drifted down the deepening cool

And I won't regret the lives I didn't lead

I knew you, I loved you

Hearing that Remi cared about him was perhaps the only relief Sam would have for the next moments, as his list of sins was read out with precise measure, as if Remi had been rehearsing this for some time. He listened quietly, really trying his best to take in what Remi was saying and be fair, not wanting to fall into any old patterns of behaviour - he really, really wanted to improve. Thought he had been doing, recently.

Of course Remi already knew all the explanations he could offer. That he was inexperienced with social situations, that he didn't know how any of this worked, that he'd panicked over every single decision...they didn't make a difference. He did think Remi had presented a rather uncharitable version of events that had been more complex than he said, but he could see why the Alchemist would have seen things the way he had.

The only thing he didn't really feel sorry for was being with Loren, which he felt he had the full right to do and honestly, that it wasn't any of Remi's business. But given that was a petty fight and hardly the main core of the problem, he decided to leave it for the moment.

All of this obviously made him feel rather awful about himself, the yawning black hole of self-hatred opening up again, but he purposefully held back tears and objections, not wanting to fall into...well. Woe is me. But with that reaction aside, and forcing himself not to make excuses, and not wanting to upset Remi further...well, what was left? Silence didn't seem like a good response.

Sometimes he wished he didn't care at all, but even after the tirade he'd just heard, he desperately didn't want to hurt Remi.

"...Um..I.." He shook his head, wanting to start better. Hopefully Remi wouldn't hold this one thing against him, that he didn't know what words to formulate. "I didn't realise any of it hurt you like that. Well..some of it I did. The..the forgetting, which...I mean, I don't remember doing it, but if I could change it...but that's feeling sorry for me and apologising again, isn't it? Ah."

Ultimately he supposed there was only one thing to say. A conclusion he felt Remi had likely already come to, but maybe it would be good to have a proper footnote. "So I suppose we agree to start again and you care enough about me to let me try, or we...don't. Which...I suppose is what you've already done, so..." He shrugged into the darkness, not knowing what on Caido to say to present what he wanted to and running out of steam to try when it felt it was inevitable Remi would only hate him more with each word.

Let that be all that I need

SAMUEL

Base Code by Sky!

aúsi, nos paramas // & still we stand

"No of course not, because most of our conversations are about you. All the things happening in my life are always too hard for you to bear." That said, he wasn't entirely sure he needed to tell Sam, oh, you know the time you slapped me and called me a whore? Not actually my favourite.

"Glad to see you've caught up." The alchemist agreed. Because while in fact he did still care about Sam far, far more than he did want to (because gods it would be easier if he didn't), he was done with hurting at the hands of the bookmaker. Given Sam's recent stunt on the beach, the letter, and now his not-relationship with Loren, it was clear that Sam would always value himself above the alchemist.

"But don't fret Sam. Just ask the Voice to wipe me clean from your memory and then you won't have to worry about it. How did you describe it last time? Being a burden? Maybe you and Loren can make a date out of it and then you'll both leave me alone." The words were bitterly said, and in the darkness Remi was relieved to know that the anger and upset that coloured his cheeks and threatened to moisten his eyes couldn't be seen. That Sam was an ascended and could of course, was forgotten.

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And I won't regret the lives I didn't lead

I knew you, I loved you

Remi was probably right about the first thing - a lot of the time in his first year out of his house, he'd found it hard to manage any of his own issues, never mind balance those of his friends. Perhaps with Remi that habit had continued longer than it needed to and he had not realised.

Knowing that he and Remi were, almost definitely this time, not going to speak once the waters had receded and they could leave...it felt like the end of some kind of possibility, something he'd been holding onto without even knowing it, the snuffing of a candle he'd been unaware of lighting...It felt him feeling cold and unsatisfied, the closure he'd thought he might get nowhere to be seen, just sadness and a feeling of having failed at a game he'd never known all the rules to.

