something chemical

like you'd get your knuckles bloody for me

'Look, all I am saying is that if we brought one of those strange white hand-plants back, and it found its way into Cian's bed...' Holding out his hands, Remi raises a brow and gives his husband an imploring smile. 'Then again I think just about everything around us is either creepy, or murderous, or both.' Unsurprisingly, the Lullaby doesn't sound at all put off by this.

Traipsing through the Feverlands is a muddy and humid ordeal. Remi has long ago removed his shirt, and though he tucked it into the back of his pants, it fell away (or was stolen) at some point. He hasn't noticed until just now, when he reaches for it to mop some of the sweat from his brow. 'You know...I always sort of expected a place like this to be hiding some lush oasis, you know? But...' Glancing around, the alchemist can only grimace. "I think it might just be..swamp."

remi

Styling stolen from Sky (obviously)

there will be scrapes and sutures; viciousness and victory

It's a humid, messy affair, this trudging through the swamp business. Ronin's boots have already been taken over by mud that's now drying halfway up his calves, and the only thing that's making it remotely worth it is the fact that since Remi lost his shirt, the Star can stare at his ass as they walk. And he is absolutely staring at his ass. "If you want to be the one creeping into Cian's bed instead of creeping into bed with me, that's on you," he says softly, tilting his head to get a better view.

It's only when Remi speaks again that he catches himself, Ronin straightening up and glancing around as well, making a show of not having been checking the Lullaby out. "I mean, I'm not sure what kind of lush oasis you were expecting to suddenly pop up out here, but... yeah, no. I think it's just swamp." Grinning, the Star peeks beneath a large overhanging leaf. "We could probably manage a mud bath, but that's about it."

RONIN

like you'd get your knuckles bloody for me

Glancing over his shoulder, Remi blinks thoughtfully as if he's actually considering what Ronin has said. "Haven't you ever wondered? Even a little?" He whispers. Miles away from anything and anyone, from everything Remi has heard about the Eye, he might well have ears to hear them with. "What a man like that is like in bed? What his bedroom looks like?" Crinkling his nose, the alchemist's head tilts as he looks back ahead of them and trudges on.

Exhaling a disappointed wooosh of air, Remi folds his arms over his chest (splaying mud in the process) and nods. "I think you are right. I had just though..you know, diamond in the rough and all that." What he'd actually been hoping is that there might be some sort of beautiful plant hidden away here, whose seeds he could bring back to Vai as an apology.

"Mudbath?" Suddenly looking very interested indeed, Remi flashes his husband a slanted smile as he peeps over the Star's shoulder.

remi

Styling stolen from Sky (obviously)

there will be scrapes and sutures; viciousness and victory

"Have I wondered?" Ronin grins, glancing back at Remi and tilting his head. "Maybe in passing, in my darker moments. He's very popular at Molly's. I always imagined it would be either really boring, or really, really weird." Mirrors on the ceiling, sex swings and under bed restraints were probably the tip of Cian's iceberg. Stepping back, he falls back into following after his husband, raising a hand at the mud that comes to fleck across his cheek and down his already sweaty and ruined shirt.

"The only diamond in the rough I can see is right here," the Star says, and not only is he aware of his cheesy line, he's proud of it. "And yeah, a mudbath - they're supposed to be very good for your skin, you know." He winks at Remi, before following the Lullaby's gaze over his shoulder curiously.

RONIN

like you'd get your knuckles bloody for me

'Well...yeah." For two men who had now slept with more than their fair share of people they weren't married to, asking about Ronin's elusive boss hardly seemed scandalous. "Maybe he always channels during sex." Remi muses, unsure if he means that as a reason to think he's good in bed, or against.

