I don't want a whole lotta might-have-beens

bring back the water

It was late, Remi was near delirious with exhaustion, but it didn't matter. He didn't care. He needed answers, not food, not sleep. The bags under his eyes made his eyes appear all the more pale and shattered for it.

And so it was that the alchemist found himself at Sam's door praying that he was home. Knocking with fingers that trembled, Remi waited. The silence stretched on, filling his ears until the rush of his own heartbeat was as loud as any drum might have been. His teeth clenched, eyes closed, and his body swayed slightly as his sense of balance had all but given up.

Please be home. Please say you did not do this. Please, Sam. Please, please, please, and so on and so forth, were the silent prayers worrying through Remi's mind as he waited.

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Coding base by Sky!

Hearing the door knock, Sam sat up in his chair, where he had been slumped reading. Stretching he smiled as he sighed out a sleepy hum. He was content, lately. With Nate in his home now taking on a rather different meaning and the danger of Zariah past, he was having some nice lazy evenings. Only occasionally did his mood sour, when he thought of Jigano and the conversation they had had. Slowly he walked to the door and opened it, a pleasant expression on his face as he saw Remi - then he saw how drawn and panicked Remi looked and his smile immediately dropped. "Remi...?" He reached forward for man's arm to pull him inside. "What's wrong? Did something happen!?" SAMUEL How could a night so frozen Be so scalding hot? How can a morning this mild Be so raw?

bring back the water

Remi's hands went to Sam's shoulder and his upper arm, though the majority of the alchemist stayed where he was, refusing to be moved. Like some wild thing, he peered into the darkness of Sam's home, his head softly swaying no, as his shattered stare searched Sam's eyes.

"Sam—" He whispered, his gaze only half-focused, half-mad. "Sam...did you do it...the blight.." The alchemist swallowed again, his eyebrows furrowing as his gaze became war torn and weary, his fingers pressing against Sam's skin. "..did you help spread it.."

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Coding base by Sky!

Sam stiffened as Remi grabbed him, the Alchemist really beginning to scare him now; he had not seen Remi this upset in a long time, didn't even know if he could remember ever seeing him quite like this. The question threw him. Jigano had asked about the same thing, and yet he had never considered it when he had been in the woods. Had someone told people in Sanctuary that was what he had been doing? His lips moved with no sound for a moment as he searched for the words to reassure Remi, his hand coming to gently push away Remi's grasp on him. "No. Of course not. Why...would I do that? And why...would you think I did?" He asked. His first thought was that Jigano must've told him, but from what he knew the two were not close. Truthfully, he also was not sure why Remi cared so much: it was just the trees in the woods, right? He was sure the Gods could sort it out before it took too much wildlife. The Voice had not seemed concerned. SAMUEL How could a night so frozen Be so scalding hot? How can a morning this mild Be so raw?

bring back the water

The alchemist took a step back as his hands were pushed away. Not realizing that it might have been because of the tension in his fingers, he read it instead as an act of betrayal. Of confirmation.

"I do not know why...I..." Looking at the bookmaker as if having been slapped, Remi shook his head, not quite believing it. "You...you said the Voice asked you to explore, right?" He tried again, trying to wrangle his rapidly beating hard into some semblance of rhythm, his now-empty hands running up his arms to brush away a chill that seemed to emanate from within his bones.

"We...we think the blight was spread, Sam...do you.." Remi swallowed uneasily, his smile strained as he desperately wanted to believe. "...do you know why she asked you to explore?"

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Coding base by Sky!

The Voice. There it was. He sighed deeply, hurt clear in his face. Remi now, too? Why did everyone suddenly doubt his Goddess, the same time that he had finally come to know and love her? It felt deeply unfair. That he could be judged just for walking through the woods while being connected to The Voice. "I suspect because she wanted us to get out of the Hollowed Grounds? We have been trapped here for many years, remember. The barrier was there to trap The Voice and the Ascended in. So...I think she's just encouraging our independance." It was mostly guesswork, but he definitely didn't believe that The Voice had any bad intentions for the woods. Sam took a step back, frowning. "Remi. You know I wouldn't try to do something like that, right?" Why would everyone doubt his integrity so? SAMUEL How could a night so frozen Be so scalding hot? How can a morning this mild Be so raw?

bring back the water

Remi's heart continued to pound, his gaze swimming, his breath coming in laboured and uneasy pants. "I..I know all of that Sam. But you said she told you to explore. And then..Wessex was found in the village as well...and.." The world started to spin, and the alchemist reached out for the door frame, his strong fingers clenched around the wood. "Was it you Sam. Just your independence...or...was it all of you, who went?"

