get my car door, isn't that sweet? then pull me to the backseat
As the memory plays out around them, Flora feels it all over again through the bond, not as something polished smooth by hindsight, but exactly as it had been: that golden spike of adrenaline, sharp as sunlight on glass, the certainty that kissing Kaisel was both the best and worst thing she could possibly do, and the helpless, breathless knowledge that she was going to do it anyway. There had been no clever little exit from the moment, no joke sharp enough to cut her free, no version of herself willing to pull back when he was there beneath the moonlight, almost asleep, asking forever from her in a voice that made her heart feel like it had been placed carefully in his hands without her permission.
When the echo of him rolls above her in the memory, his body fitting against hers with that aching familiarity, Flora’s breath catches softly in the present. The flush returns in a shimmer through the bond, warmth blooming low and bright alongside the memory of safety, of love, of something new that somehow had felt old already, like a piece of jewellery worn for years such that it had learned the shape of her skin. Want had been there, absolutely, impossible not to feel with him pressed close and sleep-warm and hers in every way that didn’t yet have a name, but beneath it had been something gentler and more dangerous, something like finding a door in a house she’d lived in all her life and realizing it had always opened toward him.
The illusion freezes when Flora glances at Kaisel, the moonlit figures on the bed held mid-breath, mid-touch, mid-becoming, while she laughs softly under her breath and shakes her head. "I think we both almost ruined it," she says, knowingly, because gods, hadn’t they? Him with Caly, she with Jack, the both of them trying to keep impossible feelings tidy enough to survive. Her smile softens as he buries his face in his hands, and she watches him with easy affection.
"I sort of thought that..." Flora’s voice quiets, her fingers finding his sleeve as if she needs some small piece of him beneath her hand while she says it. "I’d always just love you from a distance. Like a little piece of me would always be yours, and a bit of you would always be mine, and we'd smile at each other a little knowingly sometimes, but..." With a private smile, she shakes her head, her aqua eyes lifting to his with something quietly imploring and devastatingly fond. "I never could quite let you go after that night."
As he scoots closer and crushes her into the sideways hug, Flora leans into him immediately, letting herself be squished against his side while the frozen memory glows around them like moonlight caught in amber. At his question, she smiles and shakes her head, nose wrinkling a little with affectionate apology. "No," she says, her voice warm with amusement as she tucks herself more comfortably against him. "Telepathy isn’t a part of the magic." Yet. "Tell me?"
When the echo of him rolls above her in the memory, his body fitting against hers with that aching familiarity, Flora’s breath catches softly in the present. The flush returns in a shimmer through the bond, warmth blooming low and bright alongside the memory of safety, of love, of something new that somehow had felt old already, like a piece of jewellery worn for years such that it had learned the shape of her skin. Want had been there, absolutely, impossible not to feel with him pressed close and sleep-warm and hers in every way that didn’t yet have a name, but beneath it had been something gentler and more dangerous, something like finding a door in a house she’d lived in all her life and realizing it had always opened toward him.
The illusion freezes when Flora glances at Kaisel, the moonlit figures on the bed held mid-breath, mid-touch, mid-becoming, while she laughs softly under her breath and shakes her head. "I think we both almost ruined it," she says, knowingly, because gods, hadn’t they? Him with Caly, she with Jack, the both of them trying to keep impossible feelings tidy enough to survive. Her smile softens as he buries his face in his hands, and she watches him with easy affection.
"I sort of thought that..." Flora’s voice quiets, her fingers finding his sleeve as if she needs some small piece of him beneath her hand while she says it. "I’d always just love you from a distance. Like a little piece of me would always be yours, and a bit of you would always be mine, and we'd smile at each other a little knowingly sometimes, but..." With a private smile, she shakes her head, her aqua eyes lifting to his with something quietly imploring and devastatingly fond. "I never could quite let you go after that night."
As he scoots closer and crushes her into the sideways hug, Flora leans into him immediately, letting herself be squished against his side while the frozen memory glows around them like moonlight caught in amber. At his question, she smiles and shakes her head, nose wrinkling a little with affectionate apology. "No," she says, her voice warm with amusement as she tucks herself more comfortably against him. "Telepathy isn’t a part of the magic." Yet. "Tell me?"
no one's ever had me, not like you
