From being an Abandoned who had rarely left the Hollowed Grounds, to embracing the call of adventure, to dying and being reborn first as an Ascended and then as an Ancient, Maea has gone through quite the amount of changes in her life. One thing remains common, though, in her attempts to find out just where she belongs; she’s always had a craving for knowledge which has brought her to so many places and to meet so many people here in Caido. We can’t wait to see what else is in store for her!
Congratulations, Maea!
Credits
Court of the Fallen was created in October of 2018 by Odd, Honey, and Crooked.
Skinning and hosting by the epically talented Kaons, and functionality fanciness by the coding magic of Neowulf. If you ever see either of them around, make sure to show them some love!
"I am glad to hear it." Is this place cleaner than it was last night? Ronin wants to say yes, but also last night he was drunk as fuck by the end of it, so who the hell is he to know. Either way he reaches out to catch the shirt and hold it up, pulling a face at Remi. "This is the ugliest shirt I've ever seen," he tells him. "And I don't hate it." It worries him more than anything. "If you wouldn't mind," he says to the sweatpants too, and while the other man might be dithering about where to undress, the soldier has no such qualms.
Peeling off his shirt over his head and wrinkling his nose as he tries to fold it into some sort of soggy square, Ronin is just as pale as anyone might expect from an Irishman. His body is well muscled, nicked here and there with silver scars and one prominent starburst against the right side of his chest. A gunshot wound, clearly, still mostly pink. Recent. It's gone in a flash, though, as he pulls the new t-shirt over his head, already feeling much more comfortable.
It's too bad. When did it get cool to be so sad? We're spinnin' backwards, did we all go mad?
Yeah, we're only human but w?'ve got hands and hearts and noses, So stop and sm?ll the fucking roses
This is the ugliest shirt I've ever seen—inadvertently holding his breath and trying to think up a more pithy way of saying hey, go fuck yourself without also sounding like he'd be more than keen to help out—he exhales a shaky laugh to hear that Hallway doesn't hate it. "Thank god for that. Can't imagine if you hated my clothes two days in a row." He adds with a roll of his eyes, fishing out a pair of sweatpants (clean? eehhh... but clean enough?), only to find Irish shirtless just a few feet away.
He's staring before he can catch himself—at the wounds, if he's pressed to defend his gaze—before he tosses the other man the sweats. "Bathrooms' over there." He mumbles with a nod of his head and a blush on his cheeks. Please (don't) change here, Remi silently prays as he turns back to face the closet that he might strip off his own shirt. Not nearly as muscular as Hallway, Remi is already well on his way toward fulfilling the rockstar-with-tattoos trope; most of it is botanical and nautical in nature, with a few words and swathes of the cosmos thrown in for good measure.
ThE RoCkStAr
Speaks with a thick Italian accent.
Force and magic can be used against Remi without permission.
"I would never. That would just be rude," Ronin murmurs as his head pops through the t-shirt, leaving his mop of dark hair even more tousled up than it was to begin with. He makes no attempt to fix it, and it will almost definitely dry all over the place - another thing he doesn't care about. He's about to shuck out of his wet jeans when Remi makes such an obvious remark about where the bathroom is that he can't help but take it as a command.
So, with his jeans still unbuttoned, he catches the sweats and nods, heading off in that direction. "Thanks," he calls through the bathroom door, changing quickly before the sensation of cold, wet clothes really starts to stick. Everything smells like cloves and fragranced candles, and he finds that he doesn't hate that either. (Everything he wears smells faintly of gasoline and aftershave, so he's hardly one to judge).
Coming out just in time to see something of the tattoos on show, he can't help but raise his eyebrows and smile. "Nice ink," he mutters, almost under his breath, before stretching his arms above his head and adding the wet jeans to the folded tshirt. "So - hide and seek with the jacket?"
It's too bad. When did it get cool to be so sad? We're spinnin' backwards, did we all go mad?
