I will refrain & be the song [SEASONAL EVENT]

remi Took a fall from a windy height, I only knew how to hold on tight & pray for love enough to last all night It felt strange to think he needed an excuse to see Sam, but it certainly felt as though he did. After a few frustrated days of pondering, Remi finally decided that he'd try his hand at one of these strange LongNight rituals. Even if it was mostly just a strange precaution, at least it would give the two men something to talk about. Once upon a time with Loren Remi had thought of subject after subject of things that they might talk about, just in case things got too intimate. In those days the alchemist had done everything he could to keep their relationship entirely platonic and though this situation was not that, somehow Remi found himself preparing for long and awkward silences in precisely the same way. And so, given that he'd flown the ascended home when last they'd met, Remi found himself at Sam's door, snow-moss and a variety of tea in hand (well, actually in one of his numerous pockets), feeling both tentatively excited but mostly flustered. Taking a breath, Remi rapped gently on the door.

Sam was having the weirdest month of his entire life. He had gone on two adventures, joined a guild, had the hint of his first sexual experience...it was all terribly exciting as well as being just terrible. He wasn't sure where he stood with most things, which had resulted in him spending a lot of time indoors, working on books. He lied and told himself it was just being productive, that he needed new supplies for the stall anyway. While that was true, that wasn't why he was working away at his calligraphy into the early hours of the morning. Really, he was trying to shut out his mind, trying to push himself into the stories he wrote and away from his overwhelming life. As the knock came on his door, he was just finishing a particularly intricate looped 'G'. Lifting his pen so he wouldn't flinch and make a mark (a skill he'd trained himself in long ago) he placed it down in the inkwell and got up to answer. Sam assumed the visitor would be Jigano, as he had been the only person to ever visit Sam in his home. When he opened the door to Remi, Sam's eyes widened and he felt entirely rooted to the floor, from a spot in his chest to his toes. "..Oh. U-Um. Remi.." His eyes flicked up and down the Attuned, noting his full pockets and hands clasped around something. Had he come to ask for more drinking? The thought both terrified and thrilled him. "..Are..Is...everything a-alright? Do...you want to come in?" Sam stepped back, stiff arm gesturing inside his living room. Samuel The Sun's rim dips; the stars rush out; At one stride comes the dark;

remi Took a fall from a windy height, I only knew how to hold on tight & pray for love enough to last all night There was no smile on the red head's face as he answered the door, no flicker of anything save for what felt to Remi like a frantic grasping for an excuse to close the door. Flashing the man a sunny smile—rarely was Remi without one—the alchemist's lips turned crooked as he half took a step backwards. "If this is not a good time, I can go." He said as breezily as he could so that his offer could be accepted easily on Sam's part if he wished. "I heard that you like tea. " Remi said, skirting passed Sam's outstretched arm as if afraid to touch the man. The alchemist had thought he'd come a long way about being in the presence of other men and not feeling awkward in their company or overthinking every action, but apparently some habits had roots deeper than he'd thought. Producing a pouch from inside his pocket, it held an assortment of herbs. Some were from Caido, others were lingering remnants from his supply in Northaven that had managed to come with him. "And, I suppose you know all about—" Producing a fluff of snowmoss from his other pocket, Remi's pale gaze noticed a lump of it stuff beneath the leg of a chair. His smile crumpling slightly, he laughed, running a hand bashfully through his hair. "Ah. Well. I see this is not needed then." Swallowing, his rapid-fire words coming to a halt, he turned towards Sam, pale stare almost hesitantly falling on the shorter man's face, all the while feeling the elephant in the room growing closer.

"I'm not doing anything. I-it's a fine time." Sam was already nervous enough to doubt everything he said; was saying he wasn't doing anything admitting he was doing something untoward? Would Remi think he was a pervert of some kind? The smell of paper and ink was clear in the house but maybe Remi would take not doing anything to mean...well, any number of things. He shut the door behind Remi and smiled nervously at the gift. "I do like tea. Th-thank you. You didn't have to bring me a gift..." Sam wondered if he should start keeping gifts in the house for visitors; twice now he had been brought something and had nothing to give in return. "Oh! No! The moss...I'll use it. Thank you. Th-there's always more floorboards." Sam smiled, his face falling as awkward silence began to creep into the room. "So! I'll brew the t-tea. Right." He gently took the tea from Remi's hands and walked off to his kitchen, cooking some water in a kettle over the fire in there. After five minutes he returned with a tray of a teapot, two cups and a few biscuits (which were still edible but clearly not very fresh). "Why are you here?" He asked as he placed it down, then realising how harsh it sounded, quickly rephrased: "I mean. I didn't think I'd...see you again. A-after everything. So um. It's a surprise." Samuel The Sun's rim dips; the stars rush out; At one stride comes the dark;