As Sam reseeded further into the house, Remi's head tilted to the side, a look of distrust and worry rampant on his face. "I know you would not intentionally, yes."

But, given all Sam had said, given how he had pulled away from Remi, there was indeed a part of him that no longer believed it. "Sam," The alchemist whispered, his voice breaking as tears stung the backs of his eyes. Trying on a smile and feeling all the worse for it, he bit the inside of his lip hard enough to draw blood as his gaze rose helplessly for a moment.

"Sam, Ronin is dying. The blight...it is killing him."

let your ships roll in

Coding base by Sky!

Remi continued to ask, to needle, to accuse; Sam began to find it hard to keep the anger off his face. It was bubbling up in his chest, pushing into his throat, wanted to punch out of his mouth in a flurry of words. Why are you doing this?! I finally belong somewhere. Stop ruining it. Stop making me doubt. But this was Remi. His heart was still tied irrevocably to the Alchemist's, and that connection made him swallow his rage, respond cool and calm. "I did not go with anyone else. I know Wessex was in the woods, but I'm not sure why. You think just because we're Ascended it had to be us?" His hurt was pulled down into a swirling mess of despair and confusion when Remi told him Ronin was dying. He was caught between the anger he still felt towards the accusations and immediate need to comfort his friend, a hand going out and stopping awkwardly between them. "I...I'm..I...that's awful, Remi, but..I...I didn't have anything to do with it. Please believe me. If you come in, we can talk about if we can find a way to help Ronin." SAMUEL How could a night so frozen Be so scalding hot? How can a morning this mild Be so raw?

bring back the water

It was precisely perhaps it was Sam that this was all the more painful. (That, and the lack of sleep). That the coppery-haired man had once been his, had once loved and been loved by the alchemist made the situation infinitely more confusing, and Remi felt the sudden urge to rake his fingers through his curls in frustration.

"No, not with..What I meant was..." Remi tugged in a breath, trying to slow the swirl of his thoughts. "..the independence you spoke of. Did the Voice just ask you to explore? Or did she ask you all to do it?" The insinuation that there was some underlying racism took Remi aback, and indeed he took a physical step backwards from Sam, the hurt clear on his face.

"I am not..I am not blaming you Sam. I just need to know where to start. How to help him." The words came out in a thick torrent, his accent melding the sounds together. "Please", he tried again. "Did the Voice say anything else? Just explore? Nothing more specific? No where in specific?"

let your ships roll in

Coding base by Sky!

"I don't know!" Sam insisted, his voice raising and his fists balling in frustration. Everyone he was close to was suddenly turning against him, simply because he was who he was. Because of who had made him. "There was no organised march into the woods to spread the blight. I. Did. Not. Do. It." The calm edge to his voice was gone now, tears clearly not far away. He did not understand why Remi believed these accusations. The only evidence he'd heard so far was that the other Gods thought The Voice was to blame. Well, of course they did. They hated her, hated the ones she had made, hated him. He supposed Remi had chosen a side, then. "I think you are, Remi. She told me to go to Sidhe. Because we hadn't seen it yet. I walked around for a little, looked at the stars - but not to spread the blight to them.." He was angry, so angry, a feeling he had not been connected to in a long time bleeding out, and while he meant what he said he also regretted it the moment it came out of his mouth, knowing he was being very harsh to someone who had just found out their husband was going to die. But he did not apologise or backtrack. He couldn't, not when it seemed everyone had suddenly decided he was the cause of the problems here. Not when they all suddenly hated him. "I don't know anything about the blight. I know just as much as you." SAMUEL How could a night so frozen Be so scalding hot? How can a morning this mild Be so raw?

bring back the water

"SAM—" Remi yelled as well, finding that it felt good and vaguely wondering if both he and Sam were infected as well...Aggression was a symptom, after all. "What if you did it without knowing? What if it is just.." Remi raised his hands, gesturing simply to Sam as if to say that who and what he was might have been all it took. "..what if it was just being there." He added, feathers filtering through his curls as his nostrils flared.

