath turning on his greatest love, her tirade of titles and the weight of each reaching him with its great absurdity. "You forgot some," he urges, of her long list of names. It's less implication that the right one might end this than it is hearing all the versions her power takes and yet none of them can free her from the firm lock against his shoulder and the inevitable splash down coming her way. Amusement echoes along the bond, leaking out somewhere since he won't permit it to be so brazenly displayed when he has wickedness to maintain instead.

Sighing deeply as his warning goes ignored, the longstanding frustrations of an evil genius who's disappointed by the predictability of it all, Spice's interference requires some tactical footwork. "SpiiiIIIIiiiiice," he sings, threateningly. "Keep it up and we're gonna eat shit and that'll be way wooooOOOorse." If his ability to remain upright on ice with just his own flailing body weight is hard enough, add in Flora's which will likely be straining opposite directions than needed (her hands already trying to grab any lip and ledge they near), and they'd surely go down hard.

Almost slipping over one, he passes to the side of it after testing the slide with his toe first. It all slows the eventual walk to the gallows, but with much of it melting quickly and Spice's breath a trackable sight, Kaisel gets them outdoors. Shifting her against his shoulder with a bounce and a grunt, he suddenly breaks into a run, barefeet slapping the pavement and movement sure to hammer into her as he goes. "Your time has come, my dear!" he announces with a brightness that could rival the sun. He lurches to a sudden stop at the pool edge, wrestling her off him like a cat about to take a bath, and aims to fling her into the water.

Kaisel

I'm a daredevil on the highway to hell

I like shiny things, but I'd marry you with paper rings

"But you always act so cool," Flora pleads from over his shoulder, her voice pitched sweetly enough that it might almost have counted as remorse if she wasn’t still laughing against him. The sound shakes through her, bunching her muscles and ruining every dramatic attempt to go limp in his arms, though that does not stop her hands from reaching down toward the shoddy waistband of his sweats with clear and immediate intent. If he is going to carry her to the pool like some sort of extremely attractive executioner, then really, it feels only fair that she should be allowed to create a few complications on the way.

Spice, wholly undeterred by Kaisel’s warning, continues her assault with the same logic Flora would have used in her place: if Flora is going down, it is only polite that he go down on with her. The little dragon’s icy breaths remain halfhearted, though, pale streams of frost skimming more near his feet than directly beneath them, because for all her loyalty there is a very real difference between kitchen tile and hard concrete. Flora, meanwhile, grows steadily more dramatic the closer they get to the water, her earlier attempts to drag his sweats down giving way to a frantic search for some softer, more vulnerable point of attack. The angle makes it nearly impossible to reach his ribs properly, but she does her best, fingers wriggling against whatever sensitive spots she can find while her laughter keeps breaking around half-formed protests.

The second he starts to run, all strategy disappears. The movement jolts through her with every slap of his feet against the stone, dragging broken little sounds from her as she bounces over his shoulder, one hand clutching at him while the other grabs at empty air. "No, please, no please have mercy, have—" Flora manages, breathless and bright with panic that is only half real, before the world tips and his hold shifts and she is peeled away from him with all the grace of a feral cat being introduced to bathwater.

The pool takes her in a splash of blue and white, swallowing her laughter for a second beneath the shock of cool water and the sudden, bubbling silence below the surface. Through the bond, what reaches him first is the helpless brightness of that laughter, followed by the warm surprise of impact as the water closes over her longjohns and shirt and sends her curls streaming around her face. When Flora resurfaces, she comes up gasping and grinning, her golden hair plastered dark against her head and water running down her cheeks as she immediately lifts one hand to point at him.

"Ahh, ahh, ahh," she warns, sounding like a comic book villain and narrowing her eyes at him with all the menace she can manage while treading water in soaked longjohns. Spice, apparently deciding that this is exactly the right moment to defend her fallen queen, answers before Flora can say anything else. A sharp blast of cold hits Kaisel at the small of his back, and the little dragon follows it a heartbeat later, darting straight between his shoulder blades with a determined shove of wings and claws meant to turn his victory stance into something much wetter. Flora’s pointing hand stays lifted from the pool, her grin widening with immediate, delighted approval as she watches the attempted plot-twist unfold.

and I hate accidents except when we went from friends to this

Code 100% taken from the queeeeeeen herself, Sky <3

No way you can deny, you feel the most alive when you are terrified

Having been in this similar position a time or two before with her, her wriggling fingers would be looking for his boxers to deliver another wedgie, surely. This time though, he is free ballin' it, so she'll only have one waistband to contend with and the yank of it not quite as satisfactory for her or halting for him. It is not always a choice he makes when working out, but sometimes it feels right.

The hairs on his legs are standing on end as each passing sweep of Spice's interference sends a wash of cold air against his skin. Little bits of the ice bedazzle his legs before long, and it seems he's destined to be covered in frost one way or another today. "Ay!" he complains sharply, all cool-villain immediately dropped the moment one of her fingers pokes too closely to a tickling area. "Don't you dare," he threatens, breath hitched high with the strain of biting back a laugh, his side twitching away from her with a jerk.

It's almost too much, dodging a persistent dragon and wincing through each grazing tickle, and he almost yields, crumpling to his knees like a fallen knight that for all his resolve, simply can't keep himself in the fight any longer. Almost. The running helps, and her strangled pleas feed the brewing satisfaction of seeing this through, however falsely some of them ring.

