here's the countdown

JACK

It's a curious thing, to have Lucy come to life in someone else's mind; his mother has been a sin hissed through bitter lips for his entire childhood, and it's strange to see, through Flora, the woman take on an agency of her own. And though the Doubletake says nothing, Jack might have been content to sit by as her mind wanders on the subject, if not for his father - as always - interrupting it all. "Mm? Oh, gods, no. He was - is - as average as they come. Still lives in that inlet far as I know."

He doubts the man who sired him goes very far at all, in fact, save for special occasions.

Using the hand not currently captured by Flora to continue to rub at the back of his neck - a habit that seems less necessary given the melting tension there - Jack offers her a skeptical smile to hear he's full of good surprises. "Yeah? I'll have to go out an' balance the books with some bad stuff, if you keep this up. I got a reputation to uphold, y'know."

There's a brief tightening to his jaw as she stretches his hand against her own, his wrist briefly protesting the unfamiliar angles, and at her questions, the way her aqua eyes pierce the growing dark to gaze up at him with so much unfettered fucking affection, Jack huffs out a sigh and all but rolls his eyes back at her. "No," he mutters, as if the admission is an upsetting one. "Not for you, no." That's not to say that the captain's manipulations don't still stand when it comes to the rest of the world, though.

Muttering something that sounds like a suspiciously fond fuck you, Jack's free hand drops now to reach out for Flora, drawing her close enough for him to press a kiss to her forehead - something he has no doubt she'll enjoy, which is entirely the point.

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

For all the blood the captain has spilled, his hands remain suspiciously free of his own father's Flora just now realizes. Drawing their combined hands up toward her mouth, she leans forward to press a soft kiss against one of the scars that slice across his knuckles. "Why haven't you killed him?"

Letting their hands fall back into her lap in order to continue her ministrations, the Doubletake rolls her eyes. "Just another of your secrets for me to keep." She hums warmly under her breath, her lips curling into a barely-there smile that would nevertheless have her bursting with soft golden light.

Wondering if there would come a day when the captain's affections weren't wrapped in layers of tight resentment—but understanding now a bit more about where the rock had come from that Jack had used to build the walls that towered around him—as he reaches for her, the queen doesn't bother to stifle her hum of encouragement. As he knew it would, the press of his lips against her forehead has the landscape of her mind unfurling, every piece of her stretching and twisting toward him like a field of sunflowers straining to follow the movement of the sun.

If Jack had ever been loved before, and gods it wouldn't have surprised her if a favourite whore of his had fallen for him, Flora was suddenly quite confident that no one had ever loved him the way she did. Despite the brazenly girlish way that might have initially sounded, of the four people to whom he'd ever told his secret, two were dead (one by his own hand), and one was about to marry her mother. (Yes, it was weird that Jack had fucked 3/4 of them, but never mind that). In so realizing, understanding dawned on something the captain had said to her weeks before that she'd brushed off as nothing more than an excuse: Because I don't. I don't know what it's like, how it feels, what it's meant to be. So maybe, instead of resisting the urge to tell him that she loved him at all hours of the day, of treating her affections like something that might bother him if she let them come on too strong, she ought to have been drowning him in it to make up for all the lost years he'd never known what it was to be cared for. To be loved.

"I love you, Jack." Flora whispers as she places his oil-soft hand against her cheek. Kiss me, her mind encourages as she reaches for him as well, her touch full of a gentle confidence as her fingers comb through his hair.

JACK

Jack has practically been able to taste that follow-up question before it comes, and he really thinks Flora might have been able to guess at the answer given a moment or so to consider it. "Because I hate him," he says as her lips graze his scarred knuckles, and the timbre of his voice and the faint smile on his face almost suggests he's just said something sweet. 

"I keep a roof over his head, if he cares to use it. I know he doesn't work anymore, and he's a fuckin' alcoholic, but otherwise he's in pretty good health for his age. He's too much a coward to kill himself. With the healin' fountain, he might have another decade or so in him before he gets to see my mother again." Because why would he kill the man when every day alive brings him suffering? When death would be a blessing, after all this time?

