When enemies are at your door, I'll carry you way from war
The wrongness that’s building between them settles with greater notice on every breath, as much from time as the motion of pulling in fresh air. The sensation trickles in with the same pins and needles of an appendage going numb, rising above the diluted relief at last. As one does, he pushes on the phantom feeling of something that ought to be there, but only prickles with a feigned distance. ”Flora?”
Instead of trembling with continued throes of bile or despair, she’s become quiet, smaller. That might be waved away as an ordinary response to the upheaval of all she’s feeling, literally and figuratively, but the distance she keeps between them as if she needs it isn’t. His concern deepens into trenches on his features, brows molding confusion in along the banks.
He shifts off the table, ignoring the questions that pop up like daisies as the roots of understanding what she’d said continue to thread into him. For now, he’s more interested in erasing this distance before it stretches any further, the kitchenette suddenly feeling like a field. He reaches back to grab the glass as he goes, offering the water out to her and the residual acid she’s carrying in her throat as he steps in beside her. ”Here,” he murmurs.
What she asks in return, so cleanly brushing aside the rest, tightens the edges of his mouth back into the risk of a frown. ”It’s stupid,” he tries to reassure, one shoulder limply rising as his head shakes in its own sense of self-disappointment. For all his usual confidence, it’s always been flimsy where the Captain’s concerned. A continual aftershock of being so well bested—nearly killed—before he even realized what’d been happening. A wariness of Jack’s foothold in her heart, knowing it’s impossible for her not to draw comparisons, and always wondering if the length of their history and the depth of her devotion aren’t proof she’ll realize she chose wrong. Afterall, the love she shares with him had bloomed out of salt and the corpse of what she left behind with Jack.
Every reassurance, every day they wake up together, it’s a balm that he thinks has healed him. It might, if given a chance to cure properly, but how easily the cracks reform at just the mention of Jack’s name, and how ridiculously often that finds its way into Kaisel’s conversations. Add to that her panic and salt spray, and it’s a wonder Remi didn’t cart splinters up here.
He’d prefer not to admit to all this. Figures with enough practice, he can fully pack Jack away and keep him from popping free however long the handle is wound against the box. Kaisel’s trying to just believe in what Flora and him have instead, the way she’s told him to, the way anything opposite of feels like failure. Especially now, when she needs him strong, which makes the cracks all the more obvious, he fears.
He sighs heavily, hand fluffing through his hair. He’d prefer not to, but the only time he’d ever held anything back from her, it’d been one of his worst choices. He’s not about to start adding more to that list now, least of all when she outright asks. ”Since you said you were unharmed, but were so upset, and you’d run into him after all this time, I thought…you were going back to him.” His gaze has ping ponged around the space, lovingly familiar now, preferring the glimmering reminders of forever over watching disappointment cloud the rest of her emotional storm. ”I thought this was goodbye.” Not that he would have said it, but hearing it from her would have done more than leave cracks.
Instead of trembling with continued throes of bile or despair, she’s become quiet, smaller. That might be waved away as an ordinary response to the upheaval of all she’s feeling, literally and figuratively, but the distance she keeps between them as if she needs it isn’t. His concern deepens into trenches on his features, brows molding confusion in along the banks.
He shifts off the table, ignoring the questions that pop up like daisies as the roots of understanding what she’d said continue to thread into him. For now, he’s more interested in erasing this distance before it stretches any further, the kitchenette suddenly feeling like a field. He reaches back to grab the glass as he goes, offering the water out to her and the residual acid she’s carrying in her throat as he steps in beside her. ”Here,” he murmurs.
What she asks in return, so cleanly brushing aside the rest, tightens the edges of his mouth back into the risk of a frown. ”It’s stupid,” he tries to reassure, one shoulder limply rising as his head shakes in its own sense of self-disappointment. For all his usual confidence, it’s always been flimsy where the Captain’s concerned. A continual aftershock of being so well bested—nearly killed—before he even realized what’d been happening. A wariness of Jack’s foothold in her heart, knowing it’s impossible for her not to draw comparisons, and always wondering if the length of their history and the depth of her devotion aren’t proof she’ll realize she chose wrong. Afterall, the love she shares with him had bloomed out of salt and the corpse of what she left behind with Jack.
Every reassurance, every day they wake up together, it’s a balm that he thinks has healed him. It might, if given a chance to cure properly, but how easily the cracks reform at just the mention of Jack’s name, and how ridiculously often that finds its way into Kaisel’s conversations. Add to that her panic and salt spray, and it’s a wonder Remi didn’t cart splinters up here.
He’d prefer not to admit to all this. Figures with enough practice, he can fully pack Jack away and keep him from popping free however long the handle is wound against the box. Kaisel’s trying to just believe in what Flora and him have instead, the way she’s told him to, the way anything opposite of feels like failure. Especially now, when she needs him strong, which makes the cracks all the more obvious, he fears.
He sighs heavily, hand fluffing through his hair. He’d prefer not to, but the only time he’d ever held anything back from her, it’d been one of his worst choices. He’s not about to start adding more to that list now, least of all when she outright asks. ”Since you said you were unharmed, but were so upset, and you’d run into him after all this time, I thought…you were going back to him.” His gaze has ping ponged around the space, lovingly familiar now, preferring the glimmering reminders of forever over watching disappointment cloud the rest of her emotional storm. ”I thought this was goodbye.” Not that he would have said it, but hearing it from her would have done more than leave cracks.
Kaisel
If you need help, I'll shut down the city lights
Wearing a watery blue, faded and stretched-out sparkling hair tie on his left wrist
