Court of the Fallen was created in October of 2018 by Odd, Honey, and Crooked.
Skinning and hosting by the epically talented Kaons, and functionality fanciness by the coding magic of Neowulf. If you ever see either of them around, make sure to show them some love!
As Finn rises, it's a complete relief to Remi's nervous system; he can breathe again, his eyes can move again safely. So it is that as the older man addresses the woman across the room, the almost-alchemist looks at his feet and ankles. He can see bruises there that match the ones on his wrists, and the sight of them makes his hands shake.
"No!" Remi hisses from beneath the stairs, a hand shooting out as if to grab Finn's ankle and then thinking better of it. Instead, his fingers dance on the floor like a wound spider, adrenaline and fear making shaky fingers which are normally so still. "He will...you cannot!"
The woman now at the bar, knocks back a glass of something and scowls. "Not even you could brighten this one's bed." She says, shaking her head. "Real piece of work. Mayhap if we get him drunk enough and shove him in the stable with one of the donkey's he won't know the difference." The flat tone of her voice suggests that she thinks it's a real possibility.
Like you'd get your knuckles bloody for me
Code taken from Sky who is utter perfection
Speaks with a thick Italian accent.
Force and magic can be used against Remi without permission.
Whatever he would do or what Finn shouldn’t, he doesn’t know; the not-Spyglass can’t risk the boy being found and thrown out, not now that he’s committed to him, and so he merely adjusts himself to lean properly back against the stairs and address his fellow prostitute. He tsks under his breath, nodding in understanding and straightening up, looking thoughtfully up the stairs. ”Perhaps two of you,” he suggests, rolling his shoulders in a shrug. ”Though whether that’s two of you in bed or two to throw him in the stable is your decision.”
He is aware, of course, of the boy behind him, but there’s little he can do or offer, not unless he wants to risk him being discovered. So instead Finn pulls away from the stairs, meandering over towards the bar as well. He gestures as if to adjust his silks, but from Remi’s perspective, it’s an indication for him to move, to head towards the kitchens where he’s just come from.
The woman laughs. She might once have been pretty, might still be capable of it too in the right light. Now she is just used. Still shapely enough, it isn't her sad eyes that men and women see when they take her to bed, so it hardly matters.
"Not yet. Like I said, he's demanding another since this one came down with a fainting spell." Huffing under her breath and pouring herself—and Finn—a drink, she just scowls and shakes her head. "He had her all bundled up in about a thousand blankets like he wanted her to sweat." Her upper lip curls. "Had his hands around her throat and her head between the slats of the headboard. Some fainting spell."
The sheerness of the silks Finn wears is almost enough to keep Remi rooted to the spot. He can see far more than he can handle through the blue material, and the insidious heat that tugs at the back of his thighs threatens to keep him rooted in place. It's the woman's description that frees him—he wanted her to sweat—it drawing images of his mother in her bed during her last days. Gaunt, pale, a small shadow in her many blankets. He thinks he might be sick, and though he doesn't want to move, if he's sick here, he'll undoubtedly be found.
So he hunkers down, moving as silently as he can manage in the direction Finn has motioned.
Like you'd get your knuckles bloody for me
Code taken from Sky who is utter perfection
Speaks with a thick Italian accent.
Force and magic can be used against Remi without permission.
Depositing the plate on the bar for a moment, that he can enjoy his drink, Finn accepts it and knocks it back in a fluid motion that speaks of practice rather than enjoyment. His lips twist at the description, though nothing reaches his stormy eyes, not even the violence committed against his fellow workers. They all have their own scars, their own bruises; some simply wear them better than others. ”I’d charge him before he has another,” he says quietly. ”He might end up walking and leaving one of you dead. That’s just a waste.”
Sighing and pulling back, grabbing up the plate again, he glances fleetingly over his shoulder to ensure that the boy has scarpered where he needs to. ”Best of luck to whoever gets him,” he says in consolation, casting a wave and swanning away back to the kitchens, hopefully with Remi creeping ahead of him now.
