leave me blind but play the reel

i've seen fire & i've seen rain.
i've seen sunny days that i thought would never end

Though Remi says nothing, his head further inclines, avian in its angle. The skin around his eyes tightens and then relaxes as he considers all the things Finn knows about him, weighed against those he doesn't. That Remi is a demigod, but not anything about his abilities if Finn's surprise at his wings and water-magic are any indication. That he is married to Ronin, but nothing of Aoife or Seren. That he is in Torchline as her Governor, but not why.

'I don't have many feelings available to be hurt or disrespected." Remi says as if to absolve Finn of any guilt despite the fact he hasn't yet compared them. Thunder rumbles and the rain around them begins to fall all the harder for it, yet none reaches them.

"Once, I was the type of man to find himself lost on a beach, asking about inventions." Remi says mildly. "Though...I would have been more tongue-tied than you have been so far if the situation was the same." Finn does not seem to harbour the same sexual uncertainties that manifested as social awkwardness that Remi once did. Even now he sits closer than Remi would have managed, holds more eye contact.

awareness is the enemy of sanity

”That’s not true.” Finn’s voice is quiet, his smile melting into something a little more genuine, if not wistful, lost. ”You have feelings, but they are buried so far down that even you can’t reach them. You are a fortress. Your walls are impenetrable, your defences absolute. But that does not mean the things you are made of are gone.” It spills out of him, the words, and he reaches for them as they leave his mouth. It’s too late, though.

With an awkward sort of laugh, Finn rakes his fingers through his wet curls. ”Being tongue-tied does not seem to be my problem, no,” he agrees, letting out a long sigh through pursed lips. ”I am sorry, Remi. If you formerly had a habit of consistently putting your foot in your mouth, then perhaps I am wrong. We are identical in that regard.”

for once you hear the screaming

it never stops

FINN

i've seen fire & i've seen rain.
i've seen sunny days that i thought would never end

Remi grows quite still, both wanting to hear more about the ways he is seen through Finn's eyes, but also wanting to disappear. Indeed, as he sits motionless shadows begin to overtake him. Firelight flickers from his magic but it isn't enough to break the illusion; the Remi that threatens to disappear is stretched long by the warm glow of flames before his fingers begin to move to keep the magic at bay.

"Not gone, but cleansed." Remi says, his accent growling around the last word. "I have had memories taken from me. People plucked from my mind. And most recently my soul was cleansed by Ludo." Remi turns to Finn fully now, his stare grave. "No one can reach the things I was once made of, least of all me."

Remi too chuckles at that. "I was gay in a place where such a thing was not only frowned upon but illegal. And back then, I was a terrible liar and had almost no ability to hide my emotions." Scratching at the side of his unshaven cheek, Remi smiled fondly at such simple and sweet memories. "So yes, you could say I had that habit."

awareness is the enemy of sanity

Finn does not look at Remi as he swears the man begins to disappear. He keeps his eyes steady on the suck and push of the waves, even if it is starting to become difficult to make them out through the rain, through the thunder and the oncoming storm. Only when he sees the Alchemist snap back into focus does he turn his head; it may well be just another power he has not seen yet, but he will not take the risk.

”Cleansed,” he repeats, not liking the sound of the word on his tongue. It tastes like medicine and dry parchment. Finn sighs. ”I think you are wrong,” he says softly. ”I think those parts of you are still in reach. But you are a man who is terrified of hope, Remi. That is what I see when I look at you. You are afraid of your own salvation, because you don’t know if you can survive it.”

He does not expect the insight into the other man’s past, listening quietly by and watching him, interested. ”Well, I definitely do not share that part of your past. So at least we can cross that off the list, even if the same habit came from it.”

for once you hear the screaming

it never stops

FINN

i've seen fire & i've seen rain.
i've seen sunny days that i thought would never end

Remi doesn't know enough about himself at this point, to know if Finn is close to the truth or merely rambling. Skeptical but willing, like a beast being dragged towards the slaughterhouse by one who normally feeds it, the Alchemist looks into the face so very like his own, wondering what the mind within knows that his does not. "What are you afraid of, Finn?" He finds himself asking through dry lips, his pale sea-shattered stare fixed against eyes that look the way the waves sound.