Flexing his fingers briefly before letting Flora continue to fuss over his hand, Jack scoffs out a laugh under his breath. "Mm, what's one more?" he agrees, before he's drawing her forward and her mind blooms for him like a meadow beneath the soft fingers of the dawn. Resisting the urge to respond with I know to her declaration of love - because he does know, and rest assured he's already starting to lose the fight to tread the water of her affections - instead, reaching out to draw her suddenly into his lap, he hums a note of confirmation into the kiss he presses to her lips.

"No one ever has," he agrees, the liquor in his blood making the admission a little more freely given, but he silences himself once more to kiss her again, to kiss her the way she'd asked.

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

Alas, Flora, who has never properly hated anyone the way that Jack hates his father, wouldn't have guessed, even if the answer, when it comes, isn't surprising. Despite the comparative goodness the queen still possesses, no part of her is tempted to tell the captain to release his father from his grudge; no part of her doubts him or his actions. While it might be an insidious punishment for them both, one that would surely bring Jack no joy when it ended, the queen was content to try and strip what tension he brought home with him away at the end of each day and to let him carry the remainder of it with his own wirey and hard-won strength.

Despite the way Flora still hates to think about Jack outliving her by decades—centuries if he played his cards right—to be able to claim this first in his life? Maybe it was selfish of her to take such delight in the knowledge that this first was properly hers, but she couldn't deny the dark velvet rush that coated her thoughts. No matter who came after, she'd loved Jack first, and she'd love him hard enough to make up for all the years he'd gone without.

Tugging at the hem of her dress to slide it higher up on her thighs in order to properly perch herself in Jack's lap, the queen melts bonelessly against him. Kissing him with all the careful exploration as if it was the first time, the Doubletake doesn't try and douse the butterflies that take flight in her belly, or the way his lips against hers feels like she'd being tickled from the inside out. Caring very little about how the oils would stain the fabric of her dress or about how their silhouettes would be clearly visible to anyone strolling below, Flora presses herself forward, pinning the captain against the wall and tilting his chin up with one of her hands in order to deepen the kiss.

Until Jack knew that he was loved, all the way down to his bones, until the knowledge came as easily to him as breathing, Flora would repeat it; would allow it to echo out amidst her every thought, and through everything that she was. "Come to bed," she whispers softly against his lips before sliding out of his lap and turning her back to him that he might unzip her from her dress.

JACK

It says much and more for the captain's overactive mind that, for once, thoughts of the future, of what might be and how he might affect it, are all but silent in the back of his mind, swept away by the press of Flora's body against his own and the honey sweet candour of her emotions. Caring little for the oils that still glisten on his skin or what they might do to the Doubletake's outfit, his hands smooth possessively against her bare thighs where the fabric of her dress has bunched up, curving against her backside and her hips as if to anchor her directly against him.

Releasing her with the sort of reluctance that suggests retribution, Jack nonetheless allows her to slide out of his lap, the captain turning smoothly to rise to his feet and carefully unfasten her dress. Every inch of smooth skin revealed earns a kiss, his lips brushing across the side of her neck and down onto her shoulders, until his hands circle her waist to keep the garment from falling any further. "I'm not tired," he whispers, the amusement in his tone suggesting that he's never expected them to sleep 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

As goosebumps trickle down Flora's spine with every press of Jack's lips, the dark waters of her mind similarly ripple and part, dousing the sweeter shades of honeysuckle and jasmine until they began to glow with magenta lines of fire. Arching back against him, Flora lifts her arms and tangles them around the captain's neck, silently inviting his hands to wander higher across her bare breasts as her mind floats untethered in the warmth of his skin against hers.

Resting the back of her head against Jack's shoulder, Flora's grin is as slow as it is sly. "Who said anything about being tired?' She wonders. "I only wanted you away from that window so no one would come and bother us." The last thing the Doubletake wanted was for someone to recognize Jack and then come knocking at her door because they needed him for something. As far as she was concerned, unless the Ark was on fire, everything and everyone could wait until morning.

