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and-it-freezes-me · 3 years

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How To Make Mistakes

Summary: The ‘prologue’ to Accidents Happen, and should be read after reading the main series! AKA How Remus ended up being kicked out of his house for his brother’s crimes.

Content warnings: Hoo, boy, where do I begin? Very bad parenting, mentions of attempted suicide, references to self harm, nightmares, blood, character death (no main characters), claustrophobia, some injury detail, chemical burn (not detailed), animal death, car crash, fire, non-verbal character, accidental almost-murder, fighting, minor internalised acephobia, drug and alcohol use and misuse, some drunkenness, sensory overload, panic attacks, I believe that’s everything

Word count: 24,086 (yes, this got much longer than planned)

Remus couldn’t remember a time in his life before the nightmares. He assumed there must have been one - people don’t tend to be born with terror already flooding their veins and monsters lurking behind their closed eyelids. Besides, according to his parents the screaming had only really started when he had been six or seven.

By the time he was eight, he had been sleeping so poorly for such a long time that he had all but given up on anything that took extra effort.

They had dance classes together, him and Roman, since they were four - and he had really enjoyed them. Of course, he had preferred the faster, slightly more jumpy (for want of a better word) dances, where Roman had adored anything slow and stately, but they had still gone together. It had just been one of the things they did.

Then Remus had started waking up in the night and being unable to fall asleep again, terrified of the shadows that lurked in every corner and jumped every time a car drove past their house. His near constant exhaustion had carried over into his dancing, making him miss steps or stumble landings. Roman refused to move up a class without Remus, even though he was more than good enough, but he allowed Remus to hold him back for nearly three months.

He would have stayed in a class that was too easy for him for even longer, but Remus managed to get himself barred from ever returning to the dance studio. It had been a particularly bad night, and he had begged to stay home that morning. He hadn’t been allowed, of course: this was something he had chosen to do, a commitment he had made (when he was four! Before he was able to read the fucking fine print on these things!), he couldn’t just go when it suited him or not. He had made it all the way through the warm-up, all the way through the first few drills… In the first run-through of the performance piece they were focusing on that term, he had stumbled, and managed to trip into the girl next to him, and almost the entire class had gone down like a row of so many pastel coloured dominoes.

The teacher had taken pity on him, or perhaps been too pissed off to want to consider teaching him; the end result was the same, and he allowed him to sit out for the rest of the class. It had been as they were all filing out of the room to meet their parents that the girl he had knocked over earlier, now clinging to Roman’s arm, hadn’t bothered to lower her voice. He couldn’t remember exactly what it was she had said - he had been seven, and running on fumes - but it had been something about how Roman shouldn’t let his stupid, smelly brother hold him back, and Remus had snapped.

Their teacher had been on them as soon as she had started screaming, which had been almost immediately. He hadn’t even hurt her that badly: he’d bitten her arm, maybe, but not hard enough to draw blood, and her perfectly coiled bun was no longer so perfectly coiled or a bun, but he had still been asked not to return.

That was alright with him. Everything was a little easier when he didn’t have to put in the energy required to remember steps and stupid French words.

When they had been younger, he used to fight Roman over who got to choose the games they played, both at home and when they were with Virgil, who they had first met in preschool and tried to have a tug of war over. Now, it was easier to just let Roman dictate what they did, whether they drew or played board games or went exploring in the woods or enacted scenes from shows or books or out of Roman’s imagination. Roman would probably win anyway - this way, they cut out the needless half hour of arguing that frequently brought Virgil nearly to tears. It was easier this way.

Despite the fact that his teachers were constantly asking him why he couldn’t apply himself a little more, why he couldn’t work a little harder, why he couldn’t do what his brother so clearly could, Remus didn’t get properly labelled as a troublemaker until their class zoo trip at the start of third grade.

Even he wasn’t sure how he had managed to slip away from his Virgil, his trip buddy and usually so perceptive, three teachers, and the two guides taking them around the place, or how he had managed to get through not one but three doors marked ‘Authorised Personnel ONLY’ without detection. What he did remember was somebody in a hazmat suit yelling very loudly at him, startling him enough that he dropped the egg he had so carefully lifted out from under a large yellow heat lamp and had been cradling to his chest. It had smashed to pieces at his feet, covering his trainers in an opaque, slimy something that he could still smell in his nightmares sometimes, and there had been a few seconds of silence before a second person arrived, saw what had happened, and started yelling as well.

Remus had turned and tried to run away, and managed to knock over a shelf of what had turned out to be tanks containing various specimens of snakes being raised as part of a conservation program.

The zoo had asked him not to come back, and his parents had stopped his allowance for a year (which was fair enough, he supposed, given that they had had to pay for the damages).

After that, it was as though somebody had stuck a sign reading ‘Watch this kid’ to his back.

His grades had slipped further.

In the summer when he was nine, Roman started sneaking out in the mornings and spending the day doing who-knows-what, while Remus was left at home with the mountain of chores he had managed to accumulate for various misdeeds, some of which had been genuine accidents, some of which had been things that he just couldn’t help, like the row of Cs on his report card at the end of the year. He hadn’t minded so much at first, but it had gotten awfully lonely after a while. Virgil had been on some sort of summer camp, and Remus didn’t really have any other friends. Enough of the people at school were wary of him now, thanks to the occasional scuffle and the snake story, and the way he zoned out of conversations sometimes to just stare blankly at them.

