// Ring around the rosie - Pocket full of posie //
His words hesitate on a breath briefly under her correction, to which he nods along dumbly to. He didn't mean to keep circling back, hadn't meant to make it sound like he still thought that of her. The thought had cropped up though, and he wouldn't pretend it hadn't. Owning it felt better than trying to bury it. "Right—never," he agrees with the quiet exhale of apology. "I'm sorry," he says again, because gods does he regret making her feel like she's not worth more than that.
As he sinks, the fact that she's instantly with him nearly summons a wretched laugh. Not one with humor or mockery, but one that's just damn grateful—that even when they're both wearing the most absurd things, spinning around minefields of conversation all over the bedroom, they could find their way back to each other, here on the floor. Instead, it breaks out as a weak smile, and something tight in his shoulders relaxes a bit.
When her fingers reach out, he extends just a pinky to hook in with hers. He needs the rest to keep his knees up, the weight of them pressing in on the gown at the circle of his arms. That's plenty though—even her pinky is enough. A tether he's immensely glad for when her next breath says that Jack being gone is awful too, the sound of which could nearly blow Kaisel out of the room like a deflating balloon.
Much as he wants to look anywhere but at the water rising in her eyes, tears welling up over Jack, he'd been the one to ask, so he won't shrink away from this, much as it digs an eager hand into all the wounds in his chest trying hard to heal. He's quiet for a moment, the slow winding of his copper gaze over her puffy features, ragged with the salt from various sources tonight, tracing each sun-spun corner of the grief and frustration she keeps.
She still loves him.
Part of him knew she would. She'd told him before her heart felt divided between the two of them, and maybe he'd just been foolish enough to think that when she chose him it meant she was giving him both halves. Now he's wondering if the other part didn't sail away on the Ark, and that's why its distance is hurting her so damn much. Comparison is the thief of joy, they say, and time and time again when Jack enters their conversation, Kaisel wonders how he measures up to the man, the legend of her heart. She'd said she wanted him to be him, that she loved him, but she loveds Jack too, and he wishes he understood why. Maybe then he could reclaim the rest of her heart, if he knew.
"He can make his own decisions," Kaisel says with a defeated edge, "doesn't mean you have to shoulder them." Much as Flora is trying to make this sound like it's not about Jack, that it's what she feels, that it's what she did, it sure sounds like she's crying over a burning building after tossing the match onto it.
He's been afraid that she'd second guess her choice, that their recent and bright love would falter under all the time and endurance of what she had with Jack. Even if that's all wreckage now, it still might bury the light of this after all. He doesn't doubt her feelings for him, and he can be patient, but gods, Kaisel can only hear the Jack's name so many times on her lips without it eroding more of him—he is not made of steel.
Even now, some of him is crumbling with the tide she brings bearing his name, and Kaisel sags further over his knees, her hand the only thing still keeping him in shape at all.
As he sinks, the fact that she's instantly with him nearly summons a wretched laugh. Not one with humor or mockery, but one that's just damn grateful—that even when they're both wearing the most absurd things, spinning around minefields of conversation all over the bedroom, they could find their way back to each other, here on the floor. Instead, it breaks out as a weak smile, and something tight in his shoulders relaxes a bit.
When her fingers reach out, he extends just a pinky to hook in with hers. He needs the rest to keep his knees up, the weight of them pressing in on the gown at the circle of his arms. That's plenty though—even her pinky is enough. A tether he's immensely glad for when her next breath says that Jack being gone is awful too, the sound of which could nearly blow Kaisel out of the room like a deflating balloon.
Much as he wants to look anywhere but at the water rising in her eyes, tears welling up over Jack, he'd been the one to ask, so he won't shrink away from this, much as it digs an eager hand into all the wounds in his chest trying hard to heal. He's quiet for a moment, the slow winding of his copper gaze over her puffy features, ragged with the salt from various sources tonight, tracing each sun-spun corner of the grief and frustration she keeps.
She still loves him.
Part of him knew she would. She'd told him before her heart felt divided between the two of them, and maybe he'd just been foolish enough to think that when she chose him it meant she was giving him both halves. Now he's wondering if the other part didn't sail away on the Ark, and that's why its distance is hurting her so damn much. Comparison is the thief of joy, they say, and time and time again when Jack enters their conversation, Kaisel wonders how he measures up to the man, the legend of her heart. She'd said she wanted him to be him, that she loved him, but she loveds Jack too, and he wishes he understood why. Maybe then he could reclaim the rest of her heart, if he knew.
"He can make his own decisions," Kaisel says with a defeated edge, "doesn't mean you have to shoulder them." Much as Flora is trying to make this sound like it's not about Jack, that it's what she feels, that it's what she did, it sure sounds like she's crying over a burning building after tossing the match onto it.
He's been afraid that she'd second guess her choice, that their recent and bright love would falter under all the time and endurance of what she had with Jack. Even if that's all wreckage now, it still might bury the light of this after all. He doesn't doubt her feelings for him, and he can be patient, but gods, Kaisel can only hear the Jack's name so many times on her lips without it eroding more of him—he is not made of steel.
Even now, some of him is crumbling with the tide she brings bearing his name, and Kaisel sags further over his knees, her hand the only thing still keeping him in shape at all.
Kaisel
// I'ma fucking blow all the ashes down //
Wearing a watery blue, faded and stretched-out sparkling hair tie on his left wrist