remi Took a fall from a windy height, I only knew how to hold on tight & pray for love enough to last all night But Remi didn't take it to mean any number of things. He took it to mean either the man really hadn't been up to much, or that he had and simply did not want to share what. Either way, the mention of such drifted from his mind almost immediately. "Is it a gift if I am to enjoy it as well?" Remi chuckled pleasantly. Glancing around he wondered if Sam was going to ask him what he'd come here for, or perhaps awkwardly shuffle through some small talk, when the man took the moss Remi had brought, and then disappeared into the kitchen. Blinking in silence, the alchemist closed his mouth (which had apparently fallen open slightly), and linked his hands behind his back. Sam did not call out to him from the kitchen to invite him in, nor try to carry on the conversation. And so, for what felt like a long five minutes or so, Remi waited patiently in the entrance way. It wasn't the first time he'd been treated this way of course, as a commoner he was often forgotten about or left to simply wait. But he hadn't expected it from Sam. Biting the inside of his lip, he thought to perhaps say something. There was a very specific way that he brewed his tea after all, but he decided against it. When Sam did reappear, Remi was a bit amused and flattered to see a few rather ancient looking biscuits on the tray with the tea, especially given that Remi was fairly certain that the ascended did not need to eat ... which, of course probably meant they did not need to drink either. The abruptness of his question, combined with the fact they were still awkwardly standing in the doorway made Remi uncomfortably choke down on his words for a moment, before stilling himself. "I did not really get a chance to speak with you during the...ah..tale? I had hoped to though." Actually, now that he thought about it, given how many times he'd called out to Sam, perhaps the ascended was trying to subtly tell Remi to leave him be. Indeed his surprise now might be evidence of that, especially given Sam had asked if they could get to know each other better. Raising the teacup to his lips, Remi blew on it gently before taking a sip. He tried not to sigh, though he wished he had brewed it himself. "Can you taste it?" He asked curiously, but gently.

Sam did not perceive any fault in his leaving Remi alone; he had simply never had enough company to know how to handle it. His family had given up on teaching him general manners after they had seen his stilted, stammering speech and nervous habit of wringing his hands. He motioned to a chair next to the table for Remi to sit and sat down himself opposite, picking up a tea cup. "Oh. Yes. It was busy. I um...I thought...I thought you--" He took a deep breath, regretting having begun the sentence but able to leave it now. "I thought you looked f-fetching in the armour you were given." Sam had no idea what he was doing, if it was flirting or anything else, but the words were true. Following Remi's lead, he sipped from his own cup. At the question he lowered it and looked sadly into the tea for a moment, watching his pale reflection wobble in the surface. "Only just. It...It's like the ghost. Of tasting something. A memory...maybe." There was an obvious comparison in the air to his inability to feel Remi's touch properly, but Sam left it unsaid. "What does it taste like? C-can you tell me what more things are like? Is it very cold outside?" The request was sudden but borne from his desire to pretend for just a moment he could live as an average man again. Samuel The Sun's rim dips; the stars rush out; At one stride comes the dark;

