For Science

SAMUEL "I wonder if you were able to come with what was important to you...? Did you especially value the herbs?" Sam wondered what he would choose to bring through the portal, if he was given a choice. Books seemed boring, clothes would likely be available anywhere...he had very few sentimental items. Perhaps the feather Remi had given him? Remi seemed troubled by the (supposed) origins of his upgrade, but Sam shrugged. He understood now why it might have been difficult for Remi to be with him physically with such a lack of response; had been so grateful for the upgrade that it no longer mattered anyway. "Maybe you should drink more wine then." Sam laughed, sipping his tea with his little finger out and his legs exaggeratedly crossed before him to show just how distinguished the wine had made him. "You did tell me of your father." He said gently with a nod. Usually he would have let Remi tell him of it again, but he thought this might not be a story he wanted to repeat. The compliment caught him off-guard and he smiled down into his cup, pushing hair behind his ear and laughing embarrassed to the floor. "Well. Thank you. I suppose since you say it so authoritatively I have to follow your instructions. Do you have any more orders?" It wasn't flirting, not quite. It was almost-flirting, bats in the direction of flirting when Sam didn't know how to handle the swing. But there was a shine in his eyes and a tilt to his smile which spoke volumes along with his words, as well as the way his finger stroked down the handle of his cup slowly, deliberately. I'm starting to heal and find some faith I'm starting to feel what's out of place Don't need you to save me, I can't wait To fall, to fail and start again

remi The higher I climb the farther I fall when I do "Ah...well, I do not not value them." He said with an unhelpful sort of chuckle. "But I am not sure I would say that they were especially precious to me. Though I am happy to have them now." Remi added, gesturing to the tea in the cup, and taking another sip. Watching Sam's display just made Remi grin all the more, his eyes now sliding over Sam given the excuse he'd been given. "Very fancy indeed." Remi said with a laugh, shaking his head. "Well I was a lowly commoner back in Northaven despite how much wine I drank, so I am not convinced that drinking more here will have much of an effect. But if you insist, I do happen to make quite good wine, but someone suggested tea instead." The alchemist added with a wry laugh. Sam's flirtation was indeed interpreted as such, and glancing up quickly, the alchemist saw the (un???)intentional way Sam's finger moved along the handle of the cup, bringing an immediate corral blush to Remi's cheeks. He couldn't help but think of the way he'd been pressed so close to the bookmaker in the labyrinth, the raw hurricane of sensations that had overtaken him. Unlike last time though, this version of Remi did stop to consider the implications of the bite. Was ... whatever tentative attraction he might feel for Sam simply because his passions had already been stirred, and now his mind was merely linking them together? Or ... was there something actually here? A spark that had been struck independently of their venture into the labyrinth. "Orders? Sure." Remi said after a moment, glancing up with roguish smile. "You probably should not bite me when I am a lion. You think you can obey that?" He asked crookedly. "Have you ever been a lion before?"

SAMUEL "Mmm. It is odd to think I am drinking something from another world." Sam commented, looking down in the tea and wondering what Remi would have rather brought with him. Often he resented that he was surrounded by the unavoidable trappings and location of his childhood, but would he want it all whisked away as Remi's had been? He laughed and moved back to a comfortable position, little finger firmly back around the handle. "You must be more forceful, then. Insist upon the wine, or we will never be refined gentlemen." Grinning, Sam sipped at his tea and in the second his face was obscured, let himself look pleased that Remi was joking with him, that it felt so right. Sam could not tell if Remi was affected by his brief reachings into flirting, but he would not reveal his game; he simply smiled coyly and tried to look innocent, until Remi gave his suggestion and he laughed, shaking his head fondly. "I only did that because it was an emergency!" He insisted. "And yes, I have been. Right after I bit you. It was...possibly not the most usual experience, as we were fighting a bear. I found it useful to have such large teeth and claws."He had not experienced the angst Remi seemed to in that form; or perhaps he had but it had been channelled into their fight and so not an issue. He placed his cup down and moved to rest his chin to his hand, looking Remi up and down. "After that fight, Safrin cured all your wounds and removed the scars. I..am still glad of that, but they would prove I was telling the truth. You had great gashes, here." He gestured vaguely along Remi's side. "I...thought you would die. You are a very lucky man." I'm starting to heal and find some faith I'm starting to feel what's out of place Don't need you to save me, I can't wait To fall, to fail and start again

