fancy that

we're always running scared but holding knives

Why? What's wrong? Isla wants to ask, but he hasn't told her the first time and there is no reason to expect he will the second. She doesn't even have pain to focus on, the Ascended fidgeting almost helplessly until he offers his hand out. For two people attempting not to be familiar with one another and failing completely, it's with practiced ease and comfort that she steps forward at last to take his hand, her fingers moving over the scarring to examine how it has healed.

"I'm so sorry," she murmurs, holding his hand between both of hers, feeling her eyes start to prickle. "I'm so sorry, Remi." For what had happened to his hand. For what had happened to their friendship. For being snappy and for not being able to understand the tightrope that they both had to walk all the time. For expecting too much when sometimes it just wasn't possible.

"Is it too late to have that gin?" she asks.

Isla

you trace my lines, stirring my soul

With a sharp inhale that has his entire body tensing, Remi squeezes his eyes against the onslaught of Isla's emotions while trying desperately to keep his hand relaxed in hers. The picnic basket shakes in his left hand, and it's only once he realizes that he doesn't have the strength anymore to pretend that he lets his eyes open and his tears fall.

With hardly any dexterity in his right hand, Remi clumsily tries to slip his fingers through Isla's and squeeze, though there's hardly any strength in the gesture. "I am too." He whispers, before laughing despite the tightness in his chest. "I think it is probably...what? 3 years? too late now?" Raising a brow before offering her an affectionate smile despite himself, Remi puts the basket down and kneels by it, reluctantly pulling his hand from Isla's that he might grab the bottle of gin. Glancing up at her, the Lullaby pauses. "Did..you want to sit?"

THE ALCHEMIST

we're always running scared but holding knives

She's sorry for that, too, that he has to feel all of her emotions, however selfish or pathetic they might be, but it's only partially why she steps in and reaches up to try and wipe away the tears that track his cheeks. Isla just can't stand to see him upset, not like this, and she gives his hand a gentle squeeze in return, however clumsy his own might be. "It's never too late," she whispers, "not with me. Three years is nothing."

Letting him go that he might kneel down, Isla doesn't need to be invited to sit - she's already doing it, plonking herself right beside him and accepting the bottle of gin. "Did you?" she asks, giving him a shy sort of smile for his trouble and uncorking the bottle, lifting it to her lips. She tastes little more than the burn, but even then it's enough. It's something.

"Why did you send my vial back?" Lowering the bottle, she offers it back out to him.

Isla

you trace my lines, stirring my soul

Wanting to take her hand and flurry apologetic kisses against her palm and wrist, Remi is forced to motionlessly endure the way she wipes the tears from his cheek, not trusting himself just now. Not with her.

Rolling his eyes at her, wondering how it was possible for her to feel so close and yet so far, Remi sits as well, dangling his legs over the edge of the bridge. Thoughtfully accepting the bottle, Remi bites the inside of his cheek for a moment as he considers the best way to answer. "I was going to send it back right away, actually. Out of anger. Then I thought about smashing it." He admits, glancing at her over his shoulder before returning his gaze to the bottle. "In the end...It didn't feel like I had given you a fair choice. It felt...like you sent it out of angry obligation, and I didn't want that. So I found another way, and.." Trailing off, he shrugs, before lifting the bottle to his lips and tasting what she couldn't: a fragrant punch of botanicals straight to the back of his throat.

'Gods, I have just been bulldozing my way through everything lately. I don't know when I became so blinkered by my own way of thinking about things, but..." Frowning, he turns toward her. "..I'm sorry I have."

THE ALCHEMIST

we're always running scared but holding knives

Isla raises an eyebrow at his first couple of points, feeling vexed and understanding in equal parts, and she softens when Remi comes down to the reality of it all. "I appreciate it," she admits softly, scooting a little closer next to him and dangling her feet over the edge of the bridge as well. "I know it shouldn't make a difference, because it's still blood from an Ascended, but... thank you. For not using mine."

Swinging her legs a bit, she hazards a smile up at him. "Maybe it's because you haven't had someone around to tell you when you're being a shit," she says. "I should know, because I haven't had that either. And gods, I need it sometimes. I was on such a high horse whenever you came to talk about tHe wAR or the Ascended, and that wasn't fair of me. You're in just as difficult a position as I am."

Isla

you trace my lines, stirring my soul

Nodding slightly as his gaze drifts across the vines that are starting to look less like prison bars, Remi can only sigh and wonder for the umpteenth time how he and Isla had wound up here.

