don't wanna love me 'cause it feels too risky

flora

Flora props herself up slightly on one elbow as Kaisel leans against her doorframe, the soft golden light from within catching on the edges of his hair, on the gentle curve of his smile. She doesn’t know how many more firsts she'll get in a life that often feels like it’s been cut into pieces and stitched back together by other people’s wars, but no one’s ever stood in her bedroom doorway before, not on the Sugar Tide at least. And it makes something flutter low in her belly, featherlight and sun-warm, that this particular first has been claimed by Kai.

Her nose scrunches in an affectionate wince as she follows the point of his finger, imagining crude posters hung up beside her sea-glass wind chimes and framed wildflower pressed between waxy paper. "Mmmm yeah for sure...you can hang one for every arm wrestle you win," she decides loftily, chin tilting with queenly pride. "I’m stronger than I look, y’know. All this jewellery? Weight training." She flashes a few gold-laden fingers before casually flipping her hair off her shoulder like the finishing move in a shampoo commercial.

Her gaze flicks to his legs as he stands there, all resigned indignation and almost-tanned limbs. "You’ve only got yourself to blame for not keeping emergency shorts here," she tuts, mock-disapproving like the fact that he hasn't already thought to stash sleepover gear at her place was a monumental oversight on his part.

As Kai flings himself dramatically onto the mattress, Flora yelps and rolls aside, dodging like she expected water to splash. Her laughter spills out unfiltered, loose and delighted, as she catches the pillow and hugs it tight to her chest for a moment before launching it back with the kind of aim she’d usually reserve for her daggers. "Is this not the comfiest bed you've ever been in?" she wonders, sprawled and glowing and far too pleased with herself. One brow lifts slowly, warningly, and she holds up her hand with fingers curled into claws. "If you say no, I will tickle you." Her voice lowers conspiratorially as she crawls across the blankets just enough to loom over him, hair slipping over one shoulder like spun sunlight. "You’ve been warned."

My house of stone, your ivy grows
And now I'm covered in you

Code blatently stolen from queen of codes, Sky!

// Start a tiny riot //

He laughs loud at her display of gold fingers, holding up his hands in immediate surrender. "You don't have to remind me, I know it all too well." She's probably underestimated often, but that's one thing Kaisel is certain to avoid doing. Being held against his will in her grip has taught him that more than a time or two, but it's more than that. It’s the cunning, the relentlessness, the way she always plays to win. She's definitely someone he'd never want to willingly face off against, sometimes not even in jest.

He rolls onto his back, lifting his chin and a hand against the pillow she whips at him like a fastball. It thuds and settles on his chest with the faintest sting, and he claps a hand over it to keep it from being retrieved by her monstrous throwing arm again, as if she doesn't have three more within reach. It soon transitions into a shield that he carefully arranges between them, beginning to inch away with exaggerated caution. "Ay ay ay, no need to stoop to threats so early, the answer is clearly yes and you know it." He's grinning through it though, laughing prematurely, as if he can feel her phantom fingers as she sinks in closer. One leg lifts as he plants a bare foot against her thigh like it might hold her off.

She’s glowing in that way she always does when she’s full of mischief, mile cutting sharp and bright in the low light, her hair all tousled and bright like she’d wrestled the sun and won—and for a moment, he forgets how tired he is. She’s lovely. Everything about her is alive, even in the smallest movements, and he thinks maybe there’s no one else who’s ever made him feel happy quite like this.

"I'm going to ask Ludo to curse you with ticklishness if you keep exploiting this," he warns, eyes caught on the wicked gleam in her eye. His body tenses, ready to bolt—whether to shove her off the bed or sacrifice himself to the floor remains undecided.

Kaisel

// Stop being so goddamn quiet //

flora

Her brows rise, the arch of them all amused challenge. "Early?" she echoes, the word crisp with disbelief. "So later it’s open season on threats, then?" There's a glint in her eye like she’s already plotting them, but his quick agreement earns a pleased hum low in her throat, one that borders on a purr as she stretches slightly, back arching, spine rippling. Of course he agrees—it is the comfiest bed in Caido, second only to the one back in her actual house.

