Court of the Fallen was created in October of 2018 by Odd, Honey, and Crooked.
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"You can say I am sorry, Ronin, for burning a hole in those pants you had tailored to an exact fit, that's what you can say," Ronin informs his husband with a shit-eating grin, reaching out to help him onto the nimbus so they can sit and float over the Crimson Cataract, giving their lanterns a headstart by having them quite high in the air already.
Raising his eyebrows at the other man's considerations, the twinkle in the Huntsman's eye tells that he may very well have planned for absolutely everything, including that. "I have always wanted to try tantric sex," is all he says instead, before letting his cloud fly them upwards so he can take a seat upon it, dangling his legs over the side.
"Thankfully, it doesn't matter what you think you deserve," he murmurs, his fingers shifting to phoenix feathers and setting his face aglow as he lights his lantern. "Because I chose you," he continues, smiling across at Remi. "I chose you nearly six years ago, and I've chosen you every day since. So I'm afraid, at this point, you might just be stuck with me."
09-23-2022, 07:57 PM (This post was last modified: 09-23-2022, 07:58 PM by Remi.)
the lullaby
And you should know, I left but never lost my place
Clearing his throat as he climbs back onto the nimbus, Remi reaches for the Huntsman's shoulders that he might stare earnestly into his husband's eyes. "Mi dispiace, Ronin, per aver bruciato un buco in quei pantaloni che hai tagliato su misura." Remi whispers in the travelling tongue, making sure to elongate each and every consonant and syllable so that they rolled off his tongue in a continuous and honeyed streak.
"Tantric?" Remi repeats sounding skeptical. "Is that not the one where you just...lay around not moving?" He raises an eyebrow and though he cannot contort his features quite so dramatically as Ronin can with such a manoeuvre, he does his best to convey his doubt.
'No?' Remi's own fingers turn into flames as he lights his lantern. 'Nearly seven years ago I should think, based on when I asked you to marry me.' He interjects with a crooked and boyish smile. Holding out his lantern so that they could release them at the same time, Remi shifts his gaze from the dancing flame to the impossible blue of his husband's eyes. "There is no where else I would rather be."
and these nights I miss you most my heart is yours to break
Code blatently stolen from queen of codes, Sky!
Speaks with a thick Italian accent.
Force and magic can be used against Remi without permission.
The words that tumble from Remi's lips, naturally, have exactly their intended effect, and Ronin almost drops his lantern as he's seized by the shoulders and forced to have such honeyed sentiments dripped into his ear. "Mm... exactly," he mumbles, already listing towards his husband's very clever lips, only able to stop himself with sheer force of willpower. (And he doesn't have much of it, given how both of them have suited and booted for the occasion).
"Mm, that's the one. I think it'd be funny to see how long it took for us to give up," he mumbles, still thoroughly distracted - and at this moment in time, Ronin would give himself perhaps fifteen seconds, if that.
Clearing his throat and re-settling to hold their lanterns out, Ronin murmurs a soft uno, due, tre (it's one of the few things he knows in the travelling tongue) before his fingers release the glowing paper cylinder, letting it drift and bob up and away with its companion. Smiling after it, Ronin glances back at Remi. "Same," he mumbles, holding out his hand for Remi. "There's one more thing..."
And you should know, I left but never lost my place
"Seconds." Remi guesses, though his expression suggests he doesn't even think that long. 'I suppose we can try and see just how funny you find it." The alchemist adds with a huff as if unhappy that not touching each other is something Ronin might consider fun.
With a dimpled smile to hear his husband counting in the travelling tongue, Remi nods and releases his lantern. The light twinkles and dances within, and though on any other day Remi might have reason to believe an errant gust of wind was going to catch the flame and send the lanterns burning to the ground, on this night he thought they just might survive until dawn.
'Mmm?' Slipping his hand into Ronin's, the Lullaby tilts his head imploring to the side. "More? No, Ronin, you have already done far too much."
and these nights I miss you most my heart is yours to break
Code blatently stolen from queen of codes, Sky!
Speaks with a thick Italian accent.
Force and magic can be used against Remi without permission.
"Well, when you put it like that... alright, perhaps it isn't as interesting as I first thought." Ronin grins. Especially on a night like tonight, with his hand linked with Remi's and two lanterns glowing and bobbing away into the cloudless, Longheat sky. Sighing so deeply that it drags his shoulders down, the Huntsman leans companionably against the man he loves above all else, and there's mischief in his eyes as Remi begins to protest.
"Never enough," he purrs, turning his head to kiss the other man's cheek. "And this is only small..." Reaching up with his free hand, Ronin grabs something from his shirt pocket.
"I don't remember where I read this, or maybe I heard it from Tobi once, but there's this Outlander myth that says that two people who are meant to be together are connected by a red thread. It can weave and tangle, but it will never break. The red thread of fate, they call it." Opening his hand, Ronin reveals a thin and delicate braid of crimson, long enough to wrap around both of their wrists a couple of times.
