bottom line, we made it out the first time still in love and half alive
She blinks at him, and for a moment the uncertainty shows plainly on her face. Should she have known? He speaks as though this is something obvious, something most people carry without instruction. She has never needed to be taught how to float, never needed guidance for her sails to fill with air; those things had been built into her. So had this been left out? Had something been missed when Rae parted her from hull and mast and made her flesh instead of timber?
As Jack leans back against her rail she feels it in a way that has nothing to do with wood anymore, a faint warmth along her ribs where his weight rests against her. She listens as he explains, as he names the heat for what it was and links it plainly to sex. That part she understands in structure if not in detail. Sex is commotion in cabins, laughter and thumping against walls, and usually a certain looseness in Jack’s posture afterward. It is something she associates with him in good moods, with release, with satisfaction. So she nods, absorbing that much easily enough.
When he winces at her use of the word wrong, she steps forward until she is directly in front of him, close enough that she must tilt her chin up to keep his gaze. She gives a small shake of her head, as if wanting to erase her use of the word wrong. "It did feel like fire," she begins carefully, "but...not like the kind that burned my sails." That fire had been external, destructive, devouring in a way that left only damage. This had been different. She glances upward toward her mast as though searching for comparison and frowns slightly, struggling for language. "But..in a way, it also did feel like that other fire, because of how big it was, how greedy it was, how it wanted more and more all at once."
What startled her was not simply the heat, but the speed and scale of it. She is unused to something blooming inside her without warning, unused to warmth that does not come from sun or friction or friction’s aftermath. It had risen before she understood it, and that lack of control had unsettled her. Her cheeks flush again as the memory surfaces, fresh warmth curling low in her belly just from thinking about it, and she swallows before continuing. "I don't think that could come from anyone but you." At least, it was laughable to place the feeling over the tailor's fumbling, and even when she thinks of Jack's crew, specifically those who have sailed her well in the past, there is nothing she thinks that could ignite her the way Jack had.
"I don't ever want to jeopardize what I am to you," she says, because despite how it had felt, fire had only ever damaged her and she couldn't imagine putting Jack at risk in that way. "But I also haven't been able to stop thinking about it," she admits, cheeks flushing anew.
As Jack leans back against her rail she feels it in a way that has nothing to do with wood anymore, a faint warmth along her ribs where his weight rests against her. She listens as he explains, as he names the heat for what it was and links it plainly to sex. That part she understands in structure if not in detail. Sex is commotion in cabins, laughter and thumping against walls, and usually a certain looseness in Jack’s posture afterward. It is something she associates with him in good moods, with release, with satisfaction. So she nods, absorbing that much easily enough.
When he winces at her use of the word wrong, she steps forward until she is directly in front of him, close enough that she must tilt her chin up to keep his gaze. She gives a small shake of her head, as if wanting to erase her use of the word wrong. "It did feel like fire," she begins carefully, "but...not like the kind that burned my sails." That fire had been external, destructive, devouring in a way that left only damage. This had been different. She glances upward toward her mast as though searching for comparison and frowns slightly, struggling for language. "But..in a way, it also did feel like that other fire, because of how big it was, how greedy it was, how it wanted more and more all at once."
What startled her was not simply the heat, but the speed and scale of it. She is unused to something blooming inside her without warning, unused to warmth that does not come from sun or friction or friction’s aftermath. It had risen before she understood it, and that lack of control had unsettled her. Her cheeks flush again as the memory surfaces, fresh warmth curling low in her belly just from thinking about it, and she swallows before continuing. "I don't think that could come from anyone but you." At least, it was laughable to place the feeling over the tailor's fumbling, and even when she thinks of Jack's crew, specifically those who have sailed her well in the past, there is nothing she thinks that could ignite her the way Jack had.
"I don't ever want to jeopardize what I am to you," she says, because despite how it had felt, fire had only ever damaged her and she couldn't imagine putting Jack at risk in that way. "But I also haven't been able to stop thinking about it," she admits, cheeks flushing anew.
we didn't die, but no guarantees this time, but fuck it lets do it again
Siren's Wake | After she leaves a space, traces of her presence linger briefly: a faint scent of salt, the sound of distant water, a restless feeling in the chest. People rarely notice it consciously.
