you’re my fever when i get cold

the things we hold are always the first to go

”It was just a thought,” Ronin murmurs into Remi’s curls, the Star closing his eyes for a moment merely to relish the beat of their hearts and the way their bodies fit so effortlessly together. ”I guess with Sam as an example, though, that question is pretty much answered.” Better to leave the past in the past, where it couldn’t reach its fingers into the present to cause them problems.

Still, that didn’t leave their present problem free, as evidenced by his husband’s distant silence. ”I wish you’d talk to me,” he whispers, though it doesn’t sound anything close to frustrated; indeed, the soft smile in Ronin’s voice is audible. ”Though I know sometimes I guess it feels like it won’t make a difference, no matter how much we talk about it. I love you, though. However you want to be.”

kidnap me from my reality & crushed pieces of my soul

Remi snorts into Ronin's shoulder, nodding his agreement about Sam. But whatever frustrations the once-bookmaker posed, it was nothing compared to the tempest of troubles that Loren had brought, and so Remi supposed he shouldn't complain too much about it.

"I'm just not sure what there is to say. Wrapped up with you like this, everything just seems so absolutely absurd. I can't believe I've ever even.." He swallows as if saying it would somehow make it more real than it already was. "..considered it. Not that I...have. Not really."

Was that true? He wasn't even sure.

Pulling in a breath and allowing himself to slide off of his husband so that only his leg was draped across Ronin's hips, Remi softly nuzzles his head down against one of his outstretched arms. "It feels like everyone is annoyed with me right now." Vai, Amalia, Finn, Raza.. "...it just makes this seem all the more important to get right."

colour me outside the lines

until my shattered heart is whole

REMI

Table & Gif-sniping by SKY who deserves our love and affection for always.

the things we hold are always the first to go

“You know it doesn’t bother me, right?” Ronin murmurs. ”That’s not to say I don’t want you all to myself, all the time. I do.” This is said through a soft laugh, his hand drifting down to Remi’s thigh to dance over it. ”But after everything... after all the shit you’ve been through with me. Dying, being king, the blight, Vanya. Having you worry about something like this... if I were to act anything other than understanding, I’d be a fucking hypocrite. I want to hear about it.”

Reaching out, he strokes a finger across Remi’s cheek, frowning gently. ”I see what you mean, but... the only people who should be able to decide if we are getting this right is us. If you feel like everyone’s annoyed at you though, name names and I’ll go out and bash heads.” He gives a crooked sort of smile, which fades little by little. ”You’re not okay, are you?”

kidnap me from my reality & crushed pieces of my soul

Giving Ronin an imploring look, wondering how someone arguably just as damaged as he is could somehow still be so...so big about something like this, Remi just smiles clumsily. "You sound like I used to." He says softly, sadly. "Ways you should act." The corners of his lips twitch slightly as if he's just caught Ronin out. But he hasn't, not at all. He doesn't want either of them to have to try so hard, to have to worry about how they should or shouldn't be around one another, and though they keep promising themselves that they'll always be honest, sometimes Remi wonders if that isn't all just a front.

'It wouldn't help. Most have good reasons to be annoyed with me.' That was the problem. "That's another line that I'm crossing, if only because I can't always see it. The line between...being myself and accepting the consequences of that, and then..being someone I'm not always proud of." His behaviour with Vai, versus Finn, for example.

Smiling sadly, the Alchemist just shakes his head. "No, I don't think I am. I'm...scared, I think." Remi admits slowly, turning shiny eyes up to meet Ronin's with a small sigh of acceptance.

colour me outside the lines

until my shattered heart is whole

REMI

Table & Gif-sniping by SKY who deserves our love and affection for always.

the things we hold are always the first to go

Hissing in a breath punctuated with a lopsided smile, Ronin nudges his husband as if he really has been caught out. ”Damn, you’re right,” he says, leaning in to kiss Remi’s forehead. ”Fine. I’ll act how I truly feel. You’re now banned from ever leaving bed, unless it’s in shift so you can sit on my shoulder. I’ll feed you and make sure you’re feathers are always perfect, and then we’ll come up here and have fantastic sex until we’re too exhausted to do anything other than sleep.”

