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even my darkness shines for you

"I do love all of you," Ronin protests, his gaze snapping back up at Remi's complaint. "And that includes the tentacles. I just don't like them very much, especially when they are sucking at the back of my knees." He'd crinkle his nose for good measure if Remi hadn't just told him that he shouldn't be moving, instead focusing on nothing in particular. (A very difficult task when his husband makes dishevelled artist look hot as fuck).

He's about to try and explain what he means when Remi beats him to it, the Huntsman swallowing a sudden lump in his throat and trying to ignore the way his cheeks suddenly feel like they're on fire. "No one has ever painted me before," he admits with a small roll of his shoulders. "Not that I remember, anyway. It feels like something we ought to do on a date." An early morning date, of course, is not something Ronin will say no to.

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'I have.' Remi says under his breath, shrugging his bare shoulders as he glares at a certain point of his sketch that he isn't happy with. "I just never showed you." Ronin was the painter after all. At best Remi could sketch, and even now this wasn't turning out quite as he'd intended in terms of detail, but the light was right at least.

Glancing over the page with an eyebrow raised and his expression thoughtful, Remi considers whether or not this is meant to be taken as an indication he should stop. "What, paint one another?" He wonders. The light on Ronin's shoulder begins to dapple as the sun rises and leaves begin to partially block it. Scowling, his MasTeRpiEce not completed despite the loss of perfect morning light, the alchemist huffs and tosses the paintbrush over his shoulder. It lands perfectly in the sink, and though Remi grins brightly to hear he's made the shot, there's no doubt he'd have grinned just the same even if he'd missed.

"So other than working on the skyboat port this afternoon, do we have any other obligations? Or will you be my dinner date?" He asks, not offering to show Ronin the painting.

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"I'm starting to understand how you felt when you found that sketchbook of mine," Ronin murmurs, just as quietly, fussing at a few threads of the blanket and not bothering to hide the flush to his cheeks. "Mm, though I think it would probably be more fun if we laid out a big white bedsheet on the floor, threw paint at each other and then had sex on it. We could frame the sheet as artwork," he figures - it actually sounds like fun, and Ronin is grinning just as the ping! of the paintbrush landing in the sink reaches his ears.

"All finished already?" he asks, taking another sip of his coffee before setting the mug down, not asking to see the painting either - he's hidden enough half finished bits of work from his husband before now. "I don't think we have any other obligations," Ronin murmurs. "Why, where are we going for dinner?" He lifts up the furs once more, as if to invite Remi to tuck himself right back where he'd been previously.

"When will you be going to the Climb, by the way?"

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Now it's Remi's turn to blush, and though he can't manage it for long, he does look up to meet Ronin's gaze. "It is hard to see myself the way you do." He agrees gently. But then of course Ronin says exactly what is on his mind, and the alchemist's bashfulness turns to a wide grin that dimples his cheeks. "I was thinking just the same. That, or I wanted to paint on you." He waggles his eyebrows.

"The lighting has changed." He complains petulantly. "And since you don't look painstakingly perfect anymore, what is the point?" Remi adds with a chuckle, not meaning a word of it. Abandoning the painting (he'll fuss with it more in the hours to come, with charcoal and ink, and, just when he thinks he might have something worth showing his husband, will spill his lunch all over it, ruining it completely), Remi fits himself neatly against Ronin's side, stealing his cup of coffee and taking a sip. "Well, those awful wader-birds are back in season. We could catch a few of those and have a roast." He suggests, before shrugging absently. "A few days, I think. Gideon did not give me many details to go off of, other than that he wants to walk."

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"Why limit ourselves to one or the other? We'll paint on each other, and then have sex on a big white bedsheet. Then we can hang the sheet up as a divider between our bed and the rest of the boat." Ronin grins, tugging the blankets and furs back into place and letting his arm stretch around the alchemist. He surrenders the coffee without complaint, too busy admiring the way the dappled light now falls on his husband. Before he knows it, Ronin is reaching out to tilt Remi's chin towards him that he might steal a soft, coffee flavoured kiss from his lips.

