all i've got is time until the end of time

arms give away your need

It's late when Ronin arrives home. Between the fight with the bone monster, dropping by the wagon, and then getting back to Stormbreak with everything (and with the body), he has a surprising amount to do with the dragoons and the barracks before he can get back to the Mortar and Pestle. It's that moment just before the dawn's pre-light, where everything is black and still. Ronin almost feels like an intruder to break that abject silence, and he almost glares at the bell above the door when he walks inside.

Either forgetting or not giving a fuck about the colossal bone on his back and the other gifts from the wagon, he heads straight up the circular staircase until he's back in an apartment that feels suddenly too large and too small at the same time. Putting everything down, Ronin finds himself standing at the window, bathed in moonlight and staring down into the Pacifist Plaza.

tie them up and around me

and play me as you please

RONIN

the lullaby

And if the sky grows heavy
wrap your arms around me tight; we'll be alright

Bunting is scattered on the kitchen table, moonlight dulling the bright colours and obscuring the "welcome home" message half-written. A bowl of what might have been cake batter is discarded in the sink, a chair knocked over, and a room strangely absent of a certain curiously-minded young boy. The apartment has an air of tension as if everything was left so very nearly done, but then abruptly abandoned. Now it sits, waiting to overflow with things hidden in the darkness.

It's just the two of them in the apartment, and as Remi steps forward from where the shadows had all but obscured him completely, one might have thought he was there as the Lullaby and not Ronin's husband. "Welcome home." The words are just above a whisper and are already strangely tinged with the sort of strain that comes from swallowing down tears. A sliver of moonlight cuts Remi in half, making one of his eyes appearing dazzlingly green whereas the other looks nearly black in comparison. Shirtless and wearing only a pair of sweatpants (they're probably Ronin's, as his are usually the ones kept clean), Remi stands stiffly as if the pull of the shadows still lay claim to him.

If the ground gives way beneath us,
If we should fall to pieces
Find me where I first found you

Code blatently stolen from queen of codes, Sky!

arms give away your need

He jumps at the sound of a voice he knows well, though it doesn't sound anything like what he's used to. Turning around, Ronin tilts his head at his husband, the grief and other complex emotions that writhe through him replaced instantly with a veil of concern. "I didn't see you there," he says a touch obviously, only now taking in the half completed bunting, the half written sign, the fact that there's no sign of their son. He blanches.

"Is everything alright?" he says, the words spilling out unbidden as he steps away from the window, backlit by moonlight. "What's happened? Is Mateo...?" Is he okay? Is he hurt, sick? Something obviously must have gone awry for the apartment to look the way it does, for Remi to look the way he does.

tie them up and around me

and play me as you please

RONIN

the lullaby

And if the sky grows heavy
wrap your arms around me tight; we'll be alright

Ronin turns, his features now completed blown away to darkness by the strength of the moonlight filtering in through the window. Not having the mental strength just now to properly answer Ronin's first question, Remi just swallows and sags. His shoulders lower from being bunched by his ears as he gives a single nod. "He is with Vai. He is alright."

Wordlessly, Remi reaches out a hand. This is not a conversation to be had in their apartment. It isn't something he wants his husband forced into associating with a place he so enjoys (that is, the place in their house where there's the most food).

If the ground gives way beneath us,
If we should fall to pieces
Find me where I first found you

Code blatently stolen from queen of codes, Sky!

arms give away your need

"Oh." Ronin's shoulders sag, some of the tension bleeding out of them. "Okay. That's good." Why wants to follow after this statement, though the Star isn't really able to bring himself to say it, not as Remi remains so sombre, not as he holds out his hand in silence. Ronin steps forward, still covered in sand and dust, but he hesitates for a second. "Uh... we... I lost someone, in the hunt," he murmurs. "A member of our group - a dragoon. So I..." he shrugs apologetically, then slips his hand into the Lullaby.

His emotions have no choice but to be bare for Remi, so the alchemist will feel the black oilslick of grief and self-loathing that coats Ronin's feelings. Vanya, Roana, Aoife, Emmett, and others still... No matter what happens, death seems to dog his heels. There's frustration, too, that he couldn't do more; guilt that he hadn't thought ahead, that he had been so reckless. "Where are we going?"

tie them up and around me

and play me as you please

RONIN

the lullaby

And if the sky grows heavy
wrap your arms around me tight; we'll be alright

For Ronin, the world will simply go dark for a moment, before a strange twilight peels back the darkness of sleep. For Remi it is a bit longer than that given he has to move his husband's body from the kitchen floor, but soon he too opens his eyes in a world that is as far away from their troubles as he can possible take them.