remi The higher I climb the farther I fall when I do Tilting his head slightly the alchemist pondered over this for a moment. "I never thought of it like that before ... but yes, I suppose it is." The corners of his lips quirked for a moment and he smiled at something that previously would have made him frown. "I do not think we are even in the same...place if that makes any sort of sense. The stars are not the same in the sky." Remi's thoughtful expression dissolved into one that was slightly embarrassed as he shook his head, not having meant to sound so ... strangely speculative about the metaphysics of this world. "Ah yes. Forceful, that sounds like me." The alchemist chuckled, not realizing that the Remi Sam had known had indeed been forceful in many ways. "Well I know who I will come to first the next time I feel the urge to be seen as particularly gentlemanly." He replied with a laugh. With fluttery lashes (the ones Jigano so hated he'd now realized, though he could do little about it), Remi uncertainly endured the look Sam was giving him, until he explained. "Ah, yes. I do remember that. I was with Ronin catching a fish for her." Leaning back in his chair, Remi ran a hand beneath his shirt and up his ribs, stroking the flesh there that was still lined with scars. "Not all of it though. She left these for me." Glancing towards Sam earnestly, Remi nodded. "Lucky that you were there, you mean, regardless of what my memory would have me believe. "

SAMUEL Sam had never considered the stars, having never known any other constellations than the ones he had always grown up with. He always accepted that Outlanders came from another world, but it was such an obvious showing of it made him pause, think. Was it possible for Remi for go back? To be dragged away to a place so far away that Sam could never hope to follow? Where even the sky could not unite them? He was dragged from his melancholy (though would certainly return to it later) as Remi joked about his 'urge to be particularly gentlemanly'. Sam smiled and pushed back his hair, pouted his lips to look just as snobby as his parents and their friends had in his childhood. "I know." Sam said of the scars on Remi's ribs as he returned to his normal self, realising too late the blatant acknowledgement of them seeing each other's bodies would likely make the other man uncomfortable. Smiling he shrugged. "I am glad I could help, though I must admit it was partly my fault you were so hurt. You made a...dirt ceiling over us and I...well, I thought you were trying to bury us early." The last part was said as a whisper, Sam's voice clearly shaking. "...I knocked it down." I'm starting to heal and find some faith I'm starting to feel what's out of place Don't need you to save me, I can't wait To fall, to fail and start again

remi The higher I climb the farther I fall when I do The change in Sam's face was honestly a bit shocking as he mimed what being a proper gentleman might look like on him. With an easy grin, Remi laughed and shook his head immediately. "If that is you being gentlemanly I think we should stick to tea." He said through a grin, suddenly feeling the urge to ruffle his hands through Sam's hair as if that might erase the pompous sort of affect Sam had put on. "Ah." Remi said, looking unsettled and a bit bashful as his fingers fell away from the scarring. "It is so strange, the things you know about me." He said after a moment, his smile half crooked, his gaze both perhaps intrigued but also a bit bewildered. It was so hard to explain what the feeling precisely was. The alchemist was not the type to lie about himself, and while he was hardly guarded in any important ways, it was still a rather uncomfortable feeling. Despite the fact that Sam clearly seemed upset about the ordeal, the alchemist laughed brightly in response, his smile lighting up his entire face as he shook his head with amusement. "I am sorry that you thought that." Remi said after a moment, reining his smile in so that he could form words. "I might be reckless, but never suicidal. I suppose I thought I could protect us underground? Or that we could hide until the bear went away?" Touching his forehead in a gesture that indicated I don't remember, Remi shrugged and smiled at Sam. "You saved my life Sam, nothing else matters." He said gently.

SAMUEL "I'm not a good gentleman, then?" Sam asked with humour in his voice. Once he would have taken the comment to heart, wonder if he was not good at appearing refined as had been demanded from him his whole life...but now the joke poured across his shoulders like water and made him smile. It did feel odd to be so unequal, to know so much of Remi and know there was so little knowledge given back. But it was something that could be remedied in time. "And yet there is still so much I don't know." He said, a little hopefully but wistfully. Remi's reassurance, his sweet smile...it made Sam's chest flutter with affections he had wanted to think he longer had (because it would have made everything easier). But he knew, as he moved his eyes down with a light laugh and push back of his hair, that he was falling again for Remi, easily. He knew it still as he left, his newly-discovered cube in his pocket and love in his heart. Sam waved through the window as he walked away from Remi's shop, then as he turned away both held his hands to his heart because it soared and it hurt. ~End~ I'm starting to heal and find some faith I'm starting to feel what's out of place Don't need you to save me, I can't wait To fall, to fail and start again