the corner I haunt

flora

"You're telling me." Rolling her eyes, the queen can only mentally shrug at the way her evening had previously threatened to drag itself out until dawn began to illuminate her room, heralding the end of another sleepless night.

"Oh am I ever." The queen agrees, her smile wicked as she leans down—making absolutely no attempt to keep her dress from riding up—to snatch her underwear off the floor and cram them behind the bar. It was one thing not to wear them, it was another to leave them lying around, especially in her guild.

Straightening and returning to his side, Flora's thoughts flare with the thrill of Jack's arm around her as a laugh slips past her lips. "Mmm, maybe I'll even let you have a sip or two." Grinning, she slides her arm around his waist in return, slipping out the door and pausing only long enough for Jack to tug it closed behind them. She'd deal with whatever they'd broken in the morning.

You'll have to tell me what they all are thinking, she thinks, glancing up at him with a knowing smile before parting from him as they reach the bar. The type of rum she's after might be top shelf, but it's actually kept in a cupboard beneath the bar where few would otherwise think to look for something of that quality. Whispering to her servers that they'd be on their own and not to let things get too rowdy—an order that's met with a snort of laughter—if Flora's hips roll a little more than they normally would as she sashays back to Jack's side, it's only to fill the captain's mind with the consequences of his decision not to give her her underwear back before sending her off into such a public space.

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

Code blatently stolen from queen of codes, Sky!

JACK

Jack could get used to this, he decides, watching shamelessly as Flora's dress threatens to show the world everything as she leans down, his mind dancing with the silvery thrill of her confidence, the heat still fading low in her belly, the ease of an open mind. It reminds him of how she'd been before he'd let her in on his secret, honestly, and though guilt isn't a frequent emotion for the captain, it stings enough for him to cram it down low. Which is good, because soon enough Flora is returning to his side and they are heading out into The Hanged Man.

"They're wonderin' if I'll fuck you with the door open again before the evenin' is through," he whispers against the shell of her ear before letting her go, the captain returning to the tables filled with the members of his crew, bracing a hand against one of them so he can give his orders for the following morning and take his leave.

Flora won't have to ask if they're disappointed not to get to hear her moaning her way to orgasm a second time - it's obvious that they are - and Jack clinks a glass of something with one of his men and shoots it back before he's on his way, the Doubletake's sashaying hips and all. "Ready when you are," he murmurs, his arm relaxing around her shoulders, and he gestures for the door to lead them out.

romancing yourself is possible, narcissistic
and recommended

Code blatently stolen from queen of codes, Sky!

flora

It was almost a shame not to give the people what they wanted, though perhaps in the future Flora might try and marry business with pleasure and see if announcing that Jack was going to be at the Hanged Man on a given night wouldn't stir up a bit more business. If her bar was full of the types who just wanted to hear the queen get fucked by the captain, she absolutely would and could jack up (lol, get it) the price of alcohol and charge them a premium for it.

Sliding a hand into Jack's back pocket, the blast of warm but fresh air as they leave the tavern is almost a relief. Uncorking the rum with her teeth before spitting the cork into the sands—no pockets her mind shrugs, oh well, guess they'd have to drink it all—Flora takes a long sip of it before tempering the burn with a gasp against the back of her hand. Holding the bottle out for Jack to take, Flora steers them off the pathway and into the sand instead.

"Is this how you thought your night was gonna go?"

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

Code blatently stolen from queen of codes, Sky!

JACK

"Did you just make a pun based around me fuckin' you in the name of better business?" Jack drawls, his eyebrows raised and his expression one of exceedingly wry amusement. "'Cause I already liked you, Flora. You don't have to win me over." Smirking to himself and opting to take the bottle of rum from her for a very well earned drink, although the captain is no longer thirsty in a way that had seen him empty his glass within minutes in the guildhall, he's certainly not going to say no.

"If you'd asked me to give you a list of ways my night was gonna go, this wouldn't have even made it to the end of it," he replies, offering the bottle back and following Flora's lead down onto the sand, the cool breeze rolling from the sea more than welcome after the heat of the day. "Why, is this where you tell me this was your plan all along, and I missed it somehow?" He smirks.

romancing yourself is possible, narcissistic
and recommended

Code blatently stolen from queen of codes, Sky!

flora

It's always been hard to impress Jack, with Flora never entirely certain what it is the captain wants (when he isn't between her legs, of course), but despite the way his approval has fireworks streaking through the sky of her mind, the queen merely offers him a shrewd smile. "I bet you'll want a cut of the proceeds, huh?" She jokes despite knowing that yes, of course he would.

Sighing out her agreement, Flora takes the bottle back, helping herself to a much more appropriate pull this time. She hadn't had anything to drink back in the guild, and though she didn't feel the need to get drunk, it was nice to have something warm inside of her to remind her of the heat she'd felt not so long before. "Yeah, couldn't you tell? You were drinking a love potion Safrin gave me from the second you walked in tonight. Sorry to break it to you, but you're fucked now." Certainly it sounded like the sort of thing Flora might once have done, but as open as her mind presently was to the captain, it would have taken strong magic indeed for her to have hidden the things she was falsely confessing to.

