skinny dipping in my mind

beside my bed i keep a bottle of dreams

Used to this, Remi indeed follows the light. A trick once used by Ludo to try and snare him in death, now it's the panacea to any malady he might face down in this world. As reality settles back into his bones, the alchemist's lashes flutter open, his head still turned toward Ronin. I love you, he mouths before sitting up and looking over his shoulder at Amalia.

"We'll talk before we go." He assures her, waiting until she's left the room before exhaling a breath that feels as though its been held in his chest for hours. Pushing himself onto his knees and crawling toward Ronin, the alchemist will wrap his arms around the Star's chest, his cheek firmly pressed against the huntsman's back. Feeling the throbbing near-black of the Star's frustration, the alchemist merely swallows and hugs his husband all the more tightly. Through the troubled blues and hostile purples of Ronin's exasperation of having what, in his mind, was meant to be a relatively uncomplicated few moments turn into something so binding, Remi just breathes steadily.

Pressing a kiss against one of Ronin's shoulders, his lips leaning against the Star's muscles for a moment, the alchemist gives a suggestive tug, that they might both lay back down again.

i wake up and i go back to sleep

Coding base by Sky!

everything has its wonders

Amalia leaves and Ronin's shoulders sag, the shuddering breath that leaves him doing absolutely nothing for the frustration that still wants to lash out at everything that has just happened. His whole body feels wound tightly like a spring, and at first he's stiff in Remi's arms, the alchemist having to wrap himself around him like he's made of marble. But Remi is a warm and steady presence for him to lean against, and the longer they sit like this in silence, the longer he is offered the space and the quiet to tease his thoughts out of the stormclouds they are wrapped in, the more he relaxes.

At the tug, Ronin kicks off his shoes and lets himself flop back into the blankets and the pillows, reaching for his husband to draw the Lullaby across his chest like the Star might be able to wear him like a blanket. His lips seek out the side of Remi's neck, his fingers teasing beneath the hem of his shirt, desperate to feel more of that soothing calm that he's projecting. From neck to jaw to mouth, Ronin's kisses are gentle and thorough, and he has no time for words when his lips are otherwise engaged. Just a bit longer, he says through their bond. I don't want to talk yet.

even darkness and silence

Coding base by Sky!

beside my bed i keep a bottle of dreams

Remi is happily draped over Ronin, with wings spread wide as if he were a blanket, and his limbs entirely boneless so as not to dig into the huntsman. That the Lullaby is the one calm in this situation might surprise others, but one of the reasons why the two men work so well together, is that their pendulums are nearly always swinging in opposite directions. When the alchemist is out for blood, the Star is the voice of reason. Similarly, when the huntsman turns in on himself and is fit to implode, it's the Lullaby who can softly tease him apart again.

Eventually, with his own lips pressed against the side of Ronin's neck, the Lullaby smiles into the scruff on the Star's jaw before sitting up. Now astride the Star, Remi pulls Ronin's arms down to his sides and allows his fingers to slowly wander up toward the huntsman's neck. Finding the tension quite evident he begins to soothingly and adoringly work at the muscles. The expression on his face is one of unfettered rapture, all too pleased to be silently ebbing the tension away from Ronin's body in this way. Eventually, his hands will work lower to the Star's upper biceps, his forearms, and then individually, Remi will take Ronin's hands in his and work at his palms and fingers.

i wake up and i go back to sleep

Coding base by Sky!

everything has its wonders

Ronin is almost drunk with Remi's touch, and the Lullaby will feel the thorns of his husband's frustration start to tease away, to melt and fade under his ministrations. He grumbles a note of pleasure at the fingers that come to ease at his tense muscles, and he arches his hips as if to try and grasp at more of the other man. Hands running up the length of Remi's thighs, he playfully tries to fight against having his fingers captured, though it's all for show (of course).

"I love you," he whispers eventually, surging up to sit with his husband still astride him, leaning in for a proper kiss. "I love you, Remi. I'm sorry." Brushing his nose against the alchemist's, he shifts to let his head rest upon his husband's shoulder, relishing his warmth in the wake of everything that has just happened.

even darkness and silence

Coding base by Sky!

beside my bed i keep a bottle of dreams

Though the slow tour of Ronin's hands up Remi's thighs and the arching of his hips might otherwise push the alchemist's mind into territory that the moment is not suited for, the only desires that Remi is intent on quenching right now have to deal with releasing every single point of tension that his husband's body holds.  Growling in the back of his throat at Ronin's struggles, he does allow him to sit up, edging back only slightly so that he can wrap his legs around the Star's waist.

