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even my darkness shines for you

Ronin raises his eyebrows at the smug little fuck, though it's more to ask when Mr. Taliesin and your 'usband suddenly got friendly enough for a first-name basis. (So sue him, maybe Stormbreak is bringing the baron back out in him, not that Ronin was ever a particularly good one). Still, the payment is arranged and Remi is suitably selling himself as someone who can't hold his own in the pits, and the rest of it really isn't any of Ronin's business. Other, of course, than when he decides to place his bets on his husband.

"Oi." His complaints are as affectionate as they come as they approach the wagon. "I might be a burden but I think you'll find that you are the beast between the two of us." Ronin winks and circles around to look at where he'll be strapped in to lug all of this stuff home. "No one needs to see a manticore tromping through Stormbreak. And no one said I needed to be a luxere."

With his half burned shirt and with one nipple on show, Ronin gathers up the leather trappings and hoists them over his shoulder, nosing for his husband to climb on. "You can take over if I get tired." Grinning, it's with a display of strength so rarely shown by either man that Ronin begins to pull the wagon forward. The wheels groan, but they do start rolling with the Star's insistence.

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Remi can't argue that. He's more beastly both in and out of shift than his husband is, all the moreso for having evaded Ronin's efforts to give him a proper shave and haircut thus far. "Tromping?" Remi repeats as if he's both utterly scandalized by the term and confused by it. "I'm sure I've never once tromped. That sounds like something that hooved animals would do." Like you, his cheerful smirk suggests.

As Ronin gathers up the leathers meant to fit around the shoulders of a large donkey or a horse, Remi is both amused and wildly turned on. Running his fingers around the outside of his mouth to flatten down his beard (and subsequently hide his smirk). "I genuinely don't know whether to applaud you, or try and hurry you up right now." Remi comments, falling into step next to the Star who has absolutely no business being able to pull the wagon as easily as he does.

Behind them, the merchant is peering over the back of the wagon with a frown tugging at his lips. Clearly he's concerned by Ronin's show of strength, but so long as the idiot he's planning on throwing to the wolves doesn't suddenly become a strong man too, he's still content with his trade.

"I'll admit that I've never...decorated before." It isn't much of an admission though; Ronin has seen how Remi has lived. "Back in Northaven I traded away everything of value for supplies, and..." Well, here he's just been surviving each new thing to come his way. "..well, I might have gone a bit overboard, and I can't say that it will all...go together."

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even my darkness shines for you

Oblivious to the merchant's sudden suspicion about them, and not-so-oblivious about how his husband must be feeling right now, Ronin tromps his way back along the cobbles with the wagon creaking and rolling at their heels. "Don't knock us hooved animals. A lion's skull will break from a good kick to the head, same as any other creature's." The Star's smile is cheeky enough, though of course in reality he wouldn't dream of doing such a thing to Remi.

"If you want to hurry me up, though, you only had to ask." So saying, Ronin hefts the harness a bit higher on his shoulder and picks up his pace until the wagon threatens to bump the backs of their legs with how fast it's rolling.

It doesn't surprise him to hear that Remi has never decorated, and there's a fizz of something like excitement in the pit of his stomach to know that this place will be his first chance. "As long as you liked everything you got, it will go together. Even if you don't think it will." He nudges the Lullaby with his elbow. "You'll have to show me all of it as we unpack. After lunch, of course."

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i've hidden all my fears in a book for only my eyes to see

'From a draft horse maybe.' The alchemist counters, chin raised that he might offer his husband the sideiest of side-eyes. 'But you? Have you seen how small your hooves are?' Dainty was the word that came to mind.

Normally it's me wanting you to slow down, Remi nearly says. Raising his eyes toward the sky and huffing out a breath that causes his lips to flutter, all he can do is sheepishly shake his head. "Honestly, I feel like any innuendo is going to sink us." He admits with a laugh and a boyish shrug, before stumbling forward as the wagon (unintentionally, he's sure) knocks against the back of his knees.

