a predictable outcome

for 1000 nights i've been a restless soul

Inside it would sound like hail...or at least, it would sound like hail, if the hail in question was only a few balls pounding the house at random intervals, followed by bursts of cursing and even a few roars.

Should Ronin come outside (and honestly, why wouldn't he), it will be to see his husband seemingly shouting threats and curses at their roof, all the while picking up stones and lobbing them upwards. It's a wonder he hasn't broken a window, but give him time. There's still plenty of stones about.

"Why though?" He's demanding, glaring as he throws another stone. There is a hiss of outrage followed by what sounds like a terrified chicken. "Because if I come up there, it'll make these rocks seem like a fucking spring shower."

the baffled king composing hallelujah

”You know when we were talking about you working with animals?” Ronin sounds groggy, having been enjoying quite the delicious nap when the sound of his husband attacking the house interrupted him. ”I think I take it back. What the fuck are you doing, sir?” The Star hides a wide yawn behind his hand, stepping barefoot out onto the muddy ground (and regretting it instantly). He’s in a pair of low slung sweatpants and nothing else, the garment sitting low on his hips. Is he wearing underwear? Pull ‘em down, find out.

Squinting up to where there are chicken noises and a bunch of rocks being lobbed, Ronin itches at the stubble on his chin and gazes questioningly at his husband, like he’s about to come up with a perfectly reasonable explanation for all this. ”You look so upset,” he remarks quietly, unable to stop the smile from flickering across his lips.

for 1000 nights i've been a restless soul

With another curse on his lips, Remi pauses mid-throw to glare at Ronin. He's absolutely furious with his husband for looking so breathtakingly groggy and handsome at a time like this. "I am defending our home." Remi snaps back, the tone of his voice obviously not meant for Ronin as he hurls another aggressive assault of stones up at the roof. Again there is the sound of angry hissing, which Remi sneers back at as if he understands perfectly well what's being said.

"I—" Remi leans down to pick up another rock. "—am upset!" He finishes with a huff, both looking and sounding frustrated in such a way that invites laughter. Whatever the Alchemist is upset about will probably intuitively strike Ronin as being very minor, despite Remi's reaction to it.

Gritting his teeth, Remi noses towards Ronin's hand. "Do you happen to feel anything?" He asks miserably. The answer, once Ronin stopped to think about it, would be a resounding no. Not a heartbeat. Not even a flicker from the ring on his finger.

the baffled king composing hallelujah

Biting down on the inside of his cheek to stop his grin (sort of), Ronin winces as yet another Mighty Rock of Defence is thrown at their home, narrowly avoiding their bedroom window. ”Is that what you call it? I would swear you were attacking it,” he remarks in a voice tight with laughter he’s desperately trying to contain. At least the reminder of a lack of heartbeat on his finger has him sobering somewhat, Ronin raising an eyebrow and turning his hand this way and that.

”Oh gods, my ring finger is broken?” He gasps dramatically. ”Did it get cursed?” Looking honestly appalled, he gazes up at the roof. ”It was you, wasn’t it house?”

There’s a sly smile on his face, and he slants a sideways glance at his husband. ”If only you owned a pair of gloves to cover up your hands and prevent the theft of your jewellery,” he remarks. ”Come on - what’s stolen it?”

for 1000 nights i've been a restless soul

Sending a seething look Ronin's way (though the Alchemist's mussed-curls and the adorable blush on his cheeks probably ruins it), Remi just huffs a nod of agreement.

Very nearly, Remi almost throws a rock at his husband instead of the house. Or more properly, what's in the house. "Go back and nap if you aren't going to help." The Alchemist snarls grumpily, the embarrassment of having lost his wedding ring curdling against Ronin's clear amusement. Nostrils flared as he exhales a steady stream of unhappy air, Remi runs a clearly un-gloved hand through his curls and then crosses his arms (menacingly..ish). "Well, there was no one to touch, and I didn't want them to shrink in the rain." He argues, defensiveness making him look and silly in his anger.