remi Took a fall from a windy height, I only knew how to hold on tight & pray for love enough to last all night "Busy?" Remi grinned, running a hand through his curls. "Yes...there was quite a bit going on." For a moment he tried to catch Sam's eye, unsure whether he should mention that which had been on his mind the day in the book. Given how awkward this encounter was shaping up to be, perhaps he should wait? Sitting across from Sam, Remi shook his head at the offered compliment as a boyishly warm smile spread across his face. "I have never worn armour before." He admitted without hesitation, grinning down into his cup with a small shrug. "Nor wielded a sword. Back home, people like me...well." Raising his hands and wiggling his fingers slightly, he laughed. "There is a reason I learned to work with my hands and nothing else." Listening as Sam sketched around an answer, the alchemist nodded gently. He wasn't sure whether or not he should have asked, and given the way Sam's blue eyes looked forlornly into the liquid, he decided that he should not have. But then the man's questions caught him off-guard, and Remi blinked several times in surprise. He was no wordsmith—not even close—but for Sam of course he would try. "The tea is one of my own special blends. When you sip it, at first you will just taste warm water. Then suddenly there will be...ahh..like a flourishing on your tongue and at the back of your mouth. The taste will grow so large you will almost be tempted to open your mouth to let it escape. The taste is sweet, but not sugary. More like...a sort of flower." With a humble sort of smile, Remi gave the man a sideways glance as he considered. "Yes. It is a dry cold here I have found. The air feels...empty." Raising his hands, he touched his own cheeks which were still a tad chilled and pink from having been outside. "The sun is sometimes quite bright, but it is not warm." Offering the ascended a small shrug, Remi rolled his teacup in his hands. Conjuring a feather in his hands—though whether it was creation magic or if he'd actually plucked one of his own feathers was hard to say—he handed it across the table towards Sam. Creating (or plucking) another one, Remi ran the vein of it across his palm, and then up each finger, smiling a little as he did so. "This is one of my favourite things to feel." He explained gently. "It helps to calm my mind."

Sam knew little about where Remi had come from, but nodded anyway. The man was clearly skilled with his hands. Sam had seen his creations in his shop when he had gone by, heard of some of things he had made...and he knew how skilled his hands were in other areas, too. The description given of the tea was vivid in a way he hadn't been expecting from Remi; He bit his lip and tried to imagine the taste described flourishing in his mouth. It had been so long since he had truly tasted anything that he wasn't quite sure how to turn the words into any kind of sense, but he appreciated them anyway. "It would be too warm for me re-regardless of the actual temperature, I think." He said, glancing to the the window and thinking of the last time he had been in the sun, a young teenager on a walk. Sam took the feather and gently ran his own fingertips up the side. He could feel it, could see his fingers pushing at it, but it was almost as if there were a barrier between them. He sighed. "I can see why you like it. But I...can't quite feel it. In the same way. But I suppose you...already know that." It was a reasonably open statement, but it was obvious what he was referring to. Sam placed the feather down on the chair arm next to him and sipped at his tea, letting a quiet fall. Samuel The Sun's rim dips; the stars rush out; At one stride comes the dark;

remi Took a fall from a windy height, I only knew how to hold on tight & pray for love enough to last all night "Oh?" Remi tilted his head with a curious interest. "The sun would?" He always knew that the ascended were mostly nocturnal and he knew it had something to do with the sun, but it had never been clear. The bloodfiends as they were called back home, mostly stayed in the manor. Rarely did they come to the commoner area of town. "Mmm.." Remi hummed gently under his breath, looking at the feather in his hands. Gently he spun it between his fingers, straining to hear through the silence for any indication of what he should do or say next. These were not waters he'd ever tread before, certainly not like this anyway. "Sam...when you kissed me in the cave..was that just...just the.." The alchemist trailed off, pale eyes rising slightly. He didn't know what to call it. Feeding sounded far too harsh and removed, but then again that seemed to be exactly what it was. So instead he gently touched the almost-healed marks on the side of his neck.

"Yes. It would hurt. It...r-reacts badly. With the fluids." That was about all Sam knew about it, despite being an Ascended himself. He just knew it was bad and that was enough to keep him out of the sunlight. Even though he had alluded to it himself, Sam had not expected Remi to bring up what had happened between them by the Bone Bridge. He didn't really understand the unfinished question, either: Was it just the...what? It had been a lot of things. The moment, his desire to feel desired, the fact that Remi was quite handsome...all of them added together to create a chaotic second where he had made a rash decision. "It...it was...um." His eyes followed Remi's fingers to the marks on his neck and guilt punched through him. "I'm sorry. I-it was wrong of me. Probably. I just...no one has ever...been close to me like that before. I didn't know...what else t-to do. And you seemed to like it. I don't know." Samuel The Sun's rim dips; the stars rush out; At one stride comes the dark;

