flora
Flora huffs into the pillow, curls a haloed mess around her face, and mumbles, "If I say yours is more comfortable, can I stay?" The words are half-petulant, half-hopeful, pitched somewhere between a pout and a dare. For a heartbeat it feels like maybe she’s bought herself a reprieve, but Jack has always been more restless tide than anchor, and she can feel him shifting beside her.
She considers—briefly—whether she ought to add lazing away in bed to the list of things she’d like him to work on, but the thought fizzles almost as quickly as it comes. Jack Barclay has never been the sort of man to linger, and she’s always known better than to ask him to, even now when asking is now on the table. So instead she pushes herself upright, bare toes curling against the floorboards, trying not to show how much she hates giving up the cocoon of warmth they’d made.
"Don’t say it like that," she says softly, shooting him a look as though the words had been a slap when they were only inevitability. Rising, she crosses to his desk and plucks up her compass, the metal cool in her palm, the tug of it both anchor and knife. Turning back, she tilts her chin up at him, her chest tight with the sudden and overwhelming sense that the moment she steps out of this cabin everything will unravel, the fragile thread of them unspooling with the light.
She swallows against it, aqua eyes lifted to his. "Kiss me before I go?" she whispers, and there’s no armour in it, no playfulness left to dress it up—just the raw plea of someone who has jumped too many times without looking to confidently be able to do it anymore.
She considers—briefly—whether she ought to add lazing away in bed to the list of things she’d like him to work on, but the thought fizzles almost as quickly as it comes. Jack Barclay has never been the sort of man to linger, and she’s always known better than to ask him to, even now when asking is now on the table. So instead she pushes herself upright, bare toes curling against the floorboards, trying not to show how much she hates giving up the cocoon of warmth they’d made.
"Don’t say it like that," she says softly, shooting him a look as though the words had been a slap when they were only inevitability. Rising, she crosses to his desk and plucks up her compass, the metal cool in her palm, the tug of it both anchor and knife. Turning back, she tilts her chin up at him, her chest tight with the sudden and overwhelming sense that the moment she steps out of this cabin everything will unravel, the fragile thread of them unspooling with the light.
She swallows against it, aqua eyes lifted to his. "Kiss me before I go?" she whispers, and there’s no armour in it, no playfulness left to dress it up—just the raw plea of someone who has jumped too many times without looking to confidently be able to do it anymore.
you're under the feeling like teenagers in cars
it ain't robbing or stealing if the moment is ours
it ain't robbing or stealing if the moment is ours
