wrap your hand around my heart

there is always hope

Ronin’s outrage is a boyish and genuine thing, petulant surprise mixing with the sort of I dare you challenge of a teenager, and his lips part in an identical O as he fixes Remi with a look that needs no words at all. Ludo can do its worst, in Ronin’s opinion. He will never be robbed of the joy of eating himself into a food coma.

They head into the bedroom, the air cool and the lanterns low, and there’s a pit-pat of rain suggesting that another storm is on the way. ”It must have tired you out,” he remarks softly, quickly drying them both off enough to fall into bed, Ronin reaching for Remi so he can draw him close against his chest. ”You can feel me for as long as you want,” he informs him, clumsy phrasing and all.

”I can’t even imagine. I can see why you ended up the way you did with Amalia in that sort of state of mind. Glad to help you see it’s not all bad.”

i've got a river for a soul

Remi loves Ronin, there is no doubt about that. But is his mind absolutely thinking up ways to temporarily ruin one of the things that the Star enjoys most? Oh, you'd better believe it. "If your mother could see you now." The Alchemist scoffs; not a general but a preceptor (whatever that meant), draped in only a towel next to his husband.

"It did, yes." The Alchemist agrees, collapsing childishly into the bed with a large exhale of relaxation. "And it felt good. I'd forgotten what it feels like to be properly tuckered out." This is followed by a playful jab against the Star's hip, followed by Remi hiding his face between Ronin's armpit and his ribs to hide against retaliation.

"I might have also said she could come live with us if she needed." Remi mumbles (intentionally) against his husband's skin and the sheets below.

there is always hope

There’s a subversive sense of pride at the remark about his mother, Ronin feeling a smug smile creep across his lips. ”She’d be horrified,” he says cheerfully, wrapping the blankets around them and kissing Remi’s damp curls with a content sigh. He relaxes bonelessly into the bed, only for Remi to suggest that he doesn’t do a good enough job, apparently, of tuckering him out. His good-natured outrage is cut off, in part, by the way the Alchemist buries his face in Ronin’s armpit, bringing the Star out in a burst of laughter instead.

Which is probably just what the little shit wants, given his next comment. ”Oh did you now,” he says, trying to peel his husband away from his side so he can glare down at him, though rather than any irritation, there’s merely a sense of of course you did. ”...Good,” he says instead, nodding. ”That’s what a good friend would do.”

i've got a river for a soul

Remi thinks he's the dirty secret in all of this, or at least, the massively disappointing partner that Ronin has chosen to throw his life away with. And honestly? He's okay with that, both in the hypothetical world where Ronin's mother is around to chastise them, as well as in this bed.

Ronin's feigned outrage feels like a surge of something sticky; it globs in the back of his throat, bubbling over with his husband's laughter. Clinging and then burrowing all the more until it's nearly impossible to breathe, he is shyly forced to blink up at Ronin, offering the Star an innocent smile for his trouble.

"Yes well, I haven't forgotten everything." The Alchemist says, of being a good friend. Stretching his hand across Ronin's chest, his fingers splayed against the tattoo wings that curl down the rise of his pectoral muscle, the Alchemist lets himself dive deeply into all that ebbs from the Star. The sensations prickle at times as Ronin's mind is caught by an errant thought, but for the most part, lingering in this well of emotion is possibly the most relaxing thing Remi has ever experienced. And the sleep that follows is surely one of his deepest.

~FIN