remi Took a fall from a windy height, I only knew how to hold on tight & pray for love enough to last all night —no one has ever...been close to me like that before. So it had nothing to do with Remi then. The alchemist might have known. Inexperience did seem to lend itself to connections made where there was actually no purchase upon which to make them. A small smile tugged at Remi's lips, and though his eyes retained their naturally convivial brightness, the edges did not crease the way they normally would have. Quickly his eyes fell back to the feather as he traced it along his palm, trying very hard not to sigh out the breath he had inadvertently been holding. "Please do not apologize." Remi interrupted immediately, eyes widening and focusing upon Sam's blues. "And yes, being kissed is often nice." He said with a sad smile, swallowing down a strange mixture of emotions that was rising at the back of his throat. "And it was that time as well." Only nice was not actually the word Remi would use to describe it. But even though it certainly appeared that Sam was older than the alchemist, given the disparity in their experiences Remi felt as though the man was drastically younger. Staring into his teacup, Remi bit the inside of his lip as he raised it and drained the last of the liquid. "Ah, well alright then. I just wanted to make sure that you were...alright, Sam. After everything that happened."

Remi smiled; Sam didn't know if that was a good response or not. This whole situation was strange, not just for him but for anyone, and he had never been an expert on social matters to begin with. Nice? What a mild word. Sam couldn't help but think had Remi found it so nice, he might have followed it up with something else, some way of continuing the contact, instead of stopping them dead before...he cut down that thread of thought. He knew it was unfair to depend on Remi for his first romantic experience without any connection between them. "...I wasn't alright. R-right away. But I suppose I'm okay now. But...but what about you? You lost a lot of blood." Even though they had both flown away seemingly in good health, Sam had worried for a while Remi would turn up cold and dead on the streets not long after. "...A-and it must have been distressing. For you too. I saw your...paw...hands." Samuel The Sun's rim dips; the stars rush out; At one stride comes the dark;

remi Took a fall from a windy height, I only knew how to hold on tight & pray for love enough to last all night "You left so suddenly, I thought perhaps you wanted to be alone." Remi replied, recalling the way Sam had dropped from the sky like lead. The alchemist had thought about going after the man, but given all that had transpired and how Sam had pulled away from him so many times in the cave, he thought it best to leave him to contemplate what had happened on his own for a time. Remi just hoped he hadn't waited too long. "I am alright. The body replenishes blood quite quickly. And it helps that I have a few friends who are healers." He said with a slight chuckle and shrug. "Ah." Remi said a bit tonelessly, holding the feather in one finger and turning his hands over to inspect his palms. "Yes. I am sorry if that frightened you. I was...trying to hold myself back. I would have let you take a good deal more blood than that if you would have let me. Or if I would have let myself.  I find in those types of situations it is easier for my lion form to try and snatch hold away from me, but it also gives me something else to think about, so I suppose it is a bit of a help." Shrugging slightly, Remi peeled his gaze off of his hands and let it settle gently on Sam's face. It seemed so strange to just be sitting and drinking tea with the man given all that had happened. "I am glad to hear that you are alright. I am sorry that I—" Remi paused. Was he sorry that for what he had done? Or what he hadn't? "—for how everything happened in the cave."

Sam wondered if Remi was friends with Isla when he mentioned healers - did he know that she had recently become Ascended too? That news still sat like a stone in Sam's stomach, coming back sometimes to remind him just how hopeless things were getting. A smaller, more insidious part of him wondered if Remi wanted Isla too, for her teeth; and if he'd spurn her during too. "I wasn't frightened. I...I trust you." He wasn't sure what to say about the rest though. As unsatisfying as the whole thing had ended, he didn't know if he would rather it hadn't happened. It had been something, a point of feeling instead of endless nothing. That in of itself was valuable. In his fantasies their relationship developed from here, he knew all of the right things to say and Remi fell in love with him....but in reality, he sat there awkwardly in silence tapping the side of his teacup and staring at Remi's legs. "I...I'm sorry too. A-about all of it. You know, if you want..." He sighed. "I will be honest. It's...not easy for m-me. But. I want to hide from you and no-not talk ever again. Not because I don't like you. Because I'm embarrassed and I don't...know how to deal with it." Sam rubbed the back of his neck and looked off to the side. "B-but I shouldn't follow that instinct. So maybe...we could say. We will be...ci-civil. And not be awkward. When we see each other. And maybe one day be friends." Small speech finished, he looked hopefully at Remi. Samuel The Sun's rim dips; the stars rush out; At one stride comes the dark;