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 Posted: Tue Dec 13, 2016 4:30 pm
”s**t. This door is stuck, too,” Sessrumnir growled lowly, jiggling the handle and trying to decide if he wanted to risk trying to knock the door down, or if they were better off trying to get out a window, or maybe even staying there until the worst of it blew over. He was very aware that if the temperature was dropping as quickly as it was, it might not be safe to go back outside at the moment.
He tried once more before giving up and turning to see where exactly he and Remus had ended up, cornered by a youma that had been stronger than Sessrumnir had expected. From the looks of things, it was an old greenhouse of sorts just beside a storage building that had been abandoned years ago on the outskirts of the city.
Everything in the greenhouse had already overgrown and then died, leaving shriveled plants everywhere. Hanging from the ceiling, over potting stations, climbing up the now opaque windows, which had been coated with grime and dirt years before. Even the white from the snow that was falling didn't seem all that white through the glass.
“Put this around you,” he all but insisted, unlatching his cloak and limped back to where Remus was standing, shaking it out before throwing it securely around Remus’s shoulders as he ignored the blood oozing from a cut above his eye and the pain in his leg. “Where are you hurt?” he asked, taking hold of Remus’s shoulders once the cloak was secure so he could look him over. Once he was sure Remus was as comfortable as possible, he would see how bad his own injuries were.
Unfortunately, the youma was not quite finished with them and it slinked its way around the outside of the greenhouse. It was large and snake like with spines down its back, and despite appearing to be reptilian, didn’t seem all that affected by the weather.
“s**t,” Sessrumnir hissed again. If it wasn’t the youma to worry about, it was the freezing cold that locked them in the building.
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Posted: Tue Dec 13, 2016 9:35 pm
"Maybe you're just not kicking it hard enough."
Remus' suggestion, unhelpful nonetheless, at least was an attempt to try and lighten the situation, though right now it seemed as though they were not exactly in the best of places for two people to be. He was holding his upper left shoulder, blood seeping between his fingers, another cut on Remus' cheek slowly dripping down across his jawline.
He was also pretty sure he was going to have a spectacular bruise on his thigh by the time this was all over.
"I've got like three layers on," Remus protested, as Sessrumnir swung the cloak around him, but he didn't take the time to protest much more than that. A roaring sound could be heard coming from outside, vibrating throughout the building, rattling the grime smeared windows.
"Head, shoulders, knees and toes," Remus recited, in answer to Sessrumnir's question about his injuries; though whether he was serious about the latter two remained to be seen. "Come on, there's gotta be a doorway here somewhere..."
He limped towards the nearest wall and began kicking it.
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Posted: Tue Dec 13, 2016 11:19 pm
“How the hell is that going to help?” Sessrumnir snapped before he could stop himself, watching incredulously as Remus kicked at the wall, thinking that maybe Remus had been chilled enough so that he was not thinking straight. Or maybe his injuries were more severe than Sessrumnir could see, but they weren’t exactly in a good place to actually check.
“Just… sit down or something,” he instructed as he paced back and forth along the grime paneled windows, trying to catch a glimpse of what the youma was doing. Perhaps it would be better for them to just hide from it and let it slink back to wherever it came from. But then that meant someone else might end up in their situation, someone who wasn’t as capable as he and Remus were. A civilian, perhaps, or newer senshi or knight.
“Remus, I need you to stay here. You’ve already been injured enough,” he pointed out, not wanting to give Remus a reason to argue. He had to be exhausted. They both were, but Sessrumnir didn’t want Remus exerting himself more than he had to.
A voice in the back of his mind, one that sounded a lot like Peter, told him he wasn’t going to be getting anywhere by being a controlling a*****e. But it wasn’t because he was trying to be an a*****e. He just worried. A lot.
“I’m going to break one of the windows to get out, but it’s going to be freezing out there. Power down so it can’t sense you. Stay in here until I can get rid of it, understand?” he frowned, although he already had an idea of what Remus was going to say in response.
Sometimes he wished he wasn’t so damn stubborn.
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Posted: Wed Dec 14, 2016 8:28 pm
"It's helping release some of my anger," was Remus' waspish reply, his foot connecting with a loose side panel and making a groaning crunching noise as it caved in. There was nothing behind it, but it made him feel a little better, at the very least, and detracted somewhat from his annoyance at Sessrumnir's snappy tone.
A snort escaped him before he could stop it. "I'm not gonna sit down," said Remus, readjusting his capelet and looking around the windows as well, wondering if there was a better solution for all of this. "I'm fine. And don't tell me to stay here, either," he added, with a glare in the knight's direction. "I'm perfectly capable of continuing on, thank you very much."