"You look painstakingly perfect," he whispers, kissing him a second time before sitting back, tilting his head back against the wall. "Ooh, I love roasted anger-birds," he says, nodding. "Maybe we could drop by Vai's and steal some herbs to go with... it..." The realisation that Ronin doesn't simply drop by the witch's cottage anymore is an unwelcome one, and he swallows hard before gently nuzzling against Remi's halo of curls.

"How are you?" he asks suddenly, softly, as if realising quite suddenly that he hasn't asked that question of his husband in far too long, because the answers have felt like ones he can't cope with. "With everything, I mean? I don't want you to have to hide anything from me... and I'm sorry that I've not been able to be there for you the way I usually am. But I want to be."

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Remi's thoughts were already fulled tugged downstream at the first mentions of paint and sex. With an unapologetic grin, the alchemist walks his fingers up to the hem of Ronin's boxers and gives them an experimental tug. Glancing up with almost boyish surprise as his chin is directed toward Ronin's, the alchemist sags into the kiss as compliantly as he ever has. "Gods I love you. And want you. All of the time." He whispers against his husband's lips before leaning in for another sip off coffee-kisses.

'You know..we should probably just bring her a bird of her own." Remi comments, staring into their nearly empty coffee mug. Sinking against his husband with one hand still playfully lodged beneath the bottom hem of Ronin's boxers, Remi swallows slowly as he tries to gather his thoughts.

"I feel like I am closer to my breaking point than I even realize. Like the cliff's edge is quite close, but I can't see it for the fog." He explains, trying and likely failing to capture the way he simultaneously felt okay but also ready to lose his mind. "It is unfair of me to complain about it now, especially since it was my recklessness that caused it all, but gods if this doesn't feel like one of the more cruel punishments from the gods." He murmurs softly. First the pregnancy. Then the drama that came with it. Then the fact that it was twins, and finally Hotaru's madness or whatever it was.  Pressing his fingers between his eyes and pressing, eventually he exhales and does his best to relax back into Ronin's arms.

'I hate it, but what else is there to do but make do?' He wonders.

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"I love you too. And I absolutely couldn't tell," he whispers against Remi's lips with a grin, fully aware of the questing fingers that are sneaking beneath the hem of his boxers. Ronin doesn't need to say it in return, he doesn't think; partially because the other man is privy to his emotions with just the touch of a finger, but also the way said boxers are starting to tent a bit is a dead giveaway.

And so, naturally, Ronin cockblocks himself. And he's not even mad about it - conversations like this are what saved their marriage, and he's never going to choose sex over knowing the truth of Remi's thoughts. Especially about something like this. So as the other man speaks his mind, Ronin closes his eyes to listen; it helps, he finds, to anchor himself to this man he loves so dearly, and not to any of the chaos that orbits around him from what's happened.

"Tell me about it?" he invites softly, shifting to draw Remi across and into his lap, that he might pull the blankets up around his husband's shoulders. "What's done is done, that's true. And you're sorry for it, and you're living with the consequences. So if it's difficult now, I want to be here for you. I can't help you back from the cliff's edge if I'm pretending not to see it as well."

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Letting himself melt into Ronin's lap, the alchemist reaches up to scratch at a phantom itch on his cheek before letting his hand fall heavily into his lap. "Having them around...it makes me want to keep everyone away. I already told Deimos that he was not allowed anywhere near them." He quietly confides. "He said at the time he did not know Hotaru would be bringing the twins all the way to King's End, and I do believe that. Even so..." Remi swallows, adjusting that he might fit all the closer against the Huntsman. "Where Hotaru is concerned, Deimos's presence just seems to invite danger."

Reaching for one of Ronin's hands that he might fidget with his husband's fingers instead of just relentlessly cracking his own knuckles, Remi gives his head another shake. "I thought I was doing better at...you know, not being such a monster, but having to protect...it just feels like it brings it out in me." Whether or not that was a cop-out, Remi genuinely didn't know. Half of it was instinct to be sure, but whether the alchemist was just using it as permission to rebuild walls and tear apart relationships, he couldn't say.

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Ronin surrenders his fingers happily enough, letting Remi fidget to his heart's content as he explains, all the while nestling closer and pressing gentle kisses along the other man's collarbones. "It's strange, what being parents can do to us," he agrees, the words murmured against his skin. "I am more monstrous now than I have ever been before." With Mateo, with Seren, with the loss of Aoife. And with Remi, too, as evidenced by the way his free hand tightens around his husband.

