still dancing on my own

Varus has told her everything, and even if it hasn't included all the parts where Remi was likely awkward and prickly and... Remi, Isla can tell them anyway. It's as the Lullaby said - they were about as close as it gets, for a time. And that sort of thing lingers. Which is why it was so unfortunate for him to run into Varus before she'd had a chance to speak to him herself, why she still feels unsure about things even now. So, with a letter to the alchemist to ask if he wouldn't mind helping her scout out the infirmary to see where she might start to rebuild it, Isla finds herself waiting outside for him. It's the middle of the night, but she trusts that neither of them will need light to see by with the various shifts that Remi possesses. Besides, it's not really about the infirmary. It never was. Isla the flesh is weak

Ghost in my eyes see the horizon
Past all the lies that keep me blinded

The concoction of anticipation, dread, and adrenaline in Remi's stomach makes him want to run until his legs give out. Ever since meeting Varus he's been in a mood, one that he can't quite properly articulate, even inside his own skull. He recognizes parts of what he's feeling for what it is: controlling, needy, selfish. But there's something else too, something wounded and sad. Something that wants to build walls around itself and hide away somewhere dark. It's the part of him that answered "I'm fine", when Ronin asked what was wrong. The part that said, "Fine, I'm not, but I don't want to talk about it right now", when pressed.

Arriving outside the infirmary, frustrated that the flight hadn't burned off even half of his nervous energy, Remi lands with his heart in his throat and his arms folded over his chest. For a long moment, he just stares at the outside of the building, unable to see the soot built up on the stones for the midnight blue that swallowed everything.

Catching sight of Isla as he rounds the corner, Remi stops for a moment that he might try and remember this moment as demarcating before from what would surely follow after.

"Hey."

Hey, Remi says, and it couldn't sound less like one of his greetings. Lost in thought as Isla has been, she blinks herself back to the present to gaze up at the alchemist, lips parting to give just as trite a response. But she just can't summon the will to do it, and instead she peels herself away from the wall so she might close the distance between them, her arms opening as if to offer a hug. "I'm sorry," she murmurs. "I know that you know. About Cal, I mean. I was waiting to tell you myself, but I got caught up with the fire and the patients stopping by the house and..." Huffing out a sigh, she shrugs her shoulders. "It's only been a few days. I wasn't not trying to tell you..." Isla the flesh is weak

Ghost in my eyes see the horizon
Past all the lies that keep me blinded

Remi couldn't look less like a powerful demigod, standing before his friend; eyeing her open arms, wondering if finding himself in them would hurt as much as he thinks it will. But it isn't as though the alchemist is any stranger to heartache, and so he fits himself against Isla. "No...there is no need to be sorry." He mumbles softly, knowing the words are what he ought to feel about the situation, but not believing them.

Needles stab inside of his sinuses as dread and fear use the formation of tears like icepicks as they climb to the surface. Isla is cold in his arms and his mind maliciously makes that out to be more than it is, leaving Remi tongue-tied.

"He...only said that you were together." Remi manages after a moment, choosing his words carefully, his accent thickening around the silence all the more for it.

Unlike Remi, there is no resistance in Isla as she moves into his arms, hugging him tightly and letting her head rest against his shoulder. "I feel like I ought to be sorry. I wanted to have a conversation about it," she mumbles. He's like hugging a statue, the medic frowning to herself as she peels away enough to look up at him. "I met him in Flowerbirth," she explains softly. "We ran into each other a few times and he ended up staying at the infirmary. Then I saw him in Torchline and..." She shrugs. "I like him. He's sweet, and funny, and... and this isn't helping things, is it." Shuffling back, she forces her shoulders to relax and gives her focus over to Remi. "How are... I mean... are you okay?" Isla the flesh is weak

Ghost in my eyes see the horizon
Past all the lies that keep me blinded

Remi is indeed stiff against her, torn between fighting off tears and the desire to make a new entrance to the infirmary with his bare hands. Still undoubtedly his best friend, this is something that their friendship has never endured before, and Remi finds himself more unsure than ever what she does or doesn't want or expect of him. And no, explaining the foundation of her crush hardly helps.

"I can see that." He agrees with as much understanding as he's able, of Cal being sweet and funny. As Isla pulls back from him, Remi's arms drop heavily along with his gaze. Inspecting the lines on his palms with intense focus, he's forced to ignore the voices in his head that point out that Isla's fingers will no longer fit between his, as they once had. "I take it...that this puts an end to things with us. As they have been." It's hard to get the words out without letting his voice quiver, but such are the state of Remi's emotions that he now feels as though he needs to protect them from Isla. Unable to look up at her, he's quite sure he knows the answer.

Isla wrings her hands, seeming awkward and unsure in Remi's presence for the first time in... ever, perhaps. She wants to agree with him, to feel glad that he can see Cal's good points for what they are, but somehow this also feels like a break up, even though they had tried the 'actual dating' thing, and it hadn't worked out. "I... Yes. I suppose it does," she murmurs, trying to meet his eyes. "Is this... I mean, I don't want you to feel like I didn't enjoy things as they were. Like it wasn't..." Amazing. Insane. Addictive. "It's just... when it was over and when you were gone, I didn't have anyone else." Like Ronin. Like Mateo. "Not to spend time with, or to talk to. To read or go for walks or anything like that. Just work, until the next time I saw you." Her eyes sting a bit to want to say it. It's not enough anymore. Isla the flesh is weak

Ghost in my eyes see the horizon
Past all the lies that keep me blinded

The skin between Remi's eyes knots and twirls as he frowns, his head tilting at an angle as if all the muscles in his neck suddenly cramped all at once. Arguments and defences build up on the tip of his tongue, and it's clear from how his lips twitch that Remi is mentally running through these responses rather than saying them. Whether or not that's for the best is anyone's guess.

