sipping silly chartreuse champagne

Oliver

Remi's response was a decent sign, one that Oliver could accept. There was just something about what he said- how he said it. It wasn't really easy for Oliver to understand the underlying tones. It's really too bad that Oliver couldn't use the attuned abilities as a human, it might've made this entire thing easier for the both of them, especially when Remi bluntly stated that he didn't fully believe what Oliver claimed.

The man went on and Oliver listened, waiting for a moment to speak. "I mean... I don't see how I wouldn't be happy- It's mostly just going to be hard to I guess.. just allow myself to recover." He let out a sigh and shook his head, running a hand through his hair and averting his eyes from Remi's. "I know I've... forced my friendship on you in the past, done far too many things that were out of line... and I'm sorry for that... but I do want to recover something because even though you hurt me, I don't want to lose you." It was hard and conflicting and Oliver wished he could just send his emotions to Remi. Then he wouldn't have to use words when those had very clearly failed him.

"I'm willing to work with what you have available." Words had been failing him so clearly. "What do you want us to be, Remi?" The last time he spoke such a thing was awful- when Remi had hurt him, but maybe the hopeful new answer would help him.

My heart beating, my soul breathing,
I found my life when I laid it down,
Upward falling, spirit soaring

remi Took a fall from a windy height, I only knew how to hold on tight & pray for love enough to last all night At the risk of restarting an argument all over again, Remi gave Oliver a long look, debating whether or not his question was worth asking. He couldn't tell which part of him was curious; the jagged bitter part, or the lingering kind part. Tapping his foot beneath the table, the Alchemist offered a smile that was almost a wince, as he decided. "If I can ask, Oliver...I know I said things with a cruel tone to you and such, but...what was it I said that hurt you so deeply?" To Remi's mind, he and Oliver had had as many negative interactions as pleasant ones. He'd helped the man when he first arrived in Caido that was true, but other than a quick expedition to help Oliver sort out his shifts, the Alchemist wasn't entirely sure when the pair had become good enough friends for his carelessness and callousness to wound so deeply. Then again, perhaps Oliver simply had a bigger heart than Remi.

Oliver

The words said to him were not ones Oliver ever expected to hear. It never occurred to him that Remi would want to know something like that nor had he really tried to actually focus on what made him so upset. Pausing, Oliver could only give the other man silence. When he thought about it, it felt extremely narcissistic of him to be so upset.

Eventually, he found something that seemed about right. What felt to him like the reason why he had formed such a bond with Remi. "It's... when I first arrived, you and Sunjata were the ones to help me and when you don't really have any memories of friends or anything... I didn't have much of anything to compare it to... I guess I just trusted you? And I really looked up to you." His voice was quiet, hoping that nobody around them was listening in. It was embarrassing and pitiful of him and for once, he was glad that Remi couldn't feel his emotions. "I guess when you said you didn't want to know anything about me nor to have any future with me I assumed that meant you didn't care about me at all... and I- I don't know." Except he did know. He knew exactly what he could've said next, but wasn't ready.

All of this just made him feel... bad. The more he thought about it, the more he regretted his past actions. How immature he had been and that he had simply overreacted over what happened with Remi. "I've made a lot of mistakes lately, a shit ton. When we last spoke, I had just been cursed and that combined with everything else... I guess I just overreacted." His voice was quiet and all he could do was keep his eyes away from Remi's cold stare, hoping it would prevent him from feeling too overwhelmed.

My heart beating, my soul breathing,
I found my life when I laid it down,
Upward falling, spirit soaring

remi Took a fall from a windy height, I only knew how to hold on tight & pray for love enough to last all night The Alchemist tried not to shake his head at the idea he was anyone to look up to. He never had been, and it made something in his chest tighten uncomfortably to hear the words from Oliver's lips. But if it was what the other man had thought, so be it. At the very least, Oliver had presumably learned his lesson that Remi was not at all anyone worth trying to imitate. "I..did just mean at the time." Remi offered in a low voice. "I was dealing with everything, and you.." He chuckled slightly, green eyes falling across Oliver's face with a slow shake of his head. "You wanted to talk about the composition of rocks. You didn't do anything wrong, not really. But I won't lie to you Oliver, at the time, I could not have cared less about the things that interested in you. When you showed up talking about my wagon, asking what I'd been up to and trying to tell me all the things going on in your life, Ronin and I had nearly...well, we'd nearly walked away from each other." The Alchemist exhaled, closing his eyes for a moment and then taking a deep breath. "I think it was all just bad timing and a great lack of patience on my part."

