with each love i cut loose i was never the same
Flora accepts the glass with a sigh that’s almost reverent, her fingers closing around it as if Soh has just handed her a small, chilled miracle instead of wine. "Yeah," she murmurs about Ronin, and for once there’s no sharp little joke waiting at the edge of her tongue, only a weary sort of understanding that settles into the space between them like folded linen. Ronin is helping, and Flora knows that, just as she knows two newborns have turned his life into something soft and sleepless and rearranged down to the studs, which means every time she thinks about asking for more from him, some part of her pictures his face shadowed by exhaustion and her own mouth snaps shut before the request can make it past her teeth.
She listens to the rest with her glass poised near her lips, aqua eyes flicking over Soh’s face rather than away, because for all her instinct to wriggle out from under concern with a hair toss and a joke about being stunningly overqualified for emotional avoidance, Soh has always had a way of making care feel less like a cage and more like a blanket she can choose to pull around her shoulders. When Soh reaches for her hand, Flora’s brows lift slightly, surprise and warmth moving together across her expression before her lips twist into a tentative little smile.
"Maybe liiiiiiiike you?" she says, tilting her head to the side, drawing out the word with just enough theatrical sweetness to make it sound playful instead of terrifyingly sincere. The laugh that follows is small and warm, not quite armour and not quite surrender, but something caught in the pearly seam between the two. "I mean, you are really good at this, and there’s no one else I work better with." She gives Soh’s hand a gentle squeeze in return, careful not to press the offer too hard into the afternoon when they’ve only just managed to get a door closed between themselves and the rest of the world, but the truth of it stays there anyway, bright as gold beneath clear water.
At the mention of the whole afternoon, Flora’s face transforms with immediate, indulgent delight, her shoulders dropping. "Oh my gods, you really are the best. I think I have a knot so deep in my back that having someone jump on my spine sounds like it would feel good."
She listens to the rest with her glass poised near her lips, aqua eyes flicking over Soh’s face rather than away, because for all her instinct to wriggle out from under concern with a hair toss and a joke about being stunningly overqualified for emotional avoidance, Soh has always had a way of making care feel less like a cage and more like a blanket she can choose to pull around her shoulders. When Soh reaches for her hand, Flora’s brows lift slightly, surprise and warmth moving together across her expression before her lips twist into a tentative little smile.
"Maybe liiiiiiiike you?" she says, tilting her head to the side, drawing out the word with just enough theatrical sweetness to make it sound playful instead of terrifyingly sincere. The laugh that follows is small and warm, not quite armour and not quite surrender, but something caught in the pearly seam between the two. "I mean, you are really good at this, and there’s no one else I work better with." She gives Soh’s hand a gentle squeeze in return, careful not to press the offer too hard into the afternoon when they’ve only just managed to get a door closed between themselves and the rest of the world, but the truth of it stays there anyway, bright as gold beneath clear water.
At the mention of the whole afternoon, Flora’s face transforms with immediate, indulgent delight, her shoulders dropping. "Oh my gods, you really are the best. I think I have a knot so deep in my back that having someone jump on my spine sounds like it would feel good."
