and love in some ways is just a rogue wave

marked me like a bloodstain

She can still feel the kiss long after Kai's turned away, the memory of it lingering like heat against her lips, not sharp or burning, but warm the way dusk clings to the edges of the sea. As he rises to his feet, retrieving the basket with that familiar surety of his, her breath catches in her chest, just long enough to steady the tremble beneath it. With his back to her, she takes the moment she needs to gather herself—not into composure, exactly, but into something steadier than want. Because gods, she wants to close the distance again, to fall into his lap and let his hands trace the places where she isn’t hurt, to lose herself in the comfort of someone who never asks her to be anything but this. But she’d meant what she said to him, and for the sake of his relationships with Koa and Caly, some pieces of them were meant to be unchanged by what had happened.

When he turns back, the smile she offers him is meant to be a small thing, little more than gratitude curled at the corners of her mouth, but it blooms wider before she can catch it. There’s something about the boyish earnestness of him standing there with that ridiculous basket, the quiet strength of his voice spun out just for her, that loosens the knot in her chest. She glances away, turning her head to the side as though she might keep the smile from spilling further, as though the softness of it might betray her more than everything else already has.

"It’s just cream and bandages," she says at last, the words light with feigned exasperation, though her voice carries the warmth of something far more tender. "Not exactly rocket science." The inside of her cheek finds her teeth as she rises from the ledge of the tub, legs unfolding slowly, carefully, her movements marked by the caution of someone learning their limits all over again. She doesn’t bother reaching for a towel just yet, just pushes the damp silk of her shirt-dress off her hips and lets the hem cling wetly to the tops of her thighs. "I’ve gotta wash what’s left of it off first," she adds, and though the sentence hangs for a beat longer than it should, her tone is softly playful, teasing at the edges.

She lifts her brows as she meets his gaze, something mischievous and familiar dancing behind the blue-green of her eyes. "Go on," she murmurs, tilting her head toward him with the hint of a grin, "turn around."

I'm not giving up, kicking off the rust

"Yeah, and it's just batter and heat but you still managed to burn one of my pancakes, didn't you?" he snorts, although something like a grin is starting to set in, like he'd happily eat burnt pancakes with her right now if he could. "I'll be sure to tell all the medics how highly you think of their field," he threatens lightly as he carts the basket to the edge of the tub. He grabs the bottom of his forest bouquet and sets it on the ground, ensuring it doesn't get knocked off into the fake sea.

That smile is lingering longer now, always fed by her. It's still cautious though, like he's not convinced all of this is quite real yet. He'd just watched a tear spin down her cheek after all, had just watched her fidget under the stare of an attendant. This feels pretend, but he can pretend with her too.

His gaze travels from the bundles of gauze and wraps to the slide of fabric over her skin, trying hard not to let something like fear shine back when he traces the wounds that linger on display. He nods, as if what she says sounds about right to his rocket science training for field first aid, as if he expects this is why she's lingering near a tub like a wraith at a grave. What he doesn't expect, when their eyes meet, is that familiar gleam coming back in. He holds their stare steady, scoffing with a fold of his arms. "You can't be serious." If the words alone weren't enough indicator, the lilt in her lips certainly is. "No shot you're suddenly modest now. Get in before I push you in." What had been careful sinks back into a familiar exchange as he steps back towards her, putting weight to his promise. She might be more flexible than him, but she wouldn't be able to reach all the gashes on her back. Short of jumping in with her, though he wasn't past doing so, he'd help her manage all the things she can't do alone.

Kaisel

I keep acting tough but maybe I'm not good enough

marked me like a bloodstain

Flora's gasp is theatrical, scandal painted in every curve of her expression as she presses a hand to her chest like he’s just accused her of treason. "Noooooo," she protests, drawing the word out. "I was trying to melt the chocolate chips the way you like them. It’s not my fault chocolate burns like it’s got a personal vendetta."

Flora stares at Kai as he refuses to turn around, indignant, brows lifted in mock disbelief that’s only half for show. There’s a familiar spark kindling in her gaze, caught somewhere between flirtation and warning, but she doesn’t move. She doesn’t know whether to lean into it and push him back with her usual golden boldness, to yield and let herself disappear into the safety of old rhythms, or to simply tell him outright that this can't be a good idea.