"Is there anything I'm doing that is making it more difficult for you? Anything I could do to make things better? Even if it's just guarding the forest while you're gone to keep out rogue Swords like Deimos?" He doesn't try to discuss whether it's a logical thing, to want the hybrid away from the twins. Logic has no place here, Ronin has found. "It will get easier, though, as they get less helpless." Sort of.

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Running his free hand up the side of one cheek and then into his curls, the alchemist tugs in a breath which he holds. What Ronin could do, was go back in time. What he could do was tether Remi to the bed or chain him in a pit somewhere to stop him from making bad choices. Apart from that, there really wasn't much to be done now. "SWorD." The alchemist grumbles as he exhales. 'What a stupid thing to be called.' Petulantly said and even more petulantly felt, something about it was satisfying just the same.

"I am just not sure what I am meant to do in the long run. Hotaru will no doubt return at some point, either cured or not, and wanting to see them. Do I let her? Is it always supervised? And what of when they do start to grow? Is she in their lives, or not? How could I ever let them go with her, knowing what she has done? What she continues to do?" Remi doesn't expect his husband to have the answers, but still his pale gaze is pleading as he glances into his husband's eyes.

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"Mmhm," Ronin agrees, though he'd likely agree with anything his husband said right in that moment. Pressing another kiss against the side of Remi's neck this time, he finally draws back enough to look him in the eyes, and surprises himself by not feeling the same sort of gut wrenching fury that has overtaken him in previous conversations about the twins. "Gods, but I don't envy you having to make these decisions."

Reaching up to clasp his cheeks, Ronin leans in to kiss the other man's forehead. "Vai is helping with them right now, isn't she?" he murmurs. "They'll be more used to you and her than they will be with Hotaru if she doesn't come back soon. And I think we can both agree that Vai can be trusted as a chaperone whatever happens. But what would you want to do, if it were just your choice?" The first answer is normally the one that feels best, he finds.

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Reaching up to place his hands over his husband's, the alchemist closes his eyes and has to very intentionally keep himself from melting out of his body and simply slipping alongside Ronin's heart. 'She is, though gods I feel guilty about that. It is not as if she hasn't raised her own children.' Not like she'd left Torchline for somewhere quiet and safe, only to be given twins to look after in a Wood haunted by an angry dragon and a manticore happy to pick a fight with anyone.

"I would erase her from their lives." He whispers. "I am not sure that it is the case that children deserve to know their parents, and that parents deserve a role in their children's lives. Gods know I could have done without my father." Leaning into one of Ronin's hands as he lets his eyes slowly open, Remi peers into the blue of his husband's gaze wishing desperately he might find the answers there.

"I know I can't. But I think were it really up to me, I would just keep them here...I am not sure I can ever trust Hotaru again, if I ever did to begin with."

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"I think she would say so, if she was finding it too difficult. You'd know, anyway, every time you so much as brushed against her," Ronin points out with a soft smile, letting his thumb graze along Remi's cheek. And as the Lullaby meets his gaze, while he can't give him the answers, he can at least give him his warmth and his support. "You know... right now, you can," he points out, dark though the thought might be. And that darkness is reflected in the momentary shiver of black scales that run down the back of Ronin's neck.

"They are so young. Their family is whoever you decide it is, if it's something you feel strongly about." He smiles sadly, leaning in for a slow and lingering kiss against Remi's lips. "But I'm not sure you ought to be taking my advice about this - I am probably a terrible influence." At least he can admit it.

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Considering this, Remi wants to believe in the truth of what Ronin says more than he actually does. He thinks it's more likely that Vai would simply do what needed to be done, because as a mother herself, she'd know that was what was needed. The dragon scales down his husband's spine has something inside of Remi shivering with delight, despite the ominous weight that has settled in his belly.

"Don't—" He whispers without much feeling behind it, before he's silenced by lips against his own. Stretching his hands down Ronin's shoulders and hoping he might find yet more scales bubbling up beneath his fingertips, the alchemist both clings to his husband's body as much as he possessively tugs it nearer. '—don't enable me in this. Because I will do it." He finishes when his lips part from the Huntsman's.

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