you could have been all I wanted

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!