Before she can decide, he steps forward.

Her laugh escapes her on a breath of incredulous disbelief, the sound curling up as he all but herds her back toward the tub with the kind of quiet determination only he can pull off. She gives him a look, one that's sharp with affection and soft with concern, something daring layered beneath something too honest to hide—and then, with a dramatic sigh, she rolls her eyes and lets the moment take her.

Carefully, Flora reaches for the hem of her shirt-dress and begins to peel it up from the bottom, slow and cautious to keep the silk from catching against skin still too raw to be touched without consequence. She lifts it to her shoulders, fingers shifting and stretching to avoid contact with the healing ridges that cross her back like unwelcome constellations. "After I was attacked, Remi gave me his health," she explains. "Which sounds great on paper, but it isn't healing. Not really. It just fused everything together in an instant." Her tone flattens a little. "So now the wounds aren’t open anymore, but they’re not exactly closed either. They’ve just...stuck. Which is why everyone keeps hovering with their creams, trying to coax the scars into something less painful and tight."

With one arm looped tightly around her chest to pin her breasts in place, she slides the dress the rest of the way off and tosses it aside, the silk landing in a soft heap on the floor. She wears only a dark pair of underwear now, still not even terribly revealing by Flora's standards, and without ceremony, she steps back into the tub.

The warmth embraces her at once, a soft hiss escaping her lips as the water welcomes her in gentle if illusory waves. She sinks down, locking her ankles together and wrapping an arm across her shins to hold herself together, letting her long legs cover up the bulk of her body before reaching and twisting the tap until the gentle stream begins to flow again, warm and steady as it pours over her back.

I'm not giving up, kicking off the rust

For each of Flora's uncertainties, Kaisel has only an unwavering focus, honed entirely on her. It has nothing to do with the slide of fabric over her skin, or the laughter bubbling up from her like comfort. It's an intent to see her whole, as she should be. Having her means so much less to him than being with her, than the assuredness of her well being. He can always have her when he sinks into bed, even if it's just a midnight idea, but he can only be with her in moments like these.

He would choose to be with her time and time again, by whatever means.

The explanation she provides, like something she's reliving, or maybe just something to fill the caution, causes him to wince. "I had wondered..." he admits, because while he's all for cool scars, she had mentioned wanting to get rid of some of her others, ones that put on a much smaller display than these. "Sounds like hell," he breathes, because there's no sprinkles he can offer to properly sugarcoat this. "Has it been helping?" he asks of the creams, the question a bit timid, afraid the answer might be no.

He watches the careful shedding of the gown, extending a hand to help a bit too late, as she's slipped out of it fully now, but he'll be mindful of her methods for when she needs to put it back on. He openly traces the revealed corners of her, though it lacks any of the heat that'd been present the last time he'd seen her bare like this. In its place is the cool dread of what could have been, the reminder written with the new marks of her skin. Gods though, she is still a sight to behold, beautiful even with these brands of regret she carries.

When she finally commits herself to the water, he fishes out a washcloth from the basket, nearly sending a bandage unspooling across the floor. He folds the cloth over his knuckles, dropping to his knees as he hugs the side of the tub, hands drifting over the surface of the water. "If you could change one thing in your past, would you?" he asks carefully as he dunks the cloth until it's warm and soaked. Expectantly he glances up at her, hand stretching out in silent offer.

Kaisel

I keep acting tough but maybe I'm not good enough

marked me like a bloodstain

Flora leans forward slightly, letting the water cradle her ribs, the hollow of her spine, the tightness that clings to the ragged scars beneath. Her voice, when it comes, is low and unvarnished. "I felt her claws around my ribs," she murmurs, her gaze trained on the curling eddies where her fingers break the surface. "Not like a swipe. She wrapped her hands in me and started to pull." The memory curls into her lungs like smoke, acrid and lingering. "She told my dads that she was going to kill me in front of them." A shudder rolls through her, too instinctive to hide, and she sinks lower into the tub like the water might offer her a second skin. Her shoulders hunch as she shrugs, one hand drifting to idly skim her ankle beneath the surface. "I don’t know if the salves help. Some days it feels like they're doing something. Some days I think it’s all just a thing people keep doing so they feel like they're helping."

