here's the countdown

JACK

Scoffing at that, Jack can't help but nod his defeat. "Yes, ma'am," he rumbles, and though she's absolutely right in that he can feel how pleased she is to have her hands on him, it doesn't stop his wince as the tight muscles are coaxed and pressed beneath her fingers. Still, it's a sensation he tries to sink into, right up until her thoughts go completely slack, the captain glancing over his shoulder in his surprise. "Mm?"

The shape of the tattoo on his skin slowly fills his mind as the Doubletake properly comprehends it, and Jack even has the audacity to let a smile kick up one side of his mouth. "You can scratch it if you want to - it's yours. Won't make it come off, though," he says; courtesy of the fountain, too, while fresh, it's already completely healed.

"Knee me in the back and I'll fall out your window," he warns, glancing back towards the view out of said window. As for fucking anyone else? "I've no plans, but even if I did, I can barely turn around these days without findin' your hands in my pants." So, you know, win-win.

when I look at something, I see it for what it could be
when I look at something, I see how it ends

Code stolen from Queen Sky

never be so kind you forget to be clever

Glancing up from Jack's skin to his profile illuminated by the lights outside her window, the urge to kiss the smile off of his lips was nearly as strong as the urge to mercilessly flick it off. "Mine?" Flora repeats, feeling entirely fluttery and unsteady all of a sudden as if a flock of birds were all trying to take off at once, their wings brushing against the inside of her stomach and her mind. "So I've got...what's that? Six inches of you?" Having to fight back a laugh at that, there's a part of Flora's mind unwilling to let her simply see and hear what she wants to, to believe that it means he's hers and that maybe this might be more than just dating.

Allowing herself to laugh at that, Flora leans forward again, her lips brushing passed Jack's ear if only so that he might feel the swell of her breasts against his back. "Can you blame me?" It was the only time the queen had ever noticed the difference in their ages, because yeah, she did want him basically all of the time, not that he hadn't managed to keep up.

Straightening, Flora reaches for another of the bottles—this one smelling like a mixture of peppermint and wintergreen. She didn't bother to warm it in her hands first, not with the way it was going to instantly feel cool against his skin anyhow, before spreading it across his shoulders and down the muscles of his back.

JACK

"Yours," he repeats with a nod. If he's going to live forever, at least a little piece of Flora can tag along, right? Her second comment does manage to surprise a laugh out of him, and Jack has to resist the urge to grab at her hands to drag her closer, however playfully. "Give me credit. It's at least seven inches," he hisses, which is about the time she's pressing against his back and all those inches threaten to come and say hello regardless.

Flora is gone before he can comment (or act) on it further, though, and even though he knows what she's tinkering with this time and what sensation to expect, the captain still inhales sharply at the cold, forcing his body to relax under her touch. "See that inlet out there?" he mutters, his voice a little tight as he fights against the cool press of her fingers. Motioning to a smaller flicker of lights along Kaiholo, Jack nods towards it. "That's where I was born. Close enough to see the boats 'fore I ever learned how to swim."

when I look at something, I see it for what it could be
when I look at something, I see how it ends

Code stolen from Queen Sky

never be so kind you forget to be clever

The word fills Flora in a way it has absolutely no right to. Lines of fire trace the pathways of her veins, though it doesn't make her feel hot; instead, she feels light, as if she might float off of the carpet should she loosen her hold on the captain's body. Hiccuping in a breath that might have sounded like a moan if there'd been more air in her lungs, much as Flora tried to be cool about it, the rush of love that emanated from her mind would be as strong as Jack had ever felt it from her, if not a good deal brighter for his gesture. I love you, she thinks helplessly, exactly the way you are.

"Whatever you say." Flora manages despite the way her tongue suddenly feels like it's in knots. Rolling her eyes affectionately as Jack flinches beneath her ministrations, Flora continues to massage the oil against his muscles where they might seep down and do their work to release the knots that felt as though they hadn't properly relaxed in years. Glancing over his shoulder, her blue eyes narrowing against the growing darkness, the Doubletake nods. Letting her palms move across Jack's skin in waves, Flora takes the offering of information as permission, though her voice is a touch hesitant just the same. "What was your mother like?" All Jack had ever said of her was that she died giving birth to him, but she doubted if that was all the captain knew of her.

JACK

Pointedly saying nothing, despite both of them being well aware of Flora's feelings in the silence that stretches between them, it isn't so much that Jack disbelieves it (it's impossible given the nature of his magic) so much that he doesn't understand it enough to be able to appreciate it at more than face value right now. Still, the thoughts wrap around him like a thick blanket on a Deepfrost morning, and despite the comparative chill from the peppermint and wintergreen, he starts to feel a little warmer.

