you could have been all I wanted

and on to the glory at my right hand

Ronin awakens and Remi is gone. He expects him to be, honestly - after the panicked exclamation that something is wrong during his meeting with Hotaru, after the fits and starts of sleep, the Huntsman knew his bed would be empty when he stirred. It still hurts, but it isn't surprising. And so rather than getting depressed, he gets busy. (Or at least, he gets busy so he doesn't show that he's depressed).

This morning's work involves sanding down wood that will eventually form their kitchen counters, Ronin having borrowed tools from the Sea of Branches, a Fae being kind enough to show him how to use it without having to worry about brute strength destroying both tree and sander. And so the methodical scrape of a blade on the wood accompanies birdsong and the rustle of the breeze, Ronin pausing only every now and then to shake out his hand.

The ring on his finger has been beating hard and fast enough to be a distraction, and while he wants to take it off so it doesn't keep reminding him of things he cannot control, he also can't bear to. So he simply continues to work, his fingernails itchy, something raw buzzing away deep in his throat.

ronin

Styling stolen from Sky (obviously)

the lullaby

Love isn't all that it seems
I did you wrong

This isn't a world he can control, and so there is no reckless snarl of thunder. No blinding sunlight that turns to sleet and then to hail. The ground does not yelp and yawn beneath his feet. It's all perfectly ordinary, which is what makes the fact that everything has changed so nauseatingly hard to bear.

Returning to their houseboat wearing yesterday's clothes stained with blood and tea and afterbirth, Remi looks like a broken bit of porcelain whose cracks can't be seen if you exert enough pressure along them. If perfectly balanced and untouched, it won't fall apart.

Rather than shifting, rather than calling out, Remi stumbles into the Stonesong. Still fully dressed, he slumps to his knees unaware of the way the rocks bite into his shins or how the water tries to drag him downstream. Instead, he stares blankly down at his own muddled expression staring back at him, with eyes silently wondering what, the fuck, he was going to do now.

I'll stay here with you
Until this dream is gone

Code blatently stolen from queen of codes, Sky!

and on to the glory at my right hand

There are blisters forming on his palms, and they feel good. The restlessness in his fingers and the creak of his jaw as it clenches feels good too, not that the Huntsman has realised he's doing such a thing. With the world continuing to warble around him, with sweat beading on his forehead and trickling down between his shoulderblades, the splash of the Stonesong is barely audible. And yet he still looks up - he's still drawn to look across the water, for reasons even he can't comprehend.

And there's his husband, on his knees and looking like hell. And that is certainly saying something, given how many times Remi and Ronin have looked like hell. But this is perhaps the worst state the Huntsman has seen him in, and it's enough to have the sander clattering to the ground, to have Ronin leaving his work to go and trudge into the riverbank from the opposite side. "Remi?" he calls as he wades towards the other man. "What's going on?"

ronin

Styling stolen from Sky (obviously)

the lullaby

Love isn't all that it seems
I did you wrong

Remi wants to rise up, to wrap his arms around Ronin's waist and draw from his husband's strength. He wants to feel emotions that aren't his own—to leave his body entirely—and hideaway in the branches of his husband's ribs like some wounded creature seeking solace in a forest. But as he glances up, the concern on the Huntsman's face is suddenly too much, and as Remi turns away to dry heave into the river, the blue of Ronin's eyes lingers punishingly in his mind. Cold and feverish, the pulse of the current makes the alchemist feel dizzy and untethered in a way he's never quite experienced before.

Reaching a shaky hand out of the water to wipe at his mouth (and nearly missing), for a moment Remi just trembles, as though he could keep time paused so long as he didn't look up at Ronin again. But the water continued to rush, the muscles of his stomach continued to tighten with promises of more bile, and the world continued to tur,n not giving one single solitary fuck about what the alchemist has done or what he needs.

"..they..." His own voice sounds so loud in his own mind that he flinches. "..they came early."

I'll stay here with you
Until this dream is gone

Code blatently stolen from queen of codes, Sky!

and on to the glory at my right hand

Remi doesn't come to him, so Ronin goes to the alchemist instead. Truly, there's nothing in the world that could stop him (except, perhaps, the things he doesn't know - and there are so many things that Ronin doesn't know). "Hey--" He slouches into the water accidentally, where it rushes above his waist, but the Huntsman drags himself out of its depths enough to reach where Remi is trembling and retching into the river.