As Kai settles against the tub, Flora casts a glance over her shoulder, her eyes catching his a touch warily. With a small sigh, she shifts, careful not to slosh the water too high as she moves to sit in front of him, her back curving slightly, her knees drawn tight to her chest. She gathers her hair in one hand, twisting it up and off her neck, revealing the full damage left behind. It is a brutal constellation etched into delicate skin. Dahlia’s claws had scored deep, angry welts from her shoulder blades down to the small of her back, some jagged and wide, others tight as ropes down her spine. Against her ribs, almost perfect mirror images of each other, four perfect punctures where Dahlia’s talons had sunk in to anchor her grip. Among it all, the faint star-shaped scar at her shoulder—where Pierce had killed her—now looks almost decorative, a pale echo of something far simpler.

At his question, she exhales, not quite a laugh but something close—a scoff, soft and bitter as sea-brine. Her chin settles atop her knees, gaze hazy with memory. "I’d have told Enzo we should go to the Refuge instead," she says without hesitation, the answer too well-worn to need polishing. "We had no business being anywhere near a warzone, not when we were still trying to figure out how to live on our own. I thought...I mean, I guess I didn't think. No one ever expects to actually die, you know?" At least back then, she hadn't.

The silence that follows is filled only by the quiet drip of the tap and the faint breath of steam. "If he hadn’t died—" Her voice catches. She swallows. "I wouldn’t have spiralled. I probably wouldn't have reconnected with Koa..I only let him back in because I felt so empty without Enzo. I wouldn't have needed something to do with my life, so I probably wouldn't have taken over the Hanged Man when Raza died, and would probably never have thought about being queen, which probably means no Jack, either." She'd roped him in to help her get elected when she'd been snubbed twice, and when their scheming began in earnest, so had everything else.

Her fingers trace slow patterns over the water’s surface, distant and reverent. "But for Enzo? I’d give it all up. Everything. The crown, the bar, the people, the power—every good thing that came after. I’d give it all up just to bring him back." The words hang in the steam like prayer smoke, soft and aching and impossibly honest.

"I will get him back, though," 1400 posts to go. "whatever it takes."

I'm not giving up, kicking off the rust

She's too far for him to grab when she speaks, too injured for him to properly manage it anyway, but it doesn't keep the ache of it from sliding through him. She's baring every fragile seam she's got, a current of honesty he doesn't normally get to notice, and it's all he can do not to be swept away with it. Not that he can't weather it—he listens the same way a field takes in the rain, unafraid of what might soak in, or how much. Her voice isn't a storm, but it's a steady downpour of vulnerability and eventually, he's soaked through, grown dark with it. Not in a way that ruins him, like she so fears, just a way that marks the passing of rain, like a dog lying out in it might leave a dry stain when it gets up after the first break.

What's threatening to flood him isn't her, but all the things he'd like to keep from her. Every cloud he'd pluck from her horizon, allowing her the space to stretch and shine like she should. That's why a small, reckless part of him wants to track Dahlia down and fish around for her ribs through her skin, or at least hold her down while Flora does. If only returning pain held much weight towards undoing it, then the risks of it all would be worth it. As it stands though, it'll just be another bedside fantasy, the way holding Flora has been, and is.

"She can't get you now," he says with assurance, as much for himself as for her. If Dahlia is the monster haunting Flora's dreams, then she's already got all her lights turned on. "None of them will. Because of all the things you did." Maybe she doesn't feel like it's worth all the pain, but it deserves recognition, and it shields her from more of it. As for the creams, he sighs in acknowledgment, "sounds like it's worth it to keep trying." Not the answer he'd been hoping for.

When she gathers her hair up and shows him, really shows him, Kaisel stills. Water continues to ripple out from where his hand had just been moving against it, and it still laps against his fingers where her approach sends it back. He takes in every mark, every place that had tried to unmake her, and he's grateful to already be on his knees. These might be the first scars he's ever hated.

He slowly reaches out towards her back with the drenched cloth, hovering for a moment as if uncertain, before he finally rests it lightly along the edge of her ribs and drags the warm water carefully and steadily. He's focused on the pull of her skin beneath his hand, and though he remembers the shape of it, the heat of it when he held this part of her last, something which should normally glow with fondness, has instead become dull with this destruction. There's pitfalls and rises where once there had been only the smooth glide of her. It's not that he cares that she's marred, but each one serves as a reminder of how she'd almost been taken, of how she had to survive. She's brave, but suddenly he doesn't feel like he is.

