REMI
the alchemist
What good are hands
if there's nothing that they hold
if there's nothing that they hold
Every thought Remi has ever had about what it means to be the Bastion seems to abandon him at once. Protection, support, steadiness, all those things he is meant to be and has been called for so many years, feel suddenly useless in the cold hollow opening beneath his ribs, because the lime and lemon shapes below are too small to be strangers and too large to be the infants who had been asleep in their cribs, and some part of him cannot make sense of the distance between those truths fast enough to stand inside it.
Ronin’s arm finds him before his knees can decide whether or not they intend to remain cooperative, and Remi’s own arm winds around his husband’s waist immediately, fingers gripping hard while his other hand catches the railing of the Northaven with enough force to make the wood creak faintly beneath his palm. Through the bond, relief hits him from Ronin raw and loud and dizzying, and he answers it with something equally uneven.
But then the lemon and lime resolve into dark curls and bright blue eyes, into faces so terribly familiar and impossibly new that Remi’s breath catches in his throat. They are big. They are standing. And apparently, they have been dissatisfied with the menu. The absurdity of it finally finds one small crack in the ice inside him, and when one of them, Carlo maybe, or Calan—gods help him he has no idea—announces that they were tired of eating the same thing almost every day, Remi cannot stop the soft, disbelieving chuckle that slips out of him.
"Our apologies," he says, as his eyes move between the two boys with aching, helpless wonder. "We could not figure out what you liked to eat half the time. One day you liked something and the next you refused to eat it."
Ronin’s arm finds him before his knees can decide whether or not they intend to remain cooperative, and Remi’s own arm winds around his husband’s waist immediately, fingers gripping hard while his other hand catches the railing of the Northaven with enough force to make the wood creak faintly beneath his palm. Through the bond, relief hits him from Ronin raw and loud and dizzying, and he answers it with something equally uneven.
But then the lemon and lime resolve into dark curls and bright blue eyes, into faces so terribly familiar and impossibly new that Remi’s breath catches in his throat. They are big. They are standing. And apparently, they have been dissatisfied with the menu. The absurdity of it finally finds one small crack in the ice inside him, and when one of them, Carlo maybe, or Calan—gods help him he has no idea—announces that they were tired of eating the same thing almost every day, Remi cannot stop the soft, disbelieving chuckle that slips out of him.
"Our apologies," he says, as his eyes move between the two boys with aching, helpless wonder. "We could not figure out what you liked to eat half the time. One day you liked something and the next you refused to eat it."
And what good are hearts
if you bury them all alone?
if you bury them all alone?
Speaks with a thick Italian accent.
Force and magic can be used against Remi without permission.
Force and magic can be used against Remi without permission.