One night, after having been woken by his usual nightmares and having calmed himself down enough to be comfortable getting out of bed and wandering around (nobody came when he screamed in the night anymore. They hadn’t in over two years. When the nightmares had first started - or when he had first started being aware of them, anyway - he had gotten up and slipped into his parents bed, managing to sleep the rest of the night away. But as the weeks passed and he was still doing it, still waking them up at stupid hours of the morning to lie beside them, they had put their collective foot down, warts and all. He was seven, a big boy now, he shouldn’t need to be lying with them to be able to sleep. Roman didn’t need to. The first few times, they had been kind about it. Then, less so), Remus had settled himself down outside Roman’s bedroom door to wait for morning.

Roman had practically tripped over him when he had come barrelling out of his room to go wherever it was he went all day. Catching himself on the opposite wall, he had frowned down at Remus before reaching out a hand. “What’re you doing, Rem?”

“I was-” Remus swallowed. “I was wondering if you’d wait for me. You don’t have to help with the chores, I just… I’d like to spend the day with you. Haven’t seen much of you lately, you know? Where’s my Ro-ro?” It was true. With Remus’ increased detentions and Roman’s increased extra curriculars, and their differing interests, they weren’t hanging out as much as they used to.

Roman had looked at him with no expression at all for a moment, and then he had grinned. “No, no, I’ll help with the chores. Just… Not just yet, yeah?”

Remus had nodded slowly, slightly confused. “I’m supposed to get them done before doing anything else, though.”

“It’ll be fine - just one game? Quickly?” Roman had glanced around, then grinned. “How about we play hide and seek? One game, you find me, I’ll find you, and then we do the chores. Then we can go mess around in the woods.”

This time Remus’ nod was enthusiastic. Turning to the wall, he began to count.

Roman hid behind the bathroom door, and Remus found him in only a few minutes. Remus tried to think of the best hiding place he could, and ended up climbing under the sink - it would take Roman ages to find him there! He’d look upstairs first, and then he’d have to look downstairs, so Remus would definitely win. Curling up into a ball, he let the door close behind him, and waited.

And waited.

He didn’t own a phone yet, and his watch was broken after an incident in the quarry in the woods, so Remus didn’t know how long it was before it occurred to him that Roman might not be looking for him.

Pushing that thought away, he shifted to get more comfortable. The U-bend of the sink had been digging into his back. Of course Roman was looking for him. They’d have to get the chores done quickly if they wanted much time in the woods, but they could manage that.

But Roman never came, and eventually Remus grew bored of waiting for him. Stretching his legs out, he pushed against the cupboard door with his bare feet… And it didn’t open.

He pushed at it again.

Still nothing.

That was when he remembered that all of the kitchen cupboards had funny little latches on them, to stop younger versions of Roman and Remus (mostly Remus) from going through the cupboards after an incident involving the entire kitchen and a lot of washing up liquid.

That was when the space started closing around him.

Remus had no idea where his parents had been that day. Maybe they had both been working, and were comfortable letting their nine-year-old sons run around on their own: their town was quiet, and Roman at least was responsible. Maybe none of Remus’ screams, so loud at night, had actually left his chest. Either way, it was past six in the evening when his father finally opened the kitchen cupboard to find a tearstained, soiled, trembling child sitting in a slippery mess of washing up liquid and detergent and laundry softener, the U-bend of the sink broken from his earlier thrashing.

When Remus had tried to speak, to thank Hyun-ki for freeing him, to say it was his fault (strange, how his first thought was to protect Roman), to try to explain what had actually happened (Roman needed to be at least told off for not shouting to say that the game was over!), only a low whine had emanated from his throat. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t make words come out. His father had hugged him briefly, wrinkled his nose at the smell, and then sent Remus off to shower while he started cleaning up.

And then he was clean, and dry, and warm and safe in the biggest jumper he owned despite the heat of the day, and his parents were quizzing him on why the hell he had thought it sensible to climb into the kitchen cupboard, he could have been seriously hurt, he’d broken the sink and that was going to need a real plumber to repair, what was he thinking? Had he tripped and fallen in? (That question was a trap, and they all knew it). Words were still raw against his throat and unwilling to come out, and he didn’t really want to get his brother in trouble - it wasn’t Roman’s fault he had locked himself in, after all… So when they asked him if he had been planning on jumping out for a joke, he had nodded brusquely. It was easier than trying to come up with a story that made him look good but didn’t get Roman in trouble.

It was easier to take the additional chores for breaking the sink than to complain that it wasn’t fair.

The incident that had lost him his pocket money for good a year later had only half been an accident.

It had been getting more and more obvious, over the past few months, that his parents were favouring Roman. There was a chance that Roman didn’t realise exactly what was going on, but he definitely knew something was happening. He almost never invited Remus to do anything with him anymore, and once or twice Remus was fairly certain that he had blamed a dropped plate or wrongly pruned plant on him. He didn’t really mind. His parents didn’t bother adding extra chores to the ones he already had to do, so it wasn’t as though he was really suffering from it. It hurt a little, that their parents never seemed particularly interested in what he had to say.

There used to be a vase on the table in the living room. It had been made by their mother’s great grandmother, and had stood on that table for as long as Remus had been alive. They were frequently reminded not to play too close to it.

He hadn’t meant to drop it.

Remus had just wanted to move it. He was going to hide it in a cupboard, and then hide behind the door himself (he couldn’t go in cupboards or under beds anymore), and wait to see which his parents missed first. All he was trying to do was prove to himself that he was more important to them than some old vase. It was a simple test, one that didn’t need doing. He was their son, after all, even if he did have his… Quirks.

But the vase had been heavier than he had expected, and he had tripped whilst carrying it to its hiding place, landing on top of it and crushing it into dozens of knife-like shards. If the sound of the vase shattering hadn’t been enough to bring his mother running, his howl of pain as broken china sliced through his shirt certainly was, and she stared at the pattern of shards, Remus right in the centre, for several long seconds before starting to shout.