Oliver

Shifting his eyes, Olliver finally looked back at Remi. The response was hoenstly ten times better than what he had expected. Multiple misunderstandings were cleared up. Rather than Remi having very little care for him, he instead had far more going on than he had ever expected. As well, Oliver now understood why Remi might have said the things he did. Rather than just being frustrated, the man just had more important things to be concerned about.

A moment of silence was given between the two as Oliver waited for the right time to speak. "I didn't make things any easier on you, honestly. I was kind of a bit selfish and I'm sorry for that. I hope I've grown a lot since we last spoke and I know I still have a lot of room left." He had experienced far little compared to Remi and therefore, there was still a complete innocence to him which had long sense abandoned Remi. "I shouldn't have forced my problems on you and really, I should've been able to read the situation a lot better." Both of them were dealing with their own things and hopefully, that would mean now they could move on.

"if you're... willing to talk now I wouldn't mind staying here for a bit longer? And this time, you can pick what we talk about, so no worries about talk of boring rocks." Would his joke land well? Time to wait and see.

My heart beating, my soul breathing,
I found my life when I laid it down,
Upward falling, spirit soaring

remi Took a fall from a windy height, I only knew how to hold on tight & pray for love enough to last all night The Alchemist shrugged at that, softly shaking his head. "Hey, stop stealing my apology, would you?" He said with a crooked grin. Leaning over his shoulder and catching the eye of Mik behind the bar, Remi pointed towards their glasses and gave the man a look. He nodded, clearly picking up on the request for a refill. Turning back around, the Alchemist moved his empty glass to the side of the table. "You mentioned you'd been cursed?" He raised a brow, lips widening into a genuine smirk of amusement. "Welcome to the club."

Oliver

A smile manages to crack on Oliver's lips and he shakes his head. It was a definite improvement on their prior relationships and judging by Remis response, things are actually starting to improve between the two. It was made even better when Remi seemingly notified one of the workers and hopefully, that'd mean more alcohol for him.

Honestly, Oliver should've expected for Remi to mention his curse thing and by this point, it was kind of a massive joke to Oliver. Letting out a dramatic groan, he leaned his head back before running a hand through his hair. "Yep. It wasn't fun, not at the time." Returning to face Remi once more, he tried to look calm and show that he genuinely wasn't bothered anymore by this. "So... I may have been a really big idiot around Frey. I was complaining and being upset because a guy had drank my blood once and then gave me mixed signals following." It wasn't a dramatic story, far from it, but at the moment? It was all of Oliver's world... which is pitiful and stupid.

Waving a hand in the air, Oliver continued on."Honestly, I really should've been smarter because genius me was like 'Yeah, Frey is the god of sex, they'd love a dildo' and you can assume what happened next." There is a raise of his eyebrows and Oliver waited, watching for any sort of response from Remi.

My heart beating, my soul breathing,
I found my life when I laid it down,
Upward falling, spirit soaring

remi Took a fall from a windy height, I only knew how to hold on tight & pray for love enough to last all night The Alchemist could only smirk hearing that Oliver had been an idiot, and that it had been around Frey. He wasn't surprised at the former and in context with Frey, suddenly it all made more sense. "An ascended, then?" Remi's response was fairly sympathetic. He knew all too well how confusing things could be with the rush of pleasure that their teeth could cause. It did make things complicated, to be so instantly physically wanting of someone else. No, Remi couldn't assume what happened next. Raising his brows, he shook his head. "I'd say they fucked you with it, but that doesn't seem like much of a curse."

Oliver

Rubbing at his neck, Oliver nodded. It was awkward and embarrassing, but by this point he was pretty comfortable with talking about his mistakes. "Yeah... it was really confusing. Dude came up to me within a week of me being here. Didn't even know about the details of the biting thing. One thing let to another and..." He waved his hand in the air for a moment before dropping it back down. It's probably a tale that Remi had heard before. "It was made worse when he flirted with me again during LongNight. Kinda embarrassing now that I think about it, how I felt about the dude. But eh, past is in the past and trust me, I learned my lesson." Learned his lesson to not fall for people... he's certainly done things with people sporadically lately, such as that more recent time in the Greatwoods.

And oh- things just got better. Remi didn't understand what Oliver meant. Laughing, he shook his head. "I. Wish. Nope. Frey instead gave me that dildo. As my dick. Awful shit, I tell you. Embarrassing as well and I had to wear super baggy pants." He offers the man a light shrug before grinning. "Maybe that's why I acted like such a dick." Followed by some childish laughter, clearly amused by his own joke.

