trying to make the wrongs right

the bastion

And if the sky grows heavy
wrap your arms around me tight; we'll be alright

When Ronin returns home he'll find the door of their houseboat still off of its hinges and the sliding door leading out toward their deck open. Not that he'll be able to tell, but everything is precisely as it was since the moment Flora left, the only change being that the Bastion had slumped down in his chair rather than remaining standing with his hand outstretched for his daughter who had stormed away from him.

Having stared out at the sea for so long that his mind could no longer quite comprehend the waves or the horizon line, Remi was lost in replay after replay of the events which had taken place earlier. The accusations his daughter made rang loudly in his ears, each echo of them making him unconsciously flinch as his fingers brushed against his throat. Her strike hadn't hurt him, not physically anyway, though the fact that she'd not only resorted to violence but also a threat was something he'd not anticipated from her. Whether that said more about him or his relationship with his daughter, Remi wasn't entirely sure, and so he stared blankly out at the waves, trying to understand.

If the ground gives way beneath us,
If we should fall to pieces
Find me where I first found you

Code blatently stolen from queen of codes, Sky!

we shall heal our wounds, collect our dead

At first Ronin thinks there's either been a loss of temper or a fight - and wouldn't you know, both is true - and he steps quickly into the houseboat in search of his husband. "Remi?" he calls, setting down the box of ingredients he'd been gifted in return for his help, though of course at this point tomorrow's dinner is the last thing on his mind. There are only so many places the Bastion might be given how compact their home is, and the Knight finds him soon enough out on the deck.

"What happened?" he asks, brow furrowing as he crosses the short distance to kneel down in front of his husband's chair, a warm hand resting on his knee. It doesn't take much to spot the faint red marks against Remi's throat or the distant look in his eyes, and based on how they'd left things with Flora, he's got a sinking feeling he knows who is responsible. "Hey, I'm here. Look at me."

THE WHITE KNIGHT

and continue fighting

the bastion

And if the sky grows heavy
wrap your arms around me tight; we'll be alright

Whether or not Remi actually called out in response, he doesn't know. He thought he'd hummed something under his breath, but given the way Ronin suddenly appears at his side, he can't be sure; can't untangle the complicated emotional knots that have held him still for the past however long.

Pulling his gaze away from the sea, the Bastion blinks a few times, trying to make sense of the bronze skin and blue eyes suddenly filling his vision, his mind overlaying the lapping waves across Ronin's cheeks for a long few moments. Sighing, his sea glass stare hardening as he finally comes all the way back into himself, he smiles sadly, covering Ronin's hand with his own.

"Flora came by." He explains, the mottled bruise-purple of his emotions likely saying more than words ever could about what had happened between them. "I think we're wrong, Ronin." Squeezing the Knight's hand, Remi swallows. "I think we're really wrong."

If the ground gives way beneath us,
If we should fall to pieces
Find me where I first found you

Code blatently stolen from queen of codes, Sky!

we shall heal our wounds, collect our dead

Flora came by is likely all Ronin would have needed to hear, but the moody blush of the other man's feelings combined with the regret that spills from his lips only punctuates the point further, and it's with a soft frown that he turns his hand to squeeze Remi's fingers back. "C'mere," he murmurs, attempting to coax him out of the chair even if it's only as far as the deck where they can both sit and the Knight can get his arms around his husband.

"I mean, it wasn't our finest moment," he agrees wholeheartedly, though having not been through Remi's past however long, his ego still insists he's not entirely wrong about wanting to check their daughter wasn't going to get her heart ruthlessly stamped on. "What happened?" he asks instead, fingers brushing across Remi's cheek before his touch dances down towards the marks against his throat.

THE WHITE KNIGHT

and continue fighting

the bastion

And if the sky grows heavy
wrap your arms around me tight; we'll be alright

Heaving a sigh, Remi slides out of the chair, sinking down onto the deck next to Ronin. Wrapping an arm behind the Knight in order to lean against him, as Ronin's fingers trail over the faint marks on his throat, an ugly sort of warble hisses past his lips before Remi swallows it back. "She hit me." He replies in a dull voice, his gaze unfocusing once again as he recalls the way Flora's eyes had gone so terrifyingly hard just before she'd thrown her punch.

"She said I wasn't allowed to touch Jack again, or else she'd marry him." He adds with a humourless laugh before running his fingers through his curls and glancing over his shoulder at his husband. "She made some really good points about it all, though. Implied that Jack's never done anything that we haven't also done, pointed out that you and I loved each other even during our darkest times, and..." Scoffing, he bites at the inside of his cheek, his fingers desperately searching for Ronin's.

