when you wake

right now everything you want is wrong
& right now all your dreams are waking up

"Why?" Remi's smile is almost sweet, just then. "Because I think you might have needed it. And I think you rarely get what you need." He won't go so far as to guess at what need it would be, only that, ramifications of it aside, carving whatever pattern was itching beneath the skin on Finn's fingers, would have likely done the Spyglass some good. As for why he wouldn't have minded? Remi's smile turns sad, his green eyes lowering. "Because that too is the sort of man I am."

Though Finn might be right that he has nothing the alchemist wants, he nonetheless is someone Remi wants. The soft turn of his lips and the way his shoulders shrug say as much. "I could convince you otherwise, but it wouldn't change anything." Remi adds, now having turned to properly face Finn.

"Survive..." He repeats, green eyes able to perfectly imagine the features hidden beneath the thick scarf wrapped around half of Finn's face. "..to what end?"

The Lullaby

awareness is the enemy of sanity

I don't believe it, Finn wants to say. He wants to say it, but he can't. Because after all they've done and all they've been through together, for all of Remi's violence, for every boundary that he's crossed... Finn does believe it. He does believe that he'd let the Spyglass cut him to the quick. But he still doesn't understand what he has done to merit being wanted by such a man. There's a heat to his cheeks, hidden by the scarf, and he huffs out a sigh that stirs his curls around his forehead.

"To what end?" he echoes, blinking down at his fingers and finding his eyes stinging all over again. "I no longer know," he confesses. "I used to. It used to be enough, to not be what I was, to be where I was... but I don't know any more." His fists clench and his shoulders stiffen; Finn buries his hands back in his pockets. "I don't... want anyone," he says slowly.

for once you hear the screaming

it never stops

FINN

right now everything you want is wrong
& right now all your dreams are waking up

Remi nods at that. He isn't here to make Finn think deeply. Isn't here to offer leading quests down which the Spyglass might wander and find himself anew. If he could only touch Finn, Remi would know what it was the man saw when he stared down at his hands. But, bridged by a few feet was enough to render the alchemist totally ignorant of what went on behind those blue eyes.

"I didn't tell you in the hopes you'd say the same." The alchemist clarifies, through cheeks quite flushed and unhidden by fabric. "I can't even say it would be a good idea." He laughs suddenly at that, his warm breath a steamy cloud between them as he shakes his head. "No, we both know it wouldn't be." He adds, his dimples dark points of maroon now.

"But only that it's how I feel." Remi continues, his smiling fading away. "I can't look at you without..." He stalls, his mind doing precisely the thing he was trying to describe: imagining Finn's hands in his and the tangle of their combined curls. Pulling in a breath and releasing it harshly as if to scold himself, Remi glances up toward the overcast sky for a moment.

"I don't mean to keep coming back to you Finn." In reality, and in dreams. "And I don't know how to stop."

The Lullaby

awareness is the enemy of sanity

It wouldn't be a good idea. It would be a phenomenally bad idea, in fact, and Finn swallows hard and tries not to imagine the very things that plague Remi's mind's eye. The Lullaby looks up and the Spyglass looks down - he would like nothing more than to ooze away through the cracks in the cobbles, to somewhere dark and quiet where he can be something better than Finn Rosencrantz. "I don't know how to stop you," he says, equally as helpless, but managing to encompass all that he feels with that single sentence.

Powerless, weak, someone to be used and consumed. "You... you said you know the way... from here?" His head dips towards his shoulder, to use the lapel of his coat to wipe at his eyes. "I don't know what to do, Remi. I'm sorry."

for once you hear the screaming

it never stops

FINN

right now everything you want is wrong
& right now all your dreams are waking up

'I''ll ask the gods, then." He decides. Because accidental though today's visit had been, lthe alchemist will nevertheless be plagued by guilt for weeks. Possibly forever; this was Finn after all.