What was his mother like, though? Tensing, because no one has ever asked him that, the captain has to give it some actual thought before he responds. "All I know about her is what I read from my old man's mind," he says slowly. "I was about thirteen by then, an' she was more like an idol to him than anythin' else at that point. She fixed fishin' nets to get by, and I think she liked to sing. I found out her name was Lucy. Everythin' else is just..." Gross and garbled and warped by grief that had been nurtured for far too long, and so Jack shrugs.

"Shame our clever little fountain didn't exist back then, huh." He scoffs, taking a long drink of rum.

when I look at something, I see it for what it could be
when I look at something, I see how it ends

Code stolen from Queen Sky

never be so kind you forget to be clever

Intentionally not allowing her hands to slow in their ministrations across Jack's skin as he pauses to think, Flora does her best to withhold the tide of her thoughts from interrupting him. It felt a bit like trying to create a dam in a world where the water could simply flow up and over it, but she found that by focusing on the feeling of his muscles beneath her palms, she could just about manage to silence the over-curious lilt of her mind.

Lucy. Smiling to herself, Flora reaches for the small bottle containing cinnamon essence, warming it in her hands before applying it to Jack's back. Humming quietly in agreement—it was more than just a shame, and the queen had to wonder if it wasn't something about Jack's father's reputation that kept a healer from getting to his mother in time—Flora continues to work the oils onto his skin as they grew warm beneath her palms. "Did your dad love her, do you think?" Imagining a woman with long dark hair the same colour as Jack's sitting by the docks, Flora can almost hear her singing as she wove away the holes in the thick nets that so many of the fishermen would have relied on for their livelihood.

JACK

Cool peppermint melts into warm cinnamon, Flora's hands all but forcing Jack's muscles into submission beneath her fingertips, and the captain words die on his tongue at the sharp pop! of a particularly hard knot releasing in his back. "Fuck." It's not a complaint, though it doesn't stop him from raising an eyebrow over his shoulder at her reproachfully. "His reputation didn't mean shit," he continues after rolling the same shoulder a few times. "He was just some dock worker. They were just dirt poor in a slum with nowhere to turn. Torchline wasn't like how it is now."

Back when healers had been for the privileged and where poverty had been as much the norm as anything else. "Oh, I don't think - I know." He scoffs out a laugh, though the sound doesn't hold much mirth. "Loved her more'n he loved anythin' else." More than himself and certainly more than Jack. "Loved her when she was alive and after she was gone, 'til it turned to fuckin' poison in him. Didn't need my my magic to know it either - he'd tell me all the time how he wished it had been me instead." To say his father had never gotten over his mother's death is the understatement of the century, Jack pausing to straighten up and stretch out his back and shoulders.

"Gods, I hated her growin' up, for not bein' there."

when I look at something, I see it for what it could be
when I look at something, I see how it ends

Code stolen from Queen Sky

never be so kind you forget to be clever

Now it's Flora's turn to softly curse under her breath. "I didn't know." She whispers, horrified. Torchline had always been pretty good since she'd arrived, and despite the fact that their little island would always boast some seedier coves, certainly no one would ever be denied healing if they needed it, regardless of who they were or what they'd done. Under her and Hadama's rule, Torchline was now a veritable paradise, Flora couldn't imagine having to lose someone to something so preventable.

As Jack continues, in the back of Flora's mind, it occurs to her that perhaps whatever it was that had the captain always holding her at arm's length, that had him tattooing forevers on his skin instead of just saying I love you, likely had more to do with his father than it did her. Much as no one wants to grow up to be like their parents for the most part, if Flora was killed—even accidentally—the chances of Jack holding a lifelong grudge were fairly high in her estimation. And, knowing that immortality would inevitably pull them apart if something else didn't, maybe the captain's reluctance to fully let her in was simply because he didn't want to be poisoned by his love for someone else the way his father had been. "You deserve to be loved, Jack." The Doubletake whispers softly, though it's possible that the way her throat suddenly felt tight meant the words were no more than an exhalation across her lips. "Don't let him make you think that you don't."

Having to stop herself from tangling her arms around him and holding him tightly against her if only because she was sure the naivety of the gesture would only make things worse, instead Flora let her fingertips comb gently through the back of the captain's hair before descending down his spine in haphazard little waves. It was precisely the way Hotaru played with her hair when she was little, and as she repeated the gesture again and again, she found the ache in her chest loosening somewhat. "If you ever wanted her to see the man you've become...we could do that, you know."

JACK

"Not many people do," Jack says with an easy shrug, his gaze back on the ocean as the light starts to turn from rich amber to the moody blue of night. Torchline has been the paradise that Hadama and Flora created for so long now that any hardship that existed in the decades before healing fountains and monsoon shields have started fade to little more than memory; only those who still carry losses from across those years are likely to remember it.

