yeah I got heartbreak that I reminisce about
If he wanted.
The words circle and circle in her mind like a hel refusing to land, because that is the hinge of it, isn’t it, the single variable everything keeps turning on. If he wanted. If Jack wanted to do damage, he could. If he wanted to leave her alone, he did. If he wanted to stay away for a year, he managed it. And part of her—annoyingly, stubbornly—believes him when he says he’d been doing his best not to be dealt with, because he had vanished, because he had not appeared at her door with sharpened teeth and telepathic claws. But then why the drink at the rodeo, spilling across her like some petty territorial mark? Why the deliberate cruelty in the chartroom, the refusal of a drink like it cost him something to even pretend at civility? Why the clause designed not just as leverage but as something meant to sting? Was he simply an asshole, indiscriminate and salt-burned, treating her no differently than he would anyone else? Or was it worse than that? Did he still care in some warped and furious way, anger braided so tightly with love that he could not separate one from the other?
She exhales, the sound low and threaded with exhaustion, and lets herself sink fully into Kaisel’s side, pressing into the solidity of him as though testing whether it will give. It doesn’t; his arm is there, firm and unyielding in the best way, his warmth uncomplicated, his presence not a negotiation. The realization strikes her harder than she expects, that this is what it feels like to have someone be on her side even when they think her side is reckless, even when they’re frightened by her choices. To not be abandoned mid-fall. To not be made to prove her worth in the middle of a storm. The love that swells in her chest at that realization is so fierce it almost hurts, a tidal surge that makes her throat tighten and her fingers curl reflexively around his.
She squeezes his hand. "It’ll never happen," she says quietly, meaning him forgetting her, meaning that particular nightmare won’t come to pass. The urge to soften it with humour almost slips free, to murmur that if he did somehow forget she’s fairly certain she could make him fall in love with her all over again, but his fear is still too raw, too sharp-edged for a joke to land without cracking, so she swallows it down and lets the sincerity stand unadorned.
When he wishes she had told him before they called Safrin that he might have negotiated, she fixes him with a look that is both tender and entirely unconvinced, her head giving a small, stubborn shake. "There’s no way Jack would’ve bargained," she says, voice steady but certain in a way that comes from knowing a man’s pressure points too well. "Not with you, and not if the whole point of his caveat was to make us suffer equally, then giving us a loophole would’ve defeated it." She brings their joined hands up against her chest, pressing them over the steady thrum beneath her ribs, squeezing his fingers there as if to let him feel the proof of her reasoning. "It was either this deal or nothing at all."
When he says he could take a death or two, the absurd bravery of it, the ridiculous willingness, shakes something loose inside her and a laugh spills out despite everything, light and startled and threaded through with affection. She disentangles their hands only so she can slip beneath one of his arms, curling herself into him properly now, arms wrapping tight around his middle as she presses her cheek to his chest like she’s claiming territory that is already hers. The deck creaks softly beneath them, the Encantados’ distant clicks fading into the rhythm of open sea, and she sighs into him, the sound warmer this time. "Sooooo," she murmurs against him, tilting her face up just enough to see him from beneath her lashes, "do you want to go see Frey then…?"
The words circle and circle in her mind like a hel refusing to land, because that is the hinge of it, isn’t it, the single variable everything keeps turning on. If he wanted. If Jack wanted to do damage, he could. If he wanted to leave her alone, he did. If he wanted to stay away for a year, he managed it. And part of her—annoyingly, stubbornly—believes him when he says he’d been doing his best not to be dealt with, because he had vanished, because he had not appeared at her door with sharpened teeth and telepathic claws. But then why the drink at the rodeo, spilling across her like some petty territorial mark? Why the deliberate cruelty in the chartroom, the refusal of a drink like it cost him something to even pretend at civility? Why the clause designed not just as leverage but as something meant to sting? Was he simply an asshole, indiscriminate and salt-burned, treating her no differently than he would anyone else? Or was it worse than that? Did he still care in some warped and furious way, anger braided so tightly with love that he could not separate one from the other?
She exhales, the sound low and threaded with exhaustion, and lets herself sink fully into Kaisel’s side, pressing into the solidity of him as though testing whether it will give. It doesn’t; his arm is there, firm and unyielding in the best way, his warmth uncomplicated, his presence not a negotiation. The realization strikes her harder than she expects, that this is what it feels like to have someone be on her side even when they think her side is reckless, even when they’re frightened by her choices. To not be abandoned mid-fall. To not be made to prove her worth in the middle of a storm. The love that swells in her chest at that realization is so fierce it almost hurts, a tidal surge that makes her throat tighten and her fingers curl reflexively around his.
She squeezes his hand. "It’ll never happen," she says quietly, meaning him forgetting her, meaning that particular nightmare won’t come to pass. The urge to soften it with humour almost slips free, to murmur that if he did somehow forget she’s fairly certain she could make him fall in love with her all over again, but his fear is still too raw, too sharp-edged for a joke to land without cracking, so she swallows it down and lets the sincerity stand unadorned.
When he wishes she had told him before they called Safrin that he might have negotiated, she fixes him with a look that is both tender and entirely unconvinced, her head giving a small, stubborn shake. "There’s no way Jack would’ve bargained," she says, voice steady but certain in a way that comes from knowing a man’s pressure points too well. "Not with you, and not if the whole point of his caveat was to make us suffer equally, then giving us a loophole would’ve defeated it." She brings their joined hands up against her chest, pressing them over the steady thrum beneath her ribs, squeezing his fingers there as if to let him feel the proof of her reasoning. "It was either this deal or nothing at all."
When he says he could take a death or two, the absurd bravery of it, the ridiculous willingness, shakes something loose inside her and a laugh spills out despite everything, light and startled and threaded through with affection. She disentangles their hands only so she can slip beneath one of his arms, curling herself into him properly now, arms wrapping tight around his middle as she presses her cheek to his chest like she’s claiming territory that is already hers. The deck creaks softly beneath them, the Encantados’ distant clicks fading into the rhythm of open sea, and she sighs into him, the sound warmer this time. "Sooooo," she murmurs against him, tilting her face up just enough to see him from beneath her lashes, "do you want to go see Frey then…?"
real big things I still gotta figure out