JACK

"You really think anyone'd dare knock at your door if they saw me with you like that in the window?" Jack grins against the crook of her neck, one of his hands sweeping obligingly up and over one of her breasts, teasing her nipple between his fingers. The other seems reluctant to let her dress fall, rather enjoying the feel of the ruffled fabric grazing across her soft skin, and as she drapes back against him, the captain's interest is very apparent pressing against her backside.

"Not that I've a problem with your bed," he adds, cupping her breast and squeezing, his lips grazing up the back of her neck so he might nose into her curls. "Though I almost expected you demand I shower after all this." This being the scent of cinammon still lingering on his body, the fragrance underpinned by peppermint and wintergreen.

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

Huffing out a laugh, Flora rolls her eyes just before they slip closed. "Yeah, unfortunately I do." Each of them was owned by Torchline in their own ways, and while the strings that tied Flora down were a touch more official, that didn't mean there wasn't a significant portion of the population who'd try and help themselves to Jack regardless of what (or who) it was he was doing.

A soft gasp parts the queen's lips as Jack's hand covers one of her breasts, the still-hard callouses teasing against her skin in such a way as to have her nails dragging softly through the captain's hair in wordless encouragement. "I did think about that," she murmurs a touch breathlessly. "But then I thought maybe I should keep you away from large amounts of water in case you decided to get revenge for being covered by oils in the first place." Not that Jack wasn't capable of creating his own mini shower if he decided, but that didn't mean Flora had to make it any easier for him to soak her if that was his plan.

"But I suppose I could be persuaded if you don't want to smell like a forest anymore."

JACK

Jack's laughter is little more than a huff of hot breath against the back of Flora's neck; she's right, he realises, though if anyone did decide to try their luck at the Doubletake's door, a rude dismissal is the least of their worries. "Oh? Did I seem like I didn't enjoy it?" he asks of her taking the time to work some of the tension from his muscles; certainly Jack doesn't feel as though it merits revenge, though if Flora wants to make it into something like that, of course he's game.

As her nails tickle across his scalp he finally shifts enough to let her dress pool at her feet, and with one hand now free he slips it between them to unbutton his pants. "Is this how forests smell?" he asks with a smirk; born into the tropics and with very limited experience outside jungles and swamps, for all Jack knows, cinammon and peppermint are staples of the Greatwood.

He doesn't actually care about the answer, of course, his only point being that there's no need to move from the bed so long as Flora isn't going to complain about ruining her sheets, Jack nudging them forward just a little as if to confirm his intended direction.

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

If she didn't know Jack well enough by now, Flora might have pointed out that he'd done a fair amount of grumbling and glaring for a man who'd enjoyed himself. But it was just as much in his nature to be surly and difficult as it was in Flora's to be playful, such that she only shrugged against him. "No, but that doesn't mean you'd not be a shit about it on principle." She chuckles.

Shivering as she's reduced to just her underwear, as it always does, the feel of Jack's body pressed against her has something inside of Flora growing impossibly weak and threatening to break with the force of her sudden need for him. Whether it's her age or just Jack—possibly a combination of the two—that has the queen almost instantly undone by the smallest amount of intimacy from the captain, with nothing more than his breath against her neck, the rose-gold wrapped around her thoughts that might have had Flora wanting soft caresses and sweet nothings whispered into her ears are immediately engulfed in flames, leaving only cinders in the shape of handprints against her skin.

"Sometimes," Flora agrees, and though towering aspens and conifers burst to life in her mind, they fade almost immediately as she stumbles toward the bed. Twisting, the back of her knees pressed against the mattress, the queen reaches up to pull the elastic free from her hair, allowing her curls to tumble down her shoulders in golden waves that she knew from having practiced in front of a mirror looked every bit as cinematic as she'd intended it to. "Maybe one day we can go if they ever clear out the void. I can show you where I was born."

JACK

"Just because I enjoyed it in the end, doesn't mean it didn't hurt," Jack fires back; as Flora would have been able to tell from the moment she touched him, the captain is tense in every sense of the word. "You're right, though," he concedes. "I would be a shit about it on principle." As he is with most things, in fact. Not this, though, and as her thoughts catch fire as if the affection had been little more than dry kindling, Jack is there for it.

