Carped Noctems

Emerson: Yes, only because I'm curious to know what you'll come up with.

Emerson: Dalmatians are temperamental, what can I say?

Emerson: Once he's around you more, he'll calm down and eventually leave you alone.

Flynn: I have years of experience when it comes to navigating, I can actually help with things around the boat, and I can reach things that are high up without a ladder.

Flynn: I don't need to 'come up with' things. Those are facts.

Emerson’s expression softened as Flynn’s lips grazed the delicate skin on the inside of her wrist. Maybe it wasn’t often that they lie together like this yet she had never felt so relaxed when they did. Every time she stayed, it was a war within herself. Flynn quieted any demons that plagued her, but she found herself constantly conflicted. 

Ordinarily, this was something she would overthink. And ramble. And try to justify, rather than just lay quietly. Or try to figure out why he calmed her. Why everything seemed to just stand still. Why hours felt like minutes. Emerson could spend days with Flynn, whether those days were spent tangled in the sheets or doing just about anything else, it felt like no time passed at all. Like now, she was simply…relaxed. And more so than she had felt in months. 

“You fuck with mine, too,” she admitted. 

He fucked with her head so badly. Enough that she attempted to escape from him by leaving to another island to try and clear it, yet the confusion stayed and the longing intensified. Emerson broke her rules for him. Flynn had been in her villa more times than she count count and he stayed. She went back to him continuously. He had seen her break. He had helped her pick herself back up. She showed him genuine affection and what was even worse, she allowed him to do the same. 

As she wallowed, her fingers caressed along his jaw, threaded into his hair. There was no motive behind the soft brush of her lips over his, at least this time. 

“I’m sorry I left without telling you. I was offered this position here, to ready this new island, and I had to take it.” 

Piracy meant Flynn spent the majority of his time out in the sea. That was his home. It also meant that he didn't get involved with anyone inland. Not for long, anyway. His staying had always had an expiration date, and he never gave anyone unrealistic expectations that he might be back. It wasn't as if he had someone waiting for him wherever he docked. He wasn't that person, but he'd had his fair share of dalliances, and it made sure he developed some cardinal rules. Flynn never stayed the night. He always held his trysts at their place so that he felt comfortable leaving once it was over.

With Emerson it was different. Maybe he would have acted the same way if they had tumbled to bed the night when they drunkenly flirted with one another. Or if he hadn't known her for the better of his life, but there was something inherently wrong about fleeing her villa after they'd had sex. And there was something about it that made him want to stay. It wasn't even the thought that there was no way he would be able to avoid her afterward if he'd snuck out of her house like a coward. It was something else. Something he couldn't understand.

"I know what you do is important to you," he nodded. "But you could have said your job was taking you away," Flynn noted, though there was a part in his brain that told him that he might not have understood it as well as he might have made it sound. Still, it would have been better than having to live with the alternative and what he'd felt towards himself, with nothing but doubts and insecurity. "I wouldn't have taken it away from you," he stated, and he knew it to be true. Much as he might have wanted her to stay, he would never put her in a position in which she had to choose one or the other. It would have been like asking a bird to clip its wings, and Flynn couldn't take her essence away from her.

Emerson: Not saying you can't be. Just that he's my usual.

Emerson: I'll ask.

Emerson: Well, I could always say to not kiss me, but then no one wins except Roger. He's like a possessive child.

Flynn: Will you make me present you reasons why I could be more useful?

.

It hadn’t occurred to Emerson until then that she could have possibly said something very wrong. Not until Flynn drew back and looked at her like she had grown two heads or said something about retiring from piracy to join the circus. 

(Or that she said she loved him. Again. Maybe those words had slipped out.)

“It’s just late, Flynn. You don’t look as though I woke you up. I just wanted to make sure I didn’t catch you in the middle of a project,” she explained. Any other time, she would have bristled with I was trying to be sensitive to the time or some other remark that would have sparked an argument that would have likely ended with her leaving. Yet any will to fight and argue died as soon as the very idea formed. Or perhaps she was simply that tired or she had missed him that much. Perhaps she simply…stopped fighting it. 

