disturbed

the baffled king composing hallelujah

Suddenly it felt like their easy camaraderie had been dampened; Ronin was used to riding the crests and falls of his ongoing grief (a process made infinitely easier with the love he held for Remi), but before he could pull himself out of it, a familiar expression of pain flashed across his lover's face. "What's wrong?" he asked softly, his grip around Remi growing slack as he searched his expression for answers.

A soft smile touched to his face at the idea of the telescope for Aoife, but that, regrettably, would have to wait. Ronin put down his glass of wine, clasping Remi's upper arms and raising his eyebrows, hoping they were close enough to be beyond excuses and playing down hurts.

all our lives i watched you search beneath the fallen skies

"You do not want to know." Remi said truthfully, a special brew of embarrassment and reluctance writ on his gentle features. However as Ronin set down his wine, Remi followed suit and let his head tip forward ever so slightly to regard the diminishing distance between their bodies.

For a moment his eyelashes merely fluttered with uncertainty—he wasn't debating whether to tell Ronin, merely how—before he supposed that showing him was perhaps the most obvious.

Shrugging softly out of Ronin's grip of him, Remi reached down and tugged his shirt off, pulling it easily over his head and letting it fall against the work bench. There in the center of his chest was a bright star pattern of burns, only a few hours old.

Clearly made from a lightning strike.

"She threatened you and Aoife.." Remi said, eyes still not quite able to rise and meet Ronin's, shame burning across his cheeks.

the baffled king composing hallelujah

Ronin tilted his head in a quizzical sort of gesture, lips parting to ask a question that would never need to be vocalised. Letting Remi go and leaning his hands back against the workbench, he frowned as the alchemist swept off his shirt and revealed the angry star of electricity burns that marred his skin. Breath caught in his throat and the first crackle of outrage crept up through Ronin's chest and into his throat - but then, oh, then Remi said the words that would change everything forever.

She threatened you and Aoife.

There was a sound like groaning wood - Ronin was gripping the edges of the workbench with every ounce of strength he could muster. It felt like someone had thrown hot water over him, the rush of blood in his ears and the tension in his neck and shoulders only further kindling the building fire of his anger.

"I'm going to kill her," he said softly, the words leaving his lips with remarkable calm.

all our lives i watched you search beneath the fallen skies

For a long moment Remi didn't say anything. He bit the inside of his lip, his gaze lowered roughly to Ronin's navel. In that moment he hated himself for being so easily distracted by his lover's body, and it was that sweep of guilt that forced his eyes back up.

"Ronin.." Remi said after a moment, his voice soft and without any hints that he meant to ask the hunter to refrain. "I need your help. I .... when she is around it is like..." Pressing his fingers to the bridge of his nose, they spider-webbed outwards up his forehead as he shook his head gently. "I think something happens. She asked me to become a Launceleyn today and there was a moment I considered it."

Dropping his hand and instead wrapping both around Ronin's waist, he finally met the hunter's gaze with wary and wounded eyes. "Help me."

the baffled king composing hallelujah

Whether intended or otherwise, Remi's plea for help did everything and more to throw water on the fire of Ronin's temper. The hunter let out a long and shaking breath, reaching up to brush a hand over the alchemist's stubbled cheek, his blue eyes ablaze with an exquisite mix of frustration and love.

"It is probably something she's doing through magical means," he said gruffly. That combined with her easy manipulation of Remi's insecurities, playing off the way he had been brought up.

"The items you create, the magical ones. How many are you able to create? Could you make one now?" he asked softly.

all our lives i watched you search beneath the fallen skies

Remi could not have felt more the picture of disappointment had he painted it himself. He felt small and inadequate, weak, and naive beyond words. The question of items, of what he could do was at least something the more logical part of his mind could latch onto. Looking up and away as his mind considered, Remi leaned his cheek against Ronin's palm.

"...four, a season. If I try to do more they...they just.." His shoulders shrugged. "I made two for Zariah this morning." Remi added in a low and disappointed tone.

the baffled king composing hallelujah

Four - four was plenty, four was-- ah. Two, then. Ronin couldn't hide the way his shoulders slumped ever so slightly at hearing that Remi had given up half of his reasonable skill to Zariah and received a burn for his trouble. If it weren't for the injury on his chest, he'd have been holding the alchemist a great deal closer.

"Well, then... let's make sure she can't get any more out of you. This season, or any other," he mumbled, his fingers smoothing through Remi's curls. "Can you create something, do you think, that we might be able to put around the perimeter of a building, to prevent an Abandoned from entering without permission?"

all our lives i watched you search beneath the fallen skies

The slump of Ronin's shoulders only made Remi feel all the more useless. All the more of an incredibly stupid, far-too powerful, push over.

What Ronin suggested next though drew Remi's stare upwards, lashes fluttering with uncertain surprise. "That sounds..." Biting the inside of his lip, Remi's pale eyes flashed back and forth as the consequences of Ronin's request were played with in his mind. It made him think of a time in Northaven, signs that indicated Shapechangers weren't allowed...places where only bluebloods could go.

