get my car door, isn't that sweet? then pull me to the backseat
Flora chuckles under her breath, the sound small and warm as a golden beam of sunlight sparkles through her thoughts, and she leans a little more heavily into him with a shrug that pretends to be casual despite the way his words have settled beneath her ribs. "Mmmm, grip strength is directly correlated to running, you know," she agrees, because it’s easier to polish the feeling into humour than admit how close she’d come to not holding on at all, how narrow the path had been between them then, how one wrong step or one badly timed wound might have sent them drifting back into the familiar shape of almost.
When he tells her what he’d thought, though, the teasing softens. The old flush of heat still lingering from the memory, from having watched the beginning of the night that had changed everything, lifts through her in a different way now, warming her from the inside out. Not with arousal but with a deep, boundless affection that somehow keeps finding new room to grow even when Flora would swear there’s no space left inside her for more. She feels almost girlish with it, flushed and stupidly bright and twitterpated in a way that makes her want to hide her face against his shoulder and stare at him forever at the same time, the sweetness of what he’s said striking somewhere tender enough that for a second all she can do is digest the force of it by leaning harder against him.
"Being with you that night felt..." Flora begins, then trails off with a small, helpless laugh, her brows lifting because every possible word seems either too small or too dramatic, and the problem is that both would be true. "I dunno. I thought maybe it would be awkward, or over too quick, or something that was satisfying but not.." She lets the sentence fade, her smile going soft and private, because what it had been was monumental, literally life-changing for both of them, and somehow she hadn’t expected it at all while also not being surprised by it when it happened, as if some secret part of her had simply nodded and said, yes, obviously, this was where the tide had been going all along.
Swallowing, Flora turns her head back toward the memory, and the scene moves with her, skipping forward past the hallway, past the shower, past the breathless, tangled heat of everything they’d finally stopped pretending not to want. The room settles around them again in the quiet after, Sugartide breathing gently against the harbour as moonlight spills silver over damp skin and rumpled sheets. The echo of Kaisel is already half-lost to sleep as he draws the echo of Flora back against his chest, their arms linked and folded across her front, his body fitting around hers with such instinctive ease that even watching it now makes Flora’s throat tighten.
There is no dramatic flourish to it, no grand confession meant to land like fireworks over the water. That is what makes it ache. Her memory-self moulds into him without resistance, boneless and drowsy and so visibly safe that Flora can feel the old softness of it in her present body, the quiet certainty of being held by someone who had become home before either of them had been brave enough to say it properly. In the illusion, Kaisel’s breathing slows against her hair, sleep taking him swiftly now that the world has gone gentle around them, and Flora watches her past self tilt her head just enough to press a barely-there kiss to the forearm banded across her ribs. Love you, Assborn, the echo murmurs into his skin, the words softened by exhaustion and salt-warm tenderness, the ridiculous nickname tacked on like a ribbon tied around something too vulnerable to leave bare.
Flora glances at Kaisel as the whisper slips through the recreated room, her cheeks flushed and her expression suddenly stripped of all the easy sparkle that had just been there. "I knew I loved you then too." Then she huffs out a sigh, the edge of it tinged with melancholy, and the warmth in her emotions tightens into something colder at the edges, like sunlight slipping behind a cloud over open water. "If there was one part of this I’d actually do over again, it would be telling you properly that I loved you sooner, not that day on the beach." Her nose wrinkles, but there’s nothing playful in it this time, only the faint recoil of remembering how hard that day had been to survive, how every word had felt like dragging glass through her chest while they'd both been trying not to bleed all over the sand.
When he tells her what he’d thought, though, the teasing softens. The old flush of heat still lingering from the memory, from having watched the beginning of the night that had changed everything, lifts through her in a different way now, warming her from the inside out. Not with arousal but with a deep, boundless affection that somehow keeps finding new room to grow even when Flora would swear there’s no space left inside her for more. She feels almost girlish with it, flushed and stupidly bright and twitterpated in a way that makes her want to hide her face against his shoulder and stare at him forever at the same time, the sweetness of what he’s said striking somewhere tender enough that for a second all she can do is digest the force of it by leaning harder against him.
"Being with you that night felt..." Flora begins, then trails off with a small, helpless laugh, her brows lifting because every possible word seems either too small or too dramatic, and the problem is that both would be true. "I dunno. I thought maybe it would be awkward, or over too quick, or something that was satisfying but not.." She lets the sentence fade, her smile going soft and private, because what it had been was monumental, literally life-changing for both of them, and somehow she hadn’t expected it at all while also not being surprised by it when it happened, as if some secret part of her had simply nodded and said, yes, obviously, this was where the tide had been going all along.
Swallowing, Flora turns her head back toward the memory, and the scene moves with her, skipping forward past the hallway, past the shower, past the breathless, tangled heat of everything they’d finally stopped pretending not to want. The room settles around them again in the quiet after, Sugartide breathing gently against the harbour as moonlight spills silver over damp skin and rumpled sheets. The echo of Kaisel is already half-lost to sleep as he draws the echo of Flora back against his chest, their arms linked and folded across her front, his body fitting around hers with such instinctive ease that even watching it now makes Flora’s throat tighten.
There is no dramatic flourish to it, no grand confession meant to land like fireworks over the water. That is what makes it ache. Her memory-self moulds into him without resistance, boneless and drowsy and so visibly safe that Flora can feel the old softness of it in her present body, the quiet certainty of being held by someone who had become home before either of them had been brave enough to say it properly. In the illusion, Kaisel’s breathing slows against her hair, sleep taking him swiftly now that the world has gone gentle around them, and Flora watches her past self tilt her head just enough to press a barely-there kiss to the forearm banded across her ribs. Love you, Assborn, the echo murmurs into his skin, the words softened by exhaustion and salt-warm tenderness, the ridiculous nickname tacked on like a ribbon tied around something too vulnerable to leave bare.
Flora glances at Kaisel as the whisper slips through the recreated room, her cheeks flushed and her expression suddenly stripped of all the easy sparkle that had just been there. "I knew I loved you then too." Then she huffs out a sigh, the edge of it tinged with melancholy, and the warmth in her emotions tightens into something colder at the edges, like sunlight slipping behind a cloud over open water. "If there was one part of this I’d actually do over again, it would be telling you properly that I loved you sooner, not that day on the beach." Her nose wrinkles, but there’s nothing playful in it this time, only the faint recoil of remembering how hard that day had been to survive, how every word had felt like dragging glass through her chest while they'd both been trying not to bleed all over the sand.
no one's ever had me, not like you