Standing upon an ocean that is utterly still, stars fill the sky as mountains burst from the silent sea with white-tipped peaks. Flowers and vines coil and bloom from the surface of the water, and far below, ghostly creatures swim and flit about.

Saying it wasn't your fault doesn't even occur to Remi. In a way, it absolutely was Ronin's fault, if only because the Star would always think it was. Wordless, Remi pulls his husband close, wrapping his arms around in a hug so tight it would likely wound anyone else. Unlike Ronin's, Remi's emotions are not dark, and slick, and deep. Instead, Remi's are like a winterscape, where snow and wind hide the only source of light which can just be seen through the oppressive whiteness. It's there, but Remi will die before he ever gets to it. Or such is how it feels.

"Do you want to tell me about it?" He whispers against the top of Ronin's shoulder, refusing to let his husband go.

If the ground gives way beneath us,
If we should fall to pieces
Find me where I first found you

Code blatently stolen from queen of codes, Sky!

arms give away your need

Opening his eyes to find himself standing upon a glassy ocean, Ronin glances around at the mountains that rise and the vines that coil. He's staring down into the deep when Remi suddenly grasps him close, his grip bruising but welcome all the same. Ronin hugs him back, of course, a frown knitting his brows together, and he shakes his head gently. "Not really," he mumbles, though the landscape is already changing around them.

Sand spills out to cover the ocean, the sky covered with a blanket of night. Some distance away is a creature that looks like a skeletal mix of ghost whale and land shark, lit up like a firework in the wake of Ronin's starbolts. And when it falls, when that death replays, the small body hidden atop the monster's back crumples to the ground as well. "It wasn't good."

tie them up and around me

and play me as you please

RONIN

the lullaby

And if the sky grows heavy
wrap your arms around me tight; we'll be alright

Selfishly, Remi just wants to linger in Ronin's warmth, even if his husband's heat is fueled by the dark fire burning away the oil inside of him. He just wants to hold him close, to keep his fingers around a body he knows intimately, to know every breath is safe, to just have this one thing. Tilting his head to watch the creature that rises from the sand, Remi's brows furrow to see the small shape fall from atop the beast as light pours out from his husband's fingers. "What..was he doing up there?" The alchemist wonders as the scene fleshes itself out with sketchy details; Maea, and Melita, and Ronin. A dragon circling, and a man with a sword atop a monster.

It both does and doesn't register that ultimately it was Ronin who killed the dragoon. If the scene wasn't an exaggeration fueled by guilt, then it was the starbolts that overtook the creature—and the man on it.

"Did you know?"

If the ground gives way beneath us,
If we should fall to pieces
Find me where I first found you

Code blatently stolen from queen of codes, Sky!

arms give away your need

"Of course I didn't know." He doesn't mean to snap, but it comes out like a whipcrack nonetheless. Shuddering out a breath, Ronin shakes his head in an apology and holds his husband closer, pressing his cheek against his curls. "I don't know how he got up there - no one saw him do it. He must have been shrouded by something, but I..." Ronin scowls off into the dreamscape of sand and bones.

"I brought him back here, to the barracks. Made sure his family were told, made sure he was left somewhere that they can arrange a funeral. I got Mateo's bone." It sounds pointless now that everything else has happened, but Ronin can't seem to stop, as if the mundane will put a bandage on the horrific. "And I was able to get things from the wagon, from the man who put up the notice. I got something for you both."

tie them up and around me

and play me as you please

RONIN

the lullaby

And if the sky grows heavy
wrap your arms around me tight; we'll be alright

The alchemist doesn't flinch at the sharpness in his husband's tone. It's reassuring, somehow, perhaps only because it's expected. The rambling too is appreciated if only because it prolongs what Remi knows is coming. So he listens as if what Ronin is saying is of the utmost importance. "It is all he talked about." The alchemist mumbles, of their son's exuberance. Up until Remi had gotten Hotaru's letter and had been forced to take Mateo to Vai, the boy had been coming up with all sorts of schemes about how to best curve a large bone to fit their sky boat. "That was thoughtful of you."