Even so, his foot planted against her thigh sparks mischief, and the twitch in her fingers betrays just how badly she wants to retaliate. But she doesn’t; instead, as she watches him laugh and squirm and shield himself like she’s some monster conjured by his own teasing, something softer settles in behind her grin. It always catches her off guard, how easily the two of them fall back into rhythm. It’s like whatever time passed, whatever damage other people caused or they caused themselves, it never manages to touch this. Them. There’s something unreal about the way their world folds in around itself when they’re like this. Quiet and chaotic, tangled and uncomplicated. And when things aren’t matching perfectly, they’re still aligned enough to feel like maybe they never needed to.

Well..but maybe that wasn't quite right. A memory ghosts its way across her mind—the words harmless, the heat in the ring on her finger from her truth-telling ring, the silence that followed. And while some moments do deserved to be turned over and over, some moments don’t . Some just are, and maybe this one, in the hush of lilac and jasmine and low starlight, is one of those.

So Flora doesn’t tickle him, attack, or even gloat. She just plucks the pillow from his side with a deft flick and tosses it to the top of the bed before collapsing in a slow, boneless sprawl against him. Her arm drapes across his chest without hesitation as her leg hooks over his thigh like parts of her were just magnetically drawn to parts of him. Flora fits herself to Kaisel like she’s done it a hundred times in a hundred lifetimes, without fuss or fanfare or a pause to ask for permission.

"Ask Ludo all you want," she murmurs, her words warm against his collarbone, "but I’ve got a whole shelf of bottled curses from this underground market stall in The Fingers." She stretches just enough to press her cheek against his chest, a grin pulling sleepily at her lips. "Two of them are definitely legit, so.." Her lashes lower as she looks up at him, smirking.

Her voice melts slightly with the weight of the day, but it doesn’t hide the fondness that lingers in the space between her words. She noses gently toward a cabinet half-tucked into the wall, and murmurs, "There’s water in there if you get thirsty." Another yawn pushes into her throat and she smothers it against his shoulder, breathing in the salt and heat from his skin, and the faintest trace of whatever soap he'd used that morning, before the entire day went to hell.

My house of stone, your ivy grows
And now I'm covered in you

Code blatently stolen from queen of codes, Sky!

// Start a tiny riot //

She zeroes in on a word like a shark scenting blood, and he's left a bit slack-jawed, wondering if there's any hope he can walk it back or if all he's done is stave off the inevitable a bit longer. Even as she shifts—descending into soft contentment and lean curves he does his best not to let his eyes trace in the moonlight—he’s still suspicious. It’d be just like her to change tactics mid-battle, lull him into dropping his guard so she can land the perfect strike, merciless as ever in her pursuit of victory.

She disarms him too quickly for it to matter, and he doesn't even twist or shove or enact any of his defense strategies. Maybe he wouldn't have, even if she had gone for the kill. Whether it's submitting to his fate or just to the one orchestrating it, he’s not sure, and it doesn’t matter now. Because instead of tickling claws, she gives him gravity. It's not the weight of her nestling against him that presses down—she’s a favorite comforter pulled close against the dark and the day, warm and familiar and is everything that makes sleep good. No, the heaviness comes from everything else about her.

He isn't sure when casual hugs and shoulder bumps turned into careless slouching and kisses passed like notes to everything except their lips (and even then, at her party). Isn't sure when holding her became more normal than not, or when having her tucked in tight, like this, doesn't feel intimate but expected, though no less valued.

She makes things too easy, makes the edges blur—like watercolor on wet paper. He doesn’t look too hard at the shape of it, just adds a little more water, a little more paint, and lets it spread into an image of twilight.

One arm slips overtop of her, fingers skating lightly along the back of her shirt while the other hand curls around her calf. "Mmm... might be worth the risk if only two are real. Curse roulette sounds fun." He glances down, chin tilting to try and catch her face before giving up and letting his head turn into her hair with a soft exhale. His hand rises to brush strands back behind her ear, coaxing strays away so they stop tickling his skin. He hums something soft—some vague noise of acknowledgment about the water—but he's caught her yawn.

She steals every ounce of tension from his bones with each breath, and though he’d wanted nothing more than for this hellish day to end...now, he's fighting the way his eyelids feel heavy. He wants it to last a little longer, so he can hold onto this.