"Mmm, of course." It's sarcastically said, but Remi would be lying if all these chores hadn't racked up a debt with his stomach that he was eager to settle. 'I did get a few things for you as well." Quickly the alchemist pulls in a breath to clarify. "I mean..I thought maybe you could have a gallery area, so...its.." Dimpled and blushing, again Remi trips over his own feet (no thanks to the wagon), entirely twitterpated and unsteady. "..just a few frames, and easels..honestly, we can get rid of all of it."

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even my darkness shines for you

"Size isn't everything." Ronin's side eye is not quite as intense as Remi's, mainly because he can barely keep a straight face, and he straightens up to stride along quite proudly as the wagon bumps into the backs of his husband's knees. Dainty doesn't mean weak, he'll have the other man know. He's unaware of whatever innuendo has sprung into Remi's mind, but the discomfort is all too clear from his expression. "In your end-o," he retorts, like that should do anything at all to help.

The wagon continues to trundle along, and up ahead the Pacifist Plaza is just coming into view, much busier than when the two men left, but still not too difficult to navigate. Ronin is busy pinning his eyes on the building that is quickly becoming theirs, so when Remi stumbles and is generally adorable and boyish, the Star quite simply falls to a halt. Then the wagon bumps him, and he stumbles a bit, but he still doesn't go any further.

His smile, when it creeps across his face, might be as shy as they come, but the starlight that shines out of him is undeniable. "That," he says, "sounds perfect, and is very sweet of you. Thank you," he murmurs, shuffling his feet. "Gods, I'd like to kiss you right now. Surely out in public we can keep it chaste, right?"

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"No, it isn't. But when one of us has quite the thick skull and the other has small hooves..." Remi shrugs, as if his blocky head is anything to be proud of. 'In my what?" He wants to know, smirking as if Ronin has just stepped outside of the lines of this game they were playing. It didn't matter that no one knew the rules.

They stop, and the alchemist is already bracing himself for another moment of truthfulness. A oh actually, I hate when you do things like that. Pulling in a breath, Remi is glad for it, because suddenly the world seems to spin around them as gravity all but tries to shove him to his knees. "You say that like I care at all what these people think." Remi mumbles, his eyes rolling upwards rather helplessly. He would have (or be had) by Ronin right here and now, busy street be damned.

"But I'd risk it, if.." He should have let Ronin give him a shave; gods but how prickly his upper lip is going to be. And having eaten nothing but meat and cheese this morning? Were his eyes not firmly locked on Ronin's, Remi might have tried to scrape his tongue across his teeth as if that might help. And hands, where would they go? Ronin's waist, against his jaw? Or were they meant to remain at his sides? "..if you wanted.."

Remi takes a step closer, feeling for all the world as if this was a first kiss being awkwardly discussed on a doorstep before one of their parents appeared to shoo them away and inside.

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Ronin's lips part as if to tell Remi exactly where, but he manages to clamp his teeth around it lest he steer even more off course. It's like he can tell that he's stepped over the line of whatever coy game they're playing with each other. Except coy isn't really the right word, because this isn't pretending at shyness, at nerves. This is the real deal, and the heat in Ronin's cheeks is only testament to it. "Well," he says. "For the purposes of this, could you try to pretend, even if it's only for the next twenty seconds?"

Because fuck if Ronin doesn't feel the anticipation in his bones, and his grip on the leather harness has his knuckles turning white, both hands clamped around it as if he's had the same thought as his husband. Granted, he's not thinking about what they had for breakfast, or whether Remi has had a shave; he's drowning in sea green, in the warmth that seems to roll off the Lullaby with how close he suddenly is.

"I want," he all but mumbles, drawing in a shivery breath and stepping forward as well. It's slow at the same time as it's electric, the way he leans in - and it's barely a kiss, compared to their usual antics - a slow and gentle brush of his lips against Remi's, as chaste as any nervous teenager, but it's enough to send his heart hammering. His eyes slip shut, as if he can take a snapshot of this moment in his mind, and he punctuates the kiss with a gentle smile.