Pointing up towards the roof, Remi sulks for another moment or two before answering. "A hel grabbed the ring and swallowed it, I think. And then some sort of snake has chased it up there. But if I kill the snake, the hel will fly off with it. And if I kill the hel, the snake will eat it."

the baffled king composing hallelujah

”You think I would give you leather gloves in monsoon season without having them waterproofed?” Ronin raises his eyebrows at his husband, and he lets his smile melt into something boyishly warm instead of so annoyingly entertained. Stepping up before Remi, he reaches out to cup his cheeks in his hands, leaning in to kiss the tip of his nose. Hopefully he will feel the still half asleep adoration he has for the Alchemist; for all of the empathy, Ronin wishes he could see himself through the Star’s eyes.

”Well that won’t do,” he says, gaze flicking over Remi’s shoulder and up to the sky to watch one of the clouds detach and swoop down towards them. ”We’ll just have to kill them both, I suppose. Come on, I’ll fly us up and you can sneak your way across to catch the hel. Then I’ll kill the snake, and we’ll get your ring back. How did it manage to get it from you to swallow it, by the way?”

for 1000 nights i've been a restless soul

Remi raises his eyebrows at that, because...well, Ronin might have forgotten. Still, frustrated at he is with himself, he can't help the way his shoulders sag as Ronin draws near. Butter-yellow affection sweeps over him, like a sheet newly fluffed over bare skin, and Remi is helpless to do anything other than sulkily tuck his fingers beneath the waistband of his husband's pants (no underwear here, just as we all suspected).

Grumbling a note of agreement, Remi glances at the cloud. He waits for Ronin to get on first (always assuming the cloud will dissipate beneath him if Ronin isn't there), he lets the Star carry them onto the roof. Pointing and making obnoxious hand-signals that Ronin is not likely to understand (what's that, drinking from a water bottle, a butterfly, and a gun?), Remi sits himself down on the roof where he won't fall off (hopefully), and slips out of his body.

Though he can't move any of the shingles to get at the hel, he can just slip himself into the body of the bird. Trying to force the thing out of the gutter is almost impossible, and though he does have control over the hel's body, the instincts of the bird to squawk and flail are difficult to overcome with a snake so close.

the baffled king composing hallelujah

Ronin smiles, settling on the cloud and making sure to nuzzle obnoxiously against his husband as they rise up to the leave, lavishing him with gentle kisses - one for each rock the fucker threw at the house while he was sleeping. He raises his eyebrows as he watches Remi slip onto the roof before slipping out of his body, giving him a look of what, don’t trust me without your body?

Still, probably for the best, because the adorably vacant expression on Ronin’s face in response to the extravagant hand signals tells that he only really understands gun. And he doesn’t even know what one is, really.

Hoping that his husband has indeed slipped himself in the body of the hel and that Ronin isn’t going to shoot him by accident, Ronin watches the gutter closely. Once he’s sure he has the snake in sight, a starbolt appears in the air beside him. He shoots it like a well-placed dart. And hey, it hits! Takes half the gutter off with it, but... what does he look like, a demigod?

for 1000 nights i've been a restless soul

Well, if we're counting Ronin has missed about half a dozen kisses; Remi was throwing them gently at first and apparently not hard enough to wake the Star. But you know, if we're keeping track, Ronin has some smooches that he owes.

Had Remi anything more than a beak to squawk with, he'd absolutely have cursed the demigod. As the gutter falls, so too does the hel with the Alchemist inside. Falling, Remi flaps its wings, but it's far too late. Slightly dazed from the star bolt just levied at him, Remi finds himself blinking up at the rain clouds from the roof of their house while the hel below rights itself, offers the two men a bright fuck you, and flaps off.

"Ronin!" Remi all but bleats, pointing stupidly at the bird as he scrambles to his feet. Ignoring the smell of charred snake (which does smell fairly good), the Alchemist dives off the roof, immediately shifting and shrinking as he did so. Hey captain accuracy. Think you can manage to hit it without killing me? The hawk asks, darting after the hel. He's much faster, but it's hard to predict the movements of such a stupid bird.

the baffled king composing hallelujah

Okay, he probably owes Remi more than a few smooches now. But listen. Listen, okay? He hit things, didn’t he? That was what the bottle-butterfly-gun technique was all about. He... he thinks. Whatever. ”Remi!” The Star bleats back, already making chase on his nimbus as the other man starts his pursuit in shift. It’s a bit cold to be flying around with no shirt on and muddy feet, but sometimes you do what you have to do in the name of love.