"The worst part, well, aside from being told that I'm a shit dad and being hit, was that she knows she might get hurt. She's...for all her talk of fairytales and romances, she's going into this with her eyes wide open. She knows it might not last, knows she might get hurt, and...well, says she's happy." How that can be given she said that Jack didn't love her back, Remi absolutely can't understand, but unless they plan on actually being helicopter parents, he can't think of anything else to be said or done.

If the ground gives way beneath us,
If we should fall to pieces
Find me where I first found you

Code blatently stolen from queen of codes, Sky!

we shall heal our wounds, collect our dead

"I did think that might be the case," Ronin admits, of Flora hitting him, and though it makes him wince to even think about, he nonetheless opens his arms for Remi to lean against him, schooling his fingers away from fussing at the marks on his throat too much. Instead, stretching an arm around the Bastion's shoulders, he leans in to press a gentle kiss against his temple, before falling silent to hear what their daughter had had to say.

And it's enough of a kick in the gut to have the Knight's tanned skin growing pale. Spite marrying Jack aside, any argument that he wants to make ends up tied in knots on his tongue, because Remi is right in that Flora is right. Groaning under his breath and entwining his fingers with the Bastion, he gives his hand a gentle squeeze and lets out a long, hard sigh.

"Fuck," he mutters, and suddenly Remi's opening remarks to him make a lot of sense. They are wrong about this. "...But..." Uselessly, perhaps, he wants to balk against it. "Even if Flora is happy, even if she knows the risks... surely this can't be real for Jack? He's just using her until he's done with her. That isn't right."

THE WHITE KNIGHT

and continue fighting

the bastion

And if the sky grows heavy
wrap your arms around me tight; we'll be alright

"....yep." Remi agrees, closing his eyes and turning to press his forehead against Ronin's shoulder as if that might help slow the way the world felt like it was slowly twisting and spinning in on itself in a spiral that would eventually suck all the oxygen from his lungs.

"I can't think of a single relationship where one person fell in love first and the other eventually came around, can you?" Not in stories, not amongst their friends, not even amongst their enemies. It was all or nothing. Love always seemed to rise at the same time or never at all. "I know I'm her dad, but, how could anyone not love her?" If Flora had gotten close enough to Jack to fall in love with him, for things to have been going on for years as the captain had so brazenly declared, how could he not love her back?

"My mind keeps wondering if she really is pregnant, or that maybe this is some sort of love-spell Jack has her under, or maybe it's blackmail...because I can't stand the thought that she thinks of herself as deserving so little, to settle not just for a man like Jack, but a man who doesn't love her."

If the ground gives way beneath us,
If we should fall to pieces
Find me where I first found you

Code blatently stolen from queen of codes, Sky!

we shall heal our wounds, collect our dead

"No, I can't." Or perhaps he just doesn't care to, because if there does exist a story like that, it only lends credibility to what seems like complete nonsense when considering the relationship between Jack and Flora. Tilting his head to rest it against Remi's, Ronin clasps him a little closer, as if he might be able to figure all of this out if only he loved the Bastion enough. "I don't even know if I'd want him to love her," the Knight admits with a dark furrow of his brow. "It's easier to get him to fuck off if he doesn't."

Huffing a sharp sigh, he shakes his head. "I know, I know - we can't do that." Look at what had happened only earlier that day. "It's the sort of thing I might have been able to talk to her about just a few hours ago," he mutters, as guilty as anything else. "Do you think she'll come around...?"

THE WHITE KNIGHT

and continue fighting

the bastion

And if the sky grows heavy
wrap your arms around me tight; we'll be alright

"I don't know, and maybe it's just her age, but...I get the sense she'd stay with him at this point just to prove us all wrong." The admission has spiderwebs of fear worming their way through the bruised quagmire of his emotions. "And if that's the case then I hope he's able to love her, but.." It's an uneasy thought for a parent to wish someone would love their child, no more so than having that person be Jack Barclay.

Smirking humourlessly, Remi nods, before pulling his forehead away from Ronin's as if the blue of his husband's eyes might hold the answer to his questions. "I...don't, no. I think we either accept this, or..." Or Flora would happily keep herself out of their lives until things inevitably blew up with Jack.

"Maybe we're the ones blowing it out of proportion." Remi says, as if he's trying the sentiment on for size to see how it fit. "She did say that it was new and that they were only dating, so...maybe even she doesn't think it's that serious." Frowning, the Bastion realized that couldn't be right. How could it have been going on for years, but be new? How could she be in love with him, but only just be dating?

If the ground gives way beneath us,
If we should fall to pieces
Find me where I first found you

Code blatently stolen from queen of codes, Sky!

we shall heal our wounds, collect our dead

Groaning for no other reason than because Remi is absolutely right, even as the Bastion draws away Ronin is trying to corral him more or less into his lap, wondering if they can just wake up and start the day over again, even if it includes going to Starfall a second time. Wrinkling his nose - hoping that Jack Barclay would love their daughter is absolutely not what he had on his Longheat bingo card - he busies himself instead in smoothing his hands through Remi's curls and glancing at the bruise on his neck in more detail as if trying to gauge if it would need healing.

