help me, i'm drowning

I will fight the end

Ronin had been at the wagon since returning from the lighthouse. He had ended up taking his wedding ring back from the grave and returning it to his finger, where it should never have left, temper or otherwise. He'd finished the marker, using one of Remi's feathers since the alchemist had taken wing and disappeared, before painstakingly gathering the rest of the plumage scattered along the cliff edge. When that was done he had taken himself down to the rocky shoreline - he didn't know how long it had been since then, only that he had lifted every stone and searched every nook and cranny until - blessedly - he recovered the ring Remi had thrown.

Now it was dark and quiet and Ronin sat on the edge of the wagon, feet dangling out, his head tilted to rest against the faded wood and his eyes on the stars above. His eyes were red and he didn't seem to know where to go or what to do. It would burn him, Safrin had said. It would burn him to try and help Remi. And he felt it acutely.

'til the end is here

Coding base by Sky!

i've seen fire & i've seen rain.
i've seen sunny days that i thought would never end

Remi had wanted to come back the moment he'd left and the anger had been burned away from flight towards the sun. But he couldn't. Something stopped him and he knew not what it was. Pride maybe. Embarrassment. Or simply not knowing how to say please, can we go start again, if only because the answer was no.

It had to be no.

Didn't it?

The moon was full and high but still the world felt dark. Remi's body felt like it weighed a tonne as he finally landed and began the short walk towards the wagon, his feet stumbling every now and then with his lack of concentration. As soon as he saw Ronin silhouetted in the moonlight he stopped, breathing stuck in his chest. His husband felt unreadable to him by now, and in this moment Remi didn't know if his presence outside was a signal that they shared the same thoughts or that perhaps he had been waiting to tell Remi to take what little he had and leave.

I will fight the end

It was only the heartbeat thrumming on Ronin’s finger that told him Remi was even still alive, and silent as the world around him was, he was all too aware of the sound of something landing near the wagon. Glancing up, he spotted his husband in the naked light of the moon, his breath similarly catching in his chest. He didn’t know if Remi would want him to approach or if he was still angry; he knew he desperately wanted to go to the other man, but not how he would be received.

Still, Ronin had always been a bit stupid and a lot brave. So he hopped down from his seat and tentatively approached the alchemist. In his hand he held the ring Remi had thrown, his own glinting on his finger. Silently he held it out for his counterpart, like a moment of truth, like a held breath.

'til the end is here

Coding base by Sky!

i've seen fire & i've seen rain.
i've seen sunny days that i thought would never end

Remi straightened as Ronin approached, his gaze no longer feral and angry, but wary. What was to come was anyone's guess: a punch, a threat, a kiss, a curse? The alchemist couldn't tell, having never once navigated these waters with Ronin. Perhaps it was good they were finally here, feeling their way through the honesty and the pain, but that didn't mean it would lead them anywhere Remi particularly wanted to go.

As Ronin held out his hand, the ring glinting in the moonlight, Remi felt everything break. Everything that hadn't been turned to ash inside hardened in an instant; the spaces left wide and yawning for anything but the barrenness he was consumed by suddenly seemed to shake and shrink. Pain as he'd never felt it before if only because hadn't let himself, crashed upon his shoulders with a weight he couldn't carry.

Taking a long and staggering step forward, Remi reached out to pull Ronin tightly to him. His arms gripped around the hunter with desperate force as the alchemist's entire body erupted in small and sporadic trembles. 'We are so much more than those stupid rings," He mumbled into the crook of Ronin's neck, his knees threatening to give way. "But gods I'm so happy to see them again." Swallowing down the first heaves of a sob, the alchemist pulled back to regard his husband with tear-shiny eyes. "I can't lose you too." He mumbled. "I'll give you a thousand pieces of me anywhere you like, I just.." Throat thick and his tongue clumsy, Remi could only shake his head uselessly as the tears he'd been holding back for over a month now, began to fall. "..I can't lose you."

I will fight the end

Maybe it was a good thing that they finally found themselves here, in this unknown territory. It probably had some bullshit lessons to teach them, complete with a platitude about being stronger because it hadn't killed them. Honestly, Ronin didn't care in that moment. It was a lonely and vulnerable thing, to hold out Remi's wedding ring for him, the hunter unable to tell whether or not it would be accepted or smacked away. (The latter he very much hoped not, as it had taken an age to find).