He lifts his gaze to the small edge of her eye he can see as she talks about the thing she'd change, no hesitancy present. He dips the washcloth back into the water and lightly passes down the space between her shoulders. "He means that much to you," Kaisel starts, less of a question and more of a fact, though there's an edge of wonder in his tone. He's not sure he has the courage to undo the past and become someone he doesn't know anymore. The bad, he's already gotten past it now, but undoing it doesn't keep it at bay. More bad will come, different, maybe even worse. That unknown is more terrifying than whatever he's already survived, but then, Kaisel has never lost a twin. "That you'd change all those parts of your life? You'd probably never get them back, not the same way. You'd be a totally different person." He doesn't say it, but it likely means they wouldn't have met much either. If Koa became less significant in her life, he'd be gone too. Hell, if she'd give up Jack, he doesn't stand a chance. It's not even real, but the idea takes a small part of him with it, leaving him a little emptier than before. He'd help her do it too, if he could.

He doesn't fault her for her choice, but he'd thought to show her that regretting what's already been done isn't worth it, that there's a balance, where all the other good things remain. Sounds like she's already used this scale before though and decided tilting it one way is for the best.

Kaisel

I keep acting tough but maybe I'm not good enough

marked me like a bloodstain

A sigh ghosts from her lips, not heavy enough to fog the air, but steeped in quiet exhaustion all the same. Kai is right, of course. Dahlia is dead, and the Family is splintering—but knowing a monster is gone isn’t the same as feeling safe in the woods it once haunted. There are still nights when Flora wakes with her heartbeat pounding so loud it drowns the silence, still mornings where her fingers tremble as she fumbles to braid her hair, still too many places in her body that carry the memory of claws. So she doesn’t argue. She just lets the water slip higher along her hips, lets the echo of Kaisel’s certainty wash over her like a tide she wants to believe in.

She doesn’t turn when he stills, but she feels it; a shift in the rhythm behind her, a hesitation that prickles across the nape of her neck like a breeze curling through a door left ajar. Her arms tighten instinctively around her knees, and for the first time since stepping into the bath, she’s seized by a flicker of self-consciousness so sharp it startles her. Not just embarrassment, not the vain kind that worries about smudged eyeliner or hair flattened by steam—something deeper. More aching. An old, brittle fear that he might look at her now and flinch. That the smooth skin he once touched with reverence has been replaced with something grotesque and undesirable.

The cloth finds her ribs with a tenderness that almost undoes her on the heels of such thoughts, and she tilts her head just enough to catch him out of the corner of her eye, her cheek resting soft against her knees. The motion of the cloth is gentle, but it forces the scar tissue to shift, to stretch ever so slightly, and she can’t quite stifle the whimper that escapes her. It’s a small, wounded sound, the kind someone might make when touched too softly in a place that only remembers pain. Still, she doesn’t pull away.

Talking about Enzo is infinitely easier than thinking about her scars, if only because it’s a wound she’s been living with for long enough that the edges aren’t raw anymore, just deep. The truth spills with a kind of measured grace, well-practised and weathered by time. But as Kaisel speaks, she knows—knows without needing to look—that the full weight of her confession has landed in him like a stone. Her chest tightens, knowing it doesn’t matter how gently she’s tried to offer the truth; some things bruise no matter how they’re held. And maybe Kaisel will realize that about Flora too; the full cruelty of what her love can be. That loving someone so fiercely doesn’t make the damage any less sharp. That deciding something with her heart doesn’t make the fallout any less destructive. Kaisel, who thought he wanted to be hurt by her like it was some grand romance, a blaze worth burning for, maybe now he knows better. Maybe now he'll see that being in her orbit isn’t like basking in sunlight, but like standing too close to a hurricane. There’s nothing poetic about the stones flung from her wind. They just hurt.

