in cold blood

aúsi, nos paramas // & still we stand

"Or what?" Remi wonders in a low voice. He isn't here to have Ronin fight his battles, nor Sunjata's. And if that's what this is, if he can't speak freely, then he might as well leave. Because while Ronin has spent time smoothing down Sunjata's feathers, the same can't be said for the alchemist.

'Then what the fuck are we even talking about here? If the whole point is that it wasn't Sunjata, what is this conversation even for?' Remi wonders, staring pointedly at Ronin, willing him to move out of the way.

But in the end it doesn't matter. They can talk around Ronin. "The fae. That's hardly the same.' Remi replies with a slight roll of his eyes. "How lovely for you and Nate. Only no one told me not to go after you. Zephyr pointed the finger at you. Ronin was with me the whole time. If you had known what I was doing, I wouldn't have been able to trust you. You had to think it was real. That your life was on the line. But it was a bad dream." So fucking get over yourself.

THE

LULLABY

Table coding by Sky

even my darkness shines for you

Or what, indeed. Ronin rounds on his husband - perhaps an unexpected turn in this whole sorry affair, but it's on Remi's good faith that they're all here to begin with. "Let him know I'm ready to face him, as soon as he wants. That's what you said to me," he snaps. "If I'd known you were here just to twist knives and tell other people to get over the suffering you caused them on purpose, I'd have saved us all the trouble."

With the colour high in his cheeks - and it's definitely not a flush of embarrassment Ronin's feeling - the Star does step out from between the two men. And he positions himself firmly next to Sunjata, folding his arms across his chest. "I can justify anything you do. That's what got us here to Torchline in the first place. But I can't justify you being a monster because you're too lazy to try and be a man anymore."

the

DARKSTAR

Table coding by Sky

// so now you've done a little wrong and you need to be forgiven,
by the vicar and the company you keep //

No one had said not to go after Sunjata, and he’s not surprised. He’s really not. The only ones that would were either out fighting monsters or partying and once again he was alone. He doesn’t know why it upsets him so much when it’s the one thing he’s wanted. To not be involved, to not get in too deep, too used to everything being taken away shortly after it meant something to him. But it isn’t that which gets his mood to change so rapidly.

A bad dream. That’s what does it.

He remains silent as Ronin snaps instead, watches as Ronin moves to stand beside him. He remains tense. His head finally turns back to Remi, not wanting to be in the middle of this and yet finding himself there all the same. “It was a nightmare, Remi.” He manages, quieter now, though whether it’s because he’s fracturing again internally or because of the support from Ronin, it’s unclear. “It’s clear that you don’t know anything about me but I had hoped that you knew me better than that. I had hoped that you would question Zeph's word over mine.” His jaw clenches and unclenches, scales appearing along his arms.

// this is the sin that i will confess to release myself
from consequence and everyone can tell //

SUNJATA

aúsi, nos paramas // & still we stand

'This is me facing him.' The Lullaby replies evenly, and whatever else he might have said in the wake of Ronin's accusations disappear as the Star moves to stand next to the Flood. It's an absolutely childish tactic, but gods if it doesn't work. The pain of that is probably the greatest the alchemist has felt since Aoife's death; the way the scar tissue suddenly itches on his chest isn't a coincidence. Remi has already accused Ronin of taking Sunjata's side a little too quickly in all of this, and so whether this is just to rub salt in that particular wound or just more evidence that he'd been right, he hardly knows.

"A monster, hmm?" Remi asks quietly, his sea-glass stare nearly as soft as his voice. "Is that what happens to anyone who strays out of your light, Ronin?" There's a faint smile on his lips, but it's sad and utterly defeated. "Sorry to have disappointed you." But he can't quite look at Ronin now, and so the words are mumbled and directed somewhere near the Star's collar.

As for Sunjata? Well. It all seems a bit trivial now, doesn't it? In the wake of such bright and biting betrayal and condemnation from his husband, all of Remi's anger is entirely gone. 'A nightmare, then.' Remi agrees in a low voice. 'I suppose we've learned we don't know much about each other.' The Lullaby adds with a slight shrug. I wish you'd done this. I wish you'd done that. But they hadn't, and here they were.

With cheeks aflame and eyes needling with the onslaught of tears, the alchemist lets himself out. Should anyone follow, they'll find Sunjata's porch and the surrounding beach utterly devoid of the Lullaby.

~Remi out!

THE

LULLABY

Table coding by Sky

even my darkness shines for you

As soon as the words leave his lips, Ronin wants to clutch them back. Things said in anger and all that - but it's too late now, and although his pulse is still thundering and fury is still high in his blood, the betrayal writ on Remi's face cuts through it all. He doesn't move from beside Sunjata - because whilst he feels terrible, he still believes his husband to be unreasonable in this (and it's just as complicated as it looks), but as the alchemist turns away he's stepping forward. "Remi, wait--"

There's no point in following and Ronin knows it. It doesn't stop him, though, and only when he finds the area in front of the cliffs empty of the Lullaby does he meander back inside. Straight past Sunjata, and straight to the nearest bottle of liquor. The Star pours himself a glass, knocks it back, and then pours himself another. "Drink with me." It's not a suggestion.

the

DARKSTAR

Table coding by Sky

// so now you've done a little wrong and you need to be forgiven,
by the vicar and the company you keep //

He really truly doesn’t want to be in the middle of this. And it’s clear to him the evenness of Remi’s words shift and change, hurt lingering there, and Sunjata tears his gaze away. He looks to the floor, to anywhere else, drawing silent even as Remi continues to speak. And then? He’s gone – moving through the door and out into the dark. He doesn’t look at Ronin. He doesn’t look at anything other than the floor and the cats that mill about as if nothing had happened. He doesn’t look at the door when Ronin returns, knowing full well that the Lullaby is gone.

He stays where he is as Ronin moves past him to the liquor cabinet, only finding the will in him to move at the sound of Ronin’s voice. “I’m sorry.” He utters quietly, one more thing he internally tacks onto himself. The things he ruins when he gets involved. The people that get hurt when he gets involved, regardless of whether he’d been hurt first.

Perhaps…

Perhaps it was just a bad dream after all.

-- BUUUUUH FIN ;----;

// this is the sin that i will confess to release myself
from consequence and everyone can tell //

SUNJATA