wrap your hand around my heart

there is always hope

”Oho,” Ronin says, raising his eyebrows in return and stepping back just enough to let Remi strip out of his clothes without having to take his hands off him. At the moment he feels like he’s tethered to Remi, a ribbon that’s holding him to the ground, lest he float off into the abyss. ”I mean, I’m used to all the rest of it. But the sand gets everywhere,” he complains with a warm laugh.

Drawing his husband close, he presses a kiss to his sandy forehead, guiding him through the house and up towards the bathroom. ”Maybe we can get a matching set. I’d not want you to feel lonely,” he murmurs, opening the door and ushering his husband inside. ”But before we go glove shopping for you, let’s get you cleaned up. Do I... want to know what happened by the way? With you and Amalia?”

i've got a river for a soul

Remi can't help the way he snickers. He's sure Amalia is a lovely kisser (actually he's not, her lips look a little thing and he feels like he might break her, slender as she is), but it's all too easy and comforting to slip into this sort of boyish banter with Ronin, that he doesn't even try to be serious. "You would think after a year living here you'd be used to it by now." The Alchemist muses. "All I think you've grown used to, is complaining about it." He adds, wickedly.

Feeling the relief and reassurance that floods through him more strongly than the attuned bond would normally yield, Remi nods. "Elbow-length, I think."

Rather than imagining all the ridiculous ways they might style Remi's new accessory, the conversation swings to the beach, and the Alchemist frowns. He looks properly contrite in a way he hasn't done for nearly a year now. Now towards anyone who wasn't Ronin, anyway. "We argued and then it turned physical." He admits, cheeks flushing with shame. "I know she can walk on water, or can as a Qilin, but I herded her towards the sea as if I wanted to trap her there." Running a hand up the back of his neck and forward through his curls, the Alchemist shakes his head. Turning to start the water, he watches the stream with a sad and far away look.

"When she nearly drowned...when I realized what it would be to lose her, all the anger sort of..evaporated. That's when Ludo appeared."

there is always hope

”It’s because I’m so good at complaining about it,” Ronin says with a wink, though he seems mildly horrified at the elbow length gloves. ”We’d never be able to get them off your arms,” he says, giving his muscled forearm a playful squeeze and pottering about to grab a towel ready for their exit from the shower - because when have they ever let each other shower alone after something traumatic happens?

Stripping off his clothes, Ronin smiles sadly as Remi explains, leaning in to kiss his stubbled cheek. There’s no judgement there, just a twang of sadness for Remi and worry for Amalia. ”Not the most pleasant way to work things out. But I’m glad that you did. Is she alright? Well... not alright. I mean safe, I suppose.”

Gently ushering the Alchemist beneath the stream of water, Ronin wastes little time in starting to wash the sand and blood from Remi’s skin, deft fingers moving in slow patterns over his husband’s body.

i've got a river for a soul

The Alchemist glances down, frowning. "Well fine. You pick them out, then." He huffs playfully, waggling his fingers so that the muscles of his forearms pulsate.

Every time Ronin touches him the sensation is accompanied by a bright fractal of emotion. When the touch is quick, it's just a bright wave, like being misted from a water bottle. The longer the contact the more sculpted the emotion becomes, the more tangible, in some strange way. "No, I suppose not.." Remi agrees, his lips twitching uneasily. "Mmm, she is, yes. I never realized how much she was carrying around with her." He adds, swallowing guiltily. "I never asked." Because he'd been too lost in himself for so long, too content with caring only about Ronin.

Growling under his breath as Ronin rubs sand against his skin as if the friction is unpleasant (it isn't), Remi just leads his head back so that the water rinses over him. "Honestly though, do you think I should...say something? Tell people? It feels...invasive, almost. That a handshake or slap on the back could reveal so much. Things people might not want me to know."

there is always hope

”Mm, I will.” Ronin’s smile is the most crooked he can conjure, and he hopes that Remi will feel the mischief mingling in with his attraction for his husband. Indeed, as he lets the water soak them both and fully devotes himself to his task, the prolonged contact will reveal the spark of arousal that tends to accompany them wherever they go start to flare and kindle. It’s not the time and he has no intention of acting on it, but it’s hardly something he can help.

Lathering shampoo into his hands, he makes a show of gently scrubbing at Remi’s curls, getting soap everywhere and seeming to be trying to make as many suds as possible. ”It isn’t an obligation, to ask,” he points out. ”Don’t beat yourself up about the way your own trauma led you to behave. You didn’t ask, but she didn’t say anything either.”

