driftwood

I shouldn't laugh, but I know I'm a failure in your eyes

It is brief, and though Ronin's brow furrows, he does press further kisses against the side of Remi's neck as the other man grips his upper arm. It's a silent apology and a quiet understanding in one; because even though Seren is gone and has been for a long time now, and won't be around for war regardless (or at least she better not be), he still feels the weight of Remi's emotions as if they are his own.

"Yeah, it is," he agrees, his voice soft and rough as he nuzzles against the Lullaby's shoulder. "I... did you get that stupid letter, from Sunjata?" It seems like a weird segue, but the Flood had been talking about some sAfE PLaCe, and it's the sort of thing that would keep Flora and Enzo out of the way. "I was going to just burn it, but... maybe we should help, if it keeps the twins safe."

RONIN

& my heart ran away from me

Closing his eyes instead of closing his teeth on his tongue, Remi exhales against the defiance that has his fingers growing shaky. "I would almost rather lock Flora and Enzo away somewhere they can't escape than willingly be around Sunjata." Almost. Perhaps if his twins were still small and wouldn't be able to articulate that it was only ego guiding Remi's actions, he might have considered it more seriously.

"We could go to the meeting he is hosting, I suppose...if we have not already missed it." Remi remarks with a poorly veiled snarl. "I wonder if Safrin or Ludo will have any thoughts about this..?" Ludo likely wouldn't so long as Remi kept doing his job, but Safrin? Turning his head to catch a glimpse of Ronin's profile out of his peripheral vision, Remi frowns. "Is she still upset with him, do you think?"

THE

LULLABY

Table coding by Sky

I shouldn't laugh, but I know I'm a failure in your eyes

"I can understand that sentiment," Ronin says with a smile against Remi's bare skin, and he glances up and out at the waves, as if they might supply the answers to their problems. Huffing out a sigh that's equal parts frustrated and tired, it's with a final kiss that he sits up enough to nuzzle against Remi's cheek instead. "Mm, I feel as though we'd be hearing about it if he'd decided to hold the meeting already," he mumbles.

Still, the mention of Safrin has him scrunching his nose a bit, though it isn't necessarily out of distaste. "I am still upset with him," he admits with a small scoff. "So I have no doubt that she is. Nevertheless, he works with Frey now. And if Frey supports it, I can't see either Safrin or Ludo doing much to actively sabotage things, right?"

RONIN

& my heart ran away from me

"I know you can. And I love you all the more because of it." There was still daylight to be had, warmer weather here than almost everyone where else on the continent, more whiskey if they wanted it, and yet already they'd inadvertently shoved aside golden beaches and blue waters for parental obligations and Making Sure Sunjata Didn't Fuck Up Again.

"Upset? That is putting it mildly." Remi remarks with a snort. "If I do not dream murder him again for helping to facilitate your near-death, he will have got off too easy." Turning more abruptly now, the alchemist's gaze scans Ronin's all too familiar face for signs of humour. "You're kidding." Blinking, Remi shakes his head. "Stripping away your powers was sabotage of a sort. Bringing you back to life was also a sort of sabotage. Nearly killing Sunjata..." ...hiding Vanya away.. Realizing where his thoughts were going, it was with a sudden jolt that Remi finds himself rising away from Ronin so suddenly that it knocked the table out from beneath him. The wooden thwwump! of the table wasn't loud enough to cover the gasps of surprise from the nearby patrons, but Remi paid them no mind, instead choosing to fix his gaze somewhere in the darkness of one corner.

Sorry. Just, don't... Running a hand up the side of one arm in a gesture that to anyone else might suggest Remi was feeling particularly self-conscious or guilty, was instead a warning that he not be touched.

THE

LULLABY

Table coding by Sky

I shouldn't laugh, but I know I'm a failure in your eyes

Ronin is grinning before he can help himself at the idea of dream murdering Sunjata; whereas before he'd have been so against it, now he finds it all too easy to think of being an active participant. And perhaps that's just one of many changes in him after so long under (arguably) Safrin's thrall. Because it takes a second for him to realise that yeah, Remi kind of has a point. He can't even say oh no no, I meant to sabotage another god because nearly murdering Sunjata definitely counts there.

Before he can say anything at all, though, the table goes slamming to the ground and Remi is putting distance between them that Ronin feels like a knife sliding between his ribs. "What..." he begins, rising to his feet, before the other man's voice slides, soft and sad into his mind, and Ronin understands.

"It's alright," he says instead to the patrons, gesturing that they stop wetting themselves just for a second, and he takes a moment to right the heavy table with an obscene level of ease. "It's alright," he repeats, more quietly this time and to Remi. "Come on. Let's go for a walk, or we can fly back home, if you're up to it."

RONIN

& my heart ran away from me

Staring so intently into the corner of the bar until the shadows warp and filter into familiar shapes, Remi tries not to let his mind affix on any one particular emotion. It would be too easy to give in to hate or fury, or worst of all, dispair. Letting his shoulders sag from where they'd become bunched by his ears, the alchemist nods distractedly over his shoulder even though Ronin's hadn't been a yes or no question.

No one mumbles about payment for damages. No one shouts that the pair should take their shit elsewhere! Once they might have, and though Torchline's citizens weren't any more clever than they'd once been, that Remi and Ronin were too dangerous to be harassed was evident enough even for them.

"I dunno." Remi admits softly, before strolling through the patio opening and walking until his feet met dark and wet sand. "I hate having to keep things from you." He adds once Ronin was once more at his side.

THE

LULLABY

Table coding by Sky

I shouldn't laugh, but I know I'm a failure in your eyes

No one says anything to them, but Ronin still spends a couple of moments helping to sweep up the fragments of glass and offering a couple of hurried apologies to their waitress, before he sets off after Remi in a loping stride. He wants nothing more than to reach out and wrap his husband up in an embrace that would threaten to smother any conversation worth having, and so even though he loathes it, he falls into step with the Lullaby without touching him.

