get my car door, isn't that sweet? then pull me to the backseat
Flora gives Kaisel a bouncy little shrug, the movement full of fizz and light, her smile still too bright to be contained by anything as sensible as moderation. "I dunno," she admits, though the thought of her dads immediately has her nodding emphatically, curls slipping over her shoulders as excitement catches all over again. "But yeah, they probably would know. I’ll have to ask them after I tell them about all this." Her eyes widen with glee, somewhere between anticipation and outright menace. "They’re gonna freak."
His question about celebrating has her nibbling at her lower lip, head tipping slightly as she shoots him a playfully thoughtful look, one brow lifting as if she’s taking the matter with the grave seriousness it obviously deserves. "Hmmmm, somewhere nice that I love?" she echoes, drawing the words out before her smile curves wider, sweeter, more obviously loaded by the second. "You meeeeeeeean, like a picnic in the cove in sweatpants, where we have food delivered?"
Then his explanation about leaving his mark in the rooms catches up with her properly, and Flora’s head tilts as she glances again at the paint in his hair, the dust on his shirt, the faint signs of handiwork all over him that no metaphor in the world could’ve accounted for. For a second she just stares, the thought clicking neatly into place, and then laughter bursts out of her, bright and delighted and helplessly adoring. "Well??" she asks, fingers still combing absentmindedly through his hair as she picks away another fleck of paint. "Are you going to show me, or am I supposed to find them all on my own?" The idea of a scavenger hunt of Kai sends a warm little ache through her chest, because he’d really heard her, had taken her worries about him feeling like a guest in Wildering House and answered them in his own sly, lovely way, and even through all the gold-bright shock of demigodhood, Flora can feel how much that matters.
Grinning, she shakes her head at the question of destruction. "No, it’s not going to destroy the house," she says, and then her expression turns mischievous as she reaches to tug at his mis-buttoned shirt, straightening the fabric with a faint frown of concentration before sinking down onto the stairs and patting the step beside her for him to do the same. "Okay," she says, lowering her voice. "Watch this."
She draws in a breath and reaches for the newness inside herself, for that bright, strange place she can feel now, and the magic comes far more easily than she expects, blooming outward with a smoothness that makes her stomach flip. All at once the stairs, the house, the sunlit afternoon around them are layered over by something else, and then overtaken entirely.
The bedroom aboard the Sugartide rises around them in perfect detail, moonlit and intimate and gently rocking with the steady lick of water against the hull. Starlight slips through sheer curtains and dusts midnight glitter across every edge of the room, catching on seashells, glinting on a feather boa, silvering everything it touches. The air turns rich with lilac and salt, warm skin and the familiar closeness of summer night, and in the middle of it all is the bed, tangled sheets, and two younger versions of themselves curled together in that hush that had felt too soft and too sacred to touch too quickly.
Flora’s breath catches, because even though she’s the one making it, the scene arrives with such startling completeness that it nearly steals the floor out from under her. There she is, shirt ridden up around her thigh, one leg stretched across Kai's hip, her body curved into him with a lazy, feline kind of pleasure that had not been about urgency at all, but about staying, about fitting herself against him as if nearness alone might be enough to keep the whole fragile, beautiful thing from changing. She can see her own hand moving over his chest, up along his collarbone and the curve of his neck, can see her fingers carding slowly through his hair, brushing it back from his eyes so the moon could find the copper threaded through his lashes.
The recreated quiet is so perfect it almost aches, though what Flora notices most isn’t the silvered room or the gentle sway of the boat, but Kaisel’s face as sleep slowly tries to steal him from her. His eyelids are already closed, his lashes lying dark and copper-touched against his cheeks, and every softened breath makes it seem as though the night is carrying him farther from her by inches while the Flora tangled against him only watches, caught in that thin, glowing space between wanting to let him rest and wanting, selfishly and terribly, to keep him with her just a little longer. There is no audience for the way she looks at him, no one to catch the tenderness spilling unguarded across her face, not even Kai himself, and maybe that’s why the memory preserves it so clearly now: the slow sweep of her eyes over him, the small, helpless curve of her smile, the way her fingers linger in his hair as if touch alone might keep him from drifting beyond reach. Then, before sleep can take him entirely, she shifts closer through the moonlit hush, her nose brushing his, her breath mingling with his for one suspended second before she leans forward and kisses him.
Flora, sitting on the stairs beside the man she’s recreating this for, can feel the shape of that moment as sharply as if she’s inside it again: not the joking brush of lipstick at her party, not some casual affectionate contact tossed out like confetti, but something gentler and deeper, a kiss that had not asked for anything even as it offered everything. In the illusion, her lips press to his with aching care, all affection and trust and gratitude and the terrible sweetness of discovering that safety can feel like wanting, that friendship can deepen into something warm and low-burning and entirely impossible to mistake. The magic holds every detail of it: the sway of the boat, the hush of breath, the softness of moonlight, the smell of salt and lilac, the exact shape of the quiet that had wrapped around them that night.
