the light’s on for you

gladiator, picked a fight with the gods, i'm a giant slayer

Really, Ronin ought to be used to this by now. He and Remi hardly kept to a regular schedule, but he could guarantee that the second they decided to do something relaxing, or normal, or downright domestic, that’s when the call from Ludo will come. And that’s how it has turned out this evening, in the middle of dinner with Vai and Felix and Seren, the Alchemist drawn out into the rain to murder out of mercy.

It’s a lot later now of course, and the rest of the house is asleep. Ronin, though? He’s sitting on the porch the same as his husband has done so many times when the roles are reversed, relaxing in one of the wicker chairs, a towel folded and ready for when Remi gets back.

”I know you’re worried, so go.” The smile is directed at Sugar, the pale reptile draped on his shoulder with her scaly nose buried in his hair. Snorting a cold breath out, she takes to the sky nonetheless, swooping through the downpour to see if Remi is close to home yet.

bone shaker, dominator, freight train, wreckin' ball, i'm the gladiator

RONIN

REMI

If Remi hadn't already known how close to home he was, the flash of white in the sky and the peel of dragon-song from above would have let him know. As it was, he merely turned dry and haunted eyes up towards Sugar as he continued to trudge through the wet sand.

Rubbing fingers hard with callouses against his eyes (to block out the memories, or imprint them?), Remi says nothing as he approaches the cottage in the shadow of the lighthouse. That he isn't even tired from his night's work is an unhappy fact. His muscles should burn. He should feel something in his bones for having taken three lives, but he doesn't. He's too fit for that, his body too perfectly-made for such a task.

"Three." He says at last, raising weary green eyes to his husband's face from where they'd lingered near his feet. "I stopped three children from drowning."

Stopped them from drowning to Ronin's well-trained ears, would not sound the same as rescued them. Because of course he didn't; that they didn't drown did not mean that they didn't die.

back when i was living for the hope of it all

Code taken from Sky who is utter perfection

gladiator, picked a fight with the gods, i'm a giant slayer

It’s an ugly night, loud with rain and chill, but Sugar’s song still carries over it. At the sight of the Alchemist she swoops down to land about his shoulders, tucking her head firmly beneath his chin for a moment before taking off again, her inspection complete. It’s the prompt Ronin needs to rise from his chair, too, the Star watching as his husband approaches. ”Three,” he repeats with a heavy sigh, unfolding the towel and wrapping it about Remi, so he can gently wipe the rain from his face and help to dry his curls.

”Three less lost at sea. Three less struggling in the waves. It’s a bad way to die,” he mutters, knowing that it is a cold comfort to what his husband carries with him. Ronin steps in to slip his arms around Remi, caring not for getting soaked a well. It’s a small thing to feeling his heartbeat, to welcoming him home. ”Do you want to get a drink? Or just go up to bed?”

bone shaker, dominator, freight train, wreckin' ball, i'm the gladiator

RONIN

REMI

Letting himself be dried off (there isn't even any blood...but there should be. There should be something of them..), Remi just nods. "It would have been, yes. They were already so exhausted by the time I found them." The youngest was already starting to give up, and the older two—still just children themselves—were too wrapped up in self-preservation to offer any encouragement.

"A drink, I think." The words slip through his lips as if they're unintentional. Taking the towel Remi roughly rubs at his curls and then his eyes. "That strange man was on the beach again." He adds with the same sort of latency with which he'd answered Ronin about what he wanted to do next. That strange man of course being Finn, though for some reason Remi always found it hard to use his name as if even that implied a level of familiarity that he still felt awkward to admit to.

back when i was living for the hope of it all

Code taken from Sky who is utter perfection

gladiator, picked a fight with the gods, i'm a giant slayer

”Then it is good that you were there.” The words don’t sound right but whether Ronin likes it or not, they’re true. Without Remi’s intervention it would have been death nonetheless, but cold, frightened, slow. Still, he takes no pleasure in what his husband is tasked to do. ”A drink, then.” He nods, keeping an arm around his husband to lead them inside.

Sugar swoops in before he closes the door moving to perch up in the rafters, and Ronin guides them into the kitchen. Only then does he leave Remi, moving to get a bottle of liquor out, as well as setting the kettle on the stove to boil water. ”Strange man...? The one you said looked like you?” he echoes with a frown, looking over his shoulder. ”What did he want?”

bone shaker, dominator, freight train, wreckin' ball, i'm the gladiator

RONIN

REMI

Remi follows mutely, but only because none of the words bubbling on his tongue seem right. Or perhaps it's the feelings (or lack thereof) that are what make him feel so unsettled.

Sitting down and leaning his elbows on their table, his head in his hands, Remi nods. It is a lucky thing Ronin isn't the jealous type, for most would worry about the frequency with which Remi and his strange twin keep meeting. "To help. Or...helping is what he did. Why he was there, I don't know." I didn't ask.

"I hate that I feel so little about this." Remi admits finally, his expression aggravated and sad. "It was so easy to tell their parents that they'd been caught in a riptide. That it wasn't a lie doesn't mean it wasn't the truth, and I just...let them go, believing I'd done everything I could to save them."

back when i was living for the hope of it all

Code taken from Sky who is utter perfection

gladiator, picked a fight with the gods, i'm a giant slayer

Remi is still and Ronin moves around him like the Alchemist is the sun and he’s in orbit; he gets the cups ready and takes the water off the stove once the kettle starts to whistle, listening all the while. Making coffee laced with more than a health amount of liquor, the heat and the alcohol should hopefully start to thaw his husband out.