"When do we ever blow anything out of proportion," he asks, and if there's a hint of humour in his voice, he'll never tell. Still, with another heavy sigh, the Knight tilts his head back to gaze into the late afternoon sky as if it might hold all the answers. "If we'd not over-reacted, I guess we could have asked her more about all of it," he mutters. "Ugh, Remi. No one said it would be this hard, having a kid old enough to be dating."

THE WHITE KNIGHT

and continue fighting

the bastion

And if the sky grows heavy
wrap your arms around me tight; we'll be alright

Noticing the way Ronin's eyes kept dipping toward his throat, the Bastion sighs and gives his head a little shake. "It's fine." He murmurs gently; in truth, he wished that it did hurt, if only because then there'd be a physical sensation that he could focus on to distract him from the swirling void of uncertainty still broiling around in his mind.

Snorting, Remi leans back against his husband's shoulder, his gaze remaining on their interlaced hands. "I thought we were doing fine before. Things seemed to be going well with Koa." He mutters unhappily. At least with the dragoon Ronin had been able to easily nudge him into line, and the things that had made their daughter cry were the sort you'd have expected: oh no he snuck out of her window, oh no he's bad at communication, oh no he likes another girl, and so on. With Jack it was more, oh no, we're on the run for murder, oh no my boyfriend is a criminal, oh no this isn't the life I wanted.

"I just keep thinking about when she was younger...her and Mateo reading all those romance novels, Flora saying what a big wedding she was going to have, wanting a horse-drawn sleigh and her own prince charming." Sometimes it was good to give up the dreams of youth, but to turn away from them entirely? Gods but Remi really couldn't understand.

If the ground gives way beneath us,
If we should fall to pieces
Find me where I first found you

Code blatently stolen from queen of codes, Sky!

we shall heal our wounds, collect our dead

It doesn't seem fine, and not because it doesn't necessarily hurt, though Remi will be able to feel as much from the Knight as he grumbles his way into sitting back against the railing of the Northaven with his husband tangled against him. "Man, I dunno. Maybe I scared the kid off a little," he mutters of Koa, wrinkling his nose at the memory and feeling more and more like everything he'd done to help Flora with her (love) life had been completely wrong.

Giving Remi's hand a squeeze and leaning in to kiss the crown of his head, he huffs out a long sigh. "I mean, she's been through a lot since then," he points out gently, and it's not even the Jack of it all. Losing Enzo, becoming Queen of Torchline, having to deal with gods and monsters and The Family... it's not all that surprising that Flora has replaced thoughts of a fairytale wedding with whatever is good for now.

"If we invited her to dinner, do you think she'd still come? If we made sure Mateo was there as well?"

THE WHITE KNIGHT

and continue fighting

the bastion

And if the sky grows heavy
wrap your arms around me tight; we'll be alright

Boneless against the Knight, the Bastion shuffles his feet beneath him in order to comfortably lean against the railing as well, rubbing a hand up one side of his cheek before tangling it through his curls and giving them an unnecessary tug. "I don't think it was that." Remi mutters, nudging his cheek against Ronin's shoulder. "Flora brought up how I was dating Ianto when you and I first..." He shrugs, still unsure how she'd known the details of that. "I think she was trying to imply that whatever was going on with Koa, she picked Jack." Which, why ???????

"Don't you think that makes it worse, though? That for all she's been through, she has to give up even more?" Remi wonders sadly, his eyebrows raised in a rather hopeless-looking expression before his gaze falls heavily toward their intertwined hands. "I...think she might. But she might not come alone." Though if they were going to try and be UndErStAnDiNg about the whole thing, maybe that was just the sort of thing they'd have to expect.

If the ground gives way beneath us,
If we should fall to pieces
Find me where I first found you

Code blatently stolen from queen of codes, Sky!

we shall heal our wounds, collect our dead

It's automatic, the way Ronin wants to bristle as Remi brings up Ianto. He'd never had anything against the fox, had never wanted or intended to have things with his now-husband overlap with him, and the fact that Flora knows about it alone is enough to have him further doubting their conduct. "She picked Jack," he echoes nonetheless, the words feeling unpleasant on his tongue however true they must be.

Scowling, because it does make it worse, but gods, hasn't responsibility made a mockery of all of their dreams? Why ought they expect their children to fare any better than they did? "...What if we invited them both?" he suggests suddenly, rubbing a hand roughly over the back of his neck. "Head off any bad feeling before it can fester?" And since they're on the subject of dinners and bad feelings... "...Did we ever get a response, from Sunjata and Hotaru?" he asks.

THE WHITE KNIGHT

and continue fighting