[se] wild in the silence

maybe i'm a runaway train, maybe i'm a feather in a hurricane

"Oh? And what were you like at 16?" Remi asks before he can catch the words, nearly reaching out for them as he's seen Finn almost do in their conversations previously. Still, it's innocently enough asked and follows from what they were saying.  So the Alchemist tells himself.

Standing rather than kneeling—Remi able to move and create stone without the need to physically manipulate them like Finn does—the Alchemist narrows his eyes with no small amount of skepticism and distrust. Not directed specifically at Finn, but for the shadowy backdrop against which he's been painting himself. "Then who is it up to?" Remi wonders, unsure what probably to place on Finn actually answering his question.

THE ALCHEMIST

maybe it's a long gray game, but maybe that's a good thing

memory’s so treacherous

There’s no reason for Finn to answer Remi’s question. There have been a lot of questions prior to this that he hasn’t answered, that have not been half as personal. But perhaps it’s the memory of the aftermath of their previous conversation that loosens his tongue; some attempt to give what he has denied in the past. Still, he’s no longer looking at Remi, his concentration very firmly on his work, and his smile is bitter at best. ”A prostitute,” he says, pinning the net down and rising to his feet.

Finn dusts his hands off on his wet pants, stepping back to stand with Remi. He’s sweating now too, from the exertion, raising an arm to wipe at his face with his sleeve. ”His name is the Eye. He is the overseer of our operation. Pulls all the strings together, ties them in a neat little bow.”

one moment you’re lost in a carnival of delights

the next, it leads you somewhere you don’t want to go

FINN

maybe i'm a runaway train, maybe i'm a feather in a hurricane

That was not the answer Remi had expected.

He hates it.

It's good that Finn is looking down for it affords Remi the opportunity to scan this man anew. Previously he might have wondered at him being a virgin, someone very much wanting intimacy but never quite finding his way to it. That he made a living feigning intimacy for others was grotesque. Bordering on the unbelievable and yet...the way Finn simply got on with things, his disarming and strangely alluring aura...it did fit. It fit in a way the Alchemist abhorred and wanted to desperately know every detail of, and he found himself peeling his gaze away, not wanting to see Finn the way his minds-eye was portraying him. A tangle of limbs, hands skilled at manipulating more than just netting, a pair of glasses hastily placed on a bedside table...

"Was that what you were like, or was that your job?" Remi asked from very dry lips, gaze fixed firmly ahead.

The change in topic is only slightly welcome. "He says jump and you say how high, is that it?"

THE ALCHEMIST

maybe it's a long gray game, but maybe that's a good thing

memory’s so treacherous

He can feel himself pulling the shutters down around himself, the admission - even to a man who shares his face - a little too far for him, pushing further than he is comfortable. But there’s no taking it back now, and Remi’s silence allows Finn to fill the gaps with anything his mind likes. And his mind is a traitorous thing on a good day. ”Are they not the same thing at that age?” he asks softly. ”Besides which, a job implies I saw a penny of the payment.”

Clearing his throat, he glances around at the rest of the mounds of earth. ”That’s right,” he says of his overseer. With a brief nod, Finn moves towards the next part of their work. ”Not all of us can be governors. Some of us have to work under them,” he points out.

one moment you’re lost in a carnival of delights

the next, it leads you somewhere you don’t want to go

FINN

maybe i'm a runaway train, maybe i'm a feather in a hurricane

"Are they?" Remi asks, genuinely uncertain. He turns despite his best intentions, to glance at Finn again. The man who shares his face. Frustratingly familiar though it is, the Alchemist has no idea what he's seeing, where the lines came from, what the lips might look like in a proper smile. "So is the difference now that you do get your payment?" It's a poor way of asking for Finn to say what he's like now, and having said the words, Remi is quite sure he's suitably ended the conversation with his thoughtlessness.

"Under them, mmm?" Stupidly, the corners of Remi's mouth pull into what threatens to be a smile. The words a play on prostitution and Finn's phrasing, but no soon are they said then the idea of it sours instantly. Clearing his throat, Remi shrugs and wipes at his forehead with the back of his arm. "I used to do as I was told as well. I liked it for a long time and then hated it. Now that I am free to make my own choices..."

How that sentence was meant to end, Remi had no idea and so he merely exhaled a long breath through his nose and created another bit of netting for Finn.

THE ALCHEMIST

maybe it's a long gray game, but maybe that's a good thing

memory’s so treacherous

”I certainly thought so,” Finn supplies for Remi, shrugging his shoulders. He takes the netting as the other man creates it, heading over to the next mound of earth, shivering at a sharp gale that rips through his wet clothes straight to the bone. The Alchemist is right - the shutters come down with a bark of laughter, Finn stepping across the sand to move more rocks to secure the web of fronds. ”I suppose it is. I seem to spend the same amount of time on my knees, though.”