"It has been a long time since you made that deal with Ludo," he says slowly, swallowing hard. "Do you think it would be open to a renegotiation of terms? I know that Mateo is at stake, and I would never expect you to do anything to put him in danger... but I hate this as well," he admits.

RONIN

& my heart ran away from me

Knowing that his magic was not something that could permeate the air, still Remi can't help the way he flinches away from Ronin's presence. Even the warmth of the Huntsman's body heat has the alchemist feeling distressed. 'I do not know.' He replies in a voice just barely audible over the lapping of the waves. "I worry that whatever other price it might suggest would be just as high. And if it says once the trade is suggested I cannot reject it?" Remi swallows slowly, shaking his head though his eyes don't move from where they're unsteadily focused. "..what if this is the kindest of all the terms Ludo could have given?"

Pulling in a breath and holding it on his tongue as if hoping it would burn the way the whiskey had, Remi exhales, finally able to rake his fingers through his curls now that they weren't clasped around his husband.

THE

LULLABY

Table coding by Sky

I shouldn't laugh, but I know I'm a failure in your eyes

Shoving his hands in his pockets so that his fingertips don't try to go spidering back around Remi, Ronin stares broodily out at the lapping waves and golden sunshine. All of a sudden he's not such a fan of the paradise Torchline offers; he'd like to be somewhere cold and snowy, where he could bundle Remi up in a blanket and hold him that way, without them technically touching.

"Why would it be that cruel?" Ronin wonders with a furrowed brow, though he already knows the answer. He knows it in the twist of Safrin's smile sometimes, or the way her anger burns colder than the empty night. "And what does it have to gain if we lose Mateo? It would hardly make you like it," he mutters, though by this point he's just floundering with words.

RONIN

& my heart ran away from me

Why not, Remi almost says, before huffing out a sigh. "Far as I can see, it did not need to demand anything of me in order to make Mateo, but it did anyway." Cruelty was a sliding scale, one that almost certainly was filled with mostly 00's when one was nearly all-powerful and immortal.

Smiling coldly somehow despite the downpour of sunshine, Remi just stares at the sea. "I am not so sure it matters. You have disliked Safrin at times, and yet you were just as effective as her demigod. The same could be said for me. If anything, I think Safrin has more reason to keep you in her good graces than Ludo does with me." Remi might become a sulky playmate, but certainly it didn't desire his affections quite the same way Safrin did.

THE

LULLABY

Table coding by Sky

I shouldn't laugh, but I know I'm a failure in your eyes

"Maybe this is Ludo's version of sabotage, like we were talking about earlier. Making it so that we can't talk about something important, unless it makes our son vanish." Ronin's smile is sad and doesn't reach anywhere near his eyes, the Huntsman kicking around a bit of sand and huffing out a sigh. He looks for a moment like he might grab a rock to hurl out to see, but that wouldn't really help matters either. And it wouldn't make him feel better.

So instead, swallowing hard, he turns back to Remi and offers a soft smile. "Regardless... I think it would be a good idea for Flora and Enzo to go to the safe space that Sunjata is making. If there's sabotage... we'll just have to deal with it when it happens, right?"

RONIN

& my heart ran away from me

"Maybe it is." Remi agrees, not that it matters one way or another. There are no words for the way it feels to keep a secret from his husband, and no way to reconcile the way his mind traitorously wonders if it's worth it.

"First how about we hear him out. It would not surprise me to know that neither Frey nor Sunjata are being completely upfront with what all of this might entail." Remi grumbles, spreading his toes and clawing them into the wet sand beneath them. "It brings back memories of Northaven." He adds, green eyes growing dark. "And I know Frey says they always ask for consent, but...this is sounding far too familiar to the way we were all brought over to help the war effort, either by fighting, or by marrying and having children."

THE

LULLABY

Table coding by Sky

I shouldn't laugh, but I know I'm a failure in your eyes

Maybe it is. Ronin doesn't expect to hate that agreement as much as he does, and he hunches his shoulders a little and tears his gaze away from the sea, lest he blind himself by the sun that bounces off the waves. Grumbling about hearing Sunjata out - it seems like more effort than either of them is able to muster right now - the Huntsman nonetheless nods his agreement. "If nothing else it might at least give us a better idea about whether it's a good fit for the twins," he mutters.

As for Northaven? Ronin's expression says it all (he looks like he's been presented with a shit sandwich, put frankly), and he shakes his head at nothing in particular. "Gods, I had almost forgotten about all of that," he mutters, glancing sidelong at his husband. "Want to go find an inn here and do really un-Northaven things in it? Even if I'm only able to touch you with feathers for the foreseeable future, I still think we could make Bellamy's ghost blush."

RONIN

we are like birds of a feather, we are two hearts thrown together

Gods how Remi loves the ease with which Ronin can make him smile. Even in the darkest times and without fingertips or lips to aid him, the Huntsman always seems to know just what to say. Grinning himself, short-lived as it is, Remi shakes his head. "I will want much more than feathers, and then we will both be in trouble." He says with a lopsided smile.

"Though...speaking of feathers..." Shrinking suddenly, on the sands by Ronin's feat a pale hawk spreads its wings before giving them an aggressive flap. Without bracers or anything on which he can perch Remi will have to be careful, but after a morning of Daddy Kraken Hunting where Ronin escaped unscathed, the alchemist is fairly sure he won't be too troubled by a few accidental scratches.

Walk me down the beach, and then we will go home. He suggests; at least this way they can touch.

THE ALCHEMIST

we will be forever as one, my brother under the sun