Yeah, we're only human but w?'ve got hands and hearts and noses, So stop and sm?ll the fucking roses
"Silly me. I can't believe I even thought of you and rude in the same sentence." Remi snarks back casually. It's with a mixture of relief and disappointment that he watches how Hallway's hands still against his groin, ceasing their unbuttoning. Changing as quickly as he can lest Ronin catch him one-legged hopping into his own sweats, he spins around in precisely such a position as Ronin reappears. You goddamn attractive fuck. He thinks with a crooked and flustered smile, definitely not noticing the muscular v that the mechanic's stretch shows off.
'...thanks.' Remi mutters stupidly as he straightens. The jacket is currently being used as a throw pillow for Amadeus's head, not that the musician has any plans to say so. "Well, the jacket is already hidden, so I don't think you need to count to 10 or anything. You can probably just start looking." Snorting under his breath he meanders toward the sink and fills a pot of water for their coffee. Tapping his fingers on the edge of his sink to try and give him the backbone needed for the question he can't keep swallowing down, he finally tugs in a breath as he glances over his shoulder.
"So....you ran out of here pretty fast last night." Already, he regrets saying anything. "Should I put your coffee in a to-go cup?" He quickly adds, as if the reference to Ronin's hasty kiss-and-flee was just part of a joke.
ThE RoCkStAr
Speaks with a thick Italian accent.
Force and magic can be used against Remi without permission.
"I know. That doesn't sound like me at all," Ronin agrees with a shit-eating grin, not wanting to put his wet clothes anywhere that they might leave a damp patch, and so he settles on leaving them on the baby grand piano just next to the front door, that he might pick them up before he leaves. Bandcamp is off pottering about and making a coffee snob's wet dream, and Ronin knows that the other man must know where his leather jacket is, but he plays along with their game of hide and seek anyway.
He has settled for the most obvious places - is it in the closet? Hanging on a hook by the door? On the bed? - when Remi asks his question, and it surprises him more than anything else they've said or done today. "Uh," he begins, straightening up from the bed and rubbing at the back of his head. He's not expecting it, and it punches the smartassery right out of him.
"You said later. I thought you were looking for a way out," he says slowly, and already the dawning realisation of it all is making his cheeks heat up. "That... wasn't what you were doing at all, was it? Fuck."
It's too bad. When did it get cool to be so sad? We're spinnin' backwards, did we all go mad?
Yeah, we're only human but w?'ve got hands and hearts and noses, So stop and sm?ll the fucking roses
Not on the bed. But in the bed? That would have been a good play. Remi wouldn't have the charm to back it up, but in the sitcom remake of what's currently happening, that's where the writers would have put it. Cue laughtrack.
Blanking just as much as Hallway apparently is, Remi's eyebrows inch together as he shakes his head. "You thought I was looking for a way out, and then kissed you..?" He wonders, not even able to manage playful sarcasm. "I know I am Italian, but it's kisses on the cheek that are for goodbye." Remi adds, torn between doing the whole rushing-across-the-room-to-kiss-him thing, and tending to their coffee. Doing neither, he ruffles a hand through his curls before folding his arms across his chest. "You said something about me finishing my song later...I guess that was a bad time to ask about what later entailed." He admits, thoroughly unbalanced by this strange twist; Ronin's fuck making his heart beat just that much faster.
ThE RoCkStAr
Speaks with a thick Italian accent.
Force and magic can be used against Remi without permission.
"Yeah, that's why I was really fucking confused," Ronin agrees about the whole saying no but kissing yes thing, and he finds himself laughing at his own fucking stupidity, rubbing his hands across his face and imagining a world where they could turn back time and fix whatever boner killing vibe had gone on last night. In that world, Ronin wakes up in this poky little apartment. Sober but hungover, he tries snob coffee and orders breakfast for them. Maybe he doesn't bother going to the shop today.
And yet - here they are instead.
"Wow." Ronin sighs, because that's all he can really do in the face of such a glorious fuck up. Risking a glance across at Remi, he can't really keep the smile from twitching at the corner of his mouth. "...Would you like to play that song again now?" he asks, half joking, but the air of want to try this all again? is undeniable.
It's too bad. When did it get cool to be so sad? We're spinnin' backwards, did we all go mad?