Wanting to bristle at her train of thought for how close it cuts to the bone, Jack has no idea where Flora gets the audacity to so easily create meaning behind his decisions, but if he thinks about it too much, he'll realise it's because it's already too late. She already knows him better than anyone else on the islands, already loves him despite every new and ugly truth that keeps crawling out from beneath rock and seaweed, and the pull of it is becoming inexorable with every day that passes.

"Don't you dare pity me," he mutters nonetheless, lifting his glass to shoot back the rest of the rum in it. "I'm not tellin' you any of this for pity."

And that might have been it - the end to his little history lesson tied up in the trickle of her fingers down his back - only Flora has to go and mention raising the dead. Barking out a humourless laugh, Jack shoots her an incredulous look over his shoulder. "You reckon some gentle woman who used to sing on the docks would want to know that this is what I became?" he asks with a disbelieving shake of his head. "Or that even if I wanted to, I'm gonna go grovel to Remi about it?"

You know, Remi? The guy who caused this little emotional throwback in the first place?

when I look at something, I see it for what it could be
when I look at something, I see how it ends

Code stolen from Queen Sky

never be so kind you forget to be clever

"Hey," Despite the way part of Flora's mind wanted to bristle defensively, the queen merely moved to sit at Jack's side at the window, her hands sliding slowly across his oil-soft skin so she could reach for his hand and tug it into her lap. "Look at me, Jack." Peering up at him, for all of the Doubletake's youthful vibrance, there was something that bordered on knowing in her blue-green gaze. Something that, while having never experienced the same hardships as Jack, understood what it was for your birth to herald an era of darkness, for your presence alone to be a reminder of a time when things had gone wrong. To be a stain on something that otherwise would have been perfect. "I would never."

Twisting to reach for the rum she'd brought up for herself, Flora takes a large sip before offering it to Jack. "Yeah, I do, actually." Raising her eyebrows despite his incredulity, the Doubletake merely meets the challenge of his gaze. "To know that her son has become one of the most powerful men in Torchline? If things were as bad as you said they were, it isn't like she's going to be surprised by the things you've had to do to earn your place here." She points out. "To know that you've made Torchline an infinitely better place for people like her? Of course she'd want to know that." As far as Flora could tell, her only complaint might likely be that she wished she'd been able to teach him to sing.

Biting at the inside of her cheek, Flora slides her fingers across Jack's palm. The captain had muscles in his hands she'd never felt with anyone else before, owing to the line of work he was in, but her fingers lovingly massage away the tension there just the same. "I'd go to Mort for you." The queen says quietly with a shake of her head, her eyes peering up at him through her bangs before dropping her gaze back to his hand. While going to Remi would be infinitely easier, Flora hadn't yet come across something she wouldn't do for Jack, and if going to the God of Death himself to ask for a favour would ease the captain's heart even a little, nothing would stand in her way.

JACK

There are very, very few people who can hey at Jack and get his attention; fewer still who can grab at his hand and expect to keep their fingers, but Flora manages both with little more than a grumble from the captain. Glancing up at her with blue eyes made darker by the world outside, what might just be words to anyone without his particular skillset are instead cemented by something shared and dark and unpleasant, yes, but also quite unique. Trust Flora to find the diamond in that particular rough.

"No, I don't s'pose you would," he agrees softly, accepting the offer of her glass with his free hand, the other captured and turning to allow her fingers to press against the muscles beneath.

Really, he ought to have been expecting her to challenge him at every point - it's practically her trademark by now - but it's with quiet surprise that he regards her over the lip of the glass. All the unnecessary blood on my hands, too? he almost says. Or, even if all the help I give is accidental? An occasional byproduct of his business dealings, Jack can hardly be called a humanitarian even in very loose terms.

He stays quiet, though, as if perhaps some part of him wants to believe her. On all but one thing, anyway. "I can sing," he objects haughtily, passing the rum back. They're sea shanties and accompanied by the crew on long voyages rather than the soft acoustic sets he bets Flora has in mind, but it's nonetheless true.

And gods, he knows what she's going to say about Mort before it ever leaves her lips, and he doesn't need to be a mindreader for it. Shaking his head softly, Jack almost want to shrug her off, to tell her that this is the problem with love. That she'd do these things without question, that he could use her and take and do and be all the things that Remi says he is, and that she'd give it all just the same. Instead, with shoulders - fine, yes, they do feel much less tense - slumping, he gives her hand the faintest squeeze.

"When it comes to my family, it's best the dead stay dead. I appreciate it, though."

when I look at something, I see it for what it could be
when I look at something, I see how it ends

Code stolen from Queen Sky

never be so kind you forget to be clever

Though Jack doesn't comment, Flora can read at least part of his expression well enough to assume where he's currently doubting her. "You've done things the Torchline way." She says with a shrug, and while that might not be good enough for most people (Remi), for someone brought up on her shores the way Jack's mother was, no doubt she'd expect little else from her son.