'And I, you." Remi agrees. Moving his hands to work more properly on his husband's shoulder's now that they're fully revealed to him, he smiles simply at the apology, shaking his head (and thus his nose) against Ronin's. "Whatever for? I felt the things you were feeling, just like I did with her." He says as his fingers begin to work down the top of Ronin's spine.

"She's much more lonely than she lets on." Remi explains, his words not an attempt at all to soothe the Star, merely to reiterate a conversation he hadn't been able to hear. "I thought it was the sex for her, that she was hung up on. And it was in a sense, but not in the way I thought. It was...she wants to be wanted by someone like you. All the things you are. She wants it still. Not in a...breaking up our marriage way. But if she knew you thought about her as you two had been then..." The alchemist shrugs. That other's fantasize and want to be desired by the Star is no surprise to the Lullaby.  Slipping his arms below Ronin's, Remi continues his ministrations down into the muscles of his husband's lower back.

"That coupled with her loneliness...with wanting the sort of love that we have...us leaving I think brought it all to the very front of her mind." Pausing to let the side of his head lean against Ronin's, Remi smiles a touch sadly. His magic makes him helpless to do anything but be understanding of the Shield's position, but also the Star's as well. Of wanting simple. Of wanting no strings, and yet finding himself bound in a world of sudden complexity.

i wake up and i go back to sleep

Coding base by Sky!

everything has its wonders

Remi's fingers tie Ronin's tongue up in knots, the Star mumbling incoherently against his husband's curls, and he ceases his struggling without complaint. His head flops forward to rest against the Lullaby's shoulder, eyes slipping shut to listen, to feel, to let the tension bleed out of his muscles. If he were a chocolate bar he'd be half melted by now, his arms slipping around Remi to hold him close even as the other man starts to speak.

"This is the most selfish thing you've ever heard me say," he mumbles, the words sounding thick in his mouth, Ronin feeling strangely lightheaded with the whiplash in his mood (not that he is complaining at all). "But I don't care." He huffs out a sigh, the honesty heavy on his tongue. "I don't care about it. It's my job to be a friend, not to fix people's problems. Not to give them everything they need. I don't care, Remi."

He might sound sad about it, at any other moment. And yet right now? He can't. "I want to leave soon."

even darkness and silence

Coding base by Sky!

beside my bed i keep a bottle of dreams

Ronin can't see it, but somehow Remi has no doubt the Star will just know the boyish expression which dimples his cheeks as the huntsman tries to prepare him for what he's about to say. The Lullaby doesn't even need his magic to easily empathize with what his husband is feeling. It's everything he'd been months before; beaten down by the world, forced to rise again and again to challenge and trial, until it all became too much. Keeping an eye on Torchline, Seren's removal from their lives, the sickness and Remi's behaviour during...

"I've heard much more selfish things from you." Remi says softly, a smile twisting the words as they leave his lips. "Like, Remi, can you get more blankets. Remi, can I have the last chicken?" Chuckling softly and pressing his lips against the soft skin just below and behind the huntsman's ear, for a moment Remi's hands cease their kneading and instead just wrap firmly around the Star.

"You're both allowed to feel how you feel." The Lullaby offers, before nodding his unshaven cheek against Ronin's. "I do too. As soon as we're packed. " This—everything about how preparing to leave had gone—was precisely why they needed to go.

i wake up and i go back to sleep

Coding base by Sky!

everything has its wonders

Remi's words and the smile that echoes in them is everything to Ronin, the Star bonelessly wrapping around his husband, relishing every kiss, every tender caress, the way his arms wind so securely around him. "You're right," he mumbles. "Those things are much worse. But I'm still not sorry for them," he says, a crooked grin colouring his remark. Turning his head, he nibbles at the Lullaby's earlobe and huffs out a suddenly content sigh, as if he has finally gotten things off his chest.

There's more though, of course - there always is. But that isn't exactly what's on Ronin's mind right now, and he's too busy flinging himself into feeling better to bring up anything else just now. The kisses he lavishes against Remi's neck are completely at odds with the man brooding at the window just a few minutes ago, his fingers drawing absent patterns against the other man's back. "As soon as we're packed," he echoes, peeling his eyes open again at last to peek up at Remi, his face still mostly hidden in his curls.