"We. So the ascended. Because the rest of us have seen it. Some, anyways." The alchemist countered. "So why you. Why did you all need to see it?" He all but demanded, voice still crackly with emotion as fire flooded his cheeks.

"The barrier fell. The Voice told you to explore. Not where the storms were, but the Greatwood. Where the blight now is. It was not there before." All the alchemist could see was black dripping from Ronin's eyes, the tremors in his hands. "So you tell me what I am supposed to think."

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Coding base by Sky!

Sam almost couldn't believe it when Remi gestured to all of him. He had felt the sting of insinuations of his race being the cause in his words, but this was blatant; just plain and simple. It was because of what he was. Because he was Ascended, so therefore all of his friends now believed him to be evil, to want to ruin Caido. "Let me tell you what I think. I think a lot of people went to the woods when they could. The blight started long before I went there, and it continues without any Ascended there." The tears that had been threatened in his face before came now, streaming from his eyes as he yelled, his voice breaking. "It could have been any of the other people who went, or the Fae, or the Gods, or just something Natural. But everyone has immediately assumed it was us." He shook his head in disbelief, in pain, in a wish for denial. "You've all been waiting for a chance to blame something on us. I thought it would come sooner. I let my guard down - I knew I made people uncomfortable, but I thought they might come around...look at it now." He threw his hands up and tipped his head back in a gesture of hopelessness. "Ronin is hurt, and instead of coming to me as a friend, you come to me as an accuser. Ready to blame me for something I didn't even know was happening." SAMUEL How could a night so frozen Be so scalding hot? How can a morning this mild Be so raw?

bring back the water

"Did it." Remi replied, his tone low if only because his teeth were clenched together and wanting very badly to grow into points. Sam's teeth might be sharp, but the lion inside of him—nay, the manticore—thoughts perhaps his bite might be a good deal stronger. "The barrier came down. The Fae did not do this to themselves, nor the gods." Remi said back tersely. "They said it started with us and the gods think it started with the Voice. Which is why it seems so odd she suddenly asked you to explore."

Whatever sympathy once grew so rampantly within the alchemist had been left to wither and die, gone too long without tending to be of any use now. "You've all?" He repeated incredulously, shaking his head. "This is me Sam. Just me." Glancing around the empty street as if to prove his point, the alchemist took a step back as thick tears formed in his eyes.

"I told you I did not blame you!" Remi roared suddenly, claws appearing at the end of his hands as they clenched against his fleshy palm, drawing warm streaks of blood. The alchemist hardly felt it, didn't hear it or see it as the droplets fell to the cobblestones, so honed was his hurt and worry and anger. "Ronin is not hurt." The alchemist spat, the green in his eyes shifting to a predatory gold. "Ronin is dying." He continued in a hiss, claws dragging further into his own skin.

"I did come to you as a friend. As a—" Remi swallowed uneasily. "I asked you. And all I got in return was excuses. You are not even willing to consider this. If I am wrong, so be it. But I need to know. And you turning this into some sort of crusade against the Ascendeds is ridiculous."

let your ships roll in

Coding base by Sky!

Sam was quiet at first, just listening and refusing to look at Remi, staring instead past him to the street outside. He could feel their relationship ripping at the seams, but he couldn't begin to fix it, not when Remi was saying these things. But when Remi said it was just him, he couldn't keep in the bitter laugh. "Then why have Jigano and Amalia both come to me with these accusations? All of you, at once?" It struck him as he said it that it could be an organised effort. His friends turning against him, one by one, until he was alone and there were a gang of people who all knew exactly where he was. He had to talk to Nate before it was too-- Remi yelled, no, roared, and he stumbled backwards into his door, eyes wide and terrified. He knew just how powerful he could be and suddenly realised just how much real danger he could be in. Shaking, he stood up and closed the door until just a crack was open. "Go away. I told you I don't know anything. I...I hope you can help Ronin. But go away. Now." SAMUEL How could a night so frozen Be so scalding hot? How can a morning this mild Be so raw?