Then he had sat up, and they both stared at his torso, which was becoming bloodier by the second. There was already a not insignificant stain on the carpet, and all over some of the vase fragments. That was when Dae’s training kicked in, and Remus found himself in hospital and being stitched back together a surprisingly short time later.

It wasn’t until the following day, when he was no longer woozy from blood loss, that he was treated to another Remus-curse-of-the-walking-disaster lecture. When they were finished - they had come to sit on the end of his bed to talk to him - they both stood to leave. Then his father turned back to him. “Why did you break it, anyway? It meant everything to Dae…” As though he had done it on purpose.

Remus didn’t know why he said it, but the words dropped from his lips before he had even thought them through. “I always hated that ugly thing.”

Maybe he said it because they were expecting something callous from him, something else they could use to weigh him down while Roman soared far above him in their eyes. Maybe it was because it was easier than trying to explain that it felt as though they just didn’t care about him anymore.

Yeah, that was it. It was because it was easy.

And so the pattern continued. Remus made a mistake and was shown no mercy, while Roman was given everything he ever wanted.

Somewhere deep down, Remus knew that it wasn’t Roman he hated. It was the way their parents almost never addressed him anymore unless it was to tell him off, for skipping school, for getting in another scuffle, for ripping his clothes, for staying out too late. It was the way they were constantly comparing the two of them, constantly pitting them against one another and then punishing Remus for coming out second when the deck was so clearly stacked against him.

When he was thirteen, he started drinking to try to stop screaming at night. It was one of the reasons his parents resented him so much - it had been implied often enough. What teenager screams through the night, every night? He couldn’t help it, but it wasn’t as though they seemed to care about that. He snuck into parties he was years too young for whenever he could (Remy always seemed to know when and where parties would be, even if he wasn’t invited to them, and Remus had taken to listening in on his conversations while he was with Virgil. Roman almost never spent time with their friend anymore), and if his parents noticed, they didn’t say a thing.

They didn’t say a thing when the screaming stopped. They didn’t seem to notice when Remus started getting sick from it, when he was a hundred, a thousand times more fidgety or sleepy during the day. It was though they didn’t care at all.

Sometimes, he would be lucky enough to snag a few bottles of whatever from somewhere, which meant that he didn’t have to go out. It was one of these nights that Roman snuck into his room, an almost unheard of occurrence these days, and sat on the end of his bed. Remus was already tipsy, but his brother didn’t seem to notice. It seemed like all Roman wanted was for somebody to sit and nod as he chatted aimlessly about school, about his classmates, about the theater parts he was going for. His most recent crush had taken one of the supporting roles in the play, and Remus was treated to a half-hour lecture on how his hair positively gleamed under the stage lights.

“... I mean it, Rem, he’s gorgeous. He’s the year above us, I think, first year of highschool - you know this year the highschool’s taking part, it’s amazing that I got such a large role, there are so many people…” Roman trailed off dreamily, and Remus’ head bobbed slowly. Then his twin looked at him, leaned forward and poked his nose, which he wrinkled in response. “What about you, Rem?”

“What about me… What?” Remus had to admit, he hadn’t quite been following the conversation.

“A crush!” Roman exclaimed, leaning forward to shake Remus’ shoulders enthusiastically. “Do you have anyone you like?”

“Uh… Of course,” Remus lied, because… Well, it would look stupid if he said no.

Roman practically started bouncing on the bed. “Who? Do I know them?”

Oh. Fuck. Now he actually had to think of somebody, and fast, because Roman had stopped bouncing and was looking at him as though he could see right through him. Remus was not about to get caught lying about having a crush on somebody, for fuck’s sake. “Remy,” he blurted, and Roman looked stunned.

“Remy? Virgil’s brother? Remy Spince? Why?” Remus would have been mildly offended on Remy’s behalf had his brain been processing fast enough.

“Uh… Well, he’s… Cool. Very cool. An’ he’s nice to me, so…”

Roman chuckled. “Ahh. I see, Rem. Older guys, huh? With the jacket and the glasses? I see, I see…”

Blurting a random name had been so, so easy. Was this all it took to get Roman to like him again? Pretend to be attracted to somebody unobtainable? He could do that.

One week later, Roman spilled wax all over the floor and blamed him for it. Remus, in a fit of fondness for his brother (and also because he didn’t want Roman to have to suffer their parents’ disappointment), got up in the night to set fire to the curtains, just to make it look as though it really had been his fault.

Smoke coiled through his nightmares for weeks after that.

A month later, he regretted it, because Roman had gone and stuck his tongue down Remy’s throat at a party.

It wasn’t even as though Remus particularly liked Remy - not in the way he had told Roman he did, anyway - but it still hurt. As far as Roman knew, Remus had feelings (ick) for his friend’s elder brother, and he had gone and kissed him anyway. It had been partially betrayal (but mostly alcohol poisoning) that had had him throwing up in the host’s swimming pool.

And then autumn came, and school started, and Virgil didn’t come back. Remus visited him - of course he did, how could he not? He visited, and he visited, and he visited, first at the hospital during in the week Virgil had had to stay there while they made sure that the bottle of pain meds he had swallowed weren’t going to have any additional effects on him, and then at his home, sometimes skipping school to see him during the two weeks he spent at home.

Then they had gotten into an argument. It had been Remus’ fault, of course. And really, it was only Remus arguing, too. He had made some idle comment about how Roman was probably doing a far better job of cheering Virgil up than he was - they had been looking through a medical journal for rare and gross conditions, something that Remus found thrilling and Virgil found mildly unsettling but not enough so to make them stop - and Virgil’s face had shut down completely.