Twisting as much as her back will allow, Flora reaches behind her and finds his hand with hers, her fingers sliding between his. "Yeah," she murmurs, "I’d be a different person." Her thumb traces the edge of his knuckle. "But I’d give up everything. I'd deserve to lose it all. I don’t deserve a single good thing that came from his death, not when it was my fault." She doesn’t say it like a martyr, doesn’t try to make it sound noble. It just is. A truth that’s been sitting in her chest like salt in an open wound for years. She was the one who pushed Enzo to the warfront. She was the one who thought they could handle it. She was the one who lived.

Unable to keep the position she was in without tugging at the scars across her ribs, Flora shifts with a little hiss of discomfort and leans carefully to the side, bracing against the edge of the tub. It puts her face near Kai's, close enough that her breath could brush his lips if she weren't breathing so shallowly, and when she reaches out, her palm is wet but warm, fingers curving gently against his cheek. Her thumb drags along the hinge of his jaw. Her voice, when it returns, is a whisper full of seafoam and grief, but no less decisive for it. "I’d do the same for you," she breathes. "Even if I wasn't the reason you were gone, I'd find a way to bring you back."

I'm not giving up, kicking off the rust

That tiny whimper stops him cold. His hands freeze where the cloth rests against her skin, breath catching like he’s just been struck. Nothing, nothing, could gut him faster than the idea of hurting her, even accidentally. He wants to pull back, to drop the cloth and call in the practiced attendant who likely wouldn't have summoned such a sound, but she stays, trusting him to manage it, so he remains.

He forces a slow and steady breath and makes himself move again. He reminds himself that healing often means a little pain, and that being touched might ache, but so does being left alone. Kaisel, gods help him, is determined to never leave her alone.

When her hand suddenly finds his, Kaisel stills all over again. He’s certain that he's pressed too hard, that he’s hurt her more than is allowed, that he's reopened something meant to heal. It's when her fingers twine between his, slow and sure, that he realizes it's a reach for their familiar comfort. Her thumb stroking over his knuckle, a gentle and familiar pressure, unties some of the knots his worry had begun to form. His shoulders drop and a softness drifts into his face, because that simple act of them is enough to settle him.

Her words though, they risk stealing every bit of relief he can manage. There’s a part of him that wants to shake his head, to deny it, to tell her she deserves every bit of good that life still tries to give her. But... he's tried that, and it seems to make her more certain in the opposite. The way she says it so full of a raw, unshakable truth that’s been left to rot in her chest for years, that anything rational or real feels too strong for her to handle. So, he doesn’t try to argue with it. He knows he can’t. Flora’s grief is too old, too gnarled, for easy comforts. So he does what he knows best, he lets her place it in his hands, his fingers tightening against hers.

Her touch lands against his cheek like a reminder that she does know him, and he turns into it, grateful. His lips brush the base of her thumb, a soft vow of affection that he presses into her skin. His own palm lifts to cover hers, keeping it in place, making sure she can feel every bit of his steadiness. "I know you would," he says, voice pitched low with the honesty and recognition of it. He'd closed his eyes against the embrace, but he peers across at her now, trying to hold her stare like he can transfer the image of her he sees across. "You're always willing to tear down too much of yourself for the sake of others." He admires that about her, even if it terrifies him in moments like these, where she doesn't seem to have enough left to make herself whole any more. He’ll peel off parts of himself to give to her if that’s what it takes. Maybe when they're both a little more worn and a little more remade, there’ll be enough between them to let her believe in something good again, even if he has to give up some of it to get there.

Kaisel

I keep acting tough but maybe I'm not good enough

marked me like a bloodstain

The brush of his lips against her thumb is featherlight—so soft it almost startles her. Flora draws in a sharp breath through her nose, quiet but undeniable, like the first inhale after holding too long underwater. It’s not the kiss itself that unravels her. Not really. It’s the way it lands, so gentle and delicate, as if her skin is something fragile. There’s no grand seduction, no flourish of drama, and that’s exactly the problem. His touch has never meant more to her than it does now, and it’s never felt so dangerous. Not because it threatens her body, but because it threatens to breach the fragile scaffolding she’s barely managed to rebuild inside her chest.