The words are frank and honest, but Ronin gets the impression of a front too. Have they taken down one wall just to build another by accident. He’ll keep vigilant for that. With that in mind, he shifts a little to lay on his side, Remi still half draped over him, the Star listening quietly an nuzzling his head into the pillow. ”You realise it though, when you’ve been hat person,” he points out.

Still, as Remi admits he’s scared, Ronin reaches it to take one of his hands, pressing his lips to scarred knuckles. ”What scares you? Anything we can work on together?”

kidnap me from my reality & crushed pieces of my soul

Remi's smile grows and grows as if he's never heard anything so wonderful in his life. And really, he hasn't. He's had all the adventures and experiences one could ever hope to have; what else is there for him to do spend the rest of his life focused only on Ronin? "I always knew you were the one for me." He says with a bright laugh that bubbles out from the back of his throat.

Letting Ronin shift slightly, Remi considered for a moment before shrugging half-heartedly. "Not always. Lately its been pointed out for me." He says softly. "I think I...just need to decide what sort of person I want to be, and hold myself to it. I've let my emotions, or lack thereof, dictate how I act for so long now." And I thought it was fine, right up until I didn't.

Smiling at the feeling of Ronin's lips on his knuckles, Remi lets his head sink into the pillow all the more as he sighs out some of his tension. "I scare me, I think. Someone suggested that..maybe I've stopped feeling things, because if I do, I'll feel them all too strongly." It didn't matter that it was Finn who'd said it. Did it? "I'm worried that if I keep on like this, one day there won't be enough of me for even you anymore, no matter how much you love me now." Letting his eyes flit to the storm outside for a moment, he returns his stare to his husband's face with a soft sort of resignation. "I'm afraid of how much it will hurt, if I do care again. The last time.." With Aoife...Well. They both knew how that had gone.

colour me outside the lines

until my shattered heart is whole

REMI

Table & Gif-sniping by SKY who deserves our love and affection for always.

the things we hold are always the first to go

Remi’s smile makes Ronin’s stomach do backflips, and he has to resist the urge to wrap himself around his husband with the intention of making sure it never leaves his lips. ”Good,” he says instead, squeezing his hand and letting himself relax into the feel of the bed, the blankets, Remi’s weight across him. A soft frown pulls his eyebrows together as the Alchemist explains, Ronin nodding to him.

”I used to feel that way, when we first got here,” he murmurs. ”I think that would be really good for you, to find out. I rarely care about what people have to say about me anymore, because I know what I stand for. Even more so after LongNight. But for you... It feels like you’ve slid from one extreme to the other. Living to be useful to other people, and now exquisitely selfish. There’s a balance in there somewhere.” He winks.

Considering the Alchemist’s fears - about himself, about what might eventually happen, about the terror of feeling again - Ronin nods emphatically. ”I don’t blame you, for being afraid. But... remember, as much as things might hurt, there are good feelings too.”

kidnap me from my reality & crushed pieces of my soul

When we first got here, Ronin says; Remi hears, when we stopped speaking to one another. Oh, many words were said, not many of which were honest. "You did?" The Alchemist smiles (perhaps selfishly) at that. Ronin isn't the storybook hero from one of Vai's tales (not yet, he isn't), but there has always been an undeniable strain of goodness in him. An accountability that's hard to miss. Gods how Remi loves the Star all the more for all of his imperfections.

"What I stand for.." Remi repeats, trying the phrase on. He feels like a boy wearing his father's suit, not that young-Remi ever had such an experience. Snorting a touch at exquisitely selfish, the Alchemist grins across the pillow at his husband. "Stop it you, or I'll have you doing other things with that silvery tongue before long." He warns adoringly.

Letting his jaw clench and unclench thoughtfully, Remi considers Ronin's advice with a distant sort of understanding. "Right now it feels like you're the only goodness I need, and if you haven't just been buttering me up this whole time and I've no need to change on your account, then..." His shoulders rise and fall softly. "I know there is goodness in the world. Things apart from you I used to care about. I just..."

Now I leave family dinners to commit murders.