Was this the same?

"I don't..." He shook his head. "It would be difficult." He concluded, almost distantly. For some reason, some part of him recoiled at the idea, even if it was for his own safety. "I had thought...I made Amalia a staff that could heal. I thought I might make it stronger for her. Perhaps I can just...if I make one other thing.."

the baffled king composing hallelujah

Ronin, oblivious to the mental gymnastics going on in his lover's mind, could not hope to try and ease his burden or soothe his worries. So he waited for the response to come, and nodded quietly.

"Think on it," he muttered, aware of the faraway tone in the alchemist's voice. "I only thought that it might be a weight off both our minds, knowing that Zariah could not set foot in the guildhall without permission with Aoife there."

Ruffling a hand through his hair, he released Remi and took another slow, deep breath to calm the thunder in his chest. "I wish I could help you more."

all our lives i watched you search beneath the fallen skies

"She said she would leave you alone...I suppose that does not mean much." Remi muttered.

Instinctively Remi reached out for Ronin, feeling all of a sudden the need to keep his lover close. A hand rested against the hunter's hip as the alchemist forced a half-hearted smile. "Help me...ahhh...." Unsure quite how to say what it was he so desperately needed, Remi tilted his head back slightly and sighed, annoyed at his imprecise use of language. "Help me say no. Help me...I don't know, understand whatever strength you say I have. I grew up in the back of a wagon, beaten by a man who could not even spell his own name. I was raised to follow orders, to take what I was given and to just...be alright with how the world was. I never tried to change it because that was not the lot I was given. I did not think it was up to me to even think otherwise. But now..."

Biting his lip hard, hard enough to make himself wince, he fixed Ronin with a stare as sure and determined as any he had before. "..I do not want to be a puppet. I do not want to be used."

the baffled king composing hallelujah

”She lies every time she breathes, Remi. Would that you could trust the things I say half as much as you trust her.” Ronin didn’t intend for it to sound quite that blunt, but it seemed to be the way of things. For all of his reassurances and belief in Remi, that was a grain of sand compared to the poison Zariah dripped into his ear.

So when he asked for help Ronin was sceptical at best, slipping an arm back around Remi’s waist but unable to hold him as close as he’d have liked thanks to the burn. ”Okay,” he said softly, though how he was meant to undo a lifetime of Remi being told he was nothing was another matter.

”You have a responsibility to the people,” he said quietly. ”That is what I was taught, growing up. My parents, my elder brother, and later the Storm Guard. You have a responsibility to protect them and to serve them. I thought it was a crock of shit when I was young - I spent my early years in the army fighting in taverns and shirking off work and gambling. But... in Northaven I started to understand, I think. What good is power, or strength or skill, if it is not used to help those who don’t have it?”

all our lives i watched you search beneath the fallen skies

Ronin's words took him aback completely, the colour draining from Remi's face save for the apples of his cheeks. "I..." But there was nothing to say in response, because Ronin was right. And even if he wasn't, the alchemist of all people didn't have the means to defend himself against a charge. "...I am sorry." He conceded easily, withdrawing a hand to rub it against one of his eyes.

Remi listened intently, but aspects of ethics and politics were far above him. Questions of science were so easy compared to questions of right and best and responsibility. "When I try to help...I am told I am being reckless, or that I am simply looking to be the hero. I do what I think is best and am said to be naive." Pulling out of Ronin's arms now, Remi's expression crumpled into a frown as he turned to look at the bits of soon-to-be telescope on his desk.

The alchemist's internal war between what Ronin was saying and all that he had come to believe manifested into small twitches of his lips and eyebrow, his cheeks dimpling with a wince every now and then.

the baffled king composing hallelujah

Remi stepped out of his embrace and Ronin instantly felt a pang of guilt and regret low in his belly. He winced, reaching out if Remi would allow so he could catch hold of the other man's hand, squeezing it gently. "I don't think you are naive, or reckless, or trying to be the hero. I'm the one who should be sorry, Remi. You asked for my help, and to be truthful I don't even think I know how to do the things you need anymore."

But that didn't mean that they couldn't try. "You're a very skilled man, Remi Abruzzo," he murmured, the alchemist's name much more familiar on his tongue now than it ever had been. "And Zariah knows it. She probably knows, too, that you are not a violent man. But you can say no to her without being violent."

all our lives i watched you search beneath the fallen skies

Without any hesitation Remi's fingers curled within Ronin's grasp. He was not one to sulk, not one to move away if only to see if he would be followed; not intentionally anyways. "You are all those things." The alchemist countered with a boyish and ardent smile. "Maybe it is just how you are. But somewhere along the lines, no matter how often you call yourself the damsel, you are most certainly the hero." He added, fingers squeezing against Ronin's affectionately.

Ruffling his free hand through his hair, Remi nodded. "Zariah said something...that just because what someone does or says is unpopular that it might still be right. I suppose...I think maybe that sounds okay...but what she is doing...it has gone too far. What I do not understand is how to know the difference. "