Which is how Ronin ends up standing atop his cloud, looking every inch the Dark Star as a halo of starbolts crown his form, zoning in on the stupid hel and the hopefully not his husband. ”Yeah, yeah, I got it,” he grumbles to Remi, eyes narrowing to unleash all of the bolts in pursuit of a wedding ring he’s already scoured a beach for.

for 1000 nights i've been a restless soul

Remi is absolutely fixated on the hel before him which is lucky as it turns out, because if he wasn't, he might have dropped from the sky. To see Ronin, tanned and scarred, the v-muscles low on his abdomen like beacons directing his gaze down to what was only veiled in sweatpant-material, the Star's hair tousled by the wind as he rode a literal cloud to save the die, would surely have done the Alchemist's heart in. His knees, certainly.

Gods if he wasn't married the most unbelievably handsome fuck(up) of a man that ever dared to live.

Wonder of wonders, the unnecessarily powerful amount of magic thrown at the bird all but vaporizes it in the air. A few errant and comical feathers trickle down, but there is not a ring to be seen, and below? Well, below there is a storm-churned sea that yields wedding rings as rarely as she reveals her secrets.

the baffled king composing hallelujah

Ronin feels like a fucking hero, filled with the righteous vengeance of a thousand suns, yadda yadda yadda... right up until the point where he realises that he’s vaporised the damned hel and there’s no wedding ring in sight. Flopping back to sit on the cloud, he peers over the side of it and down into the churning waves, brow furrowing. Clearing his throat, he offers a small smile to his hawk-husband and itches at the stubble on his chin.

”Remi, oh love of my life... You know when you said that hel swallowed your wedding ring, you think, do you reckon you might have been wrong? Is it possible it just dropped it on the roof of our house? Maybe?” And has Ronin just popped a bird into a pile of feathers for apparently no reason?

for 1000 nights i've been a restless soul

Even with his keen eyesight, Remi sees...nothing.

Nothing.

Cold dread starts to build up in his feet, rising up into his feathered breast and making him feel as though he's quickly going to lose the ability to fly. He might have laughed (mentally) and chastized Ronin's snake-killing and now subsequent hel-killing abilities as being far too extra, only...well. If his ring was gone, it didn't feel much like a laughing matter.

Circling, the hawk considers his husband's words, and though he can't smile with his beak, there is a warbly sensation that comes through the bond between them. I didn't see anything fall... He says, though sounds pleased about it.

And I was looking. He emphasizes heart lodged somewhere near his throat. To the house! The hawk trills brightly, sweeping his wings to sharply bank around Ronin's cloud and flying as fast as he can back toward the shore. Landing awkwardly with human feet and arms that flail to regain his balance, Remi drops to his knees where he'd been working earlier, frantically digging about in the dirt and mud.

"Come on!" The Alchemist curses under his breath, slinging chunks of mud and clay behind him as he searches the area he'd been experimenting in earlier. The hel had popped down and tried to steal away a bit of cloth Remi had been using as a measurement tool. He's just...assumed it had made off with his ring as well in the chaos of everything, but perhaps Ronin was right? And, as if on cue, sunlight peaks through the clouds causing the buried ring to glisten faintly. "Ehm....false alarm."

the baffled king composing hallelujah

Ronin is glad to be sitting, because at the cold dread that rolls off his husband he might well have made him topple off his cloud. He’s scouring the waters below them when Remi’s voice reaches him, and he just about glances up in time to see the hawk banking around back the way they came. ”I didn’t see anything fall either,” he remarks as the nimbus races after him, though whether that’s because the wedding ring was vaporised remains to be seen.

His landing is a lot more elegant than Remi’s, for once, and he moves to stand beside his husband as he digs around. In the mud. Ronin’s lips part to try and say something, before he changes his mind completely, the Star folding his arms until, amid the clumps of mud and grass and sand, there’s a wedding ring. Safe and fucking sound. A miracle, truly.

The laughter that rumbles from Ronin’s chest is a bright and cheerful thing, though, and he leans down to kneel with Remi, slinging his arm around the Alchemist. ”You,” he says, kissing his hair, ”are one of a kind. You know that?”