Though he could still see Remi's tears...and something in him kept him talking. "I never said you were a burden. ...I think...I worded that letter very poorly. The decision was still a terrible one, but I never meant you were anything like that to me. If anything, I wanted my concerns over our relationship after your forgetting of me away from you, after Ronin had just died...I thought it was going to make things hundreds of times worse for you, distract you. I thought I was a burden. That's..what it says in my diary." He shrugged, then laughed bitter and broken. "..And I suppose I was right, since it sounds like I've been nothing but a pain to you."

Maybe that was a bit self pitying, but if they weren't going to talk again, what did it matter? "I'm not going to forget you. I'd still, if you wanted, forget it all and start again. I know we can be great friends. But...I don't know, Remi. I never feel like we talk to each other. It's always...around." Sam had no idea if he was making sense, but he was speaking more to empty his mind at this point, feeling the need to get out everything in case it really was his last chance.

Let that be all that I need

SAMUEL

Base Code by Sky!

aúsi, nos paramas // & still we stand

'I think you did almost everything when it came to me, rather poorly." Waving a hand distractedly in Sam's direction, Remi merely shook his head. "Is that what we're going to do? Have out old arguments? Fine. It wasn't your choice to make Sam, and you might have at least asked me first what I might have wanted. I would have stayed with you forever if only you'd given me the space to breathe and grieve the loss of my friend. But you waited only a day before deciding that the feelings you had for me weren't worth it, wrapping it up with a bow of but I did it for you, and forgot me entirely." Gritting his teeth, the alchemist glared opening at the bookmaker now. "You're right. You have been a pain. Not the memory of you, not the past-you, the you now. Forgotten memories for both of us aside, but you're still here, acting like you always have."

Barking a laugh, Remi leaned his head back against the wall, wringing his hands between his knees. "Great friends? Fuck you, Sam" He growled, utterly bewildered that the bookmaker might still be so painfully naive and optimistic about a (friend)ship sank deep to the bottom of the sea.

'Around? Around what. If you've something to say, go on and say it then."

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And I won't regret the lives I didn't lead

I knew you, I loved you

It was hard to engage in the argument about this because he could only really guess at his intentions and thoughts prior to the forgetting from what had been written in his diary and what he thought he'd do now. Remi's laugh and 'fuck you' only served to further cement his point about them talking on different wavelengths and he sighed, placing his head in his hands and feeling rather hopeless indeed.

"I mean...I am, right now, genuinely trying to fix this. To talk to you. To work something out. But everything I say you see as some kind of insult or jab...there's no way for me to just...say things. You hear things differently from how I say them and I run out of ways to put things, Remi. I don't know if I'm just terrible at this or if we're just...incompatible people, but...you don't hear what I'm saying. I don't think I hear you either." He shrugged, still pushing his fingers up through his hair. "I'm sure even this you'll think is horrible somehow. I don't know how else to talk to you. I want...I wish I could redo it all. Do better by you, know how to speak to make things properly better. But I don't."

Let that be all that I need

SAMUEL

Base Code by Sky!

aúsi, nos paramas // & still we stand

"Oh no, I do hear. I hear you very well Sam. Your want to fix this? To redo it all? That is precisely the problem." Somewhere very far off it felt just now, Ronin would feel his husband's heart stutter unhappily via the ring on his finger. Absently Remi ran his palm across his chest, pressing unhappily at the skin as if he might physically smooth away the discomfort.

"You have already had so many second chances with me. I've forgiven you everything you've ever done, and yet here we are again. You're still the same old Sam, and if we move past this, there will just inevitably be something else."

Turning his gaze back towards the bookmaker, Remi's nostrils flared as he took a breath. "You want to really hear what I"m saying? Fine. It is this. It would have been you, for me Sam. I would have stayed with you. Would have married you. Everything I did was to make your life better, even after you left me. I only ever wanted the best for you and unlike you, my actions bore that out. I hate you for being with Loren. I'll never forgive either of you that, and before you say it, I care very very little about the fairness of that. You both wounded me in ways that fundamentally changed and broke me, and it will never be okay that you two are together, regardless of what capacity that might be."

