i'd wipe the dirt off your name with the shirt off my back
Flora watches the match splinter and frost in Jack’s fingers like something cursed; like a talisman for all the fury that still simmers under his skin when it comes to Pierce "So I’m guessing that’s a no on Pierce’s pool party RSVP?" The joke lands brittle and quick, but there’s a real question under the sugar-spun delivery. Maybe it was stupid to think she could try to punch someone like Pierce. But with enough witnesses? Enough strength in numbers? If she was ever going to do something (else) reckless—and let’s be honest, she always was—when else would be better?
Jack doesn’t answer, not right away, and it stretches the silence taut between them, long enough for Flora to hold her breath without even noticing. It’s not just his silence that frays her, though—it’s the space between what he knows and what he says. The fact that he asked her if she was okay at all still rankles in some strange way, because what was the point of asking if he already knew? And more importantly, if he already knew, why mention it at all given that hard or emotionally soggy conversations were ones he avoided like the plague?
She doesn’t know how to talk to him from this distance, especially now that they were an arm's length away from one another. But every part of her still feels stranded somewhere unreachable on this ship she used to love, beside a man who used to know her better than anyone, and who now feels like the hardest person to talk to in all of Caido.
So when the letter arrives and Jack’s dry voice cuts the tension like a blade, Flora pounces on the change like a lifeline. Her laugh bubbles out, quick and surprised, and she lifts her chin to roll her eyes with theatrical ease. "Shut up, I’ve thanked you for stuff dozens of times," she says, voice warm despite herself. "But...yeah. I mean it." And she does. Even if they’re broken in all the ways that matter, even if nothing about this makes sense anymore, she knows Jack well enough to know how he would have had to temper his reaction in order to leave Kaisel kentucky-fried rather than charred, and that paper-work aside, that restraint had likely been done as a favour to her.
Jack doesn’t answer, not right away, and it stretches the silence taut between them, long enough for Flora to hold her breath without even noticing. It’s not just his silence that frays her, though—it’s the space between what he knows and what he says. The fact that he asked her if she was okay at all still rankles in some strange way, because what was the point of asking if he already knew? And more importantly, if he already knew, why mention it at all given that hard or emotionally soggy conversations were ones he avoided like the plague?
She doesn’t know how to talk to him from this distance, especially now that they were an arm's length away from one another. But every part of her still feels stranded somewhere unreachable on this ship she used to love, beside a man who used to know her better than anyone, and who now feels like the hardest person to talk to in all of Caido.
So when the letter arrives and Jack’s dry voice cuts the tension like a blade, Flora pounces on the change like a lifeline. Her laugh bubbles out, quick and surprised, and she lifts her chin to roll her eyes with theatrical ease. "Shut up, I’ve thanked you for stuff dozens of times," she says, voice warm despite herself. "But...yeah. I mean it." And she does. Even if they’re broken in all the ways that matter, even if nothing about this makes sense anymore, she knows Jack well enough to know how he would have had to temper his reaction in order to leave Kaisel kentucky-fried rather than charred, and that paper-work aside, that restraint had likely been done as a favour to her.