It's hell to try and pull away, and everything in Ronin wants to linger, so he draws back with his whole body in the end. Blinking his eyes back open, there's no man on Caido who can succeed in turning Ronin into a giddy mess like the man before him, and he exhales in a whoosh. "See? Easy, right?"

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i've hidden all my fears in a book for only my eyes to see

"I thought we weren't pretending anymore." Remi replies with a wry smile, though his mind is already reeling. Twenty seconds? Was that a lot, or a little? Was he meant to keep track, or would Ronin? Would-

-I want.
"Gods me too." And then Ronin is leaning in, and it's fast in all the wrong ways because Remi hasn't had the time to lick his lips—will they be too dry?—and he still hasn't figured out his hands, and-

-everything stops. Ronin's lips are warm and shaped just as Remi remembered them being. There isn't enough pressure, not enough contact, but he sinks into it just the same.(wait, how many seconds has it been?), Remi is in the process of overthinking if his tongue makes this less chaste than it's meant to be, when Ronin pulls back. Eyes fluttering open, Remi looks like a man coming out of some sort of coma or daze, for how bewildered and lost he seems. Exhaling a heavy breath as if he'd been the one pulling the wagon, he blinks a few times as he ruffles a hand through his curls.

"That was not twenty seconds." Remi replies, squeezing closed his eyes for a moment, before opening them to give his husband a crookedly reproachful look.

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"Mm. It really wasn't," Ronin says, as if realising his own mistake in not counting the seconds they were kissing, and in his mind's eye he's already thrown off the harness to draw Remi in closer. He knows his husband's body will fit against his in all the right places; he knows every place where the stroke of his fingers will draw a gasp from Remi's lips, every scar, every freckle.

And yet, outside of his mind, the Star has wrangled every ounce of his self-control to offer an apologetic smile to the other man. "Next time, we'll look at a clock beforehand?" he offers, clearing his throat and giving the wagon a tug to get it moving again. "Come on. Let's get this unloaded into the shop and then head out for lunch? Honestly, I don't feel like I can be trusted on my own with you right now..."

Since they're not pretending, though, he can't help but glance up at Remi as they walk. "How are we going to..." He chews at his lower lip, shrugging. "Are we going to need separate beds? I mean... I... when do we know that we're not..." Slapping bandages over their problems with sex? Gods, right now, Ronin has never wanted to bandage Remi up more.

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Remi's cheeks are flushed to the point where the alchemist is fairly certain he can see clouds of red vaguely rising to obscure his vision. He feels boyish and flustered in the best and worst ways, wanting the warmth of Ronin against him, but likely needing a cold shower instead. Pressing his fingertips against his eyes and then allowing them to roam up into his curls, all Remi can do is laugh and offer his husband a vague shake of his head. "I hate you so much right now." He mutters, his eyes so focused on Ronin's lips that he nearly lets himself be run over by the wagon.

And then, because what breaks sexual tension better than a poorly timed joke, Remi offers: "You know who would make a good chaperone? Amalia." Because if there was one person they both know whose insecurities and need for reassurance could suck the heat from their bellies, it was her. 'You haven't...been with her again, have you?' Maybe he should have asked that before making a joke at Ama's expense.

Ronin's question nearly has Remi suggesting that Amalia sleep in bed with them, though that would certainly cause more problems than it would solve. "Mateo." He whispers after a moment, looking over his shoulder with a crooked smlie. "With him between us, it's all we'll be thinking about."

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"No you don't." Ronin says it partially to be cheeky, his smile utterly adoring as they meander the short way up to their new lodgings. But he also says it as if to test the waters and make sure it isn't true - he still remembers the raw and hollow feeling of not having his husband in his life, and even in jest, the idea of Remi hating him in earnest makes his blood run cold. The wagon rumbles to a stop outside the shop-without-a-name, looking exactly how they left it, and Ronin drops the harness to draw out the keys from his pocket.