"Hey, I'm here." It's nothing, for Ronin to sweep down and draw Remi up against his chest. That raw feeling in the back of his throat hasn't gone away at all, and there's a curious, creeping sort of dread that has started to prickle up the back of his neck. But Ronin ignores it for his husband, his blue eyes widening a fraction as he holds him out of the water. "Are they alright?" he asks, clearly not associating the word with more than one. He assumes not, from the state of Remi, and Ronin bites his lip hard enough that it bleeds, to stop from feeling glad about it.

ronin

Styling stolen from Sky (obviously)

the lullaby

Love isn't all that it seems
I did you wrong

One of Remi's hands, slowly going numb from the water, clumsily reaches for Ronin's arm that he might anchor himself to the Huntsman though he has absolutely no right to. Trembling as if on the verge of hypothermia, Remi tugs his eyes up from the rushing waters. Nearly looking as he did when he'd been blinded by Arduinna, the alchemist blinks but doesn't seem to see anything. "..yes." He mumbles, fighting the urge to simply pitch over into the river and try and drown. But he didn't really want death. He just...didn't want this.

"Halo was..." invaded? reclaimed? "..there was an attack. She made it to the desert." Remi explains in fractured sentences. "..I brought her to Vai..her contractions started." The alchemist shakes his head, still having not entirely processed the past however many hours. "..it was so early. They are so small.." Glancing down where he'd held them to his chest, Remi almost expects to see the outline of them there on his shirt.

I'll stay here with you
Until this dream is gone

Code blatently stolen from queen of codes, Sky!

and on to the glory at my right hand

Ronin draws his husband as close as he dares, holding them aloft in the Stonesong, trying to still Remi's trembling with his steady presence. And when he speaks - when he says yes, the Huntsman understands it more than he can say, the horror and upset that infuses the Lullaby's words. "Ah," he says softly, pressing his cheek against damp curls and pressing his eyes shut, as if content to just stand there with Remi for the time being.

Only there's more. Halo - the desert - Vai - I brought her to Vai. "They are here?" Never before has Ronin's voice sounded more like a purr or a growl, and he stiffens around the alchemist. It shouldn't matter - why the fuck does it matter? - and yet the river around them seems to have taken on ripples of its own that coincide with Ronin's suddenly thundering heartbeat.

"Of course they are here." Those words are whispered, but nonetheless sharp. On the contrary, though, they are not aimed at Remi, but rather towards himself.

ronin

Styling stolen from Sky (obviously)

the lullaby

Love isn't all that it seems
I did you wrong

'I could not find Phoebe.." Remi tries to explain. "..and I could not take her to Stormbreak." That left Vai as the only healer he could think of. The only one other than Ronin, of course.

"I don't know what I thought it would be like...the after..." The smell of Ronin's self-given bloody lip has Remi's head tilting slightly to the side as parts of him that won't be made dormant by change or the chill of the Stonesong begin to stir. "..they are twins, and..." and something about that made everything feel harder. "...I didn't mean for this." His voice has taken on a pleading tone now, as Remi forces himself to properly look into his husband's eyes.

"I am so sorry I did this to us." He adds, his hand tentatively rising up Ronin's arm as if to suggest an embrace. "To you."

I'll stay here with you
Until this dream is gone

Code blatently stolen from queen of codes, Sky!

and on to the glory at my right hand

Okay, Ronin wants to say, but it's not. I understand, but he doesn't want to understand. It will be alright, but will it? Will it be, after all this? Swallowing hard - gods, why does every breath feel like shards of glass in his lungs? - his eyes flick down to the hand that brushes along his arm, and he doesn't seem to know what to do with it. "Twins?" He frowns, and as he shifts in the riverbed it's like the whole river shifts with him.

"You have twins," he whispers. "Here, in the Greatwood." He runs his tongue along his teeth, flinching a little at the sudden taste of iron. He figures it must have been from his bloody lip, Ronin letting out a shuddering breath and letting his arms tighten around Remi enough to pull him into a close embrace. Part of him wants to throw the Lullaby into the river for his stupidity, for his apologies that won't change anything.

The rest of him - the dominant part of him - wants to cradle him close until all of this madness dies down. And so that's what Ronin does, even as his heart thunders and even the Stonesong feels too hot. "We'll work through this," he whispers. "Together. We'll get through it. Are you alright? What do you need?"

ronin

Styling stolen from Sky (obviously)

the lullaby

Love isn't all that it seems
I did you wrong

Sinking down heavily as if the news of twins has come from Ronin's lips and not his own, Remi draws in a shaky breath. That they are here in the Greatwood doesn't have the same implications in Remi's mind just now, and so he merely nods dumbly.

"Don't." He whispers even as he draws his other arm out of the water to tug himself tightly against Ronin. "Don't be kind." Remi doesn't know what he wants, but the Huntsman's vague optimism feels like a knife's blade slowly sawing back and forth across his nerves. "I don't deserve it." Wanting to slip from his own skin in favour of Ronin's, Remi's arms instead flex and shiver with restraint. "I don't know what I want because I don't know what to do. There is no fixing this. No making it better. It just is, and..." The words and the world seem to tumble away. In his minds-eye Remi sees the houseboat behind them, not as it is, but as it might have been. Never will that easy future be a possibility for them, no matter how they might cling to one another just feet away from it.