He felt himself breathe again as the alchemist stepped forward, the tension he'd been carrying - braced for violence, he realised - snapping and melting against the other man's touch. Folding into the embrace, Ronin held onto Remi like he was a life raft and they were both lost out at sea, feeling fresh tears prick at the back of his eyes even as he let out a shuddering sigh that could almost be counted as a laugh. Relief, bright and clean, made the world seem suddenly less hostile.

"It wasn't easy," he said of the rings, the smallest smile audible in a voice too tight to be much more than a whisper, "but what can I say - you're worth it."

Remi stepped back and Ronin felt like he was seeing him again for the first time since they'd been thrown at Torchline; like he was actually looking at his husband, and not the shell parading around as him. "I don't want a thousand pieces of you - this one will do fine," he said, drawing him close again as if the small amount of distance between them was a chasm.

"I'm not going anywhere." He shook his head and buried his nose in the mess of Remi's curls. He didn't try to brush away his tears - there was something relieving in them, after weeks of living with his husk. "But it feels like I'm already losing you."

'til the end is here

Coding base by Sky!

i've seen fire & i've seen rain.
i've seen sunny days that i thought would never end

Remi laughed a touch breathlessly at that, as the sob he'd been holding back morphed into something happy in the back of his throat. He could have made them both new rings of course, but there was something significant about Ronin putting in the work to keep what they had rather than hand-waving magic at it to solve their problem. Remi couldn't quite put it into words, but he felt it thrum mightly in his bones and he clung to the hunter all the more tightly for it.

Feeling both weaker and stronger each moment he stood wrapped in Ronin's embrace, the armour he'd cast around himself dissolved by tears and the evidence of an unconditional love he'd thought was just a promised platitude. Rather than causing him to stiffen, Ronin's words weakened the alchemist even further. Sagging against the hunter, his fingers wandering the familiar topography of his shoulders and back as if reacquainting himself with this landscape he knew so well might help to ground him in the here and now, he nodded dully.

"I feel like I've already lost myself to this. I'm just so..angry Ronin. All the time. I said I felt nothing, but it was a lie. I've never felt this way before...and it's so tempting to want to be consumed by it. So much easier to be angry than kind given all that has happened." Pulling back if only so that his words wouldn't be lost in the crook of Ronin's neck, Remi offered his husband a weak smile. "Every day feels like going through the motions. I look forward to nothing. I want nothing. I care about nothing." Save for you, the sadness in his eyes said as he slowly shook his head.

"Ludo...it...it offered to give me purpose, if I wanted it."

I will fight the end

However much his husband's physique might have changed during their time together, Ronin had no complaints about holding Remi up as the other man sagged against him. He held him all the closer, the warmth and emotion and the sense that this was real felt so much like coming home that he would struggle to let go, whenever that might be. "Angry is easy," he agreed with a sad nod, his fingers teasing through Remi's curls, his other arm still wrapped tightly around him. "Believe me when I say I understand." He understood the temptation, he understood the rage.

And more than that, he understood, too, what it was to be given purpose by something above his station. That it was Ludo, however, had his breath stuttering a little, and he squeezed the wedding ring tightly in his hand. "Can you trust it?" he asked quietly. He didn't bother to ask if Remi wanted it - would he have brought it up, otherwise?

'til the end is here

Coding base by Sky!

i've seen fire & i've seen rain.
i've seen sunny days that i thought would never end

Perhaps it was because Remi had held off for so very, very long. He'd never been in drunken brawls, never given into youthful outbursts of testosterone. He'd toed the line his entire life, always staying on the right side of the good and lawful. Now he was too powerful for his own good, his tongue too sharp and his mind too slow to know the damage he was capable of. But gods if Ronin wasn't right. It was so very easy.

"Certainly not. " The alchemist agreed with a small huff of dry laughter. "But I can't keep living like this. We can't keep living like this." Reaching down for Ronin's hand, the alchemist would slowly open the hunter's fingers to reveal his wedding ring. Running his thumb against it, he swallowed hard, eyes rising to find Ronin's. "I have to try something Ronin."

Don't I?

I will fight the end

"No, we can't. I think we can both agree on that," Ronin murmured, willingly surrendering his hand so the alchemist could open it and reveal the ring shining quietly in the moonlight. Loosening his grip so he could reach up and run his fingers through his partner's unruly curls that he might better see his face, Ronin managed a shaky smile that tried to be playful. "Trying means that you haven't given up. Trying means you still think it's worth it," he said with a light shrug.