Finally, she slid off his lap and intertwined their fingers together in order to gently tug him to a standing position. “Well, let’s at least move to the bed. If I’m responsible for keeping you up at this hour, I won’t be responsible for a possibly stiff neck in the morning if and when we actually do fall asleep.” 

Emerson stopped fighting it. She stopped fighting how much she wanted to be around him and how much she wanted to stay. She stopped fighting because pretending took too much out of her. She stopped fighting the comfort and safety she felt when she tucked herself into his arms in bed and completely gave in. 

Her fingers locked together on the back of his neck, her thumbs resting on either side of his face, and her forehead rested against his. “I should have said it earlier, but I’m happy you’re here.” 

He looked at her as she spoke. No one would ever call his drinking habits a project. "I wasn't sleeping," he shook his head, although she hadn't asked. He might have been tired from the trip to the new island, but it didn't mean he was able to close his eyes and easily drift to a slumber either. "But I can't say I was up to anything else either," he shook his head.

It was a surprising change of pace when she rose from the couch and tugged on his hand, especially cause when he saw what she was doing, he half-expected Emerson to walk to the door and out into the stormy night instead. She always felt like a flight risk.

Maybe it was sad how easily he complied with what Emerson wanted out of him, but this was his life, and if he could make his peace with it, why did others feel entitled to pipe in? Flynn wondered as he made the way across the hallway, following the youngest Tulach's sylphid form. If this was some type of dream or drunken mirage, he would hold onto it for as long as he could.

He laid in his bed with her, staring into Emerson's liquid gold eyes while his fingertips brushed up and down her side in a gentle caress. Flynn moved his head a little to deposit a kiss on the inside of her wrist. The navigator watched her profile in the pale light that filtered through the draperies of his bedroom. "I'm glad you're here, too," he whispered back at her. "Don't get me wrong, you fuck with my head in several different ways, but I'll still take that over the alternative," he explained. The only other choice was to live without her, and Flynn wasn't sure it was something he would still be able to do.

Emerson: Hey, he's my travel companion.

Emerson: I very easily could. I can see if Nellie wouldn't mind looking after him.

Emerson: He only doesn't like you because you take his spot in my bed. And he doesn't like watching anyone kiss me.

Flynn: Well, I can be a travel companion, too.

Flynn: Yeah, you should definitely talk to her. She might not even mind it.

It was such a strange sense of comfort and familiarity. Any other time of deflection, Emerson would have taken advantage of the fact Flynn was shirtless and she wore very little more than his shirt. Her energy and capacity to fight whatever this was between them laid outside in the pouring rain. For now, she could nestle closer to him and tuck her head into his neck. 

Or as best as she could with their height difference.

It was then that Emerson could smell the whiskey on him. She drew back to look up at him with a puzzled expression. “Am I interrupting anything?” she asked. 

For the first time after their accidental meeting earlier that day, Flynn felt at peace. He wasn't mulling over what had happened, now was he trying to find meaning in something he couldn't even begin to understand. Right now, he could shake all of them off.

And just as he was relaxing in his position on the couch, came her question. Puzzled, Flynn backed away to look at her, as if her words had stung him somehow. "What?!" he didn't seem to know where that question was coming from, and Emerson wasn't one to bother mincing her phrases, so whatever she was going to say, she would spit it out already.

Emerson: I likely could, but that means I can't take Roger with me.

Emerson: I'll come home to all my Tupperware containers on the floor.

Flynn: Bummer...

Charlotte: My person isn't my sibling, but I see what you mean.

Charlotte: Well, you got off to a decent start

Yulia: That's fair. I mean, the important thing is to have someone like that in your life, no matter if they're bound to you by blood or not.

Yulia: And I have to thank you for that.

Marlo: Still, I'm bound by 'first, do no harm'.

Sophie: Which is admirable. Harming might not be my preferred method, but sometimes it's the only method people will understand.

Charlotte: The difference is, if you're actually listening to me, I'll stick to the subject at hand.

Dinah: I'm not taking any chances.

Beckett: It's dangerously close.

Sophie: Well, then I suppose I shan't keep you from... Whatever you might be up to any longer. There are other obligations for me to find, then tackle. I'm positive there are more things that could use my attention in this island. Right?