The remainder of the conversation has gone unheard. Blind with nausea Remi has slipped into the kitchen which is thankfully empty. The bread Finn had offered him passes his lips once again, landing in an unappetizing heap on the ground. Distantly the boy knows he needs to find something to clean it up, but he also knows he needs to hide again. The tension is excruciating, knowing that if he stays he's more likely to be seen, but if he goes and leaves evidence here, it will set eyes looking for him. So he does the best he can in the moment, removing his shirt to clean up his vomit. There's nowhere to leave it, and so he balls it up, bringing it with him as he flees to the darkest corner of the kitchen he can find.
All he can think of is his mother, ravaged by disease. Even in those days when she was hardly more than a skeleton, Remi had heard his father demanding she continue her wifely duties. The almost-alchemist would have lived with the screams of rabbits in his ears for all eternity if it meant blocking out the noises he had heard coming from the room in those days. Trying to contain the sobs that expand his ribcage and make taut the few muscles on his body, Remi buries his head against his knees. His toes curl as his hands clutch the shirt holding his vomit—and soon as his blood, as he bites through the skin of his lip in an effort to keep himself in one piece.
Like you'd get your knuckles bloody for me
Code taken from Sky who is utter perfection
Speaks with a thick Italian accent.
Force and magic can be used against Remi without permission.
The footsteps that pad across the floor of the kitchens are near silent, and they pass by Remi as if he isn’t there at all. Finn has cleaned his own vomit off this floor more than once - his and others, truth be told - and sometimes being unknown and unseen is the single thread of sanity holding you down. So he passes by as if the boy is successful in his attempts to hide, as if the world is paying him no mind, save for two things.
The first is a clean and fluffy towel, fetched from an adjacent laundry room - this he drops over Remi’s shoulders. The second is spoken from where Finn is leaning against the sink, his eyes on the void of the plug hole. ”Your father,” he says, able to put the pieces together easily from he boy’s reaction. ”He may just have an accident tonight, if he isn’t careful.”
Remi flinches beneath the weight of the towel, his eyes wide and glassy and fixated intently on a drop of soup—blood—on the ground before him. Before he can do wipe himself off—there is honey on one side of his mouth and vomit on the other—he's on his feet. Hands balled into fists at his side, even this small motion makes his arms shake so lacking in energy is he. Shirtless, he bears the markings of lashes, though his aren't as deep as the ones given out at the Needle. These are from belts wielded by the hands of a drunk and angry man with poor aim. His ribs show with every shaky breath he takes, but for once his green eyes don't wander away from where they've landed on the side of Finn's face.
"No." He says, the word halfway between a growl and a whine. Infuriatingly loyal and hopelessly brainwashed, Remi takes a step toward Finn and away from the safety of the corner, as if he means to somehow back up his demand with action.
Like you'd get your knuckles bloody for me
Code taken from Sky who is utter perfection
Speaks with a thick Italian accent.
Force and magic can be used against Remi without permission.
”I didn’t say I would be causing the accident.” Finn sighs, straightening up and turning to lean against the counter to watch the slow and clumsy progression across the room. The kitchen seems to warble and threaten to change around them, as if the walls are sweating, and he reaches up to rub at his eyes like he can make it change, like he can make it make sense. ”You’re a mess,” he tells the almost-alchemist. It isn’t said sharply or with venom; it’s a mere description of the state he is in.
”If you are to stay here until your father is ready to leave, you may as well either rest or be useful. Which is it going to be?” he asks, leaving the decision up to the trembling and abused boy squaring up to him, beaten and starving and sad. Finn sees himself in Remi, before he learned to step inside himself and away from all that was happening to his body.
Remi doesn't notice the trembling. Whether it's caused by his own anger and pain or whether this is Finn's subconscious trying to shift the world around them, he hasn't a clue. That the older man's words are said without insult doesn't mean the almost-alchemist doesn't hear them that way. His lashes flutter over eyes bright with tears as if he might somehow blink them out of existence. His teeth clench making his jaw pulse with anger that looks too big on him, too clumsy.
"I.." Remi stammers, his anger too exhausting to hold. Shoulders slumping, his eyes fall to the sink and away from Finn's face and the contours of his body that can be easily seen through the silk. "What...do you need me to do..?" He asks, his willingness to be of service, to do what he is told not at all held back by the fear of what it is he'll be asked to do. Finn is older, stronger, more experienced. Just as men want him for certain things, might he not want the same? In this place of dark desires and filthy passions, being asked to be useful seems a dangerous thing indeed.