Yeah, we're only human but w?'ve got hands and hearts and noses, So stop and sm?ll the fucking roses
"And like any reasonable wandering samurai would you decided just to...flee." Remi asks, cheeks dimpling by degrees as he smirks. "That kept me up for hours I'll have you know." He adds with a self-deprecating laugh. "I thought you were disappointed by my less than glamorous lifestyle and were just pretending to be gay."
It's at that moment that the kettle (a pretentious shape to be sure), begins to whistle. Opening and closing his mouth like a fish, imagining far too far ahead (he's wearing sweatpants after all, so some modicum of chill is needed lest he pitch a tent in his own kitchen), Remi clears his throat and pulls the kettle off of the element. "I could but...I mean, technically I've already got you undressed which is more than the song last night did." That might have been a good line if delivered with any amount of conviction. But shyly said as he fusses with a bag of beans for their coffee, it probably doesn't have the same ring. Because despite the clear lack of communication, the walk in the rain, the texts, and yes, the fact that Ronin is standing here pretending to look for his jacket instead of just leaving, Remi still isn't really sure what's happening here. There absolutely is a scenario in where all of this still ends up with Ronin saying he isn't interested and walking out.
ThE RoCkStAr
Speaks with a thick Italian accent.
Force and magic can be used against Remi without permission.
"We samurai prefer the term tactical retreat, but yes, I suppose that covers it," Ronin said, his smile audible in his words despite the hand that's still rubbing at the stubble on his cheeks. "Same. I thought you were just into a lot of kiss chase, and I was way too drunk to know the rules." As for pretending to be gay? "Oh, I..." Ronin pauses, a genuinely thoughtful expression coming over his face. "I've never... I mean. I'm not not gay, I guess," he reasons, especially based in the way he gazes appreciatively over at the man dithering with his coffee beans.
"You're the first guy that's caught my eye," he says, unsure how else to phrase it without being blunt. Never fucked a dude before, but I'd quite like to try it with you. Similarly, though, he's got to stop thinking about it too much, because sweats are unforgiving.
"For the record, that song would have undressed me and then some," he adds with a self-deprecating laugh. "How about we start with coffee, then? What are you doing to it?" Ronin's coffee involves pushing a button on a vending machine and hoping it's not motor oil that comes out.
04-15-2021, 08:48 PM (This post was last modified: 04-15-2021, 08:48 PM by Remi.)
It's too bad. When did it get cool to be so sad? We're spinnin' backwards, did we all go mad?
Yeah, we're only human but w?'ve got hands and hearts and noses, So stop and sm?ll the fucking roses
"Well I didn't prefer it." Remi says pointedly, smiling down at the scale he's using to measure out the appropriate number of beans. "What is kiss-chase?" He wants to know, before the rug is pulled entirely out from beneath him. "You..." Honestly, the musician doesn't know what to make of that, and the way his face goes blank save for the splotches of colour on his cheeks suggests as much. "Oh." He hums softly, turning back to the scale so that he can move the beans into the grinder. "Oh..so the other night, that was..." Remi raises his brow, thoroughly unsure how he feels about being someone's first time.
"And yet you didn't even let me finish." Yeah, he's absolutely still hung up on that. 'Wait so...that night, you didn't even know who I was?" Having been a stylist for an appropriate haircut and being put on a skin-care and gym regime has affirmed that Remi is at least attractive. But Straight-Man attractive? Without the musician bit tagged on?
'Uhh, well, right now I am just measuring it out. Good beans are only half of what it takes to make a great cup of coffee." Remi informs the Not-Not-Gay Hallway. "The other half is getting the right ratio of everything." All of this is said staring intently at the grinder as it whirs away, needing a break from Hallway's sharp blue stare and the effortless mess of his hair.
ThE RoCkStAr
Speaks with a thick Italian accent.
Force and magic can be used against Remi without permission.
