I'm almost me again

the white knight

Nuzzling Remi back with a hum of agreement about how incredibly ridiculous he has sounded, Ronin relaxes back against his husband with only a wrinkle of his nose about the unbreakable bond that still remains between himself and the Lady of the Stars as a result of their daughter. It doesn't make for light conversation, and the Knight is visibly relieved to hear the subject change again, though his feelings go from murky and uncertain to spiky and suspicious as his husband continues.

Torn between thanks I hate it and go on, Ronin tilts his head back and furrows his brow up at the other man, entirely uncertain as to what he's planning. "What if, indeed?" he drawls, tension rippling across his shoulders as if expecting at any moment to be dunked beneath the surface of the water or otherwise yeeted somewhere.

i'm almost me again
she's almost you

RONIN

i kept falling over, i kept looking backward

Taking Ronin's sass as permission, one of Remi's arms slides up his chest to grasp the Knight's opposite shoulder as if to lock him in place against the Bastion. The other begins to descend, ever so slowly, his fingers massaging the muscles of his husband's chest and sides before descending towards his thighs, propped up as they were on Remi's tentacle chair.

"Well, consider where we are." Remi whispers against his husband's ear. Slowly their bodies revolve in place as the tentacles far below the surface turn. "We know that we aren't alone here, but in the mist, if we're very quiet it's entirely possible that we could sneak around without anyone knowing. Surely that's a good skill to have, given what's coming?" His hand kneads softly at the large muscles on top of Ronin's thigh, before his fingertips splay out towards his knee and his palm falls inward. "But only if we're very quiet."

i went broke believing that the simple should be hard

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the white knight

As Remi's explanation hits the air, it's with a slow realisation (that takes a little longer given the attention being paid to perpetually tense muscles) that Ronin starts to understand the Bastion's point. "You would think that being very quiet would be easy given how important it is to being stealthy," he whispers to the other man, head tilting ever so slightly as if to better hear his husband's voice, even as the words are dripped directly into his ear.

"But then I imagine the point of the exercise is to be quiet even when things become a little more stressful?" What kind of stress, you may ask? Ronin has some ideas, but he gets the impression that he's about to properly find out as a result of Remi's skilled and wandering hands. Or maybe he'll still dunk him in the hotsprings - the Knight still hasn't entirely ruled that out.

i'm almost me again
she's almost you

RONIN

i kept falling over, i kept looking backward

"You would think that, yes." The Bastion agrees sounding entirely pleased, his voice nothing more than a dark purr against the shell of his husband's ear. "It's also important not to look suspicious, so...mind your face."

It's perhaps best that there hasn't been any lead-up to this moment if only so that Ronin could thoroughly practice being quiet, and so with nothing more than an eager swirl of excitement through the bond, Remi continues to massage the muscles of his husband's inner thighs before just barely brushing between his legs and moving towards the opposite leg.

"On a scale from one to ten, how stressful are you currently feeling..?"

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the white knight

"Or what, the mist will notice?" Ronin wants to know, unable to help his sass and his crooked smile before he composes himself so he might fully embrace this lesson the Bastion is about to teach him. In stealth. A lesson in stealth. Yep.

Schooling his expression into something neutral and letting his head tip back against Remi's shoulder and into the crook of his neck, he's all but held in place by the arm across his chest and the skilled fingers doing their work beneath the water. It's only the brief, fluttery inhale to suggest he's anything other than zen, though as the Bastion will be able to feel for himself, the opposite is quite true.

"If I had to give it a number, I'd probably put it at about a two or a three," he whispers, smiling the response against his throat.

i'm almost me again
she's almost you

RONIN

i kept falling over, i kept looking backward

Well, now you've done it. No, you're not going to be dunked under the water Ronin (yet), but maybe you're going to wish you were.

Hmming against the Knight's cheek to the tune of you fucked up, Remi's tentacles slide them back slowly in the direction they had come. You know, where the mist was far thinner and where the lull of conversation from the others in the springs was louder.

"A two or three? That's good. I'd say at this level you're very stealthy." Indeed to anyone watching, because as the mist began to thin the silhouettes of others was becoming easier to pick out, Ronin looked as though he was simply relaxing against his husband's shoulder.

Slowly Remi's hand made its way up his husband's thigh, taking the long way across his stomach and sides before descending again and casually untying the drawstrings of his husband's swimming shorts. Pressing a casual kiss against the Knight's cheek, he let his fingertips slip beneath the fabric and glide forward until the entirety of his palm was covering his husband's length.

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the white knight

Let it be said right now that when it comes to his husband and his shenanigans, there's nothing Ronin enjoys more than fucking up. Or at least that's firmly what he believes up until the point when he realises they're heading out of the mist and towards the people, and perhaps that neutral expression is interrupted, however briefly, by the raise of an eyebrow. 

He's seized, for a moment, by the chaotic urge to throw caution to the wind and let everyone there know what is happening - and if he thought it would even slightly embarrass Remi, he might - but in the end playing along with the game is much more enjoyable.

For now, anyway. That might change quite soon.

Biting at the inside of his cheek as he feels the Bastion's mischievous hands slip lower, and then beneath the fabric of his swimming shorts, Ronin manages a shaky inhale before turning his head towards the other man. "I'm feeling a little more stressed now," he whispers.

i'm almost me again
she's almost you

RONIN

i kept falling over, i kept looking backward

"Are you? Well, why don't you let me know once things reach a five, mm?" Remi hums against his husband's ear. With his left arm, he clutches the Knight close, his fingertips pulsing out errant patterns against his shoulder as his right continues to tease and torment.