“Virge? Vee, dude, what’s up? Are you okay?” Virgil had nodded once, jaw tight and eyes not meeting Remus’, and it occurred to him that Virgil might be having another anxiety attack. They had been getting worse all year, but they had been more frequent than ever since he had tried to kill himself. “Hey. You’re safe, dude. Do you want to do the breathing thing? It’s just like stabbing someone, look, in, two, three, four, hold - that’s twisting the knife - two -”

“Not an attack,” Virgil interrupted, although he had pulled his knees to his chest and wrapped his arms around them. “I’m okay.”

“You don’t look okay. What’s wrong?”

Virgil tried to stare him down, but that was a mistake. Remus had mastered the art of not blinking - it came from nights on end just staring into the corners of his room. (Virgil’s death was something that haunted his dreams now. He hadn’t seen him, hadn’t been the one to find his body - that had been Remy - but he could imagine, and once he had imagined, he couldn’t stop imagining). Finally, the taller boy sighed and shrugged. “Roman hasn’t visited,” he mumbled.

“WHAT?” Virgil flinched; Remus hadn’t meant to shout. “Sorry - what do you mean, he hasn’t- He’s your friend!”

“Hasn’t texted, either,” Virgil whispered, and Remus wanted to hug him until he felt his ribs crack. “I don’t think we’re friends anymore…”

“You are fucking kidding me! He -” Instead of hugging Virgil - because when could Remus ever do anything right? - he had started shouting. “That son of a bitch! He fucking -”

“Remus, don’t…”

“I’m going to kill him! How fucking dare he, I’m going to - I’m going to rip his guts from his body, I’m - I’m going to tear him into tiny, tiny pieces and -” He proceeded to get more creative, his sudden rage at his twin fueling his rant in spite of Virgil’s pleas that he calm down. Red, the same red that Roman wore when he needed extra luck, had filled his vision to the point that he didn’t see the fresh tears that started spilling down Virgil’s cheeks.

That had been when Virgil’s father had slipped into the room. He was a tall, skinny man, just as pale as his sons and with their same dark hair, and misery dripped from him in long, thick shadows and trailed behind him like a cloak. It looked as though he had been crying, too, although that wasn’t unusual. Although he had tried to keep it together for his sons, the loss of his wife at the start of the summer had taken a huge toll on him (Remus could be observant and emotionally sympathetic when he was trying), and Virgil’s suicide attempt hadn’t been easy on any of them. He looked at Remus for a long second. “I think…” Remus almost had to lean in to hear his words. “I would prefer it if that kind of language… I think you should leave, son.”

And just like that, he was barred from visiting his friend’s home. He still saw Virgil, of course, but it was harder - especially when Mr Spince had phoned his parents to say that Virgil had had one of his worst ever panic attacks after Remus had yelled at him.

He didn’t bother trying to explain what had really happened - he knew Mr Spince was just trying to protect Virgil, and that Virgil had just been trying to protect his friend, but he doubted that the elder would like to see him again after finding him making increasingly disturbing death threats in front of his son. It was easier just to allow another person to label him as dangerous and disturbed, and to meet with Virgil away from his home.

He didn’t speak to Roman for a very long time after that.

Patton… Patton had been a mistake, although one of the worst ones he had made in a long time.

It had been a bad week for him, to start with. Remus was fourteen. He had been feeling constantly sick for the past three days, and he just knew it was the alcohol, but he had yet to find anything as effective for silencing him at night. He hadn’t been getting much rest, either, and had just left a particularly painful calculus lesson taught by a teacher that seemed to delight in comparing him to his perfect twin.

He was walking to lunch when he became dimly aware that somebody had mentioned his name just behind him in the corridor. Slowing his pace, he had tilted his head to listen better, and then wished he hadn’t.

“Remus Wang… Similar to Roman?”

“Yes, like Roman. Well, no, not really like Roman, that’s his twin.” It was Patton, and a voice that he didn’t recognise. He refused to turn to see who it was.

“I was not aware that Roman Wang had a twin. He has certainly never mentioned him in our tutoring sessions.” Remus smiled faintly at the stiff, formal speech - it was deep, calm, and would have been nice to listen to, had whoever it was been talking about anything else.

“Ah, yeah. He doesn’t talk about him. Remus is kinda…” Patton hesitated, and Remus took a slow breath through his nose. “Kinda the black sheep of the family, if you know what I mean.”

“I do not. The Wangs are Korean, not black, and all human. Remus does not look anything like an ovis aries.”

Remus had to suppress a snort of laughter at that. Patton, on the other hand, sighed and dropped his voice. “He’s the… Troublemaker. I heard from somebody that he’s even been picked up by the cops once or twice. Ditches school. Crashes parties. Picks fights. There’s various graffiti in the bathrooms suggesting he has a… Somewhat illegal job.”

“Oh - are you referring to the numerous grammatically incorrect scrawls implying that somebody named Wang is a prostitute? Those did not entirely make sense when I applied them to Roman, but I did not know whether there was another Wang here…”

Personally, Remus found those scrawls hilarious - but hearing himself discussed like this was anything but. He shouldn’t have slowed down to listen in.

“That would be him. You can see why Roman doesn’t really talk about him, right?” Remus had never heard Patton sounding so cruel before. “Roman resents him, I think. He’s always taking the spotlight away - that’s just what Ro said, I don’t really know. If they weren’t identical, you’d never think they were related. Roman is - well, Roman, and Remus is pretty much a criminal already, it’s not like Roman needs him around, so-”

“Patton,” said the owner of the other voice, who Remus had turned around to see was a tall, dark-skinned guy with thick-rimmed glasses and a tie, “you are being unusually cruel toward this-”

Of course, the fact that Remus had turned around when Patton had called him a criminal meant that his fist had collided with Patton’s jaw shortly after the new student had said his name. The rest of his sentence had continued coming out of his mouth despite the fact that Patton was stumbling backward, hand to his face (which Remus knew was going to bruise up terribly but couldn’t bring himself to feel guilty). A red haze had descended over Remus’ vision.