'Mmmm, from what I have heard, Caido is much more tolerant about such things." He says on the exhale; some shaky imagined tension broken. Or maybe just brought into the light. Remi worries that Finn is going to change him—perhaps that's the fear of hope the Spyglass has mentioned—and indeed the Alchemist is both intrigued and revolted by the idea. It makes him feel guilty that anyone should change him other than Ronin. Or perhaps more precisely, that he'd allow anyone but Ronin to even try.

awareness is the enemy of sanity

Remi’s question makes Finn stutter in a breath, and the first time he tries to reply he’s cut off by a clap of thunder overhead. Absently he realises that it looks more like night now than day on the beach, and they are the only two still around. He clears his throat, reaching up to take off his glasses, to stare down at them as if he might crush them with his bare hands for a moment. ”I am afraid of losing my mind,” he says quietly. ”That I will lose my grip on what is real, that I will fall into a dream I can’t wake up from.”

It’s a quiet confession, one not made easily, one shared with fewer people than he cares to admit. ”I am an insomniac, Remi,” he explains. ”I suffered with night terrors as a child, and my mind has learned to cope by refusing to shut itself off. My own brain’s solution to its problem was to make a larger problem.” That is the story of his life, in a nutshell.

for once you hear the screaming

it never stops

FINN

i've seen fire & i've seen rain.
i've seen sunny days that i thought would never end

The light from Remi's flame seems all the more sinister for how dark the skies have become. Without his glasses, Finn looks all the more similar in a way that is both endearing and repellant. The stiff frames no longer block the lines on the Spyglass's face from Remi's wandering eyes, and wander they do. "Perhaps you and I ought to take a trip to the bottom of the ocean." The Alchemist says earnestly, though his accent makes the words sound more whimsical than he intends. "Find my lost pendant. It was a spy-glass made for me by Safrin." This bit of information was left out when last they spoke, but now Remi was finding it easier to speak with Finn knowing that he wasn't actively being recruited for anything.

Biting the inside of his lip, hearing Ronin's pleas in his mind that he shouldn't be allowed to fall asleep, the Alchemist briefly considers reaching out to take the other man's hand. He doesn't of course and the gesture is quickly shoved aside, or perhaps shelved.

"I could make you something for that." Remi offers instead, his voice soft and almost hesitant. He is an alchemist after all; creating something to make the Spyglass sleep wouldn't be a problem. "If only so your mind could figure out less...problematic ways of finding solutions."

awareness is the enemy of sanity

Finn actively shudders at that, but it’s a lighthearted exaggeration, at least, rather than the all too sincere admissions of a moment ago. ”I don’t do well under the water,” he says, his words quiet and deliberate. ”On it and near it is nothing. But under? I would kill us both in a panic,” he cautions, laughing quietly. It’s the way he terms it, that pendant made by Safrin - a spyglass - that makes him feel like perhaps he is dreaming even now. It’s all so neat, so perfectly tied together.

He has tilted his head up, able to see forks of lightning now, in the places where there are no clouds (they are few and far between). He misses the change in Remi’s expression, which is a shame, for the opportunity it offers. But Finn does consider the other man at his suggestion. The smile he offers is boyish and kind, but holds an old weight of resignation. ”You are welcome to try, if you feel so inclined. Nothing has ever worked.”

for once you hear the screaming

it never stops

FINN

i've seen fire & i've seen rain.
i've seen sunny days that i thought would never end

"I'm quite good to have around in a panic." The Alchemist remarks with a bit of a smirk. "I can be large enough to force you to be still, magic enough to subdue you, or cuddly enough to comfort." He splayed his fingers as if to emphasize the wealth of things he was. Broken pieces aside. "I can't breathe under the water on my own anymore, though." Remi notes with a bit of a sigh. There are ways around it of course but...he never really got to fully utilize his octopus shift before it was taken.

The Alchemist can't help but rise to the challenge. With another avian-like tilt of his head, he regards Finn for another silent few moments. His eyes rise and fall, considering the wealth of things he doesn't know about Finn and yet wanting to understand just the same.

"How do you feel about stars, Finn?" A charged question, not that the Spyglass will know why.

awareness is the enemy of sanity

”I thought you said you didn’t do that sort of thing any more,” Finn remarks, watching Remi watch him, and it’s like looking at his reflection acting out of sync. He’s not sure he likes it, but he can’t seem to look away. ”Things like being good in a panic, I mean.”

Would Remi step into the role of protector for one, but not for the world? It’s difficult to disagree with either extreme, and the rolling thunder gives him an out, a distraction from that train of thought. ”Anymore?” he asks, feeling the story behind it but unable to fit the pieces together.