"Oh, as if that matters." He replies with a dismal laugh. "Ronin tells me. My children try to tell me. Gods tell me.." Holding up his right hand and frowning at it, he moves it slightly to the side as if offering it as a piece of evidence. "But I don't ever listen." Finding that Isla's pebble blue stare was as hard to hold as it was to look away from, Remi swallows hard against the onslaught of yet more unbidden memories.

"I wish...you could know when something was ending before it does. That there was some way of knowing when lasts are about to happen, so that you can properly appreciate them." Raising an eyebrow, Remi hazards a glance her way. "There are a lot of last-times I wish I would have savoured more." He adds in a low whisper, his gaze dropping from hers, to her lips, and then back out to the vines again.

THE ALCHEMIST

we're always running scared but holding knives

Scoffing, Isla doesn't really have much to say there, and she can only offer a small nod to Remi in understanding. "Well, maybe I'll start telling you again as well, and then all of them together might help rein you in?" she suggests, knowing it wouldn't be true but enjoying the idea nonetheless. Her legs continue to swing, and even though she wants to look at Remi until it makes them both uncomfortable, she makes herself gaze out through the curtain of vines instead.

"Like what?" she wonders aloud at his wish, knowing and guessing at some of the things that might be on his list, but wanting to hear it from him nonetheless. "Are you and Ronin okay?" Isla asks suddenly, slipping her arm through Remi's and leaning in against him, as if it's only just occurred to her that this is why he might be out in the jungle in tears.

Isla

you trace my lines, stirring my soul

"Might as well give it a try." Remi agrees with a boyish chuckle, wondering if maybe this would be the time that one of his change-of-heart breakdowns actually manages to stick.

It's not not what he needs, but oh right, he's shirtless I forgot with the skin contact between them he's helpless against the way he momentarily stiffens. Trying to hold back the rush of his emotions is a toll that he's too poor to pay just now, and it's with a wordless hunching of his shoulders that Isla will be able to feel the onslaught of his feelings. Grief and regret are chief among them, though they sparkle in various hues. Given just how much Remi has to grieve and regret, this isn't so surprising. "We are." He manages. "We just...had one of those hard conversations where things are...resolved? but nothing feels better."

Glancing from the top of her head where it would be all too easy to simply lay his cheek or press a kiss and be done with it all, Remi instead turns his gaze up toward the sky as if he might suss out the sun through the canopy. "It's hard being around you, Isla." He admits in a soft voice that threatens to waver. "I wish I had known what you needed, when you needed it. I wish I had asked what you wanted instead of thinking I knew." Rushing a touch that he might say things long left unsaid before tears stopped him, Remi does his best to continue. "  ...if I could go back, even if I couldn't change anything, I would. Just to remember it all again. To.." Ahh, too late. Tears stifle what comes next, such that Remi finds himself closing his eyes and kicking out a foot. "..have you again. To be with you, just one more time."

And now, he thinks, would be an excellent time to jump off this bridge.

THE ALCHEMIST

we're always running scared but holding knives

"I'm sorry," Isla whispers, feeling each wash of his grief like a blade across her skin, though she doesn't draw away from him either. "Oh, one of those conversations," she echoes, nodding her understanding even if she doesn't know the details. She doesn't need to, not with Remi laid bare like an open book against her emotions. Still, as he continues, she doesn't expect this to be about her - not leading on from the Ronin and Remi conversation, anyway - and she draws back just enough to look across at him.

"I don't want to cause you pain, Remi. If that's what me being here is doing, then I'll do anything to try and fix it." She doesn't say I'll go, because it's a lie. She doesn't want to go now, especially after finally being able to speak with the alchemist again. "I... Remi..." Torn between wanting to throw her arms around him to melt into them and sitting back further to create distance, Isla can only sit in the useless now, reaching out to hold his hand.

"Would it be enough?" she asks, honest and tired and sad. "If it happened... would you not want there to be another last time? And another - and another? Because I think I would."

Isla

you trace my lines, stirring my soul

It's such an Isla response that Remi can't help but laugh, even as tears form in the corners of his eyes. "I have felt this way the whole time. Ever since we.." Rolling his ruined right hand that he might not have to clumsily try and fill in that particular blank, Remi just shrugs. "...things ended so poorly. And now they keep ending poorly." He adds with a sad chuckle, glancing down at her and wrapping his fingers around hers.