“I really do not think that violence-”

“Remus! I - I didn’t-”

“Can it, Specs. Patton, do you want to finish that sentence with or without your buckteeth?”

There was already a loose horseshoe of students around them, all staring at Patton - nobody was standing behind him. It was as though they didn’t want to be in Remus’ way.

“I - no, Remus, I was just-”

The snarl of rage that left Remus then was probably the thing that got him in the most trouble. That, and the fact that he dived at Patton fists first, catching him in the face once more. Patton’s head jerked back, and his body followed - and then Remus realised why there were no students behind him.

It was because they were at the top of a flight of stairs.

Patton didn’t just fall down the stairs. He tumbled, short curls over knee-length skirt; he practically bounced off the wall at the bottom with a sickening crunch, stumbled, and then slipped down the second flight as well.

And then Patton was lying two floors below them, limbs at the wrong angles, blood spreading out like a halo around his golden head and dripping from his nose. His blue eyes were still open - and he was blinking, as though he wasn’t entirely sure what had happened.

That image, of him standing at the top of the stairs while white noise roared in his ears, of Patton lying at the bottom like a broken doll, was one that never left him.

The crunch when he had hit the wall had Remus bolting awake within minutes of falling asleep for the next month, no matter how much he had drunk, or what he had tried to knock himself out with.

He had been suspended for nearly a month. It would have been longer had Patton not been informed that he was going to make a full recovery despite the severe concussion, the four snapped ribs, the complex fracture in his left arm, and the broken leg.

At first, when a teacher dragged him into an office and locked him in, Remus hadn’t been able to say a word. There were no words he could say.

Later, when they had been grilling him - the head teacher, three senior members of staff, his parents, and a police officer - he had barely been able to string a sentence together. Finally, the principal had gotten to her feet, had slammed her hands down on the desk in front of him, and almost yelled: “We have two dozen eyewitnesses, Wang! Staying silent isn’t going to help your case at all. Tell us what happened. Explain to us. Say something!” He had looked around, wishing that somebody would come to his defense, but nobody did. “Did you push Patton Grace down the stairs?”

That was when a smirk had spread across his face. He hadn’t wanted it there. It sickened him. He didn’t know why he said it. “Fuck yes I did.”

And then Remus started laughing. He couldn’t stop, no matter how much his parents yelled at him, how disgusted his teachers looked. He could barely even stop to breathe. He laughed as they settled his suspension, he laughed as his parents literally dragged him out of school - he was laughing too hard to walk straight, the sound being dragged from him as though by giant, steel hands with hooked fingers, shredding the inside of his throat - and he laughed as the police officer informed him that they would be keeping an eye on him. He laughed all the way home.

Remus laughed until he threw up, and then he laughed until he cried, and then he couldn’t stop crying either. He had cried until he had blacked out.

Then he had woken up, screaming harder than ever.

He was grounded, of course, but when had that stopped him doing anything?

Remus started walking through the woods instead of even trying to sleep. He walked until he couldn’t walk any further, and then he lay down on the floor and slept for as long as he could, and then he went home. He considered running away, but knew he wouldn’t get anywhere. He’d be arrested, or murdered, or something.

It was around then that he actually started using the razor he had stolen a few months before the incident. It wasn’t that he wanted to die. It wasn’t even that he wanted to see the blood that oozed from his arms.

Actually, he didn’t know why he did it.

He just knew that it was easy.

The first time Janus found him in the woods, Remus had managed to twist his ankle in the darkness and had fallen down a slope. He had gone through what had turned out to be a fence made of barbed wire and landed in a ditch, and hadn’t bothered trying to get up again. He wasn’t entirely sure he could move, actually. So he lay there, bleeding and bruised, and allowed himself to fall asleep. Maybe a rabid dog would find him and eat him. That would certainly solve a lot of problems for people.

And then Janus was untangling the metal claws from around his torso, was helping him out of the ditch despite the fact that he knew Janus knew every bad thing that everybody said about him, was letting him lean on him without acting as though Remus was going to maul him.

He took him into the largest house Remus had ever been invited inside (he may have broken in to one or two for reasons he could not remember), led him to an upstairs bathroom, and then sat him on the side of a truly massive bathtub to smear antiseptic all over him before wrapping him in an astonishing amount of bandages. Remus was dimly aware that Janus was speaking to him for pretty much the entire time, but he had no idea what the words were. All he could really understand was the tone, which was… Kind. Janus wasn’t shouting at him. Janus wasn’t being disdainful or cruel - at least, not in tone. Janus was talking to him as though he were a spooked, injured creature… And Remus started crying again. That was the first time he cried in front of Janus Sinclaire.

Janus lent him a spare change of clothes for him to get home. They were too long and too tight, but Remus accepted them anyway. He didn’t thank him, even though he knew he should. He did try to, but Remus found that he couldn’t speak again. All that came out when he tried was a hum that would have embarrassed him if he had been lucid enough to care.

Then Janus had walked him home.

The second time he came across Janus in the woods, it had been his birthday. March 17th. Remus was fifteen. When he had gotten downstairs that morning, there had been a small pile of presents in Roman’s place on the kitchen table, and nothing in his. He had cut a large, messy slice from the gorgeous chocolate cake that read ‘Happy 15th Birthday, Roman!’ and taken it into the woods. It was his birthday too, after all. He at least deserved the part that read ‘15th’.