"I couldn't give you your wedding ring again, so I thought this might work instead," he explains. "I was going to cut it in two so we could each have half, but... if I was going to do that, I couldn't do it without you."
And you should know, I left but never lost my place
"Size does not matter, you know that." Remi murmurs, unable to help himself making a small dig at his husband's height. Falling silent as Ronin explains, Remi runs his fingertips softly over his husband's knuckles, confused about the sudden garnet-glint to Ronin's emotions until of course...he wasn't.
Inhaling deeply as if Ronin had produced a handful of diamonds, Remi tilts his head as his eyes subtly shift so that he might take in the fine details of the braid with his predatory vision. With a blink his eyes go from near-black to soft green once more as he reaches out to gently take the braid from his husband's palm.
Looking at it with the sort of intensity that Remi once devoted to his inventions, a smile warbles softly on his lips before falling away entirely and dragging his dimples with it. "I remember what it was like to fall in love with you.." He whispers softly as his fingertip traces down the crimson braid. "I remember what it was like to obsess over every word and every gesture. To go to bed thinking of the exact slant of your smile such that I would see it in the horizon and the slope of the road." Glancing at Ronin out of the corner of his eye, Remi gives his head a single shake.
"I remember seeing the blue of your eyes everywhere I looked only to realize that it was not quite right, and going home and mixing and mixing until I made the perfect shade and then just...staring at it on my hands, not knowing what to do with it." Remi continues with a soft laugh, though tears have formed in his eyes. "Sometimes I feel like that now, only...I mix and mix and it still is not quite right, because I have stopped paying attention. I have stopped appreciating you the way that you deserve...loving you the way that you deserve." With fingers that had already begun to tremble, Remi looks from the braid and then to Ronin with a smile as small and feeble as the Lullaby currently felt.
"For me...this is a lifeline, but for you, I fear it will be more like a handcuff."
Or a noose.
and these nights I miss you most my heart is yours to break
Code blatently stolen from queen of codes, Sky!
Speaks with a thick Italian accent.
Force and magic can be used against Remi without permission.
Surrendering the braid willingly, Ronin's thoughts go from warm garnet to golden delight, the Huntsman visibly pleased to see that Remi likes his gift. And as always, he gets as much pleasure in watching the other man examine things as the Lullaby does doing the examining, and so it's with quiet adoration that he gives Remi the chance to look over the crimson thread. "I was going to dye it with our blood, but that felt like a little too much even for us," he remarks softly, only to fall silent as his husband begins to speak.
And now it's Ronin's turn to flush, the Huntsman left fidgeting and smiling boyishly down at his feet, huffing out a chuckle to hear that the other man had fussed over him so. The images Remi paints in his mind are ones of love and wonder, of a future painted in the colours of their eyes and the rose-tinted sheen of their future.
But of course the illusion cracks soon enough, and at this point, Ronin is almost expecting it. It explains why he leans over before Remi can fall too deeply into his own self-doubt, intending to seal away his husband's words with a kiss.
He's tasted Remi's lips in so many ways over the years that one might think it's impossible to find something new in it, but Ronin surprises himself every time. They've had passion and fire, sweetness and honey and everything in between, it seems, but here under the stars and the pinpoint light of their lanterns, it feels, somehow, like a first kiss.
"I knew you'd say that," he whispers. "When will you believe that there's no one else I'd want to be handcuffed to, mm?"
And you should know, I left but never lost my place
What might otherwise have felt like Ronin was trying to silence Remi's concerns with affection, band-aiding over the cracks in their relationship with sex as they were so used to doing, instead felt...gods it felt new. Like the first sip of air after having held your breath while swimming, like the first bite of something delicious you'd been forced to smell for hours while it was cooking, like the giddying come-down from a bought of laughter..it felt like everything he knew it would and yet like nothing he could possibly have expected.
Reaching the hand holding the braid and pressing his palm against the side of Ronin's face to deepen the kiss, Remi is at once both desperate and fully appreciative. "I think there is a word for someone who has fallen in love with their captor. Sindrome di Stoccolma." He murmurs against Ronin's lips, trying to tilt his head so that the wetness on his cheeks wouldn't be transferred to his husband.
and these nights I miss you most my heart is yours to break
Code blatently stolen from queen of codes, Sky!
Speaks with a thick Italian accent.
Force and magic can be used against Remi without permission.
"Mm, and who said you were the captor?" Ronin murmurs with a smile against Remi's lips, dutifully leaning in - and accepting the damp nuzzling against his cheek. "Regardless, it's only you for me. That's as true now as it was on the night we first married. And I'm not concussed now, so you can't possibly find fault in it." Turning his head to kiss his cheek, Ronin draws back only to clasp his husband's hand between both of his own, braid included.
"Now, might I borrow one of your wickedly sharp talons, so we can agree that we're each other's for always?" He grins, nodding to the crimson thread. "And after that, there might be a little box of fireworks back down on the banks. Once that make specific shapes when they're lit up."