Swallowing hard the lump of misery and bile that rose unhappily in the back of his throat, Remi turned his eyes back towards the ceiling of the cave.

"I'd have forgiven you, if not for that. If not for Loren." He said, almost defeatedly. Angry and empty as he was, Remi really didn't have it in him for long-term grudges or this sort of persistent hate. But Loren...that sort of casual cruelness that the Launceleyn demonstrated over and over again...Sam was a hurtful and selfish idiot, but at least he did mean well most of the time. The same couldn't be said for Loren.

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And I won't regret the lives I didn't lead

I knew you, I loved you

Sam was beginning to have difficulties recognising how much of Remi's criticisms towards him were legitimate now - he knew that it was not all as simple as the Alchemist was making out, but he'd never been good at defending himself or arguing, and the little voice in his head that existed purely to beat him up was loving all this new ammo.

Hearing Remi would have married him...that brought a choke to Sam's throat, an unexpected reaction to be sure, but he couldn't help the few tears that escaped. To think he could have had that, what he'd always wanted. Someone dedicated to loving him, who didn't mind people knowing...that it could have been Remi? His mistakes ripped at his heart.

He did not understand why Remi saw his and Loren's relationship as a final sin, didn't even really see how it was a problem. So they had both hurt him, yes, but what did their being together now have to do with that? Though...as he thought on it, he realised he didn't actually know what Loren had done, and Loren had said a few times himself he'd made horrible mistakes...a curiosity sparked in Sam, and well, Remi seemed quite willing to rant at the moment. "What...did Loren do to make you hate him so much?"

Let that be all that I need

SAMUEL

Base Code by Sky!

aúsi, nos paramas // & still we stand

The alchemist pulled in another breath, rolling his eyes up to the ceiling and squinting into the darkness. "What hasn't he done? He let me fall in love with him, the first man I'd ever loved., leading me on for weeks and then months. We came here and he just...he left. For almost a year. I looked and searched, and then when he turned back up, he had almost nothing to say for himself other than that he panicked and ran away. By then my memories of him had been taken, and so instead of leaving things in the past, Loren told me that he had loved me and still did. He pushed me away saying we couldn't be friends, then reeled me back to him over and over again every time I finally thought to leave. My only mistake was asking him to kiss me once, if only to prove to us both that we wouldn't and that we could be friends. Apparently that was an error more egregious than anything else." Remi sighed at that.

"He went to Frey for some magical orgasm quest to 'get over me', not unlike you." That, as with Sam, had been what hurt the most. That he was just some scab to be quickly picked off and forgotten. Something to smother in cream and ignore, because he wasn't worth the pain of remembering. It hurt all the more because Remi had been shattered into pieces for them both and had never once thought to find an easy way through the pain. Not once.

'When he slit his throat in the caves here, some empty gesture or dig at what I had done during Fiat Lux, that was the end of it."

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And I won't regret the lives I didn't lead

I knew you, I loved you

The first sentence of Remi's explanation, 'he let me fall in love with him', nearly made Sam give up on listening to the rest (as if that were Loren's fault) but he kept paying attention out of curiosity about Loren's life. As it turned out, it was good he did; when Remi had finished he felt immensely different about it.

He did not think Loren a bad person for any of this (really, it was pretty similar to things he'd done minus the...orgasm quest), knew how easy it was to get lost when everything was swirling to shit around you - but more important, his heart began to truly bleed for Remi, see how painful the unfortunate sequence of events had been.

Was it really any one persons fault? No. Had anyone meant to hurt him? No, or at least, he hadn't on his part.

It had still happened though and Remi was right to feel wronged, even if they could dispute the details. After a moment of quiet, Sam just nodded, lifted his head to lean forward on his knees and said quietly: "I'm glad you found Ronin. That he treats you better than either me or Loren could. We failed you...we really did." Oddly, he found the usual panic was gone, the upset that bubbled in him whenever he had to deal with difficult conversations - oh, his chest hurt and he felt tears a second away, but he was able to speak clearly, think with a surprising amount of clarity.