"Neither did I, if you must know. I wasn't even in the mood enough to finish myself off when I got home. I should have let you call me a cab," Ronin admits, thoroughly flustered now despite the easy sincerity of his words. It's not so much the admission but the way the man before him simultaneously ties him up in knots and brings out the razors in his tongue. "Yeah," he says of the other night. "And I know, I... it was a blur. A good blur. I felt like a cock afterwards, when I realised it was a one sided deal."
Clearing his throat and slowly approaching the counter to pretend to pay attention to whatever the fuck is happening to the coffee beans, he scoffs out a laugh. "I didn't," he confesses. "I only recently got back to the city. I think that night my head was still across the pond." Maybe he'd gone looking for someone like Remi without even realising it. And now here he is, caught with his pants down about it, except they aren't even.
"And what makes good beans?" he asks, with all the I don't have a fucking clue what's happening of an absolutely novice.
It's too bad. When did it get cool to be so sad? We're spinnin' backwards, did we all go mad?
Yeah, we're only human but w?'ve got hands and hearts and noses, So stop and sm?ll the fucking roses
"Wow." Chuckling, Remi flushes anew and shrugs. "I can't say the same but...it wasn't one of my best." Is he making masturbation small talk with the Not-Not-Gay man now? What was happening?
The admission about their first sloppy meeting just as the musician shaking his head with a roll of his eyes that's directed at himself much as it is as Ronin. "Don't feel bad. I was off on so many things you probably couldn't even had made me cum even if you knew what you were doing." Biting the inside of his lip, he hazards a glance toward Hallway. "I don't normally do the whole fooling-around-in-public thing." He admits.
Standing a touch taller as Ronin leans against the counter, Remi shrugs. "A few things. The region they're grown in, for instance. What you drink is probably grown in a Walmart parking lot, for instance." With a smirk, he holds the bag out that the mechanic might smell the difference for himself. Turning to place a percolator on the scale and adding not one, but two bamboo filters, Remi adds the ground beans and begins meticulously swirling water over them.
ThE RoCkStAr
Speaks with a thick Italian accent.
Force and magic can be used against Remi without permission.
What is happening? Ronin has no idea and he expects the other man doesn't either, so he wisely doesn't continue the masturbation small talk lest they keep talking about it. Of course, then they're talking about their sloppy meeting a few nights before instead, and it's both better and worse in the mechanic's opinion. "Well, thank fuck for small miracles," he says with a lopsided smile, as if Remi being too off his face to even cum was a blessing in disguise. "Me neither. Contrary to popular belief," and the term popular here basically means Remi's opinion, "I am not that much of an asshole, either."
Then they retreat to the safety of boring coffee talk, and by the slow tilt of his head as Bandcamp explains, Ronin understands but he doesn't... actually understand. Still, he accepts the back of beans and holds them up to his nose to take a sniff, wanting to snark back but finding himself unable to. It wouldn't be fair on the coffee. "I hope it was a clean parking lot, at least," he mutters, peering over the other man's shoulder at the filters, like he's doing sorcery or some shit.
It's too bad. When did it get cool to be so sad? We're spinnin' backwards, did we all go mad?
Yeah, we're only human but w?'ve got hands and hearts and noses, So stop and sm?ll the fucking roses
Remi's laughter is a small puff of surprised air that leaves his cheeks dimpled. "Popular belief?" He repeats, twisting his smile into something more sarcastic. "Guess that means I'm not the only one who people make things up about." Not trusting himself to say anything even remotely witty on the topic of whether Ronin is or isn't an asshole (or how much), he just laughs to fill the silence, continuing his methodical watering of the coffee grounds.
"You can hope all you want. Doesn't make it true." He replies with a confident scowl; the swill Ronin drinks might as well just be scooped up from a puddle in said parking lot, for all he's concerned.
All but feeling Ronin's eyes like a weight over his shoulder, the musician straights somewhat (god, sweats were a bad choice), and awkwardly reaches for two mugs. (Awkwardly, because it's damn hard to look cool, from the back, while opening cupboards—especially when there are exactly 0 clean mugs to speak of). Pulling two copper cups instead, Remi turns back to where the coffee is nearly done straining.
ThE RoCkStAr
Speaks with a thick Italian accent.
Force and magic can be used against Remi without permission.