And you should know, I left but never lost my place
Though Remi's lips part in order to argue, no words come out. "You...always know just what to say." He mumbles after a moment, looking flustered as he tries and fails to stop the smile from depending his dimples in order to give Ronin more cheek to kiss.
Holding out one of his hands, palm up, a talon protrudes from his index finger where it curls at precisely the right angle to cleanly cut through a throat. "No," Remi whispers, looking sharply up from the red thread and into Ronin's boyishly mischievous face. "You did not." Gods how long ago that had seemed. Had Ianto brought them then, or had it been Rexanna? Though he couldn't remember, the vague shape of the memory was encrusted with gold in the halls of his mind just the same.
"You really are perfect for me." Leaning forward to press his forehead against Ronin's shoulder, Remi sighs indulgently against his husband for a moment, taking the time to engrain the moment into his memory before offering out his other wrist. "I think I would like to be tied up, now." He says with a boyish grin.
and these nights I miss you most my heart is yours to break
Code blatently stolen from queen of codes, Sky!
Speaks with a thick Italian accent.
Force and magic can be used against Remi without permission.
"I did so," Ronin murmurs with a warm smile, leaning in to kiss Remi's dimples. "I don't know if they will be quite as plentiful or dramatic if we're the ones setting them off, but we will just have to try it and find out, mm?" As he speaks he's gazing down at the razor sharp talon his husband has so kindly produced, measuring the length of thread between his hands until it's appropriately halved, and then severing it with a snick against Remi's finger.
"And you are perfect for me," he agrees, tilting his head up to snatch a kiss to the alchemist's forehead, before looping the lines of crimson around his wrist a couple of times and tying them off. "This is probably the most excited I've been to tie you up, and that's saying something." He grins, then offers out his wrist in return. "Would you do me the honour of the same?"
And you should know, I left but never lost my place
"Now what makes you say that? The last time I was so surprised that I am sure I missed a...bouquet? a basket? a pod..?" Remi grins as if the nomenclature of what a sequence of phallic fireworks was called was something he ought to have known. "..of them in my shock. This time I will be paying very close attention."
Letting his talon slip away that his fingers might be able to do what was needed of them, the Lullaby can only bite the inside of his cheek and shrug. "It is. All the more so because I think this is the weakest material you have ever used to do it." Remi adds with a tilt of his head. Though nearly anyone could break the string now tied on the Lullaby's wrist, it would take godly strength indeed to survive the consequences of doing so.
"Happily." With the remaining string, Remi loops the braid around Ronin's wrist. He isn't perhaps as graceful as Ronin had been owing to his missing fingers, but he ties off a serviceable knot before raising the Huntsman's wrist to his lips and kissing the place the red cord overlaps the blue veins running beneath.
and these nights I miss you most my heart is yours to break
Code blatently stolen from queen of codes, Sky!
Speaks with a thick Italian accent.
Force and magic can be used against Remi without permission.
"Ooh, a bouquet," Ronin agrees with a boyish flash of teeth, "I do like that one. I will make sure you don't miss a single bouquet of fireworks this time." Well, that's his intention anyway. Who knows what will actually happen should they get a little overwhelmed by the occasion when it all goes down. (Or they go down. Shut up).
Nibbling at the inside of his cheek and tilting his head to watch as Remi (perfectly, in his opinion) ties off the braid around his wrist, the Huntsman lets out a long, happy sigh and surrenders his hand for the kissing. "Mm, I think it's stronger than it looks," he says of the material now binding them together.
But enough about that. Reaching out to tilt Remi's chin up, Ronin closes the distance between them to steal a surprisingly soft and gentle kiss from his husband's lips, shifting closer to wind his arms around him. "Fireworks?" he mumbles eventually, after the dance of his tongue has threatened to get them into some airborne shenanigans.
And you should know, I left but never lost my place
Bouqet sounded exactly right, if only because it brought forth images of fingers gripping stems, no clutching them, and.."Mmmmm." Remi hums doubtfully, already fully distracted.
Shifting slightly on the cloud, it's with a sharp inhale that he meets Ronin's lips; reaching out a red-bound wrist with fingers wanting to tangle in the Huntsman's hair to draw him close. "Only you could make a kiss seem preferable to an entire sky filled with dicks, you know." He mumbles adoringly, and though Remi would absolutely agree to scrap the fireworks in lieu of other penises, Ronin really had worked hard on setting up this evening and it would be a shame to derail it now. Besides, Ianto and Fiadh no doubt would be somewhere below expecting a show.
" I am not sure what it means in terms of tradition for someone to catch this bouquet when it is all over, but..." Grinning, Remi shrugs.
and these nights I miss you most my heart is yours to break
Code blatently stolen from queen of codes, Sky!
Speaks with a thick Italian accent.
Force and magic can be used against Remi without permission.