Breathless with the struggle and the near misses, Kaisel doubles over, hands braced on his legs as he watches the pool swallow her up. His grin is triumphantly plastered on his face, a laugh shaking out loud and without containment now. That her own humor washes back through the bond is reassuring, bright moments sometimes able to dim rapidly, especially once a cold shock is granted. Gotcha! he trumpts through the link to her, utterly smug with this soggy turn of events. That's what you get for icing me TWICE. You thought I wouldn't follow through? You thought yourself cleverer than me? You—

Like any true villain, he gets himself caught at the start of a monologue, the temptation of relishing a win taken too soon. He has, admittedly, forgotten her accomplice with the encompassing sight of her thoroughly wetted, her warning ignored as is his right as victor. The sudden blast of ice at his back snaps him forward, arching desperately away from the chill even as it clings to him. "AAHHH!" he cries out, the sound strangling itself short as he's then struck, and all hope of keeping foot on the ground vanishes at once. "NO!" he gasps, eyes widening as he sails, limbs flailing uselessly in the air.

He crashes with the water, the surface giving way in a spray and the sudden quiet of his complaints as he sinks towards the bottom. He fights his way back up with a stream of bubbles, having shouted all the way down. Kicking off the pool bottom, he angles directly for Flora, surfacing in a heave of water and outrage, jumping at her side and shoving into her with both hands. "I cannot BELIEVE you two!" he half laughs, half yells, indignation dying out to the joy.

Kaisel

I'm a daredevil on the highway to hell

I like shiny things, but I'd marry you with paper rings

As Kaisel’s victory unfurls through the bond, smug and shining and far too pleased with itself, Flora only grins crookedly up at him from the water. There is something beautifully obvious about what is about to happen, the kind of downfall everyone can see coming except the man currently declaring himself too clever to be caught, and though she could warn him, she absolutely does not. Her warning finger remains lifted from the pool, her lashes wet and clumped together, her mouth curved with dawning delight as Spice lines herself up from behind him.

The blast of cold hits, Kaisel flails, and Flora’s laughter bursts bright and helpless as he sails into the pool after her. Whatever curses or accusations he sends through the bond are mostly lost beneath her own amusement, bubbling hot and triumphant through the link as the water swallows him with a splash big enough to send droplets over her face. By the time he resurfaces and shoves into her side with all his offended disbelief, she is already laughing too hard to give him anything like a proper apology, her own victory needing no grand speech when it comes through the bond in a warm, sparkling rush. From the edge of the pool, Spice trills smugly enough for both of them.

"Sorry, you were saying?" Flora manages, though the words wobble around the laughter still caught in her chest. She lets him shove her without resisting, water sloshing between them as she reaches for him instead, arms slipping around his shoulders with immediate and unapologetic affection. The move starts sweetly enough, but then she is already turning herself through the water, shimmying around him with all the slippery determination of someone intent on affixing herself to him like a stubborn barnacle.

Once she is behind him, Flora hooks her legs around his waist and locks herself there like a very wet, very pleased backpack. Her curls are plastered to her cheeks, her waffle-knit shirt clings warm and heavy against her skin, but none of it stops her from pressing an utterly unrepentant kiss to his cheek from over his shoulder. "Well," she says brightly, tightening her arms around him as if she has every intention of making him carry her around the pool now, "I guess this saves us from doing laundry." Glancing around, she'll tuck her chin against his shoulder, surveying the remainder of the pool. "I suppose if this really was Halo, we'd probably have hypothermia."

and I hate accidents except when we went from friends to this

Code 100% taken from the queeeeeeen herself, Sky <3

No way you can deny, you feel the most alive when you are terrified

Heaving nothing more than a soggy glare that's too soft at the edges to even land properly in response, Kaisel opts to shake his head instead. Wet hair flings water around with all the talent of a dog, although that does little to deter her from latching onto him. "Two against one, like usual," he grumbles as she begins to climb upon him like a triumphant crab, securing herself with a grip that is completely unwaving and at least partway Safrin's fault.

"I'm not giving you any more treats!" he calls out to Spice as she bugles their win, a dragon that surely knows how to play both sides and when. His attempt at being wounded melts swiftly though as crab-Flora finishes her climb, an arm instinctively wrapping around her legs to keep her fitted in place, grinning up into the kiss she plants, the spread gone wider in the wake of it. "Oh, is that what this was, an elaborate scheme to get out of chores?" He chuckles, taking on his new role of water taxi without blinking as he begins to work his way from the depths of the pool to the stairs. "Think you failed there. Pretty sure I need more than one pair of shorts washed." Nevermind the utter lack of soap.

As he moves, the water curls over them, shorn away with the force of motion, rippling up and over the skin with a chill that doesn't quite match the season's moniker. "Don't give her any more ideas." The grumble is swift, expecting next that Spice would descend and freeze them in the middle of the pool, Flora conveniently high enough to escape the ice age unscathed. This, implying they hadn't all been Flora's ideas, of course. "Isn't that supposed to be like a health thing though? Cold plunges?" He's always preferred the warmer side of the health and wellness, like hot tubs and saunas, both of which sound deeply appealing right about now, forgetting that he meant to retrieve inflatable tumsea sleds.

Bending his knees as they move so that they bob through the water as he walks and swims, small waves begin to lap up the side of the pool. He throws in a twirl for good measure, the happiness gliding as easily along the bond as they do the water. "We should go actually diving one day though," he considers, one thought straying into another. "Not in Halo," he adds quickly, "but maybe somewhere else that's nicer. I've never gone." That'd be because Stormbreak didn't have oceans and he doesn't like sharks, but don't worry, he hasn't forgotten his own fears. "Could hire some attuned with water shifts or something that'll be faster than the sharks, or scary enough to keep them at bay."

Kaisel

I'm a daredevil on the highway to hell