Setting the cup down in front of Remi, Ronin instead moves to stand behind his husband’s chair, leaning into kiss his damp curls. ”What would you have liked to have done?” he asks, warm hands coming to rest upon strong shoulders. ”Or felt? I don’t think there are any rules about how you’re supposed to feel about doing this sort of thing...”

bone shaker, dominator, freight train, wreckin' ball, i'm the gladiator

RONIN

REMI

Rather than exploding with the force of his gravity and heat, as Ronin comes close Remi merely raises his stare with a weak smile that is nonetheless laced with love and appreciation. Stars can be suns too, after all.

"I suppose I always feel like...it isn't mercy when I could still change things. They were alive when I took them into my arms. I could have flown to them to the shore." Sighing as if a great weight has been pulled off his shoulders at the mere touch of Ronin's hands on his shoulders, Remi tilts his head back, pressing wet curls against his husband's stomach. "I suppose it isn't surprising I don't understand fate, but.."

Swallowing, he exhales a sigh laboured with his frustration. "I think most would feel..uneasiness? Grief? Something that matches the importance of what had happened."

back when i was living for the hope of it all

Code taken from Sky who is utter perfection

gladiator, picked a fight with the gods, i'm a giant slayer

Returning a much warmer version of his husband’s smile, Ronin gently works at teasing the tension from Remi’s shoulders, his fingers providing a pressure and relief that gives the suggestion that the other man might just relax, if he wants to. ”If you had flown them to the shore,” he says slowly, looking down at the man he loves best, ”what do you suppose Ludo would have done? Would it have let them live? Or would it have made sure their deaths were merciless?”

True, it isn’t something he can guarantee, and maybe Ludo wouldn’t react that way. But it seems a petty sort of revenge for Remi not doing as he’s told. He wouldn’t put it past it. ”Numb?” he suggests as an example of what someone might feel in the face of something like this. ”After all you’ve been through, it’s not surprising that your own mind tries to protect itself from feeling anything.”

bone shaker, dominator, freight train, wreckin' ball, i'm the gladiator

RONIN

REMI

He does want to relax, and that's precisely why he doesn't. He's just killed three children; surely Remi deserves whatever tension has built up. "That's what I keep telling myself. " The Alchemist agrees with a nod. "But it falls a bit flat. Once being told to do something was enough reason to do it. I suppose now with what and who I am, the he made me do it justification seems..." His shoulders shrug beneath Ronin's hands as he reaches for his cup. Gods if it isn't strong, but that hardly stops Remi from draining nearly half of it in one swallow, despite not having left it to cool for long enough.

"I think I...do want to feel things again. If it is just my mind protecting itself, how do I...stop it?" Turning to look around and up at Ronin as if his husband might genuinely know the anwer to this, Remi lets his head lean to the side against one of the Star's forearms.

back when i was living for the hope of it all

Code taken from Sky who is utter perfection

gladiator, picked a fight with the gods, i'm a giant slayer

”The only thing it made you do was ease suffering...” It’s not easy for Ronin to have these conversations, being who and what he is, but he swallows down the rights and the wrongs of it to say the things that need to be said. ”Those children... if Ludo is to be believed, they were already destined to die. You weren’t sent to save them - you were sent to stop them from dying horribly.”

Gazing down at Remi and smiling softly, his hands still their movements, letting his husband lean against the cradle of his arms as they talk. ”Therapy?” he suggests with a lopsided smile; Ronin’s own version of therapy involves punching the crap out of Sunjata. ”The fact that you’re able to recognise this about yourself is... better, right? It’s a good step?”

bone shaker, dominator, freight train, wreckin' ball, i'm the gladiator

RONIN

REMI

You weren't sent to save them.

Oh.
Oh.

Remi's long lashes still their fluttering as he looks up at Ronin. Like the sun peeking through the clouds, the clarity his husband is offering is just as bright and welcome. "That..." Turning to press a kiss along the inside of Ronin's wrist, Remi closes his eyes, forehead leaning against his husband's forearm. "..helps immensely."

Turning and gesturing that Ronin might sit with him, the Alchemist allows himself another sip of his drink (a much smaller one, this time), he glances over at the dining room table, clear of the dishes that had been there when he'd hurriedly excused himself. "Were Felix and Seren upset?" Vai would understand. The other two, both still so young, might not.

back when i was living for the hope of it all

Code taken from Sky who is utter perfection

gladiator, picked a fight with the gods, i'm a giant slayer

Smiling back at the Alchemist, Ronin squeezes his shoulders and moves to take the offered seat, collecting his own cup to take a sip of his drink. ”Always happy to help,” he says, relaxing somewhat to see Remi come around a bit. He slouches in his seat, a hand sneaking under the table to rest on the other man’s knee.

”They didn’t really understand, but I wouldn’t say they were upset,” he said, smiling across the table as if he can still see their faces from when Remi abruptly up and left. ”I said you’d talk to them properly in the morning over breakfast. As long as you’re not called out again.”

Sighing deeply, Ronin ruffles his hand through his hair. ”A strange man came to meet with me today, funnily enough. He mentioned your man, so it must have been that visit you told me to expect.”

bone shaker, dominator, freight train, wreckin' ball, i'm the gladiator

RONIN

REMI

"Such a wise man I've married." Remi murmurs, noting how Ronin is now in precisely the same place he was when the Alchemist proposed. It warms something in him that his coffee hadn't quite been able to heat, and he's thankful for it.

"Any thoughts on..how much of the truth I should tell them?" A strange question that Remi really had no idea the answer to. It wasn't that he wanted to lie so much as he didn't want to burden the pair of them with the entirety of the truth.

Remi's jaw clenches to hear Finn refered to as his man. He thinks to correct Ronin, but it's the sort of thing that might actually reinforce the idea, and so he just huffs out a sigh. "What did he have to say to you?"

back when i was living for the hope of it all

Code taken from Sky who is utter perfection