The tensions were already high enough without the bickering, but Remus was not about to sit down and let Sessrumnir run off and leave him behind. Under normal circumstances, the protectiveness and the care was appreciated and loved; but this was not a normal circumstance, and besides, it wasn't like he could just leap out the window and leave Sessrumnir to get crushed by a youma.
"Oh, I understand it perfectly well," said Remus, making an a-ok sign with his thumb and forefinger. "There's just no way in hell I'm gonna do that, sorry. Plan A, scrapped, onto Plan B."
There was a groaning, shuffling sound from somewhere outside where they stood, a screech of nails against the concrete floor.
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Posted: Wed Dec 14, 2016 9:22 pm
Sessrumnir opened his mouth, probably to argue, probably to tell Remus that he needed to shut up and listen for just once in his life, but impressively managed to shut his mouth with only an irritated growl escaping. Every so often Sessrumnir would remember the times in which he patrolled alone and how it was blessedly less stressful than making sure no one else was getting injured. Unfortunately, that time has passed and he preferred Remus relent to patrolling with him than for them both to wander off on their own.
“You’re bleeding everywhere! You can’t possibly say you’re fine when you’re obviously not,” said the hypocrite, ignoring the fact that blood was already drying to the side of his face and his pants were nearly soaked through from the injury to his leg.
The growling and groaning was getting louder, the door they’d shut in order to get away from the youma rattling against the hinges. From where they stood, if they were to escape into the cold, they might very well end up dead, and if they faced the youma, who knew how quickly their energy would run out.
“s**t,” he hissed again, holding out his hand to pull his weapon from subspace, although he wasn’t sure how much the stormglass would work against the youma.
“Okay, okay… how much magic do you have left? Can you slow it down while I…” he stopped, gritting his teeth and knowing that there was no way for him to be able to use his own magic on it and finish it off at the same time. It would put Remus in danger, but other than trying to take it on himself, and probably failing, the only thing he could think of was to trust that Remus would be okay to finish it off.
Yes, he’d promised to trust him more, but this wasn’t exactly about trust or not, or so Sessrumnir was trying to convince himself.
He drew in a deep breath and continued, “I’ll catch it in my glass, and you find something to finish it. Okay?”
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Posted: Fri Dec 16, 2016 7:18 am
The look on Remus' face clearly indicated that he knew exactly what Sessrumnir had been going to say and wasn't about to give in, eyes narrowed and expression defiant. But, amazingly, Sessrumnir had managed to swallow it back, which Remus took as a good sign. Or progress. Or something.
"Pot calling the kettle black," he hissed, as the growling sound of the youma swelled to an almost alarming height, closer than he had thought. There was a crackle of breaking glass, a crunch of something wooden or plastic underneath a massive body.
Their odds were not great. Remus' gaze moved back to Sessrumnir again.
"I have one more go," he said, "I used up two already and I have three so yeah, one more, and it's my stronger one, anyway, so y'know. I have a little bit left to go off of."
He was slightly surprised - more than slightly surprised - that Sessrumnir was telling him to finish it off, because that did not sound even remotely Sessrumnir-ish at all. Remus stared at him somewhat suspicious and said, his voice dripping with sarcasm that hurt, "Oh, gonna let me kick it in the a** finally? Thanks for finally trusting that I know how to do this."
He hated this; hated fighting with Sessrumnir, but they were never going to get very far if Sess didn't just trust him. He couldn't be protected underneath his wing, sheltered from anything and everything without being given a chance to actually live.
A breath ghosted out of Remus, visible in the cold air.
"All right, let's do this."
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Posted: Fri Dec 16, 2016 8:39 pm
He found himself staring, utterly speechless at Remus and the sarcasm he shot back at him, especially since he thought it was obvious that he was trying, although apparently not hard enough. The shock didn’t last long, and it was soon replaced with a bristling defensiveness that narrowed Sessrumnir’s now icy blue eyes and masked the confusion and hurt he otherwise felt.
There were a lot of things that he held back for Remus’s sake, and a lot of things he did that he normally wouldn’t have for anyone else, but that didn’t seem to matter. It wasn’t easy for him to just ignore the fact that for so long he’d only had himself to hold accountable for the success or failure of himself and others, and failure was something he did not handle well, especially when failure meant the deaths of those he cared for.
Sessrumnir stalked forward to the door behind which the youma was waiting, refusing to look back at Remus to make sure he was still ready, and gave it a swift kick just below the handle. The doorjamb broke with a crack, and he narrowly avoided a readied strike from the youma waiting on the other side.
He was sorely tempted to take the youma on himself, despite his suggestion to have Remus finish it off.
There was only a moment of hesitation, then he gritted his teeth and leapt backwards, setting up his stormglass to try and catch the image of the youma inside.