Pressing her lips together, Flora tilts her head back to appraise the ceiling. The smile that overtakes her begins in the back of her throat, and as it peels her lips apart the queen can barely help the laughter that slips passed. No, she isn't quite thinking of soft acoustic sets, but simple refrains sung under Jack's breath when there was no one around to hear them. It has goosebumps trickling up her arms, and though she assumes it'll be a snowy day in Torchline before she hears him sing just for her, her mind has latched onto the notion just the same. "Of course you do." She says once the strength of her smile fades enough to allow the use of her mouth again. Regarding him with a look of unfettered affection, the Doubletake raises the glass to her lips, still softly chuckling to herself as she takes a sip.

If Flora's disappointed in Jack's answer, it's only because there's a largely unsatisfied part of her that yearns to do more for him. To be more for him. Humming her understanding, Flora shifts her gaze back to his hand, setting down the glass between them on the windowsill. "The offer is there if you ever want it." She says with a small shrug as she gestures for his other hand. There was nothing worse than having one hand covered in oil and massaged and the other hand not, as Jack would quickly learn if he refused her. "I'd do anything for you," Flora adds in a low voice, her aqua gaze flicking up to meet his in the growing darkness. "Maybe I'm too young to know what murder or worse is supposed to entail, but I can do a lot more than just that." I can do more than most people, if only you'd let me.

JACK

Alright, Jack can't deny that much - if there ever was a Torchline way of doing things, he's practically patented it - and the realisation does have a soft laugh slipping from his lips. "Who knows - maybe she was even like me. I've got my doubts, though." He'd not lifted anything of that calibre from his father's mind during his formative years, which either meant his mother was no telepath, or she'd gone as far as to start a family with a man who had no idea about it.

Which, you know, kudos to her for keeping things that locked down if so.

Drawn out of thoughts of the past by the sparkle of amusement in Flora's mind, Jack glances across at her in time to see the smile part her lips, and as the falling night catches the shadows on her face and the glitter of her eyes, he can appreciate the way the world sees her all the more fully. "And what's that supposed to mean?" he drawls. Although, if anyone could manage snow in Torchline it's a man with ice magic at his fingertips, but Jack decides not to mention that. The tattoo is enough, at least for tonight.

Turning towards her and surrendering his other hand - his dominant hand this time - she'll be able to feel the old scars on his knuckles, the callouses that seem harder here. And Jack is content to sit in silence until Flora continues, the captain hissing in a breath that almost sounds playful. "You say the most dangerous shit to a man like me," he tells her, his tone one of helpless acceptance. Words like I'd do anything for you are ones the captain has used to ruin people in the past, and there's something about hearing them from Flora that makes him want her to take them back.

"I believe it," he says quietly. That she really would do anything, that she can do more than murder and mayhem. "For now, how about we just stick to leavin' me out of future family dinners, mm?"

when I look at something, I see it for what it could be
when I look at something, I see how it ends

Code stolen from Queen Sky

never be so kind you forget to be clever

Flora's eyebrows raise in a gesture of I'M QUIETLY CONFIDENT, ACSHULLY quiet confidence about Jack's mother, though in addition to the way her mind places the dark-haired weaver on a pedestal, the queen says nothing more about Lucy for the time being. "Was your Dad like you? Could he...?" Even in the sanctity of her bedroom where she was sure that no one was listening, there were some things that simply felt better left unsaid.

Shooting the captain a helplessly adoring look, Flora pulls in a slow breath through her nose as her lips continue to quiver with the ripples of her laughter. "It means that you're constantly full of surprises." And, before his mind can twist around her words she's quick to add: "Good ones." Cradling his hand in her lap, it doesn't escape the queen's notice that it has likely brought more pain into the world than pleasure, but she finds she absolutely doesn't care. Smoothing her thumb over his knuckles, Flora only pays attention to the strength in it, to the scars, to the way it felt between her fingers and the memories of it pressed against her cheek or between her thighs.

"Is it?" Interlacing her fingers through his in order to better stretch out the muscles of his hand, Flora lets her head fall slightly to the side as she peers up at him. "Dangerous, I mean?" No doubt there was a world where Jack asked Flora to prove herself by telling her to kill someone in her family, and, with a revivify feather in hand, she'd be able to do just that. There were likely worlds too where the captain exerted the hold he had over her to his benefit alone, but Flora had her doubts about whether or not in this world any of those things would ever come to pass.

"I don't think you'd ever ask anything that big of me." She says softly as deep crimson paints her cheeks and her lips hesitate toward a smile that doesn't reach her eyes. "Because either you'd want to be indebted to me so that we'd end up even or you'd have to accept that I'm not keeping a tally between us because I love you."

Glancing up at him, the Doubletake swallows, before huffing quietly and nodding. "Yeah, even I'm not keen to go to any more family dinners if I can help it."