catching fire

right now everything you want is wrong
& right now all your dreams are waking up

For a selfish moment, Remi thinks only about himself. About how good Isla feels against him. About the smallness of her silhouette against him, about the relief that she's alright, about how tantalizing sweet and soft her lips are against his. As his fingers curl through her hair to draw her ever nearer, he slips in a hasty breath to keep kissing her, only to realize..

..he's the only one whose breath has grown ragged. The only one whose heart is thundering. He can feel that Isla is not...unhappy with what's unfolding, but she certainly doesn't feel it the way he does. There's no youthful need, no passionate desperation. Her heart isn't a flutter because she can't feel these things anymore. And so instead of kissing her again, Remi just lets his eyes press shut, his expression pained, as his molars press tightly against one another.

For a bright and shining moment, he'd had a taste of what it might be like to feel okay again, if only for a little while. But gods if this wasn't just everything wrong with he and Ronin all over again; this one-sided emotion leaving the alchemist feeling worse off than before.

'You don't...feel it.' It isn't quite rhetorical, but it isn't as though Remi doesn't already know the answer.

The Lullaby