yeah I got heartbreak that I reminisce about
Flora peers down at the captain, at the mess of his hair and the impossible blue of his eyes framed by that copper-washed mask, and despite the looseness of her limbs and the faint sting of bark pressed into the backs of her thighs, she feels steadier than she has in weeks. The landscape of her thoughts remains wide and calm, but the threads of cherry red that have hummed quietly beneath the stillness begin to deepen, shifting into a warmer, more complicated shade—love-stained magenta, stitched through with things she can’t quite separate: memory and fondness and a softness she thought she’d put away for good.
To anyone else, what follows might look entirely normal. A man helping a woman redress after slipping away for a rendezvous. But to someone who knows Jack—really knows him—every motion is charged with something far more intimate than sex, a sweetness that is rarely seen, and gods, it nearly steals the breath from her chest the same way his kiss had.
She already knows there's love between them; knows it’s never left, even when they did. They said as much the last time, but now, as Jack fusses over her with quiet hands and doesn't try to pretend otherwise, her thoughts flush with the warm shimmer of gold. Not longing, not yearning, just...gratitude. That it’s still here. That there's some part of them that remained, even after everything.
Then he drops to one knee, and her mind—treacherous, theatrical thing that it is—leaps with no small amount of absurdity to the same thought it had when he bought her that stupid white gown: Is he proposing? It’s ridiculous, of course, wild and uninvited, and so very Flora. She stifles a laugh as she places a hand lightly on his shoulder to balance, sliding one foot back into the heel he offers. "Sorry," she murmurs, too breathless for it to be convincing, the apology catching on the remnants of a laugh that never quite escapes.
But she doesn’t move her hand from him or pull away once both shoes are on. Instead, she lets her fingers remain, light but present, and watches him quietly, as if trying to memorise this moment—not the heat, not the sex, but the care. "Bassian can never find out about this," she murmurs softly, her lips twisting with amusement and fondness both, knowing how much it would break the big man to get his hopes up of the pair getting back together, only to have them dashed by reality.
To anyone else, what follows might look entirely normal. A man helping a woman redress after slipping away for a rendezvous. But to someone who knows Jack—really knows him—every motion is charged with something far more intimate than sex, a sweetness that is rarely seen, and gods, it nearly steals the breath from her chest the same way his kiss had.
She already knows there's love between them; knows it’s never left, even when they did. They said as much the last time, but now, as Jack fusses over her with quiet hands and doesn't try to pretend otherwise, her thoughts flush with the warm shimmer of gold. Not longing, not yearning, just...gratitude. That it’s still here. That there's some part of them that remained, even after everything.
Then he drops to one knee, and her mind—treacherous, theatrical thing that it is—leaps with no small amount of absurdity to the same thought it had when he bought her that stupid white gown: Is he proposing? It’s ridiculous, of course, wild and uninvited, and so very Flora. She stifles a laugh as she places a hand lightly on his shoulder to balance, sliding one foot back into the heel he offers. "Sorry," she murmurs, too breathless for it to be convincing, the apology catching on the remnants of a laugh that never quite escapes.
But she doesn’t move her hand from him or pull away once both shoes are on. Instead, she lets her fingers remain, light but present, and watches him quietly, as if trying to memorise this moment—not the heat, not the sex, but the care. "Bassian can never find out about this," she murmurs softly, her lips twisting with amusement and fondness both, knowing how much it would break the big man to get his hopes up of the pair getting back together, only to have them dashed by reality.
some real big things I still gotta figure out
