Flora
Her brow arches with all the drama of a challenge accepted, smirk slinking across her lips like it’s found something delicious to bite into. She leans in, lashes dusting his cheek as her mouth stretches toward his ear. Her voice is honeyed threat and velvet heat, low and laced with promise. "All the more reason to tear them off of you," she murmurs, before her hip shifts deliberately into his palm. Gods, they both need actual sleep before any more shenanigans, but teasing him has ever been her favourite sport and she's helpless to resist now.
She huffs softly and straightens just enough to press her chest more firmly against his, feigning a pout as her fingers splay along his sternum. "Isn’t my bust good enough?" she drawls, sliding her hand so his fits between the gaps of hers, knotted and warm. For a moment, she lets herself sink again into the steady, familiar rise and fall of his breathing. But the humour fades around the edges like a tide drawing back, revealing something quieter beneath.
"No one fantasizes about the hard times," she says, her voice softer now, more thought than speech. "Or about imperfections." Not in dreams. Not in wet sheets or desperate daydreams or the kind of longing that leaves your mouth dry. Fantasies don’t imagine bruises shaped like Jack’s hands, or the nights Flora’s cried herself sick in silence, or collecting love like a starving thing, grateful for every crumb. The girl Kaisel dreamed about was never shaking under the weight of what she had to be. She didn’t cry in locked bathrooms or say yes when she should have said nothing at all. She wasn’t the one people walked away from once they realized she wasn’t as shiny up close.
But this version of her—breathing and flawed and real—is the one in his arms, and she knows he sees her. Still, sometimes—"Sometimes, you just...big me up so much I start to feel like it's inevitable that I'll let you down. Like I’m already on my way to failing the version of me you’ve carried around all this time."
Her lips twitch faintly, not a smile but something adjacent, a sad cousin of the expression. "I know you know I’m a person," she says, quiet but sure, like a stone dropped in still water. "It just...sometimes when you talk about how long you’ve wanted me, or all the ways you used to think about me—" Her lips twitch, not quite a smile. "I get scared. Like I won’t be what you hoped for. Like I already peaked somewhere in your imagination and now I’m just..." Not enough.
She exhales softly, nudging her nose into the hollow beneath his jaw. "I just..." Her voice is almost a whisper now, more salt than sparkle. "I just wanted you to know how it made me feel."
She huffs softly and straightens just enough to press her chest more firmly against his, feigning a pout as her fingers splay along his sternum. "Isn’t my bust good enough?" she drawls, sliding her hand so his fits between the gaps of hers, knotted and warm. For a moment, she lets herself sink again into the steady, familiar rise and fall of his breathing. But the humour fades around the edges like a tide drawing back, revealing something quieter beneath.
"No one fantasizes about the hard times," she says, her voice softer now, more thought than speech. "Or about imperfections." Not in dreams. Not in wet sheets or desperate daydreams or the kind of longing that leaves your mouth dry. Fantasies don’t imagine bruises shaped like Jack’s hands, or the nights Flora’s cried herself sick in silence, or collecting love like a starving thing, grateful for every crumb. The girl Kaisel dreamed about was never shaking under the weight of what she had to be. She didn’t cry in locked bathrooms or say yes when she should have said nothing at all. She wasn’t the one people walked away from once they realized she wasn’t as shiny up close.
But this version of her—breathing and flawed and real—is the one in his arms, and she knows he sees her. Still, sometimes—"Sometimes, you just...big me up so much I start to feel like it's inevitable that I'll let you down. Like I’m already on my way to failing the version of me you’ve carried around all this time."
Her lips twitch faintly, not a smile but something adjacent, a sad cousin of the expression. "I know you know I’m a person," she says, quiet but sure, like a stone dropped in still water. "It just...sometimes when you talk about how long you’ve wanted me, or all the ways you used to think about me—" Her lips twitch, not quite a smile. "I get scared. Like I won’t be what you hoped for. Like I already peaked somewhere in your imagination and now I’m just..." Not enough.
She exhales softly, nudging her nose into the hollow beneath his jaw. "I just..." Her voice is almost a whisper now, more salt than sparkle. "I just wanted you to know how it made me feel."
I hope you're sweating the bigger stuff,
finding some peace in an honest love
Hope you stop when you've had enough & throw the towel in
finding some peace in an honest love
Hope you stop when you've had enough & throw the towel in
Code stolen from Queen Sky