Coming to a slow stop, Flora sets the bottle of rum down on the sand before her eyes fall to the left side of Jack's chest as if able to see through his shirt to the ink below. "Can I see it?"

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

Code blatently stolen from queen of codes, Sky!

JACK

"Given how much of the work I'll be doin', I'll settle for 50/50," Jack fires back easily enough, as if Flora is some entrepreneur he's looking to do business with. Tipping his head back to gaze up at the dark sky as they walk - and the odd skyship heading up to Stormbreak, for that matter, the captain can't help but snort at that, though really, if he thinks about what the Doubletake is capable of, it might be a consideration he ought to take a little more seriously.

Luckily, Flora beats him to the punch there too, and he merely offers her a dry look instead. His feet come to an automatic stop as her footsteps slow as well, the captain automatically glancing around as if wondering what in particular made this location so suitable, before he realises that he is the one under scrutiny. "As long as you promise not to get weird about it," he tells her, though his fingers are already unfastening the buttons of his shirt.

Shrugging out of the garment and tossing it over his shoulder, the movement lifts his arm enough for her to see the coiled serpent, cosmic and star-flecked, snaking from his left hip and up along his ribs, halting with its fangs bared just beneath his heart. "Have at 'er."

romancing yourself is possible, narcissistic
and recommended

Code blatently stolen from queen of codes, Sky!

flora

"Pffft. It's me that they're coming ( wink ) to listen to, and unlike you, they don't care if I fake it." Flora counters. "Besides, I ought to take the price of an incidentals that get broken in the process out of your cut." She adds, if only because Jack had been the one to opt to fuck her ontop of the crates instead of, you know, the couches just a few feet away. Not that she was complaining, but business was business.

"I absolutely do not promise that." Flora trills, before stepping back to let the moonlight pool against his skin. What she saw had her flinching ever so slightly; where the stars on his face were obvious at least they were small. This wound its way up the entirety of his left side, and though she absolutely hated the reason that it was there, she couldn't deny that it looked so fucking cool. Reaching out, her fingers trace the coils of the snake, pressing softly against the whorls of stars before marking the serpent's fangs with the press of her nails. "Why a snake?"

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

Code blatently stolen from queen of codes, Sky!

JACK

"Oof, I'm startin' to regret teachin' you how to conduct business. You're far too good at it," Jack drawls, though given that all of this is hypothetical (for now), he gives Flora her due and settles for reaching into his back pocket for his cigarettes and matches again, whilst she gets her head around the new addition on his skin, with or without weirdness, as it happens.

Tensing automatically under the touch of fingers made cool by the night and by the bottle of rum, Jack strikes his match and lets a flare of heat and flame bathe his face for a moment as he touches it to the end of his cigarette. "Well I'm very glad you approve," he murmurs, taking a long drag from the smoke and exhaling it up into the air away from her face.

"Honestly, I've no idea. Never thought to ask," he mumbles, flicking the match onto the sand somewhere. "There's prob'ly some weird imagery attached to it. Only other thing I can think it's 'cause it's pretty complicated. This whole thing would need to be removed to get rid of the magic attached to it." He tilts his head at that, as if to say and I don't expect that knowledge to be widely spread.

romancing yourself is possible, narcissistic
and recommended

Code blatently stolen from queen of codes, Sky!

flora

Flora's touch loses its exploratory softness as her thumb presses against his skin hard enough to have it shifting over the muscle and bone below. Whatever the tattoo was supposed to represent, it was still just skin that didn't have to mean anything more than that Jack was a vain bastard afraid of getting old. (Okay, she knew it was more than that, but if he didn't want her to get more weird about it, he could accept that description of it).

"Oh I see." Her nails scratch invitingly down his side as she presses herself against him. "So all I need to do is get a cheese grater in order to give you gray hair?" With her thoughts bright with mischief, Flora stands on her toes to steal a kiss from Jack, adoring the taste of whiskey and smoke directly from his lips.

Reaching for the bottle by her feet, Flora slips an arm back around the captain's waist; on his right side, away from the serpent. "So when do you think they'll show up?"

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

Code blatently stolen from queen of codes, Sky!

JACK

"Hn-- stop it." Jack swats lightly at her hands as they go digging against his side - that's weird enough, Flora, without getting all thinky about it, and a shiver goes automatically through him with the scratch of her nails, before she's melting against his side. "You'll have to grate pretty hard, but yeah," he continues; he wouldn't be surprised if the snake was inked against his bones once the skin had been flayed away, but the principle is the same.

About to speak again only to find Flora's lips there instead, Jack flicks the ash from his cigarette and kisses her back until she's releasing him for the rum in the sand. "Mm...? Oh, them? They already have, love," he explains, snagging the bottle from her to take a sip and handing it back. "And before you get annoyed with me, I was plannin' to tell you tomorrow. I didn't expect you to wanna talk about it right now."