Kaisel

// Stop being so goddamn quiet //

flora

She smiles against him, her breath catching slightly as his exhale threads through her curls, warm and steady, yet still causes a shiver to race up her spine. "Alright," she murmurs, voice drowsy but amused, "next time one of us has a truly abysmal day, we’ll crack a bottle and play curse roulette." Her grin curves slowly as her lips graze skin—not a kiss, not exactly, but it's all seeming to matter less and less. "One of the bottles is good, too," she adds, a secretive little whisper, like that might even the odds. "We'll split it, so that it's only half a curse for each of us if we get it wrong."

Her hand drifts across his chest, fingers light and absentminded, but there’s a weight to each stroke, as if her touch is drawn to something deep down instead of merely painting over the surface. The shapes she draws aren’t flowers or stars or anything so girlish as hearts. They’re soft loops and tidal curls, the kind of marks that don’t need names. Her fingers map the rise and fall of his chest like she already knows it, like her body remembers something her mind is only now catching up to; and that’s the strange thing, isn’t it? None of this feels new.

Not the closeness. Not the way she fits along the lines of him, like her bones were made to rest in the hollow of his side. Not even the way he touches her, clearing her face of stray curls like she belongs in the pages of a softer story than the ones they’ve lived, and yet here they are upon a broken spine, finding slices of time in the margins all the same. It should feel strange, crossing lines that were never officially drawn, but it doesn’t. It just feels...inevitable, maybe. Or maybe it’s just late, and she’s tired, and there’s comfort in the lie that proximity isn’t dangerous. That this is just, all, y'know, harmless.

Her leg shifts slightly over his hip, her body easing further into him as if the more surface they share, the more she’ll remember how to be at peace. And perhaps she would’ve overheated by now, if not for the faint breath of Spice’s coolness drifting through the room, keeping the air bearable, their limbs entangled and unbothered by the heaviness of LongHeat.

Tilting her head just enough to try and see him, Flora catches only the blurred outlines of his face—the slope of his nose, the fall of his lips, the arc of his jaw. But it’s enough to trace with her eyes even if she can't fully see. "One day," she breathes, voice soft and full of some impossible hope, "when we finally go on vacation, we're gonna take a long lunchtime nap. The kind where you wake up and it’s golden out, and it feels like you're the last person alive." She smiles, the shape of it pressing faintly against Kai's skin. "And then we’ll fly," she murmurs, fingers curling slightly on his chest, "way up high, so we can watch the starwhales all night long."

There’s a pause. Just long enough for her smile to spread in the silence. And then, lower, quieter, "Maybe then we can have that dance you still owe me."

My house of stone, your ivy grows
And now I'm covered in you

Code blatently stolen from queen of codes, Sky!

// Start a tiny riot //

She seems to draw runes of slumber into his skin—archaic symbols lost to time that require him to rest, prompt him to relax, bewitch him into the false notion that holding her like this is harmless,as promised. He mistakes the heat settling against him as hers, as the season’s, as anything other than his own affection deepening into something too risky to name, too dangerous to focus on in case it fully takes shape.

Through the haze of increasing sleep, he feels her stir closer to him. He pulls her tighter too without thinking—automatic and instinctive, like adjusting a blanket in his sleep, chasing comfort without ever waking. His hand sweeps from her calf to hold her thigh snug, his other arm dropping to brace along the dip of her back, fingers resting along the edge of her hip, where his reach runs out. His mind is foggy with the weight of her and the glue-thick drag of exhaustion, drifting deeper with every second, but some part of him becomes more awake. Little Kaisel starts to make a subtle, unintentional appearance beneath the crook of her leg pressing into him.

Like a story before bed, her words illustrate a lovely scene that he dreams up behind low-lidded eyes. He can see her, radiant in the afternoon light, both of them blobs in some hammock that sways above the sky, their slow-breathing parting the clouds as they laze away a day without monsters. "Mmm—jusss like...thissss," he slurs, starting to drift mid-sentence, mid-thought. There’s a brief twitch of wakefulness. He rouses for a second, his hand flexing faintly along her thigh. "Dance in the stars," he agrees dreamily. "Wit'...walesss... an' a snack cart. Like… hot dogs in space. An’ you gotta wear... floaty pants. That levitate."