For different reasons, at least. Pinning down part of the net, he glances over his shoulder at Remi’s remark, gazing at the Alchemist with a stormy gaze that might just be a touch amused. ”I did not take you for someone with a sense of humour,” he says, bracing against his knee to get to his feet again. ”Go on, finish the sentence. Now that you are free to make your own choices...?”

one moment you’re lost in a carnival of delights

the next, it leads you somewhere you don’t want to go

FINN

maybe i'm a runaway train, maybe i'm a feather in a hurricane

'Well as long as you're getting paid." Remi replies, sensing the topic is over but relieved that it ended on a less unhappy note than he might have thought.

Now it was Remi's turn for casual crassness. Running his fingers through his curls and filling his lungs with a deep breath of salty and wet air, he exhaled with a shrug. "Oh I'm plenty funny when I want to be. It's just murder and being a cruel asshole takes up so much of my time now." Stormy as Finn's gaze was, the Alchemist met it evenly before turning back to assess their work.

Had he an ear to cock he would have done. Instead, his head twisted slightly to the side, considering Finn's invitation to continue. "Now I have never wanted to run away more, despite living arguably in the best conditions I've ever had." Remi had never thought to leave his father's wagon. Had never been unhappy with his one-room home in Northaven with the broken door. Had been content in Ronin's guildhouse even with the ghost of his soon-to-be-husband floating about. Now, with a home built by friends in paradise, an impressive job and stable relationship, the itch to disappear had never been stronger.

THE ALCHEMIST

maybe it's a long gray game, but maybe that's a good thing

memory’s so treacherous

Finn smiles to Remi, pressing the knuckles of one of his hands into the small of his back as if to release the tension there. ”I assume you were not intending to be funny just now,” he says; murder and being a cruel asshole are not things to laugh at, for the Spyglass. Perhaps his gallows humour needs some work. Perhaps he needs to loosen up. Perhaps.

Standing before their work, listening to the man at his side express his desire to run from all he has made, Finn feels his shoulders relax somewhat. ”Life is funny that way,” he murmurs. ”Always keeps you guessing. Keeps you wanting what you don’t have.” Glancing across at Remi, he swipes the rain and sweat form his eyes. ”I would offer to swap places with you for a while, but I would be found out instantly.”

one moment you’re lost in a carnival of delights

the next, it leads you somewhere you don’t want to go

FINN

maybe i'm a runaway train, maybe i'm a feather in a hurricane

"The truth can be funny, can't it?" Remi asks dryly, before shaking his head. "But no, I wasn't. Most don't find me funny, anymore." Precisely because of the murder-thing, and the asshole-thing.

Humming a note of agreement at Finn's characterisation of things, Remi bit the inside of his cheek. "It isn't just that you don't have it. It's knowing that you could have it." He mumbled, before nodding more to himself than to Finn, seemingly content with this summation of things.

"Is that so? I imagine you're actually more suited than I am." Prostitution teaching many valuable skills. The work Finn was doing with someone like Cian suggested he was capable in some respects. "Ronin would probably have something to say about it though. At least after a little while." This did make Remi smile. He could both see the Star being unhappy about the duplicity but also playing along with it like that episode of the office. He'd pretend nothing was amiss, that Finn was Remi, taking things as far as needed to continue the charade.

Turning towards Finn, illusion magic sprinkled across Remi's face to make the pair properly indistinguishable, the Alchemist-turned-Spyglass raised a brow. "And what would walking in your shoes, entail?" He asked in a poor mimicry of Finn's voice, his own accent not so easily smoothed away.

THE ALCHEMIST

maybe it's a long gray game, but maybe that's a good thing

memory’s so treacherous

”If I thought it mattered, I would ask if that bothered you,” Finn says, though he supposes he already has asked by proxy. He glances around, seeing no further mounds of earth that need netting, but Remi can always create more, and so he leaves it to the Alchemist to decide the next course of their work together. He decides not to remark about the other man’s situation any further - he has done so too much already, in their short time together.

Scoffing under his breath, Finn turns his face up to let the rain cool his skin, much as he is chilled in most places already. ”I’m not so sure about being suited,” he says, ”though from what I know of the Dark Star, I have little doubt that he would have something to say about it. Either that or I would leave Torchline with a concussion.”