"If you want to try, I will definitely not say no. I'll do everything I can not to get freaked out at those spooky rags, too," he told Remi. "Just... don't shut me out, okay?"

'til the end is here

Coding base by Sky!

i've seen fire & i've seen rain.
i've seen sunny days that i thought would never end

"You'll always be worth it. I just.." Leaning into the fingers parting his curls, Remi smiled sadly, his dimples looking all the more out of place for the sheen of tears in his eyes. "..didn't realize how close I was to losing this. I never meant to take you—us—for granted."

Snorting at this, the bubble of amusement feeling misplaced but not unwelcome, Remi glanced up at the stars. "How brave of you." He chuckled, before nodding in earnest. Reaching down, he slid the ring back onto his finger revealing the slow and rhythmic pulse of his heart that quickened as he looked back. "Not ever again." He agreed.

Leaning forward to kiss Ronin, for the first time since it had all happened, it would be a kiss of love. Not of needy desire, not with teeth and hastened breath as Remi raced towards a climax that would surely fall short. This was something soft and slow that made his tears renew themselves down his cheeks. "I love you endlessly." He whispered against Ronin's lips.

I will fight the end

"I know you didn't. I'm sorry I wasn't more help." Ronin shrugged his shoulders sadly. If he had been able to be stronger, or more resilient, or... well, anything, perhaps it wouldn't have gotten this bad. Then again, if that had been the case, maybe they wouldn't be here, talking now, getting somewhere. Remi's laughter was contagious, Ronin smiling in earnest, and as his counterpart's heartbeat returned as a steady thrum in his hand, all the tension melted out of him.

"I promise I'll not shut you out either," he murmured, soon silenced by soft lips pressed against his. Ronin sighed into the kiss, his arms winding back around Remi to hold him close, feeling for the first time, truly, since their daughter's death, that they were on the same page. "And I love you," he murmured against Remi's lips. "Stupidly and recklessly, apparently. But I'm not complaining."

'til the end is here

Coding base by Sky!

i've seen fire & i've seen rain.
i've seen sunny days that i thought would never end

"I never promised you an easy or a quiet life." Remi laughed, gasping for air as new tears poured from his eyes and a happy sort of sob shuddered out of him. He leaned forward to kiss the space beneath Ronin's eyes where the skin was soft and stretched, the line where the hair on his face faded away into his cheek, his top lip, before wrapping his arms around him even more tightly and pressing his forehead down against Ronin's shoulder.

"I miss her so much." Remi whispered, his voice edging towards a whimper (not that he cared anymore). "I don't want to let the grief go because I feel like it's all that I have left of her..but I know I have to. It just...it feels like forgetting." He admitted at last. It was the real reason Remi had been so content to burn and destroy. To do anything else was to admit that she was gone, really gone.

I will fight the end

"I mean, I suppose that is fair--!" Ronin was cut off by the sound of his own laughter, not having expected the barrage of kisses, especially when they were given sincerely rather than playfully. A stupid smile found its way onto his lips, the hunter resting his head against Remi's, his fingers winding through the back of his hair. As the whispered words reached his ears, his smile became infinitely more sad, and he pressed his eyes shut like he could cut them both off from the world they found themselves in.

"I know," he replied softly. "I miss her too." He let out a shuddering breath; finally, it felt, he was able to reach Remi. Maybe he could put his hand in the fire at last and come away with his husband, not just burns. "I don't think that's true. You were never like this with her. Your grief is as far from remembering her as it gets." It was harsh, but true. "You're forgetting yourself, clinging onto this, as well as her. It's okay, to let it go. It doesn't mean you don't care."

'til the end is here

Coding base by Sky!

i've seen fire & i've seen rain.
i've seen sunny days that i thought would never end

"I don't know how, Ronin. I..." But there was nothing more to say, no other way to articulate. He'd never lost like this before, sheltered from this sort of pain from a lifetime of having only acquaintances and nothing deeper.

Looking at Ronin brought on the most exquisite sort of pain. He saw in Ronin Aoife's long lashes, the way both of their lips could turn crooked in an instant. He saw too the man who had helped him raise her, who had laughed alongside them, stayed up to build forts and paint the walls knowing that at the end of the day, the giggles were all worth it.

Their family was worth it.

"What do we do now?"