A deep inhale. His head tilts, his cheek pressing into her hair. "They smell like... mm. Like pancakes. You do. You smell like pancakes." Sleep starts to fully drag him under, arms still wrapped around her like they were always meant to be there, but the strength in them, that pressure of need, eases with every breath.

Kaisel

// Stop being so goddamn quiet //

flora

Flora's fingers keep wandering, even as Kai's breathing starts to slow. They dance lazy circles along the slope of his collarbone, meander down to trace the notch at his sternum, skim over the faint ridges of the muscles he's been building since having signed up to be a dragoon. She isn’t thinking about what she’s doing, not really. Just following the impulse to map out every inch of him her fingertips can claim, coaxing up goosebumps like wishes from dandelion fluff.

She shifts when something beneath her stirs, more out of instinct than intent—her thigh sliding across him for smoother purchase before curling tighter like it’s the most natural thing in the world. The kind of closeness you only get when you stop thinking about whether you’re allowed to have it, or when you're just too tired to care. "Mmhmm," she hums softly in response, as if they’ve made a plan—like this nap had been scheduled on some future agenda and she’s simply confirming attendance. Her voice has that syrupy drawl that sleep brings, slow and warm and full of sugar. "Exactly what I had in mind."

But then his hand twitches, and it startles something inside her, and her heart hiccups like she’s missed a step on invisible stairs. Her whole body jolts, just a breath, before she settles again, adjusting into the spaces his sleep-slack arms can no longer hold. There’s nothing dramatic about it, but there’s a faint sharpness in the way she exhales as her heart continues hammering on against his chest.

Flora laughs quietly at the mention of floaty pants; the kind of laugh that puffs more air than sound. "You handle snacks," she whispers, "I’ll do outfits." Her forehead nudges a little higher until the bridge of her nose is tucked beneath his jaw. "And I do not smell like pancakes," she mumbles into his skin, indignant but only half-awake. "I smell like..."

She could slip under with him now. Let herself get pulled into that safe dark quiet where nothing matters. "..right now I smell like you."

As Kai's arms soften, hers anchor. The Sugar Tide creaks softly with the water, and she moves with it only enough to let herself press in closer. Her leg tightens around him as her arm winds across his chest, causing her entire body to curve over half of him like a shield or a blanket: half-draped, half-wrapped, as if sleep might try to steal him away and she’s not having it. Not now; not when everything else is falling apart. Because with the fall of Stormbreak and Koa's note about sending the Dragoons east, Flora has every reason to think that these moments with Kai might become a thing of the past as distance and responsibility eat up the afternoons they'd thoughtlessly spent with one another like there were a hundred more to come.

So when sleep calls for her, she doesn’t answer, not right away. Not while the future looks like sea foam and smoke, and while Kai feels warm and real beneath her fingertips in a way that nothing else has felt like lately.

My house of stone, your ivy grows
And now I'm covered in you

Code blatently stolen from queen of codes, Sky!

// Start a tiny riot //

Her voice and laughter is like a shimmering tether that keeps him from fully sliding into the darkness of the other side. She tugs it with each whispered fantasy, portions of clarity racing back like a sand timer being flicked onto its side, each moment just a bit of borrowed time. "S'rong wif p-akes?" he mumbles with rising offense that dissipates as quick as it comes as he sighs and shifts.

He turns beneath her, slow and loose with sleep, rolling onto his side until they’re chest to chest. His arm slips from her back, curling instead beneath both their heads like a makeshift pillow, and in the same breath he pulls her in tighter. One leg is threaded between hers, his free hand sliding across her back and firmly tugging every inch of her into him, their hips aligning in a way that makes something spark under his skin. He wants her to feel all of him, to know she’s not the only one trying to hold on so hard. It’s not about want, though the flush of it is there without his intention. It’s about giving every part of himself he can, needing her like he’s never needed anyone before, and knowing—with something aching and grateful in his chest—that she needs him too. Like maybe if they both just hold on tight enough, if every surface can connect, this moment might stay.