Still staring down into his hands, Remi tastes something warm and slick on the inside of his cheek, not that it stops him from gnawing against the skin. "What I have with you..." Tears burn, and the alchemist finds himself pausing that he might correct himself with any amount of dignity. "..had, is not something I have had with anyone else. Not something I will ever have." Whatever Isla might describe them as was apparently not on the same level as how Remi would. He could see that now, in the casual way she was going about all of this and it made him want to sit right down where he stood and cradle his head in his hands. He didn't want to leave, but this was a special and slow sort of torture that encouraged collapsing.

"I suppose it would have been nice to know that things were over between us, before meeting your boyfriend in the street." He manages after a moment, shifting unhappily from foot to foot and pressing his fingertips into the sensitive muscles of his hand to keep his focus.

Isla frowns at that, staring down at her feet and seeming unsure how to proceed. "So was I meant to just... be there?" she asks softly. "To pick up and put down when you were in the Grounds?" Because it doesn't matter how casual he believes she's being. He's still got everything to go home to, compared to an empty house and silent walls. Then Remi is continuing and Isla's frown grows deeper, the medic shoving her hands in her pockets and shaking her head. "I already apologised for that," she mumbles. "I told you I wanted to have that conversation with you. It's not like I deliberately didn't say anything." Shaking her head, she takes a step back away from him. "Why do I get the impression that I needed to ask your permission before I let someone into my life?" Isla the flesh is weak

Ghost in my eyes see the horizon
Past all the lies that keep me blinded

"You never told me you wanted anything different." Remi replies, flinching slightly at her words. Shaking his head at that, Remi raises his gaze for the first time, his fingertips and toes feeling numb for her tone. "Years of friendship Isla...and..." Looking up toward the sky and directing his frown at the clouds instead of his friend, the alchemist takes a measured breath. "Even if I was not who you wanted anymore.." But no, that wasn't quite right. Sighing more forcefully, he tries again. "I was with Ianto, when I realized I had feelings for Ronin. But I ended things with Ianto before going any farther." His eyes lower, his expression defensive and wounded.

"Permission?" Remi hasn't the energy to laugh at that, but his tone is just as incredulous. "Did I really mean so little to you? That you thought this was just all nothing?"

Isla tilts her head at that, eyes narrowing a fraction. There's confusion and hurt on her face, and it takes a long few moments before she can find the words for what she wants to say. "You are married," she says softly, as if that might have escaped his memory while he was acting as if she'd left him with nothing but wounds to nurse. "To the love of your life. You have a son." Blinking and running her fingers through her hair, Isla wraps her arms around herself. "How unfair of you," she mumbles, "to act like I could ever think it was nothing. But that's the point - it might not have been nothing, but it could never have been everything. Not like you already have." As for ending things, she can only shake her head. "If you are trying to blame me for your hurt feelings, Remi..." Isla the flesh is weak

Ghost in my eyes see the horizon
Past all the lies that keep me blinded

Remi raises a brow as if to say, and? "But not to the only love in my life." He corrects in a low voice that borders on being a whisper.

"And yet you are acting that way." Remi replies sharply. "I want you to have everything Isla. I always have. If that is not this, then so be it. But as for my hurt feelings? I do blame you for that. Because after years of friendship, of literal death and being bound together, after naming my son after you and being with you in a way I'll never have with anyone else, I would have expected a bit more care on your part. I expected that you might love me enough to do things in the right order, after everything." His cheeks flush as he recalls how she'd so casually apologized earlier as if the only wrong was that she just hadn't told him in time, rather than ending things with them first.

Maybe it was unfair to put such expectations on Isla, but then, that was the sort of friend he'd taken her to be. This felt reckless and cruel all for the sake of Isla having what she wanted, his feelings be damned.

His words are like a slap in the face - which is likely the very point - and Isla flinches back from them accordingly. She swallows the lump in her throat, no matter how her eyes still brim with tears, and she straightens up even if she can't look the alchemist in the eye any more. "A bit more care," she murmurs. "After everything I've been working towards literally burned down around me. After you killed the people I was fighting so hard to save, and you couldn't even see me to know I was there as well." She wipes at her eyes furiously. "Cal came back from Halo maybe three days ago. That's how long we've been 'together'. That's how long I've had to put things in the right order, while I've been treating patients from my living room. But I should have had a bit more care." She nods quietly. "Good to know. I'll work harder in future." Even if Remi isn't around to see it. "I'm not sure I need help with this any more. I'm sorry to waste your time." Isla the flesh is weak

Ghost in my eyes see the horizon
Past all the lies that keep me blinded

"You had all the time in the world." It feels as though sandpaper is being tugged beneath his skin, grating away at all the warmth left in his body leaving him feel cold and full of holes. "That is what I mean when I said you act as if this meant nothing to you. That it meant more to be with him, that you could not even wait until you had ended things with me." Scowling at the ground, the smile Remi tries on is sad at best. "Even if I was not the everything you wanted, I would have thought everything between us would have been worth those three days."

As Isla retreats to sullenness and sass, Remi just looks across at her, wondering how, for a woman apparently so happy now with Cal, she'd been reduced to such cruelty. "The first thing I did when Cal told me, was to offer him my abilities that he might keep you safe since I knew I would no longer be around. I still came, when you asked, to help. Who have you become that you try to make me feel bad for caring about you? To just sulk and send me away?" Remi's tears do flow now, angry and jaded.

"I might not have been your everything Isla, but I was everything that I could be." He whispers softly, throat choked with emotion as his wings unfurl from his back, to leave as asked. No, it wasn't enough for her and he understood that. But it didn't make feeling so summarily discarded that much easier to bear.