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Posted: Mon Dec 26, 2016 10:52 pm
He knew he'd caught Sessrumnir off guard; the look on his face was enough to go by that, a mixture of shock and maybe a little outrage and even some hurt underneath it all. But Remus wasn't about to apologize, not now, not when they both needed to focus and when Sessrumnir needed to let him do what he knew best.
This was a partnership; it had to stay as one.
Remus pushed past the frustration that mingled with his own hurt, because he hated, hated causing pain to Sess; it ate him up inside, made him feel somehow guilty. But he couldn't take it back, and the more prideful side of him felt he didn't have any need to do that in the first place.
There was a deafening crack as Sessrumnir kicked down the door. The youma came crashing through, screeching unpleasantly, its voice vibrating up and down the length the place. Remus flung himself forward as the stormglass was raised, a hand outstretched, glittering, silvery moondust flying from his fingers and ghosting over the creature.
It gave a howl of protest, movements slowing, limbs flailing. Remus lashed out, his foot connecting, and he ignored the reverberating pain that jolted up his entire leg at the contact, hopping back and swinging again in a roundhouse kick that sent it screeching. The stormglass was doing its job, though; he needed to go back, and let it be caught, Remus slipping narrowly out of the youma's reach.
"Come on come on come on - "
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Posted: Tue Dec 27, 2016 8:58 pm
Sessrumnir tried to keep himself focused on the fight in front of him, watching as the youma burst through and Remus used his magic to slow it down. He stubbornly kept his mouth shut as he held his stormglass in front of him, focusing all of his energy on keeping the youma from being able to escape, to limit its senses and keep it locked inside the storm that swirled inside the glass.
It was difficult not to be angry, to feel hurt, maybe even a little betrayed. For Remus to think that Sessrumnir thought poorly of him or didn’t think he could handle himself…
He knew he could be controlling, but he had relented a lot for Caspian. This, though… this had nothing to do with control or Sessrumnir trusting Remus and everything to do with Remus trusting Sessrumnir, which… with how stubborn he was, Sessrumnir had to wonder if he would ever be trusted in these kinds of situations.
So he focused on his stormglass and let Remus decide when he thought it would be best to attack the youma, or hell, maybe even ask for help (doubtful). All Sessrumnir was currently responsible for was keeping the youma inside the image of his stormglass.
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Posted: Wed Jan 04, 2017 8:54 pm
He could sense, rather than see, the magic of Sessrumnir's stormglass beginning to work. And Remus was not going to look at the expression he knew would be on the knight's face, one of his fists lashing out and slamming into the youma with a brute force he didn't entirely have. Knuckles aching, though he ignored this, Remus leapt back to avoid a vicious swing of the youma's body, then darted forward again, skittering nimbly beneath it and coming out the other side.
"Damned - ******** - "
The last of his magic was thrown out, glittering silvery in the dim light of the building. The youma gave a screech of protest and anger, snapping and twisting, but Remus had managed to get it mostly stuck in place, his heart hammering in his chest.
It's not about trust.
Except it is. It's about everything.
Just - focus -
"Now, Sess - "
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Posted: Thu Jan 05, 2017 1:19 pm
Sessrumnir could feel the last of his energy draining fast as he struggled to keep the stormglass still, his arm aching from previous injury, and lifting his other hand to help support the weight of the glass. If they didn’t take this youma out soon, they might not have enough energy left to even run.
Now, Sess -
There was only a moment of hesitation and surprise when he heard his name being called, but it didn’t take long for him to react. He gripped tightly to the chain of his stormglass as he dropped it, releasing the youma from its magic, but he was already moving forward, trusting Remus would remain out of the way as he swung the large vial of liquid back and over his shoulder, bringing it down with a deafening crack over the youma’s head before it had a chance to move, had a chance for Remus’s magic to wear off.
It burst into dust as his stormglass shattered, the liquid and shards of glass and bits of metal spilling all over the floor. Sessrumnir staggered and collapsed onto his knees as his injured leg finally gave out, shaking too much for him to remain upright.
But the youma was gone. That meant they just needed to find a way out and then they could go home.
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Posted: Thu Jan 05, 2017 7:50 pm
He knew, without having to look, that Sessrumnir would have his back; that the knight would know what to do to get rid of the youma once Remus called to him, and he wasn't let down. There was a burst of sound, a fizzling of magic in the air and the crack of the stormglass over the youma.
There was a shrieking whistling sound, then dust and nothing else.
The resounding silence felt almost deafening. Remus straightened, swiping a hand through his hair, and tried to calm his breathing, his pulse still rapid under his veins as he cast a wary look around the place. But there had only been one youma; with it gone, all they would need to do was find a way out.
His eyes flickered towards Sessrumnir, Remus still standing several feet away from him. Another beat of silence passed.