He releases her that she might twist to face him, giving him time to shed the rest of his clothes, such that he's able to catch the theatric tumble of curls around her shoulders. "Flawless, as always," he purrs - credit where it's due, and all that. As for the forest, he's just as likely to agree to visit the Greatwood (sans void, of course) as he is to suggest she paint the walls of the House of Midnight with her memories - either way, for right the fuck now, the woods can wait.

Crowding into Flora's space enough to send them both tumbling into the bed, Jack's lips are on hers once more almost before he gives them permission, pinning her body beneath his own as if to leech away every bit of wild love that thunders through her veins.

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 arms are already around Jack's neck before her back even hits the bed, and had it not been the captain's intention to blanket her body with his own, she'd have dragged him there through brute strength if need be. Doubtless it ever would, and no small part of Flora is convinced that even if Jack deigned to turn his telepathy off for the evening, she'd still find herself wildly satisfied; not that she felt the need to test that theory.

Lifting her hips teasingly, the underwear she wore a laughable attempt at a firebreak between the wildfire already burning in her core and the press of the captain's arousal, Flora snakes a leg around Jack's hips, caging his erection between their bodies. Moaning into his mouth, the Doubletake's kisses were more like gasps of breath from someone trying to stay above crashing waves than the measured explorations they'd been by the window, and as if to combat this, she clawed the fingers of one hand through his hair, tethering his mouth against hers.

With thoughts of the Greatwood and the disastrous Taliesin dinner already forgotten and the world reduced down to nothing more than the feeling of Jack's body against hers, Flora let slip the tethers she kept around her thoughts during those moments she didn't want to overwhelm the captain's mind (like, you know, what talking about his dead mother), and instead let them roar through her. "Have me," she moaned against him, her hips lifting once again as her palm slid over his oil-smooth skin.

JACK

"Let's not get ahead of ourselves." Jack chuckles against the soft curve of Flora's jaw, mere moments before she claims his lips in another kiss. That she thinks she'd be satisfied should he flip the switch on his magic is flattering, yes, but it says nothing as to how Jack would experience things. Case in point: as she loosens the grip on her thoughts they all but roar through the captain, and it's with a rough moan of near defeat that he submits to everything that Flora is and everything she wants from him.

The sound of tearing fabric is something he barely hears, and while he could have just pulled her underwear to the side, he's ripped it away before the idea even really takes root. Have me, she'd said, after all. Tossing the useless strip of lace to one side, the same hand sweeps beneath her lower back, arching her hips just so as he thrusts forward, burying himself as deeply as he can go.

Missionary might be the least exciting of positions, but that also means it's a pretty rare go-to in their repertoire. Jack's kisses drift down to Flora's throat as he holds himself there for a few burning seconds, before his pace becomes more greedy and possessive, his fingers tipped with static that crackles with each thrust.

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

Feeling the pull of fabric against the side of her hip only seconds before the lace is forced to tear away, there's no need for Flora to tell Jack that he'd done exactly the right thing, but her mind screams it just the same. Though Flora was almost always an active participant in their sex life, as she'd found out in Molly's when Jack had all but used her body as a glorified fleshlight due to her weightlessness, there was something to being used by him that had her heart racing. So as Jack lifted her hips Flora melted against his hand, her body pliant and soft in all the right places, before growing taut beneath him as he filled her in a way that seemed more than just physical. "Gods I love you," She grated out breathlessly against his shoulder as if the words had been forced from her lungs; her legs wrapped around his hips to try and pin the feeling of that initial thrust in place even as his lips descended down her chest.

Where some might have considered missionary boring, feeling Jack's weight overtop of her had the Doubletake dizzy with desire, her body writhing beneath his to take in more of him with every thrust, to find herself even closer to him if such a thing were possible. Maybe she'd gotten it from her father, but Flora would have made her home among Jack's bones if she could have, becoming even more a part of him than the floral spray on his arm. In moments like this one, that desire became a desperate need that her grasping fingers and stifled moans all gestured vaguely toward.