He had been walking blindly, not really caring where he was going, when he heard the sound of screaming. With nothing better to do, Remus hurried in that direction. If it was a serial killer, maybe he’d see something gorey and cool. Or maybe he’d get murdered. It didn’t matter either way.

It was not a serial killer. Instead, Janus Sinclaire was standing at the edge of the abandoned quarry, screaming wordlessly into it. Frowning, Remus shoved the last of his cake into his mouth and chewed fiercely at it, then started moving forward. A twig snapped.

Janus must have heard it, because he span around, shoulders hunching defensively. They stared at one another for a long, long moment before Remus wiped his chocolatey fingers on his shirt and moved to stand next to Janus. He nodded once, as though screaming into a large hole in the ground was a perfectly normal thing to be doing at eight in the morning, and started yelling as well.

After a moment, Janus joined in once more.

They were friends after that.

They only met in the woods at first. Remus had no desire to drag Janus’ reputation through the mud by letting them be seen together, and Janus seemed happy enough as long as they were spending time together.

Some time in late May that year, they were sitting on a rock beside a small stream together. It was early in the morning - early enough that they had watched the sun rise together, both of them cradling coffee poured from a flask that Janus had brought on his early morning walk. They hadn’t been talking, preferring to sit and watch the ripples of tiny fish in the water in front of them, when Janus had leaned forward and plucked a leaf from Remus’ hair.

“There’s a lot of them in here. Did you roll down a bank to get here?” He pulled another one out, and the morning sun made his skin and eyes briefly glow.

Remus had no idea why somebody made of literal sunlight wanted to be his friend. “Nah, I slept here. Parents didn’t let me in last night.”

Janus frowned. His fingers were carding through Remus’ hair now, tugging at autumn’s pine needles and knots alike. “That’s not fair.”

“Eh. Happens often enough. An’ I was drunk last night, as well as past curfew. No biggie.”

Janus’ fingers caught, and Remus hissed out a curse of pain. “Sorry! Sorry… Rem, if that happens again, will you…”

“When.”

“Hm?”

“When it happens again.”

“Right.” Janus did not look pleased. “When it happens again. Call me, or send me a message, okay? You can stay at mine. What if you got hurt out here, and I wasn’t there to help? I’d rather not find you dead in the quarry because you slipped in the dark…”

Remus made a choked noise, then nodded rapidly.

It was weird, having somebody care about him like that.

Actually sending Janus the text wasn’t easy, but sneaking through his bedroom window was. Changing into the oversized hoodie and sweatpants Janus offered him was easy, and slipping into bed beside him was easy too. When he was jerked awake by his friend shaking him and instructed to hide under the bed, Remus did so. Letting his friend lie to his parents about the screaming, that was easy too.

Somehow, even apologising to Janus, explaining about his nightmares, and offering to leave was easy.

Melting into the hug that Janus wrapped him in and falling back asleep beside his friend, though? That was the easiest thing of all.

Life actually got a little better after that, even though Remus’ new attempts to find something to stop himself from screaming at night were having a broadly varied range of horrible side-effects on him. The only other downside was Virgil: Virgil was no longer as friendly as he had been before. It took Remus a while to figure out why. They had been friends, been good friends, even though Roman had stopped talking to Virgil altogether by the time he had gotten back to school, even though he wasn’t welcome at Virgil’s house anymore.

Eventually, he had expressed his concerns to Janus. Well, Janus had caught on to the fact that Remus had been extra twitchy for the last few days, and had finally sat him down on a fallen log and poked his shoulder with one long, graceful finger.

“Spit it out, arms.” The nickname had been earned when Janus realised exactly how long it had been since anybody had hugged Remus, and Remus had responded far too enthusiastically. Janus had said it was like hugging an octopus.

Remus spat the gum he had been chewing into his palm and offered it to Janus, who wrinkled his nose.

“Not the gum. What’s eating you, Remus?”

“About six mosquitos, far as I can tell. Why the sudden interest? Developed a taste for human blood and don’t want to share?” Remus put his chewing gum back into his mouth and leaned back over the log, forming a bridge with his body.

Janus sat down beside him. “Just because you dragged me out here to distract me from intense amount of extra work I have to do -”

“Have to do?”

“Am being encouraged to do,” Janus amended, smiling faintly. He prodded Remus’ stomach gently. “Just because you’re trying to distract me doesn’t mean we can’t talk about you, too. What’s wrong?”

“It’s stupid.” Remus sat up and rubbed the bark from his bare forearms. He only wore short sleeves around Janus.

“It’s bothering you, so it’s not stupid.” Leaning down, his friend picked up a small stone and tossed into a small pool that had formed between the roots of a tree in front of them. There was a small splash.

Remus sighed. “Virgil’s been avoiding me. No biggie. Told you it was stupid.”

Janus hummed quietly, digging around at his feet for another stone. When he straightened up, he handed Remus a worm before throwing the second pebble into the puddle. Another splash. Remus watched the worm twist on his palm. The way its pale pink, ribbed body moved always fascinated, and there was something bizarrely soothing about the slightly slimy feeling of it against his skin.

“Do you think it might be because you pushed his boyfriend down two flights of stairs?” There was no judgement in Janus’ voice.

Remus wasn’t entirely sure where to begin pulling that statement apart. His first instinct was to go on the defensive; his second was to claim that he was fully aware of the fact, and that it had been purposeful. He ignored both of those. Janus deserved better from him. He took a slow, deep breath.

“Virgil… Has a boyfriend?”

“Interesting thing to focus on,” Janus commented. He added a second worm and a small beetle to Remus’ now cupped hands. “But yes, Virgil is dating Patton. They’re together a lot at school.” Patton had returned to school in a wheelchair about two weeks after he had fallen. Remus had stayed as far away from him as he could.