The steady lick of water against hull is a lullaby of promise, the only noise that stirs amid the careful, tangled stillness they've erected around shallow breaths and skipping hearts. Starlight pierces through the sheer curtain and dusts midnight glitter across the multitudes of edges in her room—glinting on seashells, catching on a feather boa, coating her golden outline until she becomes sterling. It softens her in a way he hasn't really seen before, and silently he treasures it, like this is just for him.

The subtle sway of the boat in the harbor, the rhythm of her breaths and the quiet sounds that slip free when they adjust—it's all new for him, but it feels like a memory worth making, one that he'll think about when his bed is too still on the ground, when there's not lilac and salt wafting off sun-brushed skin lingering in his arms like catchable light.

All her fears are echoed within him. He blinks blearily against the dinge of the night, voice raw with the touch of something new sparking deep in him, something he normally doesn't let rise to the surface, but Flora and sleep alike have stripped him to just the vulnerable bit of his core. "Ro?" he tests the air. "You think we can keep this... forever?" It's barely a whisper, like anything louder might invite the wrong answer.

Kaisel

// Stop being so goddamn quiet //

flora

As Kaisel shifts, she moves with him as though gravity itself has rearranged to draw her closer. Her shirt rides up around her thigh, a ribbon of skin catching the moonlight as she stretches one leg long and lazy across the rise of his hip. There’s no pretending she doesn’t feel him—half-hard and pressing insistently into her—but there’s no rush to meet that momentum either. The arch of her spine into his hand is languid, almost feline in its pleasure, a silent affirmation that she feels it, that she wants to keep feeling it—but tonight isn’t about what they can make each other feel. It’s about what they can be. What they'll always be.

Her hand moves from where it rests on his chest, fingers skating across the shape of his collarbone and up the curve of his neck, until she finds the wild dark tumble of his hair. She cards through it slowly, reverently, brushing it back from his eyes so the moon can find the copper glint threaded through his lashes. The moment stretches between them, a silver-lit thread pulled taut but not tense, and her gaze lingers there—not at his lips, but at his eyes—searching for the boy she’s known most of her life and the man she’s only just beginning to understand.

His question drifts into the quiet like a paper lantern set upon dark water, fragile and glowing, and Flora, tangled in the arms of someone who's never been known to ask for much of anything, doesn’t answer right away. When she speaks, it’s not with words at first. She shifts slightly, resting her cheek more fully against the cradle of his arm, turning her face until their noses brush and her breath dances lightly against his. Her smile rises slowly, impossibly soft, and her lashes lower just slightly as she finally whispers, "Yeah."

Then she kisses him.

Not like she has in the past—not in the joking, lip-stick transferring way she'd done at her party, nor with the casual brush of contact against his temple or the back of his shoulder. No, this is something different. A kiss not necessarily meant to ignite, but to sustain. To keep warm what’s already burning low and steady inside her chest, and if anything else heats lower in her belly, it's entirely secondary. Her lips press to his with aching gentleness, a brush of affection so careful it might have been conjured by memory or moonlight alone, yet no part of the way they're tangled together suggests it's entirely friendly either. Still, her kiss doesn’t ask for anything from him, even as it offers everything: trust, affection, friendship and gratitude for being the kind of safe place that no one else in the world has ever managed to make her feel.

My house of stone, your ivy grows
And now I'm covered in you

Code blatently stolen from queen of codes, Sky!

// Start a tiny riot //

The hush of the late hour and the careful stillness they maintain only seems to heighten every sound, every motion that slips free. The glide of her leg against his hip. The supple roll of her spine along his hand. The drift of her fingers from chest to hair. Each one is a ripple disturbing the pond where he's kept her sequestered as a friend—deliberately, willfully, and maybe foolishly.

He doesn’t think, not yet. He just tries to keep his breath steady and his heart from knocking too embarrassingly loud. He lets every detail soak in. The moonlight filtering her lashes, the curve of her lip just before it moves, the way she looks at him like nothing else could ever matter. He holds her seaglass gaze, lets himself get lost in it as her face drifts close enough that their breath mingles. The entire time he's waiting for an answer—from her, from the world. He thinks maybe he has it then, when it's just the shape of her in his arms amid the dark, drawing closer still when it seems there's no more distance to erase.