The question of stars has him furrowing his brow, the Spyglass looking for all the world like a lost child in the moment, trying to figure some meaning in the madness of life. ”The same way I feel about everything,” he says eventually. ”I find the stars interesting. Are they Safrin’s children? A map for travellers? Or just... dust, that we haven’t rubbed out of our eyes yet?”

for once you hear the screaming

it never stops

FINN

i've seen fire & i've seen rain.
i've seen sunny days that i thought would never end

"I can be good at things I don't do often." Remi says with a mild shrug. Then, with a bit of mischief in his pale stare, the Alchemist tilts his head slightly to the side evermore, as if testing the Spyglass. "Yes. 'Anymore', implying that once I could." It's the sort of remark he might have expected Finn to give in a semi-similar situation, and that is the only reason Remi says it. "I had many shifts before...Before being touched by Ludo, as you put it." Splaying his fingers and looking at them, he sighed into his hands. "Octopus, is the shift I was thinking of." He added.

"Not her children, I know that. Those she lets fall so that they might burn through lives." Effigies of life dedicated to her. It wasn't entirely fair to think of Seren that way, and yet..? It was impossible not to.

"Stars are..." Remi closed his fist, lowering his eyes to where his fingers had curled up. "..they've always been meaningful to me, I suppose." The telescopes he'd built as a younger and much more naive man, the stars he'd given as gifts once meant to line the ceilings of tea-houses. The Star he had fallen in love with.

Opening his palm there was a star-shaped bit of rock. Opalescent in colour and extraordinarily beautiful, Remi extended his hand out towards Finn that he might take it. "Place it under your pillow. It should help you sleep." He said humbly.

---

Remi has made:

Sleep-Stone | When placed beneath the user's pillow the greatly assists with achieving restful sleep. (Made by Remi)

awareness is the enemy of sanity

Remi is more forthcoming than he ever has been so far, and Finn is caught off guard by his candidness. It’s easier, he realises, when the man who looks so much like him acts like a closed book. Acts the way Finn himself acts. ”I have never seen an octopus, apart from illustrations,” he admits, pausing that the thunder might roar at them overhead. They are illuminated now in sheets of lightning, and the rain bounces against the bubble Remi has made. A hard rain.

He raises his eyebrows, but chooses not to comment on the nature of star-children. The third demi-god at the Taliesin household is still fresh in his mind, and that is an issue for Dorian now. Finn would do well to withdraw, in fact, from this conversation, from this man who speaks of stars and watches him with a mix of such confusion and vast comprehension that it’s almost maddening. But that has never been Finn’s way.

The stone that appears in Remi’s palm is not one he sees the Alchemist pick up, but casual magic such as this is not within the scope of Finn’s normal - beyond that which his own mind creates, at least. So he compartmentalises where needed, reaching out to accept the beautiful trinket, running a thumb over it.

”You ought to become a doctor, with tricks like that,” he murmurs. ”...Thank you.”

for once you hear the screaming

it never stops

FINN

i've seen fire & i've seen rain.
i've seen sunny days that i thought would never end

Remi continues to stare at his hands, a slow smile spreading on his lips. "I could control the individual suction cups...thousands of them, but they were all entirely independent of one another.." He muses under his breath, illusion-magic whispering the likeness of what a partial-shift would once have been across his skin. "And the way it—I—moved through water..." His words gave way to unconscious awe, that he quickly concealed with the clearing of his throat.

The Alchemist does his best to make sure their hands don't brush more than is necessary as Finn takes the stone. They aren't quite a paradox, and yet Remi thinks the world might still splinter if certain things were to happen between them. Palms pressed together creating a rift in time, or something equally absurd.

"A DoCtaH HuH FiNN" "You don't know what I do for Ludo, do you." Remi asked sharply, as Finn suggests that Remi's powers might be better suited for healing. For good.

awareness is the enemy of sanity

Remi and Finn are both staring at the Alchemist’s hands now, and though only one of them knows the lived experience of what he’s describing, Finn can almost imagine - until he doesn’t have to. He’s given up trying to figure out whether it’s his mind filling in the blanks, or yet more power that he hasn’t picked up on from Remi. ”A dreamer,” he remarks to no one in particular, casting his gaze back out to the dark and churning sea.

The sharpness of the other man’s question makes him flinch a little, unprepared for the sudden switch in tone, but Finn finds himself smiling nonetheless. ”Of course I do,” he says, balancing the star-shaped stone on two of his fingers. ”Light needs dark, life needs death. I know what you do for Ludo, and it is at odds with this man who has just made me a star to help me sleep. It must... eat you up inside.”

for once you hear the screaming

it never stops

FINN