Like you'd get your knuckles bloody for me
Code taken from Sky who is utter perfection
Speaks with a thick Italian accent.
Force and magic can be used against Remi without permission.
”I need you to hold still. I’m not going to hurt you, I’m going to clean you up.” Finn turns back to the sink, soaking a cloth in warm water and wringing it out, mostly, so it’s damp enough to wipe over Remi’s face. He cleans away honey and vomit, dust and dirt, until there’s a boy’s face underneath. ”There,” he says, giving the same treatment to his hands, before handing him the towel again so he can dry off. The shirt he doesn’t touch - it’s no good for anything else now, so Remi will just have to deal.
”I have to go and clean up my client,” he says, voice carefully level. ”While I’m gone, you can clean the room. Can you handle that?” Already he’s heading back out into the corridor, unwinding a slip of silk from around himself and tossing it to Remi; it’s not much, but he can at least look like part of the establishment.
He holds still as best he can, though he trembles beneath Finn's fingers despite how perfunctorily they move across his skin. It's still far more contact that he's able to abide, more than he's used to, and he can't help the way he simultaneously leans into and away from the touches. When Finn is done and Remi is freshly rosy-cheeked from the scrubbing, he looks uncertainly at the towel in his hands.
Wordlessly the almost-alchemist nods. He folds the towel into a tight square and places it over the vomit-filled shirt in the corner where he can deal with it later. Trotting soundlessly behind Finn, Remi catches the offered silk with a start. It's still warm from Finn's body and smells faintly of sex and soap. He thinks he might throw up again, but he wraps it around his shoulders just the same, trying not to shiver against the heat it still holds. Remi's mind is a traitorous place to be at this age in his development, and helplessly he tries to scan the floorboard, the railing, the stairs, anything to keep his mind off of the smooth silk around him and the halo of sex that lingers hazily in the air.
Like you'd get your knuckles bloody for me
Code taken from Sky who is utter perfection
Speaks with a thick Italian accent.
Force and magic can be used against Remi without permission.
And thus ends the point at which this could still safely be considered a dream and not a nightmare. They walk stairs together, do Remi and Finn, for longer than they should. The stairs stretch and stretch, and the lights around them grow dim until, finally, they are both drowning in darkness. Finn can’t see the floor beneath his feet, and his breath sounds too loud in his ears. He stops, suddenly, and there’s nothing all around them.
”What’s...” Finn glances down, but instead of silks he’s naked, and the world feels like it drops away beneath them. ”No.” A thrumming, like a heartbeat, pulses in the air, oppressive and hammering with its panic. He puts his hands to his ears like he can block it out, but of course it does no good.
Remi follows, blinded by blue eyes and blue silk, he doesn't notice the warping of the hallway. Doesn't notice because he doesn't want to notice. But then suddenly his hands are heavy with something, and he can feel warm fabric between his fingers. Glancing up sharply it is to see the smooth willowy body of Finn fully exposed; Remi holding the silks the man once wore.
"I..I did not mean to—" He stammers as his cheeks and belly flush with heat. Sharply he turns his head away, green-eyes like saucers as his heart runs away with him. Holding out the silks with shaky hands, they turn to dust and blow away, creating small mirrors on the floorboards where they fall. Now no matter where he looks all he can see is the pained expression on Finn's face.
Down the hall there's a gruff voice—his father's voice—saying there's been an accident.
Like you'd get your knuckles bloody for me
Code taken from Sky who is utter perfection
Speaks with a thick Italian accent.
Force and magic can be used against Remi without permission.
Of course there’s been an accident. There was always going to be an accident, and there’s no getting away from it. Finn is flushed with fever heat already, and the thrum of the heartbeat in the walls grows more frantic. He glances back at Remi as if he doesn’t recognise him at all, stormy eyes following the scattering dust of silks as they pepper the floor. ”I suppose I had better go,” he murmurs, his voice the calm timbre of those who know they are already damned.
He glances towards the sound of the voice - there’s a burning outline of light, now, showing a door that seemed far further away only a moment ago. It feels like something is dripping from the ceiling - water, perhaps, or ink. Nothing makes sense and it’s difficult to put the pieces together. Where are they? Why can’t he put the pieces together? His feet take him towards the door regardless, as if it’s the only thing he’s capable of doing now.