"Just shove the clothes in the bags," he mumbles. "I'll sort them out when they're in the wagon."

even darkness and silence

Coding base by Sky!

beside my bed i keep a bottle of dreams

Grumbling despite the goosebumps of pleasure that Ronin's nibbles cause, Remi leans his head against Ronin's as if trying to dissuade his husband from further irritating him. It's only in jest though, the Lullaby fully relishing this softening of the man on whom he sits. Moaning a low note of utmost contentment, his legs tightening around the Star as if Remi might just fuse them together.

'Gods, you really are in a hurry now.' The alchemist chuckles, grinning wickedly against Ronin's forehead and then pressing a kiss against it. "I do agree though. Best we go before someone else falls in love with you." This is said without actual reference to Amalia; Remi simply wants to be a bit of a shit after all the tension of the last thirty minutes or so. "Soon you'll be the reason we have to stay on the move," He adds, pulling away only so that he can push Ronin back down onto the bed.

Leaning forward to drape himself over Ronin, Remi lavishes his husband in kisses, starting at his neck and tugging at his shirt to reveal more skin. "Everywhere we go—" kiss "—it will be—" kiss "—gods, that Ronin is so handsome!" This is said in Remi's approximation of a woman's voice, followed by: "A painter and a huntsman? He must be a god in bed." In a deeper, much more burly voice. 'Have you seen how blue his eyes are? And oh! That hair!" Remi continues, grinning against his husband's stomach. "And his body, gods! And those eyebrows?"

i wake up and i go back to sleep

Coding base by Sky!

everything has its wonders

Now it's Ronin's turn to grumble, as if the prospect of someone falling in love with him is annoying; unfortunately his ego is not big enough for him to believe it to be true, but he does flop back against the bed with a huff of reluctant laughter. "Of course I'm in a hurry. Sooner it's just you, me and Teo - and Ianto I guess - the better." He feebly protests Remi's kisses, the affection giving rise to a real, sunny smile on Ronin's face, and his swatting away is more caressing than anything.

The voices and the impressions are very creative to say the least, the Star closing his eyes, lips parting in a silent gasp of pleasure. "I don't care," he says again, the words coloured by his smile, and his hands flutter across Remi's shoulders to softly twist through his curls. "I just want you. That's it, that's all. The whole world could be at my feet and I wouldn't want anything but to look in your eyes." It might be corny, but it's absolutely true. "Just love me. It's been such a long fucking day."

even darkness and silence

Coding base by Sky!

beside my bed i keep a bottle of dreams

"Ooh, he doesn't even care. That's so cool." Remi continues, this impression one of someone sighing longingly. "He's so unavailable. It's so hot." He adds, nipping slightly at the skin over one of Ronin's hipbones and laughing under his breath.

As for loving Ronin? Easily done. "I'm not upset." Remi says, sliding himself up the length of his husband's body so that he can softly place his lips against the Star's. "I already know what the world was like when you weren't mine. I can't blame anyone for wanting you to look at them, the way you look at me. Because gods if it isn't absolutely everything." Gazing down at the Star, Remi's cheeks are flushed and his eyes have taken on that gooey-hopelessly-in-love look that such moments inspire. Lost in the blue of Ronin's eyes, the way the huntsman's frustration and now weariness has made him look positively rugged in his dishevelment.

'I love you.' The Lullaby says, his voice slow and soft, his accent hugging and accentuating the curve of the words. "I love you, I love you, I love you." The last is nearly whispered as Remi's lips softly find Ronin's, love spilling out from him like a tidal wave of soft gold.

i wake up and i go back to sleep

Coding base by Sky!

everything has its wonders

Hissing in a breath at the friction created as Remi deliberately slides back up to meet his lips, Ronin raises an eyebrow to hear he's not upset. He doesn't know what he means, and at first he wants to ask what he hasn't done to not make him upset. As he explains, though, the lopsided smile returns, and he reaches up to brush a thumb against the Lullaby's unshaven cheek. It might be everything, but it's yours," he complains, though it can hardly be called as such.

Leaning up to meet Remi in a kiss, Ronin moans his tired approval of every ounce of love his husband can deliver in that moment. His fingers fumble for the blankets, dragging them around the two of them as much as possible, and his free hand moves to stroke through the soft feather's of Remi's wings. Thoroughly soothed if not weary with his brooding, Ronin is finally exactly where he wants to be.

~FIN

even darkness and silence

Coding base by Sky!