Frowning, Remi draws himself up as if offended. "Rough?" Looking down at himself, chiselled muscled covered in mud as he is, he raises an incredulous brow back at the Star through a curtain of curls that have lost their bounce thanks to sweat. 'What is wrong with my skin?' He wonders, still peering over Ronin's shoulder and expecting to see something. Feeling a bit like a man peeping into the girl's changing houses (not that Remi had ever done that of course), he eventually nudges Ronin. "Well go on then. Apparently my rough skin needs to be slathered in mud."

remi

Styling stolen from Sky (obviously)

there will be scrapes and sutures; viciousness and victory

Honestly, Ronin had half been expecting his husband to bowl him over as soon as he looked over his shoulder, so to still find himself on his own two feet is a surprise - not an unpleasant one, granted. "Can you imagine that though?" he says of Cian. "Having to have sex with Frey looking over your shoulder, giving you pointers?" Wrinkling his nose, he turns his attention back to his husband and is very glad to have done so, letting his gaze run down the length of Remi's body.

"Nothing at all," he assures his husband in a low voice, though he's already backing up a little, because he's not going to pass up an opportunity to be told go on then when it comes to doing something childish. And so Remi will find Ronin scooping up a large handful of swamp mud, throwing it at him before trying (and failing) to elegantly squelch away where there won't be any retaliation.

And if he blunders from mere swamp into the bubbling tar pits? Well, that's on him.

RONIN

like you'd get your knuckles bloody for me

"How do you know it's Frey he channels?" Remi whispers back wickedly, if only because Ronin was so wildly attractive when he was a little jealous. Nevermind that the jealousy was directed toward a goddess and a narcissist. The eyes that roam up and down his torso has Remi flexing in subtle ways he isn't even aware of, and it's only as he takes a step forward that he realizes where Ronin's hands have been this entire time.

Snarling his surprise, Remi looks down where a splatter of mud has completely hidden away the worst of his scars with something like horror and amusement. "Hey!" Setting off immediately after the Star, it won't be a mud ball in the back that Ronin receives as retaliation, but a slimy tentacle around his angle. With a tug the alchemist hopes to pull Ronin's feet right out from under him, yielding the Star a face full of mud.

remi

Styling stolen from Sky (obviously)

there will be scrapes and sutures; viciousness and victory

Ronin gasps dramatically at that, though the glint in blue eyes that suddenly seem a touch darker tells that the other man's barb has hit home. It is far too close to Leafchange for Remi to be riling up the possessiveness and jealousy that already lurks so close to the surface, and so it's a good thing he's suddenly being chased through the mud by an irate Lullaby. "Hey right back at you!" he calls through a laugh, only then there's a tentacle and Ronin you really should have seen this coming.

"Oh, Remi nooo! That's gros--"

Cut off by a wet slap that is likely hilarious to anyone watching, Ronin goes down with all the grace expected of one hitting a sludgy lake filled with wet mud. Swiping at his face as best he can so he might see (and breathe), it's with narrowed eyes that he glares playfully back at his husband. "Oh, you wanna wrestle? Come on then, you great octopus lump."

RONIN

like you'd get your knuckles bloody for me

Oh, but Remi is already coming on, without Ronin's encouragement. Like some horrific monster from the deep, it's with beautifully pale wings and a gaggle of tentacles that Remi quite literally flies at the Star. The descent is controlled if not entirely graceful; Remi's tentacles slide outwards like a spider on ice, oozing through the mud as the alchemist lands atop his husband. Slorping his extra limbs back around to tickle and generally harass Ronin, Remi tries dramatically to keep his face lifted so that he might not be subjected to the mud covering his husband's face.

"No, you're gross." He points out, hardly able to make out any of Ronin's facial features save for the brilliant blue of his stare and teeth that are basically begging for a mouthful of mud.

remi

Styling stolen from Sky (obviously)

there will be scrapes and sutures; viciousness and victory

Ronin receives Remi with all the awe filled horror that he's due, though the other man might not really be able to catch the expression on the Star's face through all the mud. "Why are you the way that you are," he says, his tone warm and filled with the sort of fondness that only comes after years of these sorts of antics. Which probably explains why, with blue eyes growing all the more wicked, Ronin flops his head back into the mud and partially shifts his antlers.

They're still covered in that adorable fuzzy velvet right now, but that is quickly coated in mud as Ronin turns his head, only to whip it back again in the hope that he might send mud splattering all over Remi. Because if they're having a mud bath, they're having a mud bath. Cackling by now, Ronin tries to swat away Remi's hands so he can pull him down properly into the dirt.