So her words surprise a small smile to his features. The wash of relief is so instant and monumental that he feels like he must have been empty before it. Yeah. They can escape here, together, whenever they need to shut out the world for a bit and just be with each other, because that always seems to make everything feel better, somehow. They can—

Her lips are on his.

For a second, he doesn’t breathe, doesn’t blink, doesn’t move—afraid that if he does, the kiss, the warmth, the yeah will all vanish like a dream pressed too hard between waking fingers. Then, his fingers twitch against her back—curl tight. He presses back into her, a breath deeper, a shade firmer, ruining some of the delicacy she maintained because he wants to make sure it's real, wants her to feel everything he can't say yet.

Gods, he doesn’t know what this kiss means, what comes next, what happens when duty and distance and exes and cousins and dates come back to remind them that this moment isn't built to last—but all he can think, over and over, is please, let me keep her. He wants the mornings where her hair’s a mess and she steals his socks. Wants the half-laughed arguments and her curled beside him on the couch while the world falls apart outside. He wants the kind of life where she’s there. Where they make the hard days softer, just by being in them together.

If this is the only moment he ever gets—it still might be the one he loves most.

Kaisel

// Stop being so goddamn quiet //

flora

He doesn’t kiss her back at first, and for the smallest, quietest fraction of a moment, Flora thinks she’s finally found the line. The one they’ve tiptoed across a hundred times in a thousand tiny ways—through innuendo, through bad jokes, through the subtle slant of her eyes when she looked at him too long. She hadn’t meant to cross it like this, not really. She’d meant the kiss to be soft. Gentle. A hush between the louder parts of life. But maybe that’s all it ever was—a pause in the story, not a rewrite of it. Not a new chapter of anything, maybe even just a bookmark.

It doesn’t shatter her; doesn’t make her pull back or apologize or rearrange herself into something safer. It just...settles, like all the other things that live unspoken between them. Except then he’s moving. His fingers curl against her spine, and the warmth of it sinks so fast and so deep that her breath hitches against his lips. A rush of something flares inside her like sunlight caught in a glass bottle, sharp and sweet and far too much to hold. It blooms down her ribs and along her hips, and she’s suddenly aware of every inch of herself pressed to him, of how their friendship has always grounded her, but this—this untethers her—but rather than flailing in a freefall, it makes her float.

Flora doesn’t think about the thousand reasons why, from the outside, this might be inadvisable. She doesn’t think of Koa, or the limbo he’s left Sohalia in. She doesn’t think of Caly, or the advice she’d so recently given Kai about what kind of date to take her on. All Flora knows is this: that she has him now and he has her; his body wrapped against hers, his heartbeat a steady rhythm beside her own, his hand at her back like the only harbour in a storm.

Whatever comes next—who he kisses after this, where the world chooses to fling them—none of it will undo what she feels for him now. If this ends in silence or in fire or in golden bands and aged laugh lines, she’ll still be the one who knows how he laughs when he chokes on pineapple, the face he makes right before he gets a brain freeze, or what the weight of him feels like when he hugs her because the day has just been too much. She'll always be the one who fills the spaces beside him with lavender and laughter, no matter how narrow those spaces become. She’ll still be his in the way she is now, and if moments like this ever become forbidden, then every embrace will carry the memory of what they were—what they are—in this breathless, suspended now.

Flora’s fingers trail upward, slow and sure, sliding along the nape of his neck until they bury deeper into the thick, unruly mess of his hair. She kisses him again—deeper this time, slower—her lips parting with languid intention, her tongue brushing against his with a softness that speaks not of hunger, but of utter affection and love. Her body melts into his, every inch aligning like waves folding into one another, chasing not just heat but the quiet, golden thread that binds them in this breathless closeness. The one that has kept them tethered together across all these years, no matter how far from one another they might have drifted.

Beneath her touch, he is warm and solid, all anchored strength and boyish wildness, and the feel of him under her hands—under her heart—sends a flush rolling through her chest like dawnlight blooming behind her ribs. Her thigh curls more tightly over his, and where his hand rests, she tenses deliberately, offering a wordless invitation that there is yet more of her he can hold.

My house of stone, your ivy grows
And now I'm covered in you

Code blatently stolen from queen of codes, Sky!