"I remember when we first came here, and you conjured a cloud for us because I said I wanted to fuck you and have it feel like a dream." The Bastion whispers as he strokes his hand up and down the Knight's length, trying to add to the tension his husband was feeling. "There hadn't been anyone around then as the word hadn't really gotten out about the hot springs." He adds, casually, as if the two were just out for a casual chat while having a swim.

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the white knight

"What would you describe as a five?" Ronin wants to know, doing his best to keep his voice pitched low and soft enough that not even the mist around them might be aware that they're having a conversation. All the while, of course, this is Remi Taliesin, and no one is more expert in coaxing pleasure from his husband than he is, the Knight hiccuping a soft breath against the other man's neck as he continues his ministrations.

"How could I forget?" he whispers, recalling well the sight of the other man over him, his nimbus at his back and the steam whorling overhead from the hotsprings all around. "What a shame that we had to ruin it by... by letting everyone know about it," he agrees, letting one hand slip up and through the back of the Bastion's curls, the other touching to the arm braced across his chest. "I am beginning to suspect that this isn't anything at all to do with stealth training, Remi."

i'm almost me again
she's almost you

RONIN

i kept falling over, i kept looking backward

"Well, picture whatever a ten would be, and halve it." Remi suggests smugly as his hand continues to glide against his husband's cock. There was a risk of friction despite the water, and so it was with a ghostly grip that he allowed his pace to pick up ever so slightly. "Shhhh," the Bastion corrects gently as Ronin's breath leaves his lips at a pace decidedly not measured or steady. While Remi's own reaction is entirely silent, there is a throbbing garnet pulse of arousal that colours the bond between the two with every stuttered breath that leaves the Knight's lips.

"What were we thinking?" The Bastion agrees, sighing wearily. Had his husband not been so racist weird about the feel of his tentacles, Remi might have had the Knight's hands bound below the surface where they couldn't paw or clutch. Alas. "What makes you say that? You couldn't be bothered to play marco polo properly and that's a game all about stealth, so I had to figure out another." Chuckling to himself at how surprisingly reasonable that sounded, Remi tilted his head back and into the fingers that clutched at his wet curls, humming a warm note of encouragement.

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the white knight

"Then I would likely say I am creeping well past a four," Ronin admits, the words almost mumbled against the hot, damp skin of his husband's neck, and as he's summarily sssh!ed, the Knight has to cage a hopeless laugh in the back of his throat, because he's entirely unsure how he's meant to be quiet throughout this training exercise. And despite the ruby pulse in the other man's emotions, within the expertly arranged tentacles around him, he has no chance at telling whether the Bastion is remotely affected by his own game.

And it might be alas or it might be a relief, because bound hands could well result in the Knight accidentally drowning himself. "I believe the entire point was that we weren't thinking," he continues, trying to keep his breath steady and his voice even, though gods if even sitting still isn't beginning to become a problem. "I think I prefer this game to marco polo," he adds, biting his lower lip against a moan that tries to escape.

i'm almost me again
she's almost you

RONIN

i kept falling over, i kept looking backward

The how is entirely up to him, but gods, if the Knight can't even keep quiet past a four on the stress scale, how was he meant to be any help at all on Starfall, or to their students later on? Perhaps this was an exercise that bore repeating until the Knight was able to pass with flying colours.

"How fortunate for us both that we're much smarter men now, mm?" Remi replies distractedly. For all of his talk and confidence, the Bastion's willpower to keep himself separate from his husband was strengthened only by the sheer fact that he honestly couldn't recall the last time he'd been in a position to so successfully tease the Knight. And gods if that didn't give him all the staying power he needed.

"Mm? That's nice." The words are conversational despite the way his hand has picked up speed against his husband's cock, and while Remi's expression remains pleasant if not a touch strained, there's a lurid flood of scarlet arousal that he lets flow unhindered from the places they touch.

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the white knight

"Well, one of us is." A smarter man, Ronin means, and it's entirely uncertain which of them he's referring to in this moment. Perhaps it's neither, if he gives it some real thought, but gods then Remi's hand picks up its teasing pace against his cock and the Knight swears he can taste blood with how hard he's biting the inside of his cheek so as to not give away their position (or their activities) with the sound of his pleasure. 

His fingers tighten in the other man's curls, Ronin turning enough that he might press slow, hot kisses against the line of Remi's jaw. Whilst this game is much different to marco polo, he's finding it nevertheless very difficult to remember the rules or how to win. As has been the case for years now, the strong arms holding him aloft in the hot water, the flood of feeling vibrating everywhere they touch, it all combines exquisitely into Ronin's undoing.

"Six," he whispers roughly - belatedly - against the Bastion's throat, though whether he's accurately representing himself on the stress scale or whether he's just said the first number that's popped into his head is quite unclear.

i'm almost me again
she's almost you

RONIN

i kept falling over, i kept looking backward

Indeed, the Bastion pauses for a moment with his eyebrows narrowed furrowed in a quickly discarded effort to figure out which of them it might be. It probably was neither, not given the number of mistakes they made time and time again, but it didn't matter.

Grinning into the hot kisses Ronin left along his jaw, the press of which was instantly filled in by droplets of sweat as they beaded down from his curls, Remi tutted softly under his breath. "People are going to think you've nothing better to do than kiss me if you keep this up, husband." He whispers, his tone wicked and his pace precisely the same.

"Six? Is that all?" Teasing bright greens and golds flood their bond as Remi hums indulgently in Ronin's ear as if having just made a very difficult decision. "Well, I suppose we'd better speed things up if we're going to make any progress." At first, the pace of Remi's hand doesn't change, only his pressure does; increasing by degrees and using the palette of his husband's emotions for guidance, only once he knows that he hasn't strayed past the point of pleasurable does he allow the speed of his hand to increase.

i went broke believing that the simple should be hard

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