Once she might have cracked a joke, might’ve wiggled her thumb up his nose or teased him until they were both laughing in the bath like nothing mattered. But she doesn’t, can't. Her hand stays where it is, helpless in his, pinned beneath the warmth of his palm like something caught and held—not unwillingly, not cruelly, just...fully. She’s never been this still with him. Never so painfully aware of each heartbeat, each breath. Of how utterly naked she is, in every sense, beneath his hands, and yet..

Her pulse stutters beneath her skin as she swallows thickly, a blush rising hot and visible across her cheeks, her shoulders, the delicate curve of her neck. There’s nothing to hide behind here—no hair to tuck behind her ear, no rings to fiddle with, no witty comment ready to soften the moment, but still she tries. Lightly, and not nearly as smoothly as she wants, she says, "Yeah, on second thought, maybe you’re not worth saving after all. Especially if it means I’d have to, like, break a sweat or something." It should be funny. It is funny, but even as the smile starts to curl her lips, it dies before it gets the chance to bloom.

Because suddenly, as if summoned by some cruel chorus, she hears them: Koa’s voice, low and certain in the shade of the Greatwood: Even if things were different—even if you still felt the same—I know we can’t. Jack’s voice, rough and final, only a few feet from where she currently was: If love was all it took, we’d have been unstoppable. Then again, quieter, but final: I think I’d better go. And then Kaisel’s own voice: Even if we can’t have this.

How many times had she been told no, lately? How could she boast to be fluent in the languages of love and hate, but still somehow misunderstand rejection so badly?

The echo of them crashes into her like a wave she didn’t see coming. For a moment, she’s breathless, stunned by the sheer weight of it, as if the air itself has gone too thick to breathe. What was she doing, letting someone who already told her this isn't going to happen, kiss her like it still might? With a shaky inhale, Flora twists away—not abruptly, not violently, but with the precise, practiced motion of someone slipping on a very particular sort of mask. Her hand pulls back, aqua eyes flicking over Kai's shoulder as she straightens just enough that she can't feel his breath against her skin.

"Can you pass me a towel? Wrinkles aren't great for healing."

I'm not giving up, kicking off the rust

The breath is the first sign, too sharp, to audible. He can assume it's her wounds though, not the graze of his lips. The blush is the next hint though, but maybe it's the bath giving her a flush with heat she's soaked in too long. When her joke tries to land though, that's when he knows. There's something off about it, something put on like he doesn't remember ever hearing from her before. The way her smile tries and fails to spark... Some of her vibrancy came back briefly, but now it's all washed away again. His 'brows crease with the confusion.

"Good, I'd hate to be the reason you stink." he offers back gently, the ghost of a smile lingering, like maybe if he pretends back and forth enough with her it will turn real again.

She pulls away with such intention he can't chase after her. It all lands wrong in his chest, because he hadn’t meant to crowd her, hadn’t meant to twist the comfort into something heavy. He’d only been trying to give her the same thing she'd given him. To hold her, anchor her, remind her she isn’t alone. He doesn’t see the lines they redrew, not when she's hurt like this, not when he'd give anything to pull her out of sepia and back into color. Besides, this feels different. Maybe because it's a risk he's already taken once, or because he doesn't intend to tug her into bed, but this just feels like love, plain and simple, and that they've always admitted to. Maybe not in those three, set words, or with all the tenderness they can muster, but still love. Friends can love. Should love.

His eyes follow her hand, reluctant but obedient. "Yeah, sure," He manages to say without letting the worry in. He stands and reaches for the towel, sighing softly as he tugs it down. He can't just expect her to be alright, can't just expect her to instantly rebound at the sight of his smile, but he doesn't like this. He feels for the first time like he can't reach the place she's gone to.

"Here you go," he murmurs, softer still, as he hands the towel over. "Gods know you can't get any more wrinkles." another attempt at normalcy. This time he does turn, letting her come out of the tub behind him. He stays quiet after that, moving a little more carefully, like someone might when they’re cleaning up a mess they can’t quite see, hoping she’ll guide him through what’s okay and what isn’t. Because he’d give her anything, even silence, if it meant she could shine again.

