the monsters turned out to be just trees

hope keeps us breathing, just to kill us in the end

"Right now." Remi chuckled darkly, but there was an undercurrent of actual humour there. Closing his eyes tightly, enough for a line of tears to appear between his clenched lashes, the alchemist easily followed the Launceleyn's lead in tightening his grip. Holding onto the bulky ripples of fabric hardly made up for human contact, but it was what he had. "He has not been home in weeks. He..."  Tears bubbled painfully out, threatening to freeze on his skin as emotion clogged his throat. Snuffling pathetically, the alchemist shook his head against Loren's shoulder.

Letting the tension in his body go, not having realized that his muscles were mostly taut, Remi pulled back an inch or so if only to breathe air that he hadn't just unsteadily gasped out against the summoner's shoulder. And he felt...Loren. The hair on his unshaven cheeks sending a shiver down his spine as they brushed against the other man and his jacket. Remi's skin keenly noting where it had been warmed by Launceleyn's proximity and where it hadn't. The alchemist's grip of the other man released as he pulled his arms away, far too aware of too many things now. The most glaring and distracting of all being, oh. that's why.

Still just as close perhaps, Remi's tear-filled gaze hovered somewhere around Loren's throat, his lashes fluttering uncertainly (and also because of the way the frigid air wanted to freeze the moisture instantly).