He mumbled something.

“Didn’t catch that, Rem. Do you want an earwig? I always forget if you like them or not.”

Remus held out his hands for the earwig. “You know, earwigs were named for the belief that they would crawl in through people’s ears whilst they slept and lay eggs there, or else start eating their brains. It’s funny. These little dudes have no interest in your brain. They like eating rotten wood, that’s why you found one by this tree… I didn’t mean to push Patton, you know?”

Janus had been nodding along, clearly about to make some snide comment - possibly about some people needing to be concerned because they had brains made of rotting wood - but he paused when Remus said that. His face didn’t change. Remus was glad that Janus never seemed to mind his sudden jumps in conversation. “I… Had assumed that you didn’t mean to hurt him,” he said finally, and Remus smiled faintly.

“I wouldn’t blame you if you did think it had been on purpose, you know. I did own up to it, a bunch of people said they saw…”

Another earthworm in his hands. The earwig had crawled up his sleeve, but Remus didn’t mind. “Okay,” Janus said slowly, “do you want to tell me what did happen? The hysterical laughter as you left the school probably didn’t help your case.”

Remus groaned. “I know… It wouldn’t stop, I was trying… Not the millipede, thanks. If that goes up my sleeve and I bring it home by mistake, my dad’ll be pissed.”

“Not the millipede,” Janus agreed, returning it to the ground at his feet.

They were quiet for a time, but it was a nice quiet. It wasn’t the kind of quiet that felt as though Janus were trying to crack his skull into pieces to pick at his brains with his long fingers. “I… I did want to hurt him. But not… Not that badly.” Janus stayed quiet, and Remus found that he couldn’t look at him. Instead, he addressed the four worms, earwig, and two beetles that were in various positions on his arms. “He was showing that new kid around, the one that talks like a dictionary? Not that I’m complaining, he was nice to listen to -”

“Logan uses they-them, Rem.”

“Right. They were nice to listen to. But then they started talking about me - the two of them, not just Logan - and Patton said some… Stuff.” He shifted. “Saw red. Went to punch him. I guess I just… Wanted to hurt him a bit. I didn’t know we were by the staircase. It was an… Accident.”

They were quiet again. Remus waited for Janus to stand up and walk off, to say that he knew that it had been a mistake to drag him out of that ditch on the first morning. Instead, he leaned sideways and rested his head on Remus’ shoulder, his hair tickling Remus’ cheek.

“I’m sorry, Rem.” He murmured, and Remus felt his heart stop, and then overflow. Carefully, he put his handful of creepy-crawlies down on the log beside him so that he could wrap his arms around Janus.

“It’s not your fault.”

“I know. I’m still sorry it happened like it did.”

Remus hesitated. “You still don’t think I’m a monster? I coulda killed him, and I just… Laughed.”

“I’m no doctor, but I’m pretty sure that’s a trauma response, Rem. Doesn’t make you a bad person…”

It was very, very nice, being told that he wasn’t a bad person.

There had been an evening, about a month and a half after he had first spent the night at Janus’, that Janus had actually seen him pull the small box of assorted stolen tablets out of his pocket and shake a blue one and a green-and-orange one onto his palm. Janus had only been able to see because Remus had found that this combination of drugs made him really dizzy almost immediately, and if he didn’t take them whilst he was literally in bed he was liable to bump into things and collapse in the middle of the floor.

There he was, sitting on the edge of Janus’ bed, about to toss the brightly coloured somethings (and Remus genuinely had no idea what they were, only that they made him horribly dizzy and took all the flavour out of his food but meant that he didn’t scream when his nightmares took him over) into his mouth, when Janus’ arm looped over his shoulder and he closed his fingers around Remus’. “What’re these, Rem?”

Lying to Janus was not easy. It was actually very, very difficult, because Remus knew that Janus actually cared about him. He cleared his throat. “Don’t know.” A burning sort of silence followed, and he hurried to clarify. “They stop me screaming.”

Janus nodded slowly, then frowned. “What do you mean, you don’t know?”

“Shoplifted ‘em. Didn’t check the labels other than to make sure they weren’t caffeinated or poisonous.”

“That’s illegal. And you know most drugs are poisonous if you take them without knowing what they are, right?”

Remus groaned and tried to tug his hand out of Janus’ grip. “So? Not like anyone’ll miss me if I do end up dead. And in the meantime, these stop me bothering people and have fewer side effects than mixing the green’n’orange with the red oval ones. Can I take these and go to sleep now?”

“I’d miss you.” Janus’ voice was almost tremulous, and Remus glanced over his shoulder to see that his friend’s eyes had gone wide and glittery. Was he crying? Fuck.

“Jan, I’m not gonna die. I was joking, I…”

“Didn’t sound like you were joking.” The scared note was gone from Janus’ voice, and now he sounded almost angry. Remus swallowed. “Sounded to me like you’re mixing stolen drugs that you have no idea what they’ll do to you. And that you don’t give a shit if you end up in a coma or dead because you’re trying to make up your own nightmare cure. Are you about to look me in the eye and tell me that any of that is a lie?”

Remus swallowed again, harder this time, and tried to think of something to say.

“Didn’t think so. Rem, why don’t you just… See a doctor, or something? Instead of stealing shit and poisoning yourself with it?”

And now Remus chuckled. “Jan… I’m fine. I’ve been doing this for nearly two years, ‘n I’m not dead yet. And stuff’s better at home when I’m not waking everyone up every night.”

Janus did not look remotely reassured. “Didn’t your parents take you to see someone? If you were screaming every night?”