Snorting to hear the Archangel's name leave Remi's lips, Ronin raises his eyebrows at his husband, not in disagreement, but as if to question his audacity in calling out their friend like this. "No," he says easily, the truth buzzing on his lips along with his smile. "No, I haven't. There hasn't been anyone, since what happened between us." Unlocking the premises, he moves to prop open the door with whatever's to hand (a bottle of wine) before returning to start unloading boxes.

Mateo is probably the most perfect thing Remi could have said, and Ronin's bright smile says as much. "Yes, that's true. He does enjoy starfishing in bed lately too," he says; the love for their son is like no other, and already he feels the heat in his belly cool to something more loving, more meaningful somehow.

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"No I don't." Remi agrees, his words laced with no less adoration than the Star's had. Though they aren't touching, the alchemist reaches out gently to still Ronin's elbow as he fumbles for his keys. Their keys. "I don't. And I never could." They'd promised each other forever. They'd vowed, it's you for me. Never once did they commit themselves to a life of perfection or easy sailing. But even in their darkest moments and in Remi's most murderous rages, it would always be Ronin, for him.

"I was meaning..before...doesn't matter." Remi gives his head a shake. He wouldn't have been surprised either way; Amalia had made the first time awkward, but then again, she was an easy and comfortable candidate for blow-off-steam-sex.

Successfully thoughts of Amalia and Mateo have done their job, and it's with less inner turmoil that Remi is able to begin unloading things from the wagon. "It can just go anywhere." He advises with a shrug, not really knowing what is in what box. And of course he's eager for lunch.

"So out of everyone here...anyone worth mentioning? Any new friends?" Because other than wanting to kill Cian, the passion petal with Gideon, and the flickering of sexual energy he'd picked up magically about Sera, Remi actually had no idea what Ronin thought of any of his new colleagues here.

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The touch to his elbow naturally draws his attention, and even though they have vowed for honesty, have promised not to keep things from each other, to hear those words so plain from Remi's lips is enough to have Ronin's knees turning to jelly. He can't really say much to it what with his tongue tying itself in knots, so the only thing he can offer his husband is a sunny smile that seems to take years off him. "That makes two of us," he says eventually, grabbing a box that intentionally seems heavy so he might be able to centre himself.

"Oh," he mumbles. "Well, even if it doesn't matter - it's still no," he assures the other man, moving to do as Remi recommends and setting down his boxes anywhere they won't fall over him. As he straightens up, his stomach gives a mighty rumble, to which the Star tries to hush it.

"You think I should change into my robe, since this unfortunate nipple incident?" he gestures to himself as he heads out for another box, before thinking on Remi's question. "I think Sera and I are friends," he says slowly. "She helped me go shopping for you. And before we got this place, I was able to use her workshop to paint in." Was there anyone else, though? "...Other than Tobi, who you've met... no. No, I don't think so."

Since when had Ronin gotten bad at making friends? He can't tell, but he also finds, as he gazes over at Remi, that he doesn't care.

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'You absolutely cannot look at me like that.' Remi says through cheeks that are suddenly puffed up with the breath Remi is trying to calmly exhale. Following Ronin's lead in making unloading the wagon as difficult as possible to better narrow his focus, Remi finds himself nearly kicking the bottle of wine holding their door open given how little attention he's paying to anything other than his husband's profile ahead.

Snorting childishly at that, Remi rolls his eyes at his husband's intentionally misleading phrasing.

"I think you should shift again and burn off everything you're wearing, if we're being honest." Remi replies as he sets down his boxes, giving Ronin a you asked shrug of his shoulders. "But also, what sort of house warming gift is one robe?"

Having only really interacted with Sera briefly twice, Remi has little to offer in terms of thoughts. The same went for Tobi. "Gideon seems...Very full of himself. I don't remember much from the night we destroyed the shrine-" That of course following too quickly on the heels of what had happened with Ronin. "-but I do remember him saying the strangest sorts of things. Like some mad priest." Which, you know, was exactly what he was.

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