Should he tell people, though? For the first time, Remi will feel the way his husband’s mind works, the flare of emotion rising up and then masterfully dimming down, shaped by the logic of his experiences. ”It feels like it would be invasive for you, to keep repeating yourself. It’s their emotion, but it’s still up to you to do something with it. I don’t think there’s a catch all answer.” It definitely feels case by case. Tell someone like Vai and Phoebe? Yes. But a merchant at the docks? Maybe not.

i've got a river for a soul

That Remi is of a similar mind to Ronin should be of no surprise to anyone. He's always a little hard when the hunter is around, and impossibly so when they're naked together. Typically he can keep his thoughts inline, but that's only when he has just his to worry about. Feeling the dark pull of Ronin's own fledgling erotic thoughts seep through harmonizes perfectly with the flickers of arousal the Alchemist has already felt, such that he's suddenly overcome with it. Biting the inside of his lip and tilting his head upwards so that the water is splashing him directly in the face, he makes a fist that he uses to brace himself with against the wall of the shower as his knees threaten to buckle.

"Ronin.." He says warily, pulling himself from the hunter's grasp and curling his toes in silent frustration. This might become a problem.. Remi muses silently as he forces his mind onto something else. Anything else. When finally he's pulled himself free of the cloudy fog of desire, the Alchemist gives his husband a restrained but amused sort of look. "We are going to have to investigate that further." He adds once he's able to keep his thoughts under control.

"No, but she might have if I was anything other than an asshole to her this whole time." Remi says with a sigh, reaching up and turning some of the suds Ronin has created into devil horns popping out of his curls.

As Ronin thinks, Remi is helpless to do anything other than smile with stupid adoration. That his husband is so impossibly attractive is really a disservice, Remi thinks as Ronin ponders; everyone is so enamoured by him that few get to see how clever he really is. "I almost feel like the people I would tell—Vai, Phoebe—are the ones who won't mind. It's everyone else...Sam, Nate, Finn.." (Gods, Finn) "..who'd likely take issue with it."

there is always hope

”Hmm...?” Ronin raises his eyebrows as Remi pulls away suddenly, so used to being all but wrapped around his husband that the sudden disengaging is a little jarring. Only when he realises why does the Star let out a quiet laugh, raking a hand through his wet hair and offering a boyish grin to his husband. ”Ah, I see,” he says. ”I suppose we will both have to be a little more mindful of what happens when we shower together.”

Huffing out a deep breath and focusing on the problem - easily enough done when the conversation changes to more serious matters - Ronin scoffs and swats away the sudsy devil horns, gently tilting Remi’s head back beneath the water so he can rinse him off. ”She didn’t just have you to talk to,” he reminds him gently. ”And while you can’t change that you were an asshole then, you can change it now.”

Washing way all the soap, Ronin’s brow furrows as Remi continues, and he reaches out to gently cup his face in his hands. There’s a surge of protectiveness that bubbles to the surface now, wrapping around the Alchemist in a warm and heavy layer. ”Then let them take issue with it,” he suggests softly. ”They can always choose not to touch you. Besides... don’t forget to take care of yourself, with this. There are people out there who would take advantage of you, with this sort of thing.”

i've got a river for a soul

"We nothing." Remi huffs back. "One of us already is quite mindful. The other needs to keep his hands to himself if he and his filthy thoughts wants a shower to stay that way." Tilting his head back indignantly, Remi flashes his husband a look of (and subsequent pulse through the attuned bond) that he shouldn't be held accountable for Ronin's infatuation with him.

Grinning as his horns are removed, Remi just raises a brow. "Oh right. Horns are your thing now." He chuckles, looking to see if Ronin's adorable nubs will make an angry appearance through his dark hair.

Humming indulgently into the feel of Ronin more than his words, the Alchemist's body instantly relaxes beneath the warm weight of his husband's emotional reassurance. Cracking open one eye, Remi gives the Star a confused sort of look. "Take advantage of me? How?" If anything he is in a position to take advantage, surely. Snipping emotions he isn't' welcome to, giving himself information he has no right to know?

there is always hope

”Hey,” Ronin begins to object, before his playful haughtiness melts into a boyish smile - because Remi is absolutely right. ”I will have to work more on my breathing exercises and the like,” he says. Luckily the talk moves on and he’s right back to haughty indignation at the mention of his sorry excuse for antlers, Ronin’s cheeks colouring; he tries to shake his hair further across his forehead, though with the stream of water the little velvet nubs are impossible to hide.