Remi didn't know the way, but that was just another small detail that didn't matter. He could fly up into the sky and see the barracks. Or, he could simply fall asleep in an alley somewhere and disappear back to the woods. So he nods stiffly.

"I'll find a way to make sure it doesn't happen again." Remi says of invading Finn's dreams. Of that other thing, there is always Ludo...it wouldn't be the first time his memories of another were summarily amputated. It left him cold to think of it, but while the alchemist might be able to bear this knife's-edge relationship, Finn very clearly could not.

Nor did he want to.

The Lullaby

awareness is the enemy of sanity

"What do you want from me?" Finn asks suddenly, unable to help himself. His cheeks are still flushed beneath the scarf, a mingling of shame and fear, and he shakes his head at the alchemist. "I can't live like this. I can't... you can't just ask gods to solve your problems for you." The rest of Caido doesn't have that privilege, and it suddenly seems thoroughly unfair that Remi can say and do whatever he pleases, and have Ludo wave a hand to make it better.

"If it's just to fuck, I've done that. I've been that. I can deal with that, if it means you stay out of my head. But I--" Finn cuts himself off with a laugh that sounds almost desperate, as if he's just realised he's blurted all of this out. He slouches back against a cold wall, pinching at the bridge of his nose. "I am not stable enough for you to mess with that. I will crack. I'm already cracking."

for once you hear the screaming

it never stops

FINN

right now everything you want is wrong
& right now all your dreams are waking up

"Want?" Remi swallows at that, thinking it was quite clear by this point. You, he thinks through clenched teeth, green eyes slowing blinking at the man coming undone before him. "I can, though." The alchemist says. That it's unfair isn't relevant. "Surely there will be something I can offer Ludo that it can...give me something that makes you invisible to me. Or if there's another god you're close with, no doubt they'd help." If it comes to light that it's Safrin, well...she'd certainly be keen to block Remi out.

It both was and wasn't just to fuck. It was in the sense that it would likely be the only way to flush Finn from his system, but it certainly wasn't in the way Finn had in mind. Not the sort of act that the Spyglass could clutch a pillow through, hold his breath, and it would be over. Remi could never want that. Could never be that.

Crack, then, he thinks. Remi watches Finn lean against the wall, green eyes soaking in the weave of the scarf and the lips likely twisted in a grimace beneath. "If I find a way to keep myself from you, will you take it?" He asks, imaging the Spyglass once again rejecting a magical offering from the alchemist.

The Lullaby

awareness is the enemy of sanity

"I want nothing from any god," Finn hisses, almost under his breath for fear that someone like Gideon or Cian might hear. He has tangled with Safrin once, and it had led him to believe things about himself that weren't true. It had pushed him to the edge of his confidence, of what he was capable of doing and being, and all it had given him was a sense of wariness and trepidation towards one of the only things that brings him peace.

He scoffs, unable to help himself as Remi places the burden, once again, on his shoulders. "If you find a way to keep yourself from me, you take it," he suggests. "It is not my responsibility to keep you under control." Dragging himself from the wall, he feels a tightness in his chest, a growing lump in his throat. "I would say goodbye, but I feel as though I will see you again soon." Like it or not.

for once you hear the screaming

it never stops

FINN

right now everything you want is wrong
& right now all your dreams are waking up

"I am asking you for nothing other than to accept the thing you want!" The alchemist snarls in response. Sipping in a hasty breath as he clenches his teeth against the rest of the words he wants to say, Remi again regards the sky and the oppressive columns that stab toward it. Why Finn was unwilling to simply take infallible protection from Remi seemed shocking. But fractured men were hardly expected to make sense.

"I think the only way to keep myself from you, without anything on your part, is for me to forget you." Remi says finally in a low voice, still in the sudden tide-turning of the conversation. "If there's nothing you would carry with you, this is all that is left." It's easily said, but weightily felt. Finn likely won't know the ramifications of such a thing, or at least not the way Remi does.