RONIN

like you'd get your knuckles bloody for me

"How much time do you have?" Remi wonders, his face clear enough of mud that the Star will be able to see just how wicked his expression has turned. That antlers spire out from the top of Ronin's head has something uncoiling in his belly as his predator shifts rouse with interest.

'ACK' Squeezing his eyes shut, the Star leaves a constellation of mud dazzling across Remi's cheeks and into his hairline. Arcing upward (subsequently pressing his hips down against Ronin's), Remi indeed tries to wipe his face when he finds his hands slapped away. I want to say like this forever, the alchemist nearly says. He doesn't need to, not with the flush of his emotions coursing against the Star. This was so easy, to be so carelessly close to Ronin.

"Gods Ronin, I—" Everything on his face suggests he's going to say want you (which he does), but even as he presses his hips down again, one of his tentacles slithers up, meaning to press its tip right into Ronin's mud-filled ear.

remi

Styling stolen from Sky (obviously)

there will be scrapes and sutures; viciousness and victory

"For you?" Ronin raises his eyebrows, a crooked slant to his smile (his teeth being probably the only clean thing about him right now). "I've got all the time in the world for you." And he means it, too, especially as his husband is forced back enough for Ronin to smear him with more mud, not that he notices with the sudden pressure and friction that starts to build courtesy of the Lullaby's writhing around.

It is easy, Ronin feeling a lightness in his chest that he hasn't felt in a long time, one that he always remembers in moments like this when it's just he and Remi and the world in all of its ridiculousness. And as Remi speaks, his hips grinding down again, Ronin's lips part in a gasp that turns into a warbled cry of outrage thanks to a very interested tentacle in his ear.

"You are such a twat," Ronin growls affectionately, lurching up out of the mud with the singular intention of stealing a kiss.

RONIN

like you'd get your knuckles bloody for me

'Well...then would you like the answer chronologically? Or alphabetically?" Remi asks with a sweet and rather innocent smile. Though he's meant to be protesting the mud slathered on his skin, he can't deny how cooling it feels. LongHeat is starting to wind down, but here in the heat of the day and pressed now against the Star as he is, Remi welcomes the crisp squelch of mud far more readily than most.

'I am n—' It should surprise no one that Remi quite likes the earthen taste that the mud adds to Ronin's lips, and though there is much mischief to be had with tentacles and wings in abundance, Remi instead finds one of his hands sinking beneath the mud and earth to press against the Star's lower back as he returns the kiss in earnest.

I am so lucky to see you like this, Remi thinks, almost carelessly, the words flowing through the bond as if on their own. This wasn't Ronin the Stormguard. Not Ronin the dragoon or Dragon. Not Ronin the Order member, the former King of the Hollowed Grounds or temporary leader of Torchline. Not Ronin the heroic or charming. Not Ronin the Father, or the Fallen or Dark Star. Not the Monster Hunter.

This was just Ronin, and though it would surprise Remi no matter how many times it happened, he suddenly loved the Star even more than he ever thought possible.

remi

Styling stolen from Sky (obviously)

there will be scrapes and sutures; viciousness and victory

Ronin sinks into the kiss with a passion that almost surprises himself, as does the flush of heat he suddenly feels on his cheeks, the way his pulse is audible in his ears. He knows it's partially the luxere in him to blame, but if the Star couldn't find himself a slave to his instincts here with his husband, when is he supposed to be able to let go? Even as Remi's fingers slip beneath the mud to press them closer, Ronin is greedily getting his fill of every part of the alchemist he can get his hands on.

I am so lucky, he counters, shifting to sit up as best he can if only to run his hands along Remi's thighs and over his hips. His husband may as well be carved from marble these days, such is his physique, and yet Ronin knows all the places where he might be made pliable and gentle.

Running his tongue along Remi's lower lip, it's with the scent of earth in his nose and the strange, loud stillness of the swamp all around that Ronin draws back. "You're beautiful."

RONIN