My heart beating, my soul breathing,
I found my life when I laid it down,
Upward falling, spirit soaring

remi Took a fall from a windy height, I only knew how to hold on tight & pray for love enough to last all night "Trust me, I well know the effects of being bitten." The Alchemist agreed with a nod. Sam..Isla, Rexanna...There were others who had bitten him, but none who'd elicited a stronger reaction from him than those three. 'It can certainly...confused things." Narrowing his eyes in an effort to understand, as Oliver explained, Remi could only lean back in his chair looking amused. 'As far as curses go...sounds like you got off easy. Or..not, as the case seems to have been." This latter part was said with a shit-eating grin, Remi's assumption being that Oliver likely couldn't orgasm. Then again, what did he know?

Oliver

There is a faint smile and a nod. Oliver is happy that Remi is able to understand- that the man doesn't blame him or look down on him for being so confused with his feelings. "On the brightside, I've fixed things with me and the Ascended who bit me... it's nice to know that I don't hold anything against him and that he and I can just live our lives normally." Oliver was half tempted to call Amun a friend... but they really weren't friends, were they?

The little joke earns a huff of laughter, something Oliver cant suppress simply due to being so surprised by the comment. Fuck was that a terrible joke. "I was both lucky and unlucky. I could've been, I don't know, cursed to have snakes for arms... instead it looked like I was constantly turned on." Shaking his head, Oliver felt his face heating up a small bit when he thought back on the situation with Loren and how the man chose to point it out.

It wasn't hard to assume that Remi would probably ask about how it went away. The story wasn't anything fancy, but Oliver would go on ahead and tell it. "Luckily enough, Safrin was able to help me... she cured the curse and I'm super thankful for it... didn't even ask for anything in return." There is a smile on his face, causing his eyes to crinkle ever so slightly. It was nice to have received such a blessing from his goddess.

My heart beating, my soul breathing,
I found my life when I laid it down,
Upward falling, spirit soaring

remi Took a fall from a windy height, I only knew how to hold on tight & pray for love enough to last all night Remi nodded at that. "Glad to hear it." There were those for whom Remi could forgive their emotional trespasses against him, and those he couldn't. Knowing what it was now to carry a life-long grudge, he was glad that Oliver had gotten past his. 'Snakes for arms? Oh no. Frey is a bit more vindictive than that." He commented wryly, having been on the receiving end of Frey's curses before. Raising a brow at the mention of Safrin, Remi resisted the urge to add: yet. Instead, he took another swallow of his drink. "So you're on good terms with her, then?"

Oliver

There is a silent nod and a smile and Oliver moves to hopefully take a sip of his refilled drink seeing as by now, it's probably been refilled. Totally. It's relaxing and reassuring to have Remi say something like that, even if it was so simple.

The topic shifts on and Oliver finds himself shaking his head. "You're right. What was I thinking, snakes for arms. That's too... simple." Oliver paused for a moment, trying to come up with a joke but ultimately coming to a total blank. "I did luck out on the curse department, seeing as mine was... just really awkward. Kinda glad that only one person ever noticed it." It was something Oliver was comfortable with talking about now, absolutely, but he felt bad for anyone who had to see it. To feel bad because of a curse Oliver brought upon himself. It was uncomfortable, to say the least.

It seemed Remi was at least somewhat comfortable with talking about Safrin and it was way easier to talk about her than Frey. "I should hope so... I'm still not sure where I fall with her, but I do really like her. She has... helped me out a lot, even when I've only prayed to her a small few times. It kind of gives me like, something to look forward to? She's like an anchor... and I'm really happy I prayed to her in the first place." It was super sappy and Oliver finds himself biting down on his lip. "I really hope everyone can find something like that here... maybe it wont be Safrin, but everyone deserves something to help them or to aspire. I'm so lucky that Safrin is that for me."

My heart beating, my soul breathing,
I found my life when I laid it down,
Upward falling, spirit soaring

remi Took a fall from a windy height, I only knew how to hold on tight & pray for love enough to last all night As for aspiring to a calling like the one Safrin offers...Remi doesn't comment. With everything that has happened with Ronin and Aoife, and now with Seren, he can't in good conscience say he wishes such a life upon anyone. But if Oliver is happy, he is content enough to simply smile and nod. After a bit more conversation and a few more drinks, the Alchemist eventually bids the blacksmith a goodnight. He's a husband to get home to, one who will certainly have wondered where Remi had gotten off to all night, and why he's returning home smelling like alcohol without having asked Ronin to join him. ~FIN