Gods I love you. I love you, I love you, I love you, I love you." It replays on a loop on Remi's mind, growing louder and more chaotic, threatening to take over any semblance of rationality he has left. As the alchemist mentally fidgets, waves begin to overtake the sand, washing away the bone monster, the wagon, Ronin and the other two survivors. 'Ronin..' Said as if it were a plea, Remi's arms tremble and his fingertips flinch as he forces himself to stand so that he might meet his husband's gaze. This is not a thing he can whisper into his husband's shirt collar.

"Hotaru is pregnant."

If the ground gives way beneath us,
If we should fall to pieces
Find me where I first found you

Code blatently stolen from queen of codes, Sky!

arms give away your need

"It's only something small. Well. Small-ish. A terrarium for you, to keep things in. A bag of holding for Mateo. It's supposed to fit anything into it - I thought he'd like that." He's still rambling, even as the waves start to lap away the sands again, as the bone monster fades once more into his memories. He's still watching the place where it used to be before the sound of his own name stirs him from it all. Blinking, Ronin shifts to look at the alchemist.

He's been waiting for this, of course, for the answer to his question to finally see the light of day, in a dream or otherwise. But when it comes, it's so utterly ridiculous that Ronin simply doesn't react at first, merely blinking at Remi as if waiting for him to tell him the real answer. For the Lullaby to be like LOL, gotcha, nah I just broke your favourite mug or something like that.

But he waits and nothing happens. Nothing at all happens, in fact - the waves have no movement, the breeze in the air freezes, the world around them grows quiet and still, like a held breath. "Sorry, what? How?"

How, of course, isn't what he means. He knows how in a practical sense, he means how, unless you didn't use protection.

tie them up and around me

and play me as you please

RONIN

the lullaby

And if the sky grows heavy
wrap your arms around me tight; we'll be alright

Remi doesn't notice that the world is waiting on them. That the stars have begun to bleed and become icicles that threaten to drop from the sky and skewer them through. He doesn't notice anything but the blue of his husband's eyes, losing himself in thoughts all painted by that exact shade.

I love you, I love you, I love you. It continues to echo and buzz, like gnats that circle his heart despite how he keeps swatting them away. "...How?" The word drops heavily from Remi's lips, his lashes fluttering in its wake. His head tilts at a slight angle as he searches Ronin's face for the real question being asked. "..We...I mean, I told you that we..."

The how, was that as a gay man who only had sex with those who he couldn't get pregnant, contraception was the very last thing he had been thinking of in the moment.

If the ground gives way beneath us,
If we should fall to pieces
Find me where I first found you

Code blatently stolen from queen of codes, Sky!

arms give away your need

"No, I know that," Ronin says quickly, his brows furrowing. His arms slip from around Remi despite himself, the Star taking a step back where something inky and viscous has begun to infect the ground (or water, rather) beneath his feet. It's a wound that, while fresh, has already begun to fester, even as he tries to process it. "Didn't you... Weren't you careful?" He shakes his head, though the answer is obviously no given Remi's initial revelation.

Ronin clenches and unclenches his hands. There's something burning in his chest up in into his throat, and he has to take a long, measured breath before he speaks again. "So you got her pregnant. What..." He wants to laugh, but it might come out all wrong. The ink beneath his feet wells out a little further. "What now?"

tie them up and around me

and play me as you please

RONIN

the lullaby

And if the sky grows heavy
wrap your arms around me tight; we'll be alright

Remi doesn't understand, if only because his arms feel the loss of Ronin's heat so keenly that it swamps his thoughts.

You got her pregnant?
You got her pregnant?
You got her pregnant?
You got her pregnant?

It was one of those sorts of sentences, and as Ronin deals with is own building madness, Remi tries to grasp back the refrain of I love you to drown out his husband's words. Frustration and the need to justify crest across Remi's face, his nose twitching and his lips half-forming words, before he simply nods. "She is keeping it." He offers as if that might not have been clear. "And..I...I will do whatever I can for her, and the baby."

Now it's Remi's turn to ramble.

"She is a hybrid now, but even so, she cannot come to Stormbreak. I think she intends to stay in Halo, so..I dreamt with her, that I could go back and forth quickly."

If the ground gives way beneath us,
If we should fall to pieces
Find me where I first found you

Code blatently stolen from queen of codes, Sky!