// Start a tiny riot //

There are a million shoulds that exist between them. One of which, being how he should think of them. He's rooting for her and Koa to work out—it's him she should be with. This can be nothing other than a betrayal to his cousin's heart, the one he adores and never wants to wound—intentionally or carelessly. Flora isn't over Jack, and Caly is someone he wants to pursue.

He should've never let himself get so tangled up with her tonight, as if body heat erases trouble instead of writing it. This might ruin their friendship, or shift it into something more, but either way it won't come out unchanged. Harmless seems primed to become harmful.

He might have thought about all this, normally. He has, even. Every time he's caught himself watching for her laugh like it's air he needs. Or when he traces the curves she wears so well, too long to count it as a passing glance. Yet... he's never been so uncertain about tomorrow as he is tonight (and in the famous words of Pitbull, Mr. Worldwide himself, give me everything tonight, for all we know we might not get tomorrow). With everything that's happened with the Family lately, death seems like a very possible reality. So all of the shoulds melt into could, into would, beneath the heat of her breath. The world is full of tomorrows waiting to unmake them, but tonight? Tonight, forever is the shape of her lips.

The amount of times he's felt her touch against him may as well be none for the way this feels. Each point of contact is a spark, nearly visible in the dark as her affection collides with his, coalescing into a heat that rises to consume him—slow, complete, and inevitable. She weaves against him, as if she isn't already a thread that has stitched all his tattered corners back into something whole already. Her hands in his hair, her tongue brushing against his, the tug of her thigh—it’s not just the way they feel, damn good, it's everything wrapped inside. He presses her name between their lips with a groan, "Flora," like she's the solution to every question he's ever had.

He presses his forehead to hers, noses fitting alongside each other, his gaze searching amid her aqua with a lightness he's never felt before. She's always someone who has filled him, not someone that has ever left him feeling empty, but this is something new, heavy and light all at once. He shifts, rolling her onto her back, his body moving with a kind of grace that speaks not of dominance, but of trust—of familiarity grown electric. He braces above her, one arm planted to keep his weight off her, the other maintaining a curve around her leg as their hips slot closer together. He traces one slow pass down her hip, palm dragging appreciatively along her bare skin. "You don't know how I've dreamed of you like this..." he says low, smiling faintly before leaning in to kiss her again, something he can't quite get enough of now that he's had it.

His kiss deepens, not with urgency but with intensity, with the quiet insistence of someone trying to commit this to memory—the taste of her, the weight of her beneath him, the way her body welcomes him without a single word. The heat between them builds slow and sure, like a fire banked low to last the night, and he pours into her every unspoken thing: gratitude, comfort, devotion, love.

If this is the only forever they get—here, tonight, with the sea sighing beneath them and the stars scattered careless above—then he’ll make it enough. He’ll make it everything.

Kaisel

// Stop being so goddamn quiet //

flora

He says her name like a promise and a prayer, like it means something more in the dark, and gods it feels like it does. Flora smiles, soft and sure, her voice all breath and golden heat as she murmurs, "Yeah," in that same warm tone she’d used before, when he'd asked if they could keep this.

Her breath catches as he rolls her gently, the shift of weight more intimate than any press of skin. There’s no demand in the way he moves, no conquest in the way he fits their bodies together—just reverence, like she’s something sacred he intends to learn slowly. Flora, who has always been touched like a wildfire—controlled only by hands that meant to tame or consume—finds herself stunned by the way Kai leaves her free even as he holds her. Even Koa, with all his sweetness, had never quite managed slow; their heat had always been urgent, a rhythm too fast to think through. But here, now, Kai moves like time doesn’t matter, like this night could stretch into eternity if only they breathe carefully enough. And gods, she melts for it—melts for the chance to be desired like this, to be unrushed and adored and coaxed open as if every moment is worth savouring.

And gods, how her body answers. The heat that pools low in her belly unfurls like spilled sunlight through her limbs, winding into every curve, every nerve, until she feels incandescent from the inside out. It’s not the kind of fire that threatens to burn her up, but something steadier—an ember glow that promises warmth and ache and the kind of desire that lingers long after touch has ended. She draws in a breath, eyes half-lidded, lashes catching the low light, and wonders how something that feels like this—like stars winking alive beneath her skin—could ever be harmful. Flora would never let this become something that hurt Kaisel. Would never let it slip into shadow when every part of her wants only to hold him here, safe, and golden, and his.