Kaisel

I keep acting tough but maybe I'm not good enough

marked me like a bloodstain

She watches as Kaisel turns, his back a safer shoreline than the sea of his eyes, and for a moment Flora can almost pretend that everything is fine. That her throat isn’t closing up. That her chest doesn’t feel too full of words she’ll never let herself speak. "Thanks," she murmurs, too lightly, wrapping the towel around herself not with sensuality but with speed. She dries off in quick, practical strokes, not bothering to change out of her damp underwear before slipping the silk dress back over her skin. The fabric clings in places she doesn’t care to notice, cool against the warmth still lingering from the bath. Kaisel wouldn’t be staying long. She could change later; could feel and fall apart later.

Once dressed, she clears her throat lightly, the signal subtle but unmistakable: he can turn around. While he does, Flora kneels at the side of the tub, fingers sifting through the basket with idle precision until she finds the salve she wants—cooling, mild, nearly scentless. Her expression stays level, carefully smoothed over like fresh foundation over a bruise. She will not crack again. She won't be that girl: the one who mistakes warmth for wanting, who convinces herself that gentle hands mean anything more than habit.

Her face settles into the mask she knows best—cool, unbothered, composed. Not brittle, not cruel, but whole enough to pass for untouched. Breezy. Bright. "How’d your date go with Caly?" she asks, the question carried on a current of practiced ease.

Flora doesn’t look at Kaisel as she speaks, because now that she understands the vastly different pages they're on, there's an ache that has settled like sediment with the realization that their night together meant more to her than it did to him. That for all her bravado, all her careless confidence, she was wrong in thinking she could handle things going back to the way they were. The truth is that once she’d had him like that—so close, so impossibly in sync, every breath between them measured like music—it had become impossible to imagine being satisfied with anything less.

And still, she won’t let him become another Koa. However much Kaisel might be inclined to follow in his cousin's footsteps, she refuses to let him thread himself between two women: She won’t let him be that boy, and she won’t let Caly be that girl. Besides, she had been the one to start it. The one to blur the lines. The one to let warmth and affection spiral into something sharp and irreversible. More fool was she to think a nineteen-year-old’s willingness to fall into her bed was anything more than just that—youth, convenience, desire. That him having imagined such scenerios was not born out of a what if, but just a means to an end late at night when he needed a little bit more than the heat of his hand.

So it was up to Flora to unblur what she’d invited; to redraw the lines she'd burned away and tuck her feelings away with her damp rings and tangled curls, and hand Kai the clean, curated version of her heart instead.

"You should bring her here sometime. The House adjusts to whatever its guests want, soo...like literally a perfect place for a date, and even better for sex."

I'm not giving up, kicking off the rust

At the clear indicator, he turns, tracking her as she kneels against the basket of creams and wraps. This image of her in a towel is so at odds with the last one he saw her in that can't really believe it's the same person he's looking at. In so many ways, it isn't.

Already teetering on unsteady ground, unsettled by something he's never felt between them before, her question about Caly catches him so off guard that he nervously laughs out a "What?" It's the sound he'd been trying to reclaim between them, laughter, but this one is nothing other than disbelief wearing a disguise. It feels too loud and abrupt against all the sorrow and confusion that's settled here like a fog, made all the worse for its lack of heat. All he feels is the cold sting of failure.

Even if he hadn't ruined everything, doing exactly this, Caly's name feels strange to hear in this space that is entirely Flora, with everything in him straining to resurface her golden splendor. He doesn't recognize it as something deliberate that Flora set down between them, not that it had mattered last time, but they each have tried to make it mean something heavier since then. He's assuming she's still trying for normal though, a soft light trying to cut through the cloud cover that's swept in too low and lingered like trapped mist, disorienting if the shine on it is too bright. "It was... amazing." He softens a touch with the memory of it, because now it feels like maybe the only one he'll get to keep, tucked in alongside the one with Flora. Things to just imagine rather than have. "We wandered around Halo's city. Ate some good food, flew some kites, just took in all the nice sights there." Simple, he supposes, but steeped with conversation and time at each other's sides, which is always enough for him.

He exhales steadily, letting go of that image that's just a dream now as he steps back towards her, reaching for the cream she's plucked free. "Oh yeah?" he says with a near scoff, trying to hold back the twist of his gut. "That's a neat trick I suppose, but I think I'd prefer the real thing." He's got enough imaginary ones he's already holding onto, he doesn't want to come here and pretend even more than he already does. "Doesn't matter anyway," he mutters, "I don't think she'll ever see me again." He doesn't mean to let the bitter admission free, not when Flora is the one who's hurt here, still trying to glue pieces of herself back together, not the least of which are the marks on her back.