Let that be all that I need

SAMUEL

Base Code by Sky!

aúsi, nos paramas // & still we stand

To this, the alchemist said nothing. Had Sam seen the way the once-duke had let Remi fawn over him, how he'd invited him over for dinners and how he'd let them work long into the night (all while as it turns out, Loren was fooling around with Ronin), perhaps the bookmaker would have a different view on whether or not Loren really had allowed it to happen.

"That doesn't make it better." The alchemist said wearily, but with a great deal less venom. "To know now, how my life would have gone...the lives I might have lived. It isn't made any more bearable that I have the things I do now. Some wounds don't heal." Especially not when they were torn open again and again and again.

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And I won't regret the lives I didn't lead

I knew you, I loved you

That the venom had left Remi's voice made Sam feel better, even if his words were not completely comforting; he missed hearing the Alchemist's voice as it was meant to be, just...normal. Happy, maybe (not that there was a trace of that at the moment).

"...Yes, you're right." Sighing he leaned forward to look down into the cave, to watch the water rush past them; it was hard to tell in the moment if there was less or more than they had begun with - for a moment he watched it rumble past, idly thinking of various poetic metaphors he could make about the current situation...though when he looked to Remi, saw the hurt in his eyes and the guilt in his own heart, it was difficult to find anything there beautiful.

No idea if Remi would respond to this, he glanced up, wondering if they could have a more normal conversation. "So...you've been selling things from the wagon? Is...it going well?"

Let that be all that I need

SAMUEL

Base Code by Sky!

aúsi, nos paramas // & still we stand

"What part of any of what I've just said to you, makes you think I want to exchange a bit of small talk? You've made your bed Sam, multiple times over now, and chosen who to share it with. This isn't one of your books; you don't get a happy ending just because you say you're sorry enough times."

So saying, the alchemist drew his knees to his chest, continuing to bitterly toss rocks against the opposing wall, reconsidering moment after moment whether the risk of drowning was worth taking, to get himself out of this.

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And I won't regret the lives I didn't lead

I knew you, I loved you

The result was predictable enough but Sam still felt some hope he'd been holding onto slip away at Remi's bitter words; he nodded and said no more, leaning against the wall and watching a bead of water slowly drip down the stone. Two sides of him fought each other - one that wanted to apologise endlessly, that saw Remi was hurt and felt guilty...and one that felt Remi was being overly cruel, delirious after the death of his daughter.

Nothing he said would satisfy either side, so he stayed quiet. Quietly he fantasised of ridiculous situations that might make Remi want to talk to him again. A sacrifice, perhaps, or some kind of great boon...but the Alchemist was right, this wasn't a book, and their relationship would likely just fizzle out to nothing here with hurt feelings and a will to forget.

With a sigh he closed his eyes, willing to wait out the rest of the water dozing, hoping it might take him anywhere but the cave.

Let that be all that I need

SAMUEL

Base Code by Sky!

aúsi, nos paramas // & still we stand

It took an excruciatingly long time, but once it was over, Remi would reflect that it had gone by so quickly. All the things they pair might have said, might have done, the ways in which their friendship might have been salvaged...and yet as soon as the water dropped enough, Remi was up without a word.

He didn't look back at Sam. There would be no fleeting glances just now, no weighty silences and lingering looks that neither could break and yet within which so much was communicated. There was only hurt and anger in Remi's chest, and for the first time, he wasn't understanding. He wasn't forgiving. He was petty and jealous and wounded in a way he'd not let the other man try and help heal.

Disappearing as a bird that he might not have to remain in Sam's proximity any longer than was strictly necessary, when Remi eventually emerged from the fingers, it was straight into the sky he flew himself. Flying higher and higher until he was no more than a blip against the clouds, where the air was thin and flight was difficult. There he stayed for several hours, not wanting to come back down.

~FIN

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