"Someone forgot me once because of what we were to each other, and...had I known, I would have wanted to stop it. But by then it was too late." Finn likely wouldn't care if he was forgotten or not, but because Remi hadn't the chance to stop it happening to him, he was obliged not to do the same to Finn.

The Lullaby

awareness is the enemy of sanity

There are many words for what Finn is and what he isn't. He's fractured, certainly. Broken if not intelligent, well-meaning if not quietly, tragically sad. He isn't a cruel man by nature, even if he has the capability to do very cruel things. And so the idea of Remi forcing himself to burn away all traces of the Spyglass... it sits uncomfortably to say the least. "Don't do that," he blurts, his hands emerging from his pockets to rake back through his hair.

"Don't... don't change part of yourself on my account. That was... it was wrong of me to suggest." At war with himself as the Spyglass inevitably is, he grimaces and glances back at Remi. "I do not hate you. It isn't you, it's..." He gestures at the world at large. "I just... I can't give you what you want, Remi. I can offer friendship - barely. I can talk research and academics. I can walk through the Celestine, or play music. But not... not that."

It isn't something he can explain with something as stilted as words.

for once you hear the screaming

it never stops

FINN

right now everything you want is wrong
& right now all your dreams are waking up

Remi pulls in a frustrated breath then, wanting badly to rake his fingers through his hair but shying away from mirroring Finn's own movements. So instead he stands, rigid and unhappy in the light that shines finally upon the things that need to be said between them.

"That's never been what this was." Friendship, was not the ship the two were on. Friends did not hang one another, did not open wounds only to be the one to close them. Friends did not push each other toward cliff edges only to point out broken bodies far below. Didn't offer bread and honey and darken bedsheets with blood.

"If you don't want me to change, then asking Ludo for a way to shield you from me is the only way." Remi was trying to lay this out as logically and emotionlessly as possible, despite the actual subject matter. "Its been almost a year since I first met you, and things have never been the same since." He adds, deciding enough time has passed that it's alright for him to run his palm up the side of his face. "And trying not to think about you, is thinking about you." What could have been a compliment in another context, now sounded vaguely threatening: "I was placed across the world. By Mort, and still I found myself next to you. This isn't something I can will away. So either you accept the shield, or I'll.." He swallows, feeling dizzy, though his stare doesn't drop.

"..I'll do what I have to."

The Lullaby

awareness is the enemy of sanity

Finn almost flinches at Remi's words - because damn him if it isn't all true. From their conversations staring into waves, from broken ribs and conversations about the horrors of their upbringing, to their frightening similarities and sweet differences, Finn knows it to be true. And it hurts every time he gets close to it - Remi is a fire that threatens to consume him whole. The worst part is that Finn wants to let him, when his mind isn't trying to eat itself in its madness.

He's clenching his teeth, though it's invisible beneath the thick material of his scarf, and Finn tries to drag his gaze away only to find that he really doesn't have him in it to do that. A shuddering breath leaves him, the Spyglass eventually nodding, as if finally defeated. "Then I will accept the shield," he says, almost whispering the words. "You don't need to tamper with your memories."

for once you hear the screaming

it never stops

FINN

right now everything you want is wrong
& right now all your dreams are waking up

It's a victory and a loss all rolled up into one. It's true that he's currently wide-awake but gods if he isn't exhausted. He and Finn are like identical dichotomies. Alike and opposite, mirrored and puzzle-aligned. It's hard to bear, but impossible to stray away from.

"I'll—"—find you when it's done—"—send it to you when it's finished." Remi mumbles in a voice that matches Finn's save for the warble his accent offers.

He has no collar to turn up against the cold, no scarf to conceal the twitches of his lips or the sad smile that threatens to spread across his face. So instead he nods awkwardly at the man he's shared so very much with, hoping not to see him again until this task is completed. But it was as he'd already told his twin: telling myself not to think about you, is thinking about you.

~FINfuckuboth.

The Lullaby