"It's not about trust, y'know," said Remus, after a moment. "I mean, my getting upset. I'm frustrated that you think that you need to protect me all the time, because it makes me feel like you think I can't do anything - and I know that you don't think that. But you don't have to always be there to shelter me from everything, I can take care of things myself sometimes too, y'know."
His voice was weary, quiet and calm; just the edge of hurt along the words, Remus's gaze level.
"I'm not as experienced as you, but that doesn't make me inexperienced."
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Posted: Thu Jan 05, 2017 9:32 pm
Sessrumnir shifted and twisted his legs under him so he could sit on the ground and place a hand over the wound on his thigh, cursing himself for getting hurt and for Remus being in a dangerous situation.
At first, he wasn’t going to bother responding. He didn’t particularly want to have a conversation at the moment, especially not this conversation. Not when he was angry and in pain and cold and he was sure Remus felt the same way. But he couldn’t just ignore the hurt that edged Remus’s words, and eventually Sessrumnir lifted his eyes to meet Remus’s gaze.
“You’re right,” he said lowly, bitterness that he didn’t normally feel around Remus surfacing, “I am more experienced. And you’re wrong. It has everything to do about trust.”
Michael frowned as he looked Remus over, noting the blood from his injuries and the weary, calm expression on his face, which meant Michael’s frown only twisted more into a scowl.
“I need to know that you’ll do what I say, when I say it. If I tell you to get your head down, then I need to know that you’ll duck. If I tell you something is out of your league and to sit it out, then I need you to ******** sit it out. I need you understand that I am more experienced and I might know what I’m doing,” he explained, hissing as he kept pressure to his leg.
“I know you can take care of things yourself, but that doesn’t mean I want to see you killed,” he said, and then immediately regretted it, because it made something twist uncomfortably in his chest.
“Just… shut up. I don’t want to talk,” he growled instead, lowering his eyes to his leg.
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Posted: Sat Jan 07, 2017 10:52 am
He could hear the sharpness in Sessrumnir's tone, anger mixing with hurt; an unhappy bitterness that rose to the surface, regardless of any attempt there might have been to conceal it. Remus felt his chest constrict, but he kept his expression level, his eyes flickering across the knight's face.
He didn't really want to have this conversation any more than Sess did, but there was no avoiding it. Things didn't just disappear the longer you pretended they didn't exist, which - in all honesty - Remus wondered if Sessrumnir sometimes tried to believe.
"No, it doesn't," he snapped. "I'm not wrong. I'm telling you what I think." The cut on his face was bleeding. Remus ignored it, the frustration rising, welling, choking him from the inside out, because Sessrumnir still didn't get it. He wanted to slap the man; he almost walked over and did exactly that.
"I never said you didn't ******** know what you were doing," said Remus. "I said that I do know what I'm doing. You're not my ******** father, Sess. You're not my guardian. You were my mentor, and maybe you still are, but that doesn't give you the right to boss me around. For ******** sake, Sess."
He ground his teeth together, biting back the litany of sarcastic, angry responses that were welling in his throat, the calm he had been trying to keep slipping away at Sessrumnir's deliberate obstinance.
"Like hell am I going to shut up. We are going to ******** talk about this, you are not ******** running away again," Remus snarled, stalking closer, ignoring the pain in his leg as he did so. "You can't shut me out, not anymore. You've tried that already, that tactic is old. I am not someone you can just shove aside, I'm your ******** fiance, or have you forgotten that? You aren't in charge here, Sess, you aren't going to order me to do your bidding and act as though I'm some idiotic child, you a*****e."
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Posted: Sat Jan 07, 2017 2:44 pm
He didn’t want to do this. They were both tired, both angry, both in pain, both upset, probably both hungry, too. He didn’t want to argue with Remus, didn’t want to hurt his feelings or make him feel any worse than he already did. He hated it; the way Remus’s voice sounded, the words that tumbled from them.
“Don’t,” he warned, the word coming out more as a growl, refusing to lift his eyes to watch Remus approach, knowing that he was bleeding and injured as well. He was fully capable of taking care of himself, after all. And Sessrumnir was fine with letting him figure it out on his own.
“Can’t exactly run away when we’re locked in,” he pointed out, a bite of sarcasm as he lifted his hand to gesture around them. His eyes widened in mock surprise when Remus pointed out how he was his fiance, and even let out an incredulous, short bark of a laugh when he told Sessrumnir that he wasn’t in charge. Although, the insinuation that he thought Remus was a child stung.
“Please, don’t hold back,” he let out a breath, sarcastic and bitter, his eyes narrowed in forced defensiveness as Remus spoke his mind. “I know you have lots more to say than just that. Come on. Tell me how you really feel.”
This was stupid. He hated it, but he also felt powerless to stop it. They were both stubborn, both proud, both stupid, and both childish. They were a lot of things, and their similarities both made them the best and worst for each other.
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