#flogan

There’s no real light where they are. Only pinpricks of it, tricks of the light that seem to slide over the shapes around them, like looking for rainbows in oil slicks. But that’s all right. She doesn’t need to see. That’s what she has her fingertips for, and right now, those fingers are sliding over every curve of him that she can reach, the bridge of his nose, the sharp angle of his jaw, the broad slope of his shoulder.

Flynn barely stirs. He just survived a sinking ship, swimming in freezing water, and then (thoroughly) fucked her, so Lucy supposes he’s allowed to lie there like a log for a bit if he feels like it. She’s just scared. So, so scared, that he might not be real.

In the dark, she can breathe as raggedly as she wants, and let her hair fall across his chest, and press her forehead to his. Flynn reaches up, his fingers clumsily finding her hips, keeping her steady as she settles on top of him - not, this time, out of carnal pleasure but simply to press together, to feel how solid he is, to keep as close as she can. In the dark, she can let out her fears, silently, and hold him, tightly as she wants to.

“Are you warm enough?” Lucy asks. He must be warm. He has to be warm. She won’t lose him to hypothermia, after all this.

“I’m warm,” Flynn mumbles, his accent thick, his lips barely moving.

Lucy brushes her lips over his closed eyes. He was so cold when she first grabbed him. His clothes were freezing and weighed about as much as he did, they were so waterlogged. She kissed his fingers over and over until they were no longer tinged blue, but still, she fears, she fears...

I love you. It’s not something to say right now, although she’s sure Flynn knows it already. But they’re too tired for the conversation that’ll have to happen afterwards. So she just thinks it instead. She pushes his hair back out of his face, learns him by touch alone, and holds him until she feels like she is the darkness, wrapping around him, hiding him from the world, from pain, from danger.

This is far from the ideal spot. They’re in a random storage room of some kind. But she wouldn’t trade it for a palace right now. Lucy presses her forehead to his, feels Flynn’s breaths even out into sleep, and sinks her heart into his ocean.

_____________________________________________________________

Flynn wakes up and for a wild second is sure he’s gone blind.

Then he remembers - finding the tattered remains of a lifeboat (the irony is not lost on him), Lucy, kissing her like it was the only thing that could save him (maybe it was), finding a random, unoccupied space--

Lucy’s on top of him now, her breathing a bit ragged, but when he reaches up and pushes some of her hair out of her face, she doesn’t stir. Asleep, then. But not at rest.

He’s not sure he... Lucy has been walking a line, he knows, between being forthcoming and being respectful, when it comes to what they are to each other. And it’s not that he’s doubted her. But he’s not sure he actually understood how much she - for him - until he saw her face as he staggered out onto the deck. It was blazing. It was a campfire in the middle of the woods, it was a lighthouse in a storm, it was a candle in a haunted house. And she’d kissed him, like--like--

Part of him wants to shake her. To say, don’t you know? Don’t you know what measure of man you love? Why would you do that? Why would you let my ink stain your pages? Lucy means light, and he is the opposite of that, but God, Mother Mary, someone, give him the softness and courage to love her back the right way because for some reason despite all of it, Lucy loves him. He cannot deny the press of her lips against his skin, her sighs in his ear, her warmth taking him in. He can’t insult her by ignoring it or dismissing it. And all he wants is to be worthy of it.

All this time and he’s still looking for absolution.

Flynn’s fingers tangle in her hair as he gently combs it back, hampered by his lack of sight, and he secures his arm further across her waist so she doesn’t slip off him and fall. They need to find Rufus and Wyatt, they need to get off, get home... but maybe just a little longer, he’ll let her sleep. Because here, in the darkness, he feels he’s loving her as he’s meant to - and for better or for worse, the way Lucy seems to want to be loved.

__________________________________________________________

Wyatt likes to keep himself busy when he’s upset and right now is no exception. Lucky him, there’s plenty of help needed on a ship that’s taking in survivors from a horrific shipwreck, and he runs around fetching blankets, food, water, taking down names of survivors, reuniting people, comforting children, and drying the tears of newly-made widows. It’s great fun, oh yeah, puts him right back in the Alamo, right back in fucking Kuwait and Afghanistan, but at least it’s not leaving him alone with his thoughts.

And his thoughts are really... not great.

There’s really no doubt what Lucy and Flynn are up to. Um, well, maybe not that specifically. If Wyatt had just gone swimming in below zero temperatures he sure wouldn’t be able to get his dick up. But they’re kissing, and cuddling, and being fucking adorable and in love somewhere on this fucking ship and Wyatt really, really, really...

He inhales the stinging sea air. Grips the rails. Stares at the dark void where he thinks the horizon is until everything evens out again. It’s dark out here on the deck, and cold, but he needs it. Needs the chill. Needs a little... self-flagellation.

Because he’s not gonna make the same mistake a third time. Jess, then Lucy, now... he’s not gonna focus on what he wants and wallow in how much it hurts him. He’s going to love someone right, for once in his stupid life.

It’s not the kind of love that is sung about, or shown in films, or gets everyone screaming at a television show for five seasons. It’s the kind of love that’s hidden under a blanket fort at midnight during a sleepover. The love at the back of a movie theater. The love you can only think about when nobody else is around, the love you tuck very carefully in between the curve of your heart and that shadowy other thing that science can’t detect but everyone knows is there.

Wyatt tucks it there now, and warns it to stay. Sit. Quiet. Good boy.