"I don't know how to live this life." Didn't know how to be a father to Hotaru's twins. Didn't know how to be the man he promised Ronin he'd be. He didn't know how to make the right decisions anymore, didn't know how to atone for the things he'd done.

I'll stay here with you
Until this dream is gone

Code blatently stolen from queen of codes, Sky!

and on to the glory at my right hand

"Don't?" Ronin's laughter is almost hysterical, a rough hiccup against his husband even as he clutches him more closely. "Remi, you don't know what you're asking me." If Ronin isn't this, if he isn't kind, then it feels like the distant roaring in his ears might just take over completely. "There's a very easy way of fixing this, but it makes me a fucking monster and so I can't even entertain it. So it has to be alright. We have to work through it."

He draws back enough to smooth his fingers through Remi's damp curls, tilting his head up to meet his eyes. And the usual blue in Ronin's is wild and overbright; his lips are bloody, and as he exhales there's a glimpse of sharp teeth that are certainly not reminiscent of luxere or phoenix. "I need you," he whispers softly. "I need you to know how, because I don't. I'm sorry, I just--" Shaking his head, he suddenly releases the alchemist to rake his fingers through his dark hair, a gesture that leaves red lines across his skin from hands that are ebony tipped with claws.

"Why here?"

ronin

Styling stolen from Sky (obviously)

the lullaby

Love isn't all that it seems
I did you wrong

It's the type of conversation that only the two of them are capable of having, and with Ronin pressed against him, there's no need for the Huntsman to use words to explain himself. "You aren't a monster." The alchemist whispers, as if it's some horrible thing. "But you can hate me, for it. For them." For the thing that grows inside of his husband that he can feel amidst the rushing of the water. The hardened and scaley thing that coils and curls tighter, that expands into every open wound left by Remi's carelessness.

Noting the sharp teeth, Remi frowns slightly, wondering if his magic is overlaying their conversation of monsters onto Ronin. However as the Huntsman's fingers leave a wake of red behind them, the Lullaby reaches out for his husband's fingers. Pressing against one of Ronin's fingertips like one might a cat's paw, the breath he draws in is kaleidoscopic with varying emotion. 'What are you feeling..?' The alchemist asks softly, pressing the curve of one of Ronin's talons against his hand and drawing blood, if only to make sure that this was no hallucination or illusory-overlay from his own mind.

"Where else?" Remi asks, confused insofar as the answer seems obvious enough to him. Because they're my children, and this is where I am.

I'll stay here with you
Until this dream is gone

Code blatently stolen from queen of codes, Sky!

and on to the glory at my right hand

"I don't hate you," Ronin whispers, even as the heartbeat on Remi's finger starts to thunder hard and fast; it's as if they have switched places with one another so quickly that Ronin doesn't stand a chance of keeping track. "I could never hate you."

He could hate the actions and the consequences, though. He could hate the presence of new life in woods that he's so recently reclaimed as his own. He could hate the divide of his husband's attention, the way only you for me is and always will be punctuated with except for them. He could hate waking up alone and knowing where his husband is and where he isn't.

And god, he does hate it.

Remi taking his hands is a distraction he both does and doesn't need; Ronin trembles in his grip, frowning suddenly at the razor edges of his fingertips, unable to comprehend them. "Hurt. Angry. Like there are intruders in my home," he says, his voice clipped as he supplies his feelings.

"Anywhere else!" It comes out more sharply than intended, Ronin tugging his hand out of Remi's grip. "Anywhere but here. She was in Halo, we were in Stormbreak. How are we all here now, other than because you made it happen?"

ronin

Styling stolen from Sky (obviously)

the lullaby

Love isn't all that it seems
I did you wrong

'That does not sound like you.' Remi notes, sounding almost pleased that there is something to talk about other than the ways he's knotted their lives into unrecognizable loops. 'It sounds very predatory.' Indeed, the way Ronin tears his hand away feels predatory too, and selfishly, gods so selfishly, Remi wants to provoke the Huntsman if only to see what he might become.

Untouched in the water and feeling all the more unmoored for it, Remi's eyes narrow slightly as he tries to find a thread of logic in his husband's accusation. "We were in Stormbreak until we decided to move to the Greatwood." He points out. "And Halo...Halo was overthrown. The ascended took it back." With Morgan, or for Morgan, he isn't sure. "With all of that...with them being my blood, where else would I take them?" It's a question genuinely asked, as if Ronin might have some insight that he lacks. "The Grounds have gone to the ascended, and now Halo has too. She cannot go to Stormbreak, and Aurelia killed her companion in Torchline." That left the Greatwood or the Wilds.

I'll stay here with you
Until this dream is gone

Code blatently stolen from queen of codes, Sky!