Placing the cigarette back between his lips, he glances back towards The Hanged Man. "The kid you saw leavin' when you walked in," he says, the kid being the young man who looked approximately Flora's age, "he's mine, apparently. Got two sisters who just arrived, too."

romancing yourself is possible, narcissistic
and recommended

Code blatently stolen from queen of codes, Sky!

flora

Below her mischief and weirdness is an unspoken promise not to reveal the secret to Jack's immortality. Tucked away with the rest of the things Flora knew about the captain if the possibility of him walking away from her forever hadn't been enough for her to spill his secrets, likely they'd be safe with her forever.

Already Flora's brow is creasing with surprise that not even Jack's love can temper. It does soften her somewhat to know he'd been planning on telling her, all the more so when she hears his reasoning behind waiting. But still her mind wants to argue, if only because she's young. As are his kids, evidently.

"But..he looked.." Hot "..my age?" Or near enough. Old enough to be drinking in her bar and for one of her servers to be talking about how she'd like him to bend her over the bar after her shift. Biting at the inside of her lip, Flora had expected to have several years to get used to the idea of Jack having kids where they were still more or less out of the picture. "Are they...like you?"

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

Code blatently stolen from queen of codes, Sky!

JACK

As has already become quite the habit in their relationship, Jack opts to silence Flora's unspoken but still with a kiss. This one, however, is directed into her fair hair, a simultaneous attempt to smooth out her ruffled feathers as well as wordless gratitude that she'll keep yet another one of his secrets to herself. Not that it will matter with the likes of Vesper, but that's an entirely different powder keg. One they've just started to discuss, as it happens.

"Mm, they all are," he says. Her age, yes. Hot, presumably. "He - Vesper, he calls himself - is like me. And a demigod, apparently." Which, yes, that will also take a lot of getting used to, but the evening has already been a busy one, and it will take a good night's sleep and then some to even begin coming to terms with it. "The girls aren't, though." He'd mentioned that one of them could be eventually, which leads Jack to believe there's at least another Abandoned out there, if not one more demigod.

"We've both got a block, though." His brow furrows at that; the captain hadn't known he'd possessed one, until there had been another telepath on the block. "He can't read me, I can't read him. Not right now, anyway." Who knows what time and strength will alter. "Probably best for you to stay away from him, honestly." Reading Flora, as the Doubletake might already have surmised, is now about as close to reading Jack as anyone might get.

romancing yourself is possible, narcissistic
and recommended

Code blatently stolen from queen of codes, Sky!

flora

The press of Jack's lips against her hair has something soft unfurling inside Flora's mind, and whether or not the captain means the gesture to be received as tenderly as the queen interprets it, she all but melts softly against him.

"A demigod." Flora repeats, flatly, the implications of that sending off alarm bells and flares all throughout her mind, though likely for different reasons than they were for Jack. "You know this is going to be really fucking weird, right?" Glancing up at him, the queen raises her eyebrows, her gaze searching Jack's fire-carved features. It was weird enough to be dating with someone who suddenly had kids her own age, but to also be the queen of the region a new demigod had strolled into, much less one she was meant to try and avoid?

"Fuck sake.' Flora mutters with a sigh as she helps herself to another drink from the bottle.

"It's funny you say that.." Clearing her throat, Flora's thoughts will reveal the night she'd gone to see Safrin, to beg the goddess for a way of keeping Jack out of her mind. Tilting her head to the side slightly, assuming no justification was required—the things in Flora's mind had caused their downfall, or so she thought at the time, so best to keep Jack out going forward—Flora huffs under her breath. "I'm sure I won't be strong enough off the bat, but...I can work at it. It isn't like I can avoid him forever."

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

Code blatently stolen from queen of codes, Sky!

JACK

"Mm, right, because this was all so easy and ordinary before," Jack says around his cigarette, the words warped by his sudden smile, and before he knows it his laughter is echoing out into the dark, the captain taking a long drag of the smoke and flicking the ash onto the beach. "Can't be weirder than it already is. I think I've given up doin' more than rollin' with the punches." Easy for Jack to say now, granted, with a relationship with his brand new son apparently not as tempestuous as he'd expected, with Flora tucked under his arm, and with no small amount of alcohol in his system, perhaps he's a little more easy going than he otherwise might be.

Glancing down at the way her thoughts slow and hesitate, the surprise is brief but plainly written on Jack's face, and though it's true that the darker parts of him are prone to resentment at the knowledge, to wanting to be able to tear down any flimsy wall that gets between him and what he wants, eventually he lets out a sigh and forces his shoulders to relax. "Hope it's got an on/off switch, for the sake of the amount of sex I plan to have with you," he drawls. "But... no, that's no bad thing. Especially since I bet he'd like your mind as much as I do."

romancing yourself is possible, narcissistic
and recommended

Code blatently stolen from queen of codes, Sky!