where the wild things are

hope keeps us breathing, just to kill us in the end

Remi's hand hovers, shaking, above his husband's tail, waiting. Only the moment never comes. Instead, Ronin shrinks and somehow becomes less for how his rage has bled away into a collapsed flash of anger and hurt. 'Hey," Remi calls softly, not needing Oria's tug of his curls to tell him that he ought to go after his husband. Though it's his projection that tries to halt the Huntsman's progress, it's the real Remi that reaches out for his shoulder after having trotted to his side across the mosses.

"It isn't. I promise." He says with a soft sweetness, trying to find his husband's gaze. "Maybe once long ago it was, but not now." Remi adds with all the solemnness of a vow. 'Anger. Hunger. Possessiveness. Jealousy, and pride...I do know where to push the knives, it is true. As a man you swallow them down well enough, but as a dragon they will swallow you." Searching for one of Ronin's hands, Remi aims to bring it to his lips, to breathe the words against his husband's skin. "I only wanted to give you the confidence to know that if you could withstand this...that you could withstand anything."

Or...almost anything, perhaps. Instinctively somehow Remi knew that had he shown the dragon Hotaru or the twins, unthinkable things would have happened. Everyone had lines, and the alchemist did not need Ronin to cross this one to know firmly where those markers stood.