Their noses brush, and Flora finds his smile in the dark. "You deserve to have more of your dreams become memories," she whispers against him, each word soft as a kiss itself. He deserved more than that of course—to have his dreams become forevers if that's what he wanted—but neither of them could control the future. There was every reason to think this won’t survive the weight of what-comes-after, of tangled loyalties and complicated hearts and lives that were never supposed to touch quite like this. But if it ends, at least they’ll have this. Not a fantasy held just out of reach, but something real they can both carry like treasure—tonight made memory instead of dream.

Her lips find his again with a sweetness that aches, a depth that quiets every thought not wrapped around him. The kiss lingers, deepens, until breath becomes a thing she can’t ignore. Flora pulls back only when she must, her cheeks flushed and eyes shining as her fingers slip beneath the hem of her shirt. It’s more motion than theatre—there’s no artifice in the way she peels it off and drops it carelessly to the side. He’s seen nearly everything already, but this isn’t about sight. She wants skin against skin. She wants to feel him, not in pieces, but all at once.

"Closer," she breathes, barely more than a word, more wish than command. Not harder, not faster, but closer. More. Her hand trails down the line of his torso, featherlight and coaxing, while her other sweeps along the curve of his arm where he holds himself steady above her. She presses lightly—not demanding, but encouraging. He doesn't have to hold back. She won’t shatter, certainly not tonight with him wrapped around her holding everything together in a way no one ever has before.

My house of stone, your ivy grows
And now I'm covered in you

Code blatently stolen from queen of codes, Sky!

// Start a tiny riot //

He’s lucky, he knows that. There are many people in his life who care for him, who love him. It feels like their love comes with boundaries though, with a sense of responsibility that applies pressure more than comfort. It’s a love that tries to shape him into something safer, something better. Hers has never felt like that.

With her, it’s always been more unconditional. She sees all the parts of him—the bright ones, the easy ones, the stupid ones, the broken ones—and doesn’t flinch. Maybe even loves the wrong ones best. So her words, tender and very her, wrap around something fragile in his chest and make it feel steadier, stronger. He doesn’t know how to say thank you for that, only how to pour it back into her. Into this moment. Into the way he touches her like a dream made real. Into the way he plans to love her not just tonight, but in all the quiet ways that last.

“I can live with just this one,” he murmurs, nose brushing hers, his lips hovering at the corner of her mouth. "There's still one wish I'm waiting on," he adds with a soft grin. He thinks of the night sky, of a falling star and the hope he tucked into it. He can’t tell her, it would break the magic, but gods, if one more dream could come true, it’d be that one. "It's just waiting on you," he says slyly, pulling back to meet her gaze. He smiles like it’s nothing, just a tease—but his voice catches at the edge of it, like the words know what they’re holding. It’s not just a moment. It’s a promise he wishes he could make real.

Her motion stills him. All he can do is watch as her shirt lifts, revealing skin he’s never let himself take in like this—not with hunger, though it simmers low and steady, but with reverence. Like witnessing the first starlight break into the night, something quiet and luminous that doesn’t belong to him, but is offered all the same. His palm drags across her ribs, then upward to cup her breast. He doesn’t grope, but rather he holds, he worships. His thumb brushes softly over her nipple, and his breath catches at the way her body responds beneath the touch.

Closer. He feels it like a commandment, not rushed or frenzied—just true. He shifts, careful and sure, pressing their bodies together until the full length of her warmth curls beneath him. She’ll feel the hard line of him nudging against her, so ready it hurts, but he doesn’t move to take more. He just lets her feel what she does to him, how badly he wants her, how much deeper than want it goes.

His lips brush hers again, laden with something thick and full. A feeling that’s been growing for years and is finally, impossibly, real in his arms. His mouth drifts down to her chest, finding one perfect breast while his other hand slides low, fingers ghosting the hem of her underwear. He doesn’t press forward—yet. “Tell me what you want.” His voice is hushed, reverent. Tell me how to love you right, while we still have time.

Kaisel

// Stop being so goddamn quiet //