Still, it’s all in jest, and they can enjoy that fully now - but Ronin is serious about others taking advantage. ”If people know about you, they could overwhelm you with emotion and take advantage while you’re distracted,” he points out, that protective tether between them growing stronger as Ronin moves to turn off the shower. ”Or worse, if they’re angry enough to hurt someone, but without the power to do anything about it... one touch of you and that might change - you might do their dirty work without meaning to.”

i've got a river for a soul

Remi can't help but laugh as he imagines Ronin trying to subtly meditate in the corner of the shower; the scene is of the Star snarling down at his own erection while angrily breathing at it. It's too much, but also exactly what the Alchemist needs, and he feels the last sexually-tense chords within his belly relax.

Brushing the displaced hair from Ronin's eyes, Remi gives the hunter a wry smile. It's adorable how easy it is to rile Ronin up with just a few words. Reminders of times Sunjata has beaten him, mentions of how Ronin is the shortest of their little group, the whole General of the Storm...and gods how he loves him for it.

Biting the inside of his cheek as Ronin explains, Remi just lets himself mentally lean against the tide of the Star's emotions. "Oh.." He mumbles at last, thinking through the implications. Tugging in a breath and holding it as he considers, scenarios weave themselves in his mind, growing more and more concerning. Eventually, he shakes his head to dispel the images, focusing on the blue of his husband's gaze and the strong pulse of protectiveness he feels emanating from him.

"What a fun development." He says under his breath with a roll of his eyes, though there's something different in his expression. A boyish willingness to meet this challenge, rather than a shadowy retreat from the ramifications as one might have expected from him.

there is always hope

Ronin’s pout melts away with the touch of his husband’s fingers, the star reaching up to press his lips to Remi’s fingertips, drawing him out of the shower into a haze of steam now that they’ve gotten rid of all of the sand and the blood. ”It’s certainly one of the more interesting things you’ve brought home recently,” he says with a warm smile, grabbing a fluffy towel to bundle it around the Alchemist, hugging him close.

”I’m proud of you,” he says, hoping that the other man will feel that he means it. ”You helped Amalia before Ludo gave you this new thing. I love you, and I’ll help you all that I can.” I always will goes unsaid.

And I’ll kill anyone who tries to hurt you also goes unsaid, but unfortunately Ronin can no longer hide anything from is husband. And Remi will be able to feel the way that protectiveness grows thorny and dangerous to all those not within it, as dark as the moniker the Star has come to be known by. ”Sorry,” he mutters, aware suddenly that he’s not able to veil that part of himself any longer.

i've got a river for a soul

Remi just flares his nose at that, not entirely sure if it was true or not, but not particularly caring either.  "It is better than you leaving dead things on the doorstep when you had the blight, I will say that." He says, allowing himself to be wrapped up, before reaching for the other towel to return the favour.

Pausing, indeed feeling the wave of genuine support coming from Ronin, Remi had to take a deep breath to steady himself against it. Just as weird as it must be to know that someone else is feeling all your feelings, equally it's just as strange to be the one feeling them. "It is a bit like suddenly feeling full, even when you haven't eaten." Remi explains, blinking away the silence he'd let fall, and smiling at Ronin.

"Don't be. I love that side of you." Not simply because of their shared trauma or because it lets his husband understand the things Remi does and needs that others might not (like killing a herd of ramphire and then gayly making his way home only to fuck his husband on their porch), but because it's a truly beautiful part of the Star that not many have the privilege of seeing.

there is always hope

”Ooof, yeah. Not my finest moment,” Ronin says, wrinkling his nose as a flush of embarrassment colours his cheeks. It fades as his husband is so kind as to wrap him up in a towel, the Star kissing his forehead and letting an arm wind around Remi’s waist to guide them out of the bathroom. ”I have no idea what that feels like,” he says playfully; they both know that Ronin would eat them out of house and home if he could.

Still, he’s a little apprehensive as he awaits judgement for the sudden slip in his mood, so when Remi speaks again the hunter all but melts against him, relieved and adoring and so stupidly in love that it’s hard to begin to express it in words. That’s the thing, though - between the Attuned bond and what Remi can feel now, he doesn’t have to. ”You think you can get some sleep after the excitement of the evening?” he asks.

i've got a river for a soul

"Perhaps I should ask Ludo for that magic next. Anything I eat, you will share the nutrients of. I'll rob you of the joy of food." Remi's lips part into an O knowing just how much the Star adores eating. Honestly, it seems the sort of thing Ludo would do as well, which just makes the Alchemist's threat all the more amusing.

"I think I could." Remi says, happy to keep Ronin close and indulge himself in the Star's love forever. "But I think I'd rather just...feel you, for a while." Crinkling his nose for how the sentiment sounds, the Alchemist shakes his head, expecting Ronin to pick up on the sentiment despite the clumsy phrasing. "I don't mean to make myself sound quite so egotistical but...it's incredible, feeling what you feel." Especially about me, he wants to say, though the deep blush on his cheeks says it loud and clear.