When he tilts his head back down it’s to see literally himself, and Finn freezes, perturbed by the sight. He looks Remi up and down, chewing over his response. ”It involves knowing a lot of people, without ever letting them know you in return. There’s a lot of paperwork. A lot of monitoring. A lot of solitary research. I am not well-liked in my circle. You’re missing something, though.” Finn taps at his eyebrow, indicating the lack of glasses.

one moment you’re lost in a carnival of delights

the next, it leads you somewhere you don’t want to go

FINN

maybe i'm a runaway train, maybe i'm a feather in a hurricane

"My answer to that question thus far has been no. For a year, its been no." Running his tongue across the top of his mouth and sinking into the dissociation that too easily comes when he lets his eyes go unfocused, Remi snaps himself back into reality with a sharp inhale. "But something someone said recently has made me question that."

Grinning at the thought, the Alchemist shrugs mischeviously at the Spyglass. "Maybe." He said, looking roguish and full of bad-ideas. "Maybe not." Their free-pass notwithstanding, it would likely depend on what sort of mood Ronin was in when the idea was pitched that would determine the outcome. A good mood and his trouble-maker tendencacies might just be peaked. A bad mood and it was probably Remi who wouldn't hear the end of it, rather than Finn.

Considering Finn's response, now treating what was merely a hypothetical as some sort of challenge, schools his face into a neutral expression. He lets his lips turn down just so that he appears sad and thougthful despite there being no obvious traces of either. "You forget that I hid who I was for more than a decade." Remi reminds him. "As for not being well-liked, I have experience with that as well."

Laughing under his breath, the Alchemist shook his head. Reaching into his back pocket he placed a real pair of glasses on his face. Carefully pressing them against his nose with the infinite care he's seen Finn demonstrate, Remi looks through a wet curtain of curls into blue eyes that now match his own.

THE ALCHEMIST

maybe it's a long gray game, but maybe that's a good thing

memory’s so treacherous

”He sounds like a real piece of work, to put that thought in your head,” Finn says with a faint hint of amusement, lips curling up ever so slightly. ”As for your maybes and maybe-nots, I’d prefer to stand over here in the camp of not knowing.” Trouble maker tendencies Finn does not have; indeed, he seems ever on the search for a peace he cannot find. Quite why he keeps finding himself around Remi is an enigma - the Alchemist certainly does not instil in him a sense of peace.

Indeed, the way the Alchemist looks back at him - the way he looks back at himself makes it feel like the walls are closing in, like the world is growing dark. Remi places the glasses upon his nose, the gesture an admirable imitation of his own (and how closely has the other man been watching him to copy it, and how much of a hypocrisy is it to feel irritated?) and Finn inhales a shaky breath.

”And what do you see?” he asks, dreading and hoping for an answer that would match his own.

one moment you’re lost in a carnival of delights

the next, it leads you somewhere you don’t want to go

FINN

maybe i'm a runaway train, maybe i'm a feather in a hurricane

"Mmmm." Remi agrees, a dark amusement alight in his gaze. A piece of work indeed. "Better to let your mind fill in the details for you?" He quips, not knowing just how astute Finn's mind was at doing just that.

Remi should have felt badly about making Finn feel badly. One of the reasons why humans cared about hurting their own as opposed to squids or so, was simply because of resemblance. Nearly identical now, it should have twanged something inside of the Alchemist to see Finn so unsettled, but if anything it merely ignited something further inside of him. Though they were on the open beach, Remi felt as though he'd pinned Finn against a wall.

Smiling only faintly, the movement tempered but careful, Remi raises his fingers to adjust his glasses once more. "You don't tell others what you see, do you Finn." Not a question. There was something he saw, Remi knew that for certain. Something...intangible. Finn's eyes never lingered on anything precisely, which made Remi think the glasses just changed how the world looked. Sort of like how Remi saw when he was blind: the world beneath the world.

THE ALCHEMIST

maybe it's a long gray game, but maybe that's a good thing

memory’s so treacherous

”I wouldn’t say better, but it will do just that regardless,” Finn murmurs, his eyes never leaving Remi’s, though they look identical to his own currently; tired, too tired, always seeing too much, always taking it all in. It feels like being pinned against a wall, his chest tightening with it, awaiting the confirmation or the denial of something that really would make them alike. Finn is caught in it like a rabbit in a trap, baited, not caring that it’s impossible if he’d only look at it logically.

What Remi gives him is neither - it’s a mere slap in the face. He has never seen cruelty on his own face before. It’s an ugly look on him. ”I stopped telling people a long time ago. They never believe me,” he whispers, his voice trembling around the words. He’s cold, and he tells himself that’s the cause of it. Breaking Remi’s gaze, his eyes find the sand at their feet much as they would had Cian been standing before him. ”Do you need any more help with the netting?” he asks.

one moment you’re lost in a carnival of delights

the next, it leads you somewhere you don’t want to go

FINN