Kaisel

I keep acting tough but maybe I'm not good enough

marked me like a bloodstain

Flora’s brows lift in tandem with his startled bark of laughter, the expression shaped in playful confusion. "You know," she says, slow and pointed, "your date. The one you were super worried about getting right." Her tone is light, but something inside her stiffens like a page turning crisp in the wind. He does catch on, of course—and he calls it AmAzInG.

There’s a hiccup in her chest that she doesn’t let show, a shiver of hollow-ache that she papers over with a sunny smile. It’s polished to perfection, almost warm enough to believe. "That sounds perfect," she hums, just as breezy, just as composed, giving him what he needs to not feel bad about it. What she needs, maybe, to keep the edges from bleeding through.

He reaches for the salve and she lets him take it. She huffs a small, incredulous sound at his comment about preferring the real thing, glancing up at him from her kneel. "What, you expecting to find a nice springy bed in the woods somewhere? Good luck with that." And then—because this is her room and her illusion to control—she shatters the image of forest and sea with a blink. The bath fades behind them, the garden wilts into shadow, and the House resets itself into rich marble and deep red walls, decadent and candlelit. The room’s usual charm returns, all polished wood and silken accents, and Flora gestures toward the bed with casual theatricality.

"It's not all fake," she says, just before the room bends to her whims again. Above the bed, mirrors unfurl like petals—soft edged and glinting, catching every angle with a subtle shimmer. The mattress contorts into something more hedonistic than practical, lush with velvet and implication. The bedding flares red, as sultry and bold as fresh-split pomegranate. Then, with another flicker of her mind, it all resets again, tastefully muted and neutral once more.

Flora turns partway, preparing to sit so Kaisel can apply the salve, only to pause as his voice carries—not sarcastic now, not teasing, but low and bitter and unexpectedly raw. She peers over her shoulder at him, caught somewhere between frown and surprise. "What do you mean she won’t see you again?" The worry is real, clear in the way her eyes search his. There's no shiver of triumph or relief, just an instantaneous concern that's hedged with disbelief, because surely after things had gone so amazingly, they couldn't just be over.

I'm not giving up, kicking off the rust

"Isn't that part of the fun? Bark digging into you and not caring enough to stop, bog bites to mark it all later?" he's only half serious, because that sounds awful and he doesn't really intend to fuck in a forest anyway. That said, there's something authentic to the real thing, where the need to melt into each other supersedes all other threats and comforts or lack thereof. He'd not have picked a burger stand and ketchup stains either, but it certainly made the evening stand out more than all the rushed moments in his bedroom when his parents were out.

He is not, in fact, well versed on the magic of this particular brothel (although they all have a sort of magic to them), so when the sea and forest shrink and reappear as a red room instead, his mouth does hang open a bit. This is in part because, whoa, maybe the room is fancier than he first gave it credit for. But also because, is that the kind of room Flora would want? Not that he has any business thinking about that, but it sinks in like something he might revisit some other day.

With the less provocative room returned and salve in hand, he's unscrewing the lid, ready to try to grant Flora some relief in this small manner since nothing else seems to have worked. Though according to her, probably neither would this. What'd she say about motions that makes others feel better?

He glances up at her question though, lips pressing back with a frown and a flick of his gaze back to the salve like he must suddenly study it's opening mechanism intently. "I mean—" a breath gathered, not meaning to dive in this here, or now, or maybe ever, least of all with her. He doesn't like to share what's bothering him, but he's not great at holding onto it either once someone asks. He doesn't mean to just spill everything all the time, but he always fills it up too high and it all becomes too easy to knock over. Doesn't matter now anyway, he already tipped the cup when he could have just pretended her idea was a good one. "She got pissed at me, for the whole thing with Jack." One day he'll manage to talk to Flora without either of them mentioning her ex.

"I mean he was at her birthday party, and I didn't think he would be, so it took me by surprise and I made a bit of a scene..." his gaze flicks guiltily towards her. "I really didn't try to, but she asked what was going on between us so I told her."

Kaisel

I keep acting tough but maybe I'm not good enough