"I find it hard to care, anymore." Pulling in a breath, and reaching a hand across to lay it upon the Star's shoulder, Remi just shrugs again. "But perhaps Ludo's little challenge will help with that."

colour me outside the lines

until my shattered heart is whole

REMI

Table & Gif-sniping by SKY who deserves our love and affection for always.

the things we hold are always the first to go

”Gods, of course I did,” Ronin says with a boyish grin, exhaling a deep sigh and casting his mind back to those first weeks. ”I didn’t know who I was, what I wanted to be, if I cared about the things I used to care about...” He shakes his head. ”It fucks you up, Remi. Though I guess you know that all too well.” With warm eyes, he smiles back to his husband, only to playfully scrunch his nose at the implications about the silver in his tongue. ”You wouldn’t even have to ask,” he informs the other man, voice lowering.

He turns to kiss the hand that comes to rest on his shoulder, fingers caressing the back of Remi’s palm. He hasn’t been buttering him up one bit, but Ronin is learning something, too, from this exchange. That maybe it’s nice, to have a line not worth crossing. It’s nice to be wanted above others; nice to be someone’s only. ”Maybe it will,” he says of Ludo’s challenge. ”No good being a hand of mercy for a god when you don’t care about anything. How’s it going, by the way? Found anyone worthy of your tears?”

kidnap me from my reality & crushed pieces of my soul

Remi doesn't even have to nod at that; gods how he knew. He's still dealing with it, having not navigated these particular trenches quite as well as Ronin has. "Sometimes it can be fun to ask." Remi reminds his husband needlessly, his own voice pitching downwards. Rather than instigating anything, Remi just leans forward to brush his nose against Ronin's.

Inhaling deeply and feeling content enough just now to roll onto his back, the Alchemist shakes his head. "No." He replies, a touch glumly, and perhaps a touch proudly as well. "It feels a bit...cart before the horse, if you know what I mean. If I could be moved to tears by others, then I'm not sure I would be in this place to begin with." Running his fingers across his eyelids, the Alchemist presses slightly such that he sees stars when he looks up at the ceiling.

"And what am I supposed to do? Go and solicit sad stories from our friends, and look all the more the asshole when I'm not moved at all by them?" Sarcastically said though it is, Remi genuinely wonders if this is what he's meant to do.

colour me outside the lines

until my shattered heart is whole

REMI

Table & Gif-sniping by SKY who deserves our love and affection for always.

the things we hold are always the first to go

”Then I’ll wait for you to ask,” Ronin grins in return, sneaking up to kiss Remi’s nose just before he shifts onto his back. Now it’s the Star’s turn to drape a leg across his husband (and an arm, as well as nuzzling his face along Remi’s cheek and into the crook of his neck), sighing contently into the contact. Scoffing quietly at his response, Ronin raises an eyebrow.

”I didn’t realise you were meant to sound pleased about that,” he remarks, before his expression softens and he hums a note of curiosity as he considers what Ludo might be after.

”It does seem a bit backwards,” he murmurs. ”Though... it said it couldn’t be for people you already care about, like Aoife, or me... maybe it’s trying to tell you that you need to open up to making those kinds of connections with people again.” Honestly, Ronin doesn’t know. Gods are... gods, after all.

kidnap me from my reality & crushed pieces of my soul

Instinctively Remi's arm snakes around Ronin, tugging him closer. "Me not knowing how I"m supposed to feel is what has caused all of this." The Alchemist points out with a snort as his fingers trail spirals on the Star's shoulder.

Scrunching his eyes closed if only because what Ronin says is probably absolutely correct, Remi exhales a steady stream of air towards the ceiling as if trying to keep aloft an invisible balloon. When the air is gone from his lungs, he merely nods as he leans his cheek against the top of Ronin's head. "I hate when you're right." He mumbles, though his gratitude and adoration are evident in his tone.

colour me outside the lines

until my shattered heart is whole

REMI

Table & Gif-sniping by SKY who deserves our love and affection for always.

the things we hold are always the first to go

”Yes, I do suppose that’s true,” Ronin says through a laugh, letting his husband pull him closer and smiling against the side of his neck. He relaxes completely into the embrace, his own hands drifting over Remi’s chest and torso, sneaking ever lower, and he peers up with a wicked grin.

”No you don’t,” he all but purrs into the Alchemist’s ear. ”Besides, it’s so rare that I’m right compared to you - I need to enjoy these moments when they come around. Now do me a favour, and ask me to use my silver tongue for nefarious means.” Shifting up on one elbow, he leans in to kiss Remi, letting the rest of the night (and whatever noise they might make) be lost in the sound of the monsoon outside.

~FIN