Her question doesn't quite catch him off guard, but his expression does grow thoughtful in response. "Oh, no I absolutely would." He replies honestly and without hesitation. "How could I not?" This is said to stroke her ego of course, but that didn't make it any less true. "I think...and maybe I am just lying to myself to justify it, but it feels like I never quite got things right with you, the way I know I could have. At the time it was funny how our date ended, but now I look back and wished I had just paid attention a little more. That I hadn't treated our time together as if it was something I had an endless supply of." Because, he doesn't need to say, I didn't.

THE ALCHEMIST

we're always running scared but holding knives

"Oh," Isla says, because there's not much else she can say to that, the medic wincing and letting her thumb graze over the back of his hand. "I overreacted then too, I think," she whispers, though there's a hint of playfulness there even through the sadness. You don't say? remains dangling between them. "And I wish I'd had a real conversation with you, before Varus. About how I was feeling. Because it's not that I didn't enjoy things with us," she says, peering up at him.

"But I... even on a perfect day. A perfect date, where everything went right... you still go home. To Ronin. And I go to bed alone." Tears sting in her eyes now as well, and she doesn't try to stop them. "Maybe if we'd spoken about it, we'd have been able to get back to a healthier place. Slowly, in a way that didn't rip everything apart and throw it up in the air. Because I miss you. I miss how things were."

Isla

you trace my lines, stirring my soul

Isla? Overreact? To some moronic thing Remi had done or said that was deserving of a solid kick to the balls? No, Never.

Inhaling as if he might suck in the words she was saying, Remi shakes his head. "With more distance between then and now, of course I understand. If anything I would be surprised if one man was enough for you, much less only the partial attention of one." Even knowing now and agreeing with her, gods but it hurt to hear; how he'd overlooked her needs. How selfish and stupid he'd been. Looking up as if that might stop the tears (it doesn't), Remi ruefully shakes his head. "I know. I was an idiot not to realize. I don't know what I was thinking, to ask you to put my feelings above your own happiness."

Feeling both like the dog and the boot kicking it while it's down, Remi squeezes Isla's hand. "I have lost so much...but save for Aoife, losing what we had is what I regret most." He whispers sweetly and softly. Unable to look at her without thoughts of what it would be like to lean down and brush his lips against hers, he stares down into the mist below. "I'll never stop being sorry for that."

THE ALCHEMIST

we're always running scared but holding knives

Isla scoffs at that, even as she reaches up with her free hand to wipe at her tears. "I don't know, I think between the two of you I could have probably managed." Between Remi and Varus, she means, if things hadn't gone so colossally to shit in a way that feels like it can't be repaired. "You might be an idiot, but you were my idiot. And I still wanted to take your feelings into account... I was just shitty at saying it at the time."

Smiling sadly down into the mist, Isla shifts to lean her head against Remi's shoulder, as if the weight of holding herself up is too much. "I wish I could have met your little girl," she whispers sadly. "As me. Not as a unicorn. She was just a little cackling ball of energy."

Inhaling even though she doesn't need to, Isla sniffles and tilts her head back to look up at him. "Do you think there's a way forward for us? Where we don't just... pretend we're friends? Where we can talk about the very obvious sexual tension between us and still be able to hang out? Maybe even joke about it? Because... you're not wearing a shirt, Remi, and I don't know if you've realised, but you've got even more muscles than when I saw you last."

Isla

you trace my lines, stirring my soul

Giving her an imploring look, as if saying exactly the right thing was precisely the wrong thing to do, the alchemist does his best not to melt into some far-too malleable version of himself, even as he nods. "Well, it was probably difficult to be anything but shitty with your not-boyfriend, me, acting like a jealous teenager." Remi points out.

Maybe he shouldn't, though just now it doesn't seem like a doorway to anything else, Remi slips his hand from Isla's that he might wrap his arm around her shoulders. "I wish you had too." He agrees of Aoife, though his throat grows too tight to say anything else and for a moment it's all he can do to keep breathing.

"I don't..." About to say he doesn't know how they could possibly do any of the things she'd described, Remi flushes as he glances down at himself, suddenly thinking perhaps he shouldn't have put his arm around her. "Oh." No, he hadn't realized, and it's with a self-deprecating and boyish laugh that he shifts slightly. "Is...this better?" Letting his psychometry take hold, Remi blends the memories of himself he had with those in Isla's mind, of when he'd just been an alchemist in Northaven. Though he was never scrawny, certainly he'd been lean with far fewer scars.

"It wouldn't work with you, though. You've always been this beautiful."

THE ALCHEMIST