the bastion
Remi sighs and nods, his mouth pulling into a tired line as he leans into the arm Ronin curls around his shoulders. We broached that very, very carefully, he says silently, the faint lift of his brows doing the rest of the work for him, because whatever Flora had expected from them, she had not placed the news down gently enough for anyone to examine it before it went off in the middle of the room.
Pressed against Ronin’s side, Remi tries to let the warmth moving through the bond blunt the teeth of everything else, though the despair still wants to worry at him from beneath the ribs, patient and familiar. He can only nod, helplessly and more than once, because he is caught between two thoughts that refuse to sit cleanly beside one another: that Flora could not possibly understand what she has tethered herself to, not really, not in the bone-deep way she will one day, and that perhaps she does understand enough and had chosen it anyway, reckless in that particularly Flora-shaped way that has always made love and fear feel too much alike.
"I agree," he whispers against Ronin’s lips, the words barely there after the kiss, soft enough that they belong more to his husband than to the room. Still, agreement does not settle him the way he wishes it would, and he shakes his head slightly as his eyes drift back toward the closed door. "I do not know anymore," he admits, his voice kept low, each word careful around the sleeping boys and the mess Flora has left behind. "I have always thought our job was to tell them the hard truths they might not want to hear. But at what cost?"
The question hangs there, not dramatic but exhausted, scraped raw by the fact that there is no answer that does not seem to ask for blood from somewhere. Flora’s words return to him despite himself, that accusation about their trauma bleeding through and their children inheriting chips they never asked to carry, and though he wants to dismiss it as anger, as a daughter striking where she knows the skin is thinnest, he cannot quite keep it from lodging somewhere tender. His gaze drops to Carlo and Calan. "Would saying nothing have been better?" he asks softly, looking down at the twins rather than at Ronin, because the question feels easier to let loose when it is not aimed directly at either of them. "Or would she have said we were being just as unsupportive?"
Pressed against Ronin’s side, Remi tries to let the warmth moving through the bond blunt the teeth of everything else, though the despair still wants to worry at him from beneath the ribs, patient and familiar. He can only nod, helplessly and more than once, because he is caught between two thoughts that refuse to sit cleanly beside one another: that Flora could not possibly understand what she has tethered herself to, not really, not in the bone-deep way she will one day, and that perhaps she does understand enough and had chosen it anyway, reckless in that particularly Flora-shaped way that has always made love and fear feel too much alike.
"I agree," he whispers against Ronin’s lips, the words barely there after the kiss, soft enough that they belong more to his husband than to the room. Still, agreement does not settle him the way he wishes it would, and he shakes his head slightly as his eyes drift back toward the closed door. "I do not know anymore," he admits, his voice kept low, each word careful around the sleeping boys and the mess Flora has left behind. "I have always thought our job was to tell them the hard truths they might not want to hear. But at what cost?"
The question hangs there, not dramatic but exhausted, scraped raw by the fact that there is no answer that does not seem to ask for blood from somewhere. Flora’s words return to him despite himself, that accusation about their trauma bleeding through and their children inheriting chips they never asked to carry, and though he wants to dismiss it as anger, as a daughter striking where she knows the skin is thinnest, he cannot quite keep it from lodging somewhere tender. His gaze drops to Carlo and Calan. "Would saying nothing have been better?" he asks softly, looking down at the twins rather than at Ronin, because the question feels easier to let loose when it is not aimed directly at either of them. "Or would she have said we were being just as unsupportive?"
I can't pass the test,
don't wait for me.
don't wait for me.