Flora glances almost shyly toward Kaisel then, her cheeks flushed in a way that has nothing to do with the warmth of the memory and everything to do with letting him see how carefully she’s kept it. "That is one of my absolute favourite memories," she says softly, the admission slipping out with a small, helpless smile.
His question about celebrating has her nibbling at her lower lip, head tipping slightly as she shoots him a playfully thoughtful look, one brow lifting as if she’s taking the matter with the grave seriousness it obviously deserves. "Hmmmm, somewhere nice that I love?" she echoes, drawing the words out before her smile curves wider, sweeter, more obviously loaded by the second. "You meeeeeeeean, like a picnic in the cove in sweatpants, where we have food delivered?"
Then his explanation about leaving his mark in the rooms catches up with her properly, and Flora’s head tilts as she glances again at the paint in his hair, the dust on his shirt, the faint signs of handiwork all over him that no metaphor in the world could’ve accounted for. For a second she just stares, the thought clicking neatly into place, and then laughter bursts out of her, bright and delighted and helplessly adoring. "Well??" she asks, fingers still combing absentmindedly through his hair as she picks away another fleck of paint. "Are you going to show me, or am I supposed to find them all on my own?" The idea of a scavenger hunt of Kai sends a warm little ache through her chest, because he’d really heard her, had taken her worries about him feeling like a guest in Wildering House and answered them in his own sly, lovely way, and even through all the gold-bright shock of demigodhood, Flora can feel how much that matters.
Grinning, she shakes her head at the question of destruction. "No, it’s not going to destroy the house," she says, and then her expression turns mischievous as she reaches to tug at his mis-buttoned shirt, straightening the fabric with a faint frown of concentration before sinking down onto the stairs and patting the step beside her for him to do the same. "Okay," she says, lowering her voice. "Watch this."
She draws in a breath and reaches for the newness inside herself, for that bright, strange place she can feel now, and the magic comes far more easily than she expects, blooming outward with a smoothness that makes her stomach flip. All at once the stairs, the house, the sunlit afternoon around them are layered over by something else, and then overtaken entirely.
The bedroom aboard the Sugartide rises around them in perfect detail, moonlit and intimate and gently rocking with the steady lick of water against the hull. Starlight slips through sheer curtains and dusts midnight glitter across every edge of the room, catching on seashells, glinting on a feather boa, silvering everything it touches. The air turns rich with lilac and salt, warm skin and the familiar closeness of summer night, and in the middle of it all is the bed, tangled sheets, and two younger versions of themselves curled together in that hush that had felt too soft and too sacred to touch too quickly.
Flora’s breath catches, because even though she’s the one making it, the scene arrives with such startling completeness that it nearly steals the floor out from under her. There she is, shirt ridden up around her thigh, one leg stretched across Kai's hip, her body curved into him with a lazy, feline kind of pleasure that had not been about urgency at all, but about staying, about fitting herself against him as if nearness alone might be enough to keep the whole fragile, beautiful thing from changing. She can see her own hand moving over his chest, up along his collarbone and the curve of his neck, can see her fingers carding slowly through his hair, brushing it back from his eyes so the moon could find the copper threaded through his lashes.
The recreated quiet is so perfect it almost aches, though what Flora notices most isn’t the silvered room or the gentle sway of the boat, but Kaisel’s face as sleep slowly tries to steal him from her. His eyelids are already closed, his lashes lying dark and copper-touched against his cheeks, and every softened breath makes it seem as though the night is carrying him farther from her by inches while the Flora tangled against him only watches, caught in that thin, glowing space between wanting to let him rest and wanting, selfishly and terribly, to keep him with her just a little longer. There is no audience for the way she looks at him, no one to catch the tenderness spilling unguarded across her face, not even Kai himself, and maybe that’s why the memory preserves it so clearly now: the slow sweep of her eyes over him, the small, helpless curve of her smile, the way her fingers linger in his hair as if touch alone might keep him from drifting beyond reach. Then, before sleep can take him entirely, she shifts closer through the moonlit hush, her nose brushing his, her breath mingling with his for one suspended second before she leans forward and kisses him.
Flora, sitting on the stairs beside the man she’s recreating this for, can feel the shape of that moment as sharply as if she’s inside it again: not the joking brush of lipstick at her party, not some casual affectionate contact tossed out like confetti, but something gentler and deeper, a kiss that had not asked for anything even as it offered everything. In the illusion, her lips press to his with aching care, all affection and trust and gratitude and the terrible sweetness of discovering that safety can feel like wanting, that friendship can deepen into something warm and low-burning and entirely impossible to mistake. The magic holds every detail of it: the sway of the boat, the hush of breath, the softness of moonlight, the smell of salt and lilac, the exact shape of the quiet that had wrapped around them that night.
Flora glances almost shyly toward Kaisel then, her cheeks flushed in a way that has nothing to do with the warmth of the memory and everything to do with letting him see how carefully she’s kept it. "That is one of my absolute favourite memories," she says softly, the admission slipping out with a small, helpless smile.
no one's ever had me, not like you
