flora
At his teasing reminder, her mouth parts in a smile, but something raw and glittering slips underneath it, something older than the joke and deeper than the laugh that threatens to bubble up. "Yeah, well," she murmurs, her voice unsteady not with fear but with the weight of what she means to say, "given my dads can literally yank people out of death like a magician with a scarf, I’m not really planning to let something like death end our story for a long time." Her lashes dip low, but her tone is calm, matter-of-fact, a little crooked with hope, but it’s obvious she means it, as if somewhere inside her is a tiny, determined flame that will not go out again, not even if death finds her first. Then, nudging him gently with her knee, affection blooming like a tide over stone, teasing and warm and watercoloured with ache, she says, "same goes for you, by the way. If anything so much as thinks about dragging you away from me, you’d better play the get-out-of-death-free son-in-law card without hesitation." Her grin flashes brighter as she says it, but her voice wobbles faintly at the edges, betraying how much it costs her to joke about it, how deep the fear swims beneath the surface; not of dying, but of not having this. Of losing him, of waking up one day without the shape of his laugh tangled up in her ribs, without his hands folded into hers like they were made to fit.
Then his lips brush her neck and something new bursts inside her; laughter first, the delighted kind that hiccups out too suddenly, too brightly, because god, he’s always known how to unravel her like ribbon. Her hand flies to his hair like it belongs there, fingers twining instinctively in the mess of it, tipping her head back to give him better access even as she flushes with giddy, glowing warmth. "You are such a menace," she breathes through the grin that’s already cracking wide across her face, but her whole body arches into his like a blossom reaching for the sun, helpless and golden and so happy she might just dissolve. As he lifts slightly above her, the shift of his weight drawing her back into the memory of that first night when just for a little while the world had bent around them like a secret finally spoken aloud, and she lets herself drown in it. It hits her all over again, the dizzying impossibility of having this, of still being here, of waking in that same bed now with his heart pressed to her cheek like it’s the most natural thing in the world.
He gazes down and she meets him without hesitation, breath caught between the press of their noses, lips parted in anticipation, and then she tips up, slow and featherlight, and lets her mouth brush against his like a sigh, like starlight, like for forever and then some.
When he mentions a secret honeymoon, her lips twitch with delight even as she bites down on the edge of her grin, eyes sparkling with mischief and wonder. "OOooh, yes," she says, voice hushed like they’re already conspiring. "We could go to the House of Midnight. Every day we could make ourselves a new room. Like, wake up in a tropical jungle one day, a snow-covered mountain lodge the next, a glass palace with floating furniture, I don’t know, whatever we come up with." Her laughter curls like smoke between them, breathless and full of delight. "And we could get room service for every single meal and just lay around staring at one another and being disgustingly in love."
She snorts softly against his cheek before adding, with a conspiratorial shrug, "Or we could just go a little ways down the mountain range, to that spot with the upside-down waterfall. No one will come to bother us, and we’ll pack snacks. Filly the Sugartide with stupidly fancy food and enough pastries to last a week."
Then his lips brush her neck and something new bursts inside her; laughter first, the delighted kind that hiccups out too suddenly, too brightly, because god, he’s always known how to unravel her like ribbon. Her hand flies to his hair like it belongs there, fingers twining instinctively in the mess of it, tipping her head back to give him better access even as she flushes with giddy, glowing warmth. "You are such a menace," she breathes through the grin that’s already cracking wide across her face, but her whole body arches into his like a blossom reaching for the sun, helpless and golden and so happy she might just dissolve. As he lifts slightly above her, the shift of his weight drawing her back into the memory of that first night when just for a little while the world had bent around them like a secret finally spoken aloud, and she lets herself drown in it. It hits her all over again, the dizzying impossibility of having this, of still being here, of waking in that same bed now with his heart pressed to her cheek like it’s the most natural thing in the world.
He gazes down and she meets him without hesitation, breath caught between the press of their noses, lips parted in anticipation, and then she tips up, slow and featherlight, and lets her mouth brush against his like a sigh, like starlight, like for forever and then some.
When he mentions a secret honeymoon, her lips twitch with delight even as she bites down on the edge of her grin, eyes sparkling with mischief and wonder. "OOooh, yes," she says, voice hushed like they’re already conspiring. "We could go to the House of Midnight. Every day we could make ourselves a new room. Like, wake up in a tropical jungle one day, a snow-covered mountain lodge the next, a glass palace with floating furniture, I don’t know, whatever we come up with." Her laughter curls like smoke between them, breathless and full of delight. "And we could get room service for every single meal and just lay around staring at one another and being disgustingly in love."
She snorts softly against his cheek before adding, with a conspiratorial shrug, "Or we could just go a little ways down the mountain range, to that spot with the upside-down waterfall. No one will come to bother us, and we’ll pack snacks. Filly the Sugartide with stupidly fancy food and enough pastries to last a week."
Every single thing I touch becomes sick with sadness
'Cause it's all over now, all out to sea
'Cause it's all over now, all out to sea