“Nah. It’s no biggie, I’ve been like this for as long as I can remember. It’s normal, Jan. Can you let me take my poisons now? You have an English quiz tomorrow, you need sleep… And you don’t need me waking you up, either.” Remus tried to tug his hand away again. This time, Janus’ fingers slipped into his palm, and then the small tablets were gone. Remus lunged for them.

“Nope. No. Nope, you’re not having these back.” Janus actually got out of bed, and Remus followed him over to the window.

“Jan, give them back. Let’s just go to bed and forget about this, okay? It’s no big deal.”

Janus opened the window, and Remus almost jumped at him. “You know something, Remus?”

“No. Close the window.”

“You say that a lot. It’s no big deal. No biggie. You said about your parents refusing to let you come home if you stayed out past curfew. You said it about everybody thinking you were a monster. You said it about your arms, and if that isn’t a big fucking deal, I don’t know what is.” Remus automatically folded his arms across his chest to hide them, and Janus gave him a look. “So I think that no big deal is actually code for this is the biggest deal ever and I am not okay right now. Am I right?”

Remus didn’t want to nod, but he didn’t exactly want to lie to Janus. In his hesitation, Janus cocked his arm back and then snapped his wrist forward, and the pills went soaring out of the window. Remus let out a snarl of frustration.

“Rem…”

“What the fuck do you want me to do, Jan? I can’t just give up! And it’s not like I can see somebody about it. What kind of loser gets nightmares every night for his whole life? They’ll lock me away, or drug me into oblivion.”

“Like you’re already trying to do?” Remus tried to ignore the sympathy in Janus’ voice that said he knew exactly where Remus’ worries came from. “You know, nobody’s going to think you’re -”

“Mad? Dangerous? Haven’t you heard, Jan? I tried to kill Patton Grace. I tried to burn down a house with my family inside. They’ll lock me up and throw away the fucking key if I try to tell somebody about the nightmares.” He was already leaning down to pull the bottle from his hoodie to replace the tablets that Janus had just thrown away.

“I’m not going to be able to talk you out of this, am I?”

Remus shook his head once.

Then Janus was on top of him, wrapping his arms around his torso and squeezing, and Remus hesitated for the barest moment before hugging back. He hadn’t realised he was trembling until exactly that moment. “Okay. Okay, Rem, okay. I won’t. But you gotta promise you’re gonna be safer, yeah? I can’t lose you.”

“What the fuck does that mean?” Remus grumbled, trying to hide the fact that a lump had swollen in his throat. “‘Safer’?”

“It means, quit using shit if you don’t know what it is. And don’t mix’n’match, you idiot.”

Remus groaned and pressed his face into Janus’ shoulder. “Fine. Any recommendations? Or are you just talking out of your arse and hoping something sensible occurs to me? I warned you already, sensible isn’t my best feature…”

“Yeah, I got a recommendation.” Remus had a feeling that his surprise at Janus’ words rippled through his entire body, because his friend chuckled darkly and tugged him back toward the bed. “As much as I hate the idea of helping you drug yourself, I’d prefer I helped you do it safely than not. Have you tried Xanax?”

Remus snorted. “That’s prescription.” He sat down on the corner of the mattress and looked up at Janus in the dim light cast by the small bedside light, and discovered that he wouldn’t be surprised if his friend came out with flawless plans to rob every bank in a hundred mile radius. There was something sly and cunning in the set of his jaw and the narrowing of his eyes.

“My mother has it for work stress. I’ll grab some for you. If it doesn’t work, we can try something else, but we’re going to do it-”

“I am going to do it safely,” Remus groaned, “I get it.”

“We. I’m not entirely sure I trust you on this to just let you handle it…”

It worked better than anything else he had tried, and it didn’t make him sick, or dizzy, or always exhausted, or bizarrely miserable, or make him piss blood or get nosebleeds.

When Remus’ family was out, he would invite Janus over to his place, and they would curl up on his bed and watch movies on Roman’s laptop (Roman’s password, ‘Prince Roman’, was not only easy to guess, but also written on a post-it note stuck on his keyboard). Sometimes they’d explode popcorn in the microwave.

When Janus’ family was out, Janus would invite him over, and they would make cakes or buns in the kitchen, a volcano in the bathroom, a fire in a wastepaper basket in the living room on which they roasted marshmallows and tried to scare one another with ghost stories.

When Janus turned sixteen, Remus took him on a two-in-the-morning caving expedition in the forest, where they almost got chased through the woods by what Janus swore was a bear but Remus was certain had had six legs and eight eyes and teeth running down its spine.

He was very keen to go back to see what it was, but Janus decided that they probably shouldn’t bother it, whatever it was. (“A cryptid at the least,” Remus commented.) (“A bear, you fool”).

Janus’ birthday brought a new concern before them, though: his parents had suddenly started talking to him about the future.

“It’s not like they used to,” Janus confided one evening, a few weeks after his birthday. “It used to be this thing that was… Well, far away. It wasn’t so important, the important thing was doing well now.”

“Yeah?” Remus looked up from the chunk of wood he was trying to turn into something resembling the bear-monster they had fought. (“We ran away from it, Remus.”) “What’s changed?”

“Dad keeps trying to get me to look at syllabuses for different degrees… Do I want to do psychology? Sociology? Behavioral studies? Economics? Maths? I think he’s secretly hoping I’ll become a financial advisor like him…” Remus made a retching sound, then accidentally sent the bear-monster’s ear spinning away from him through the clearing.

“Fuck.”

“Yeah. My mother isn’t doing that - yet - but she keeps giving me the prospectuses for different colleges. Says that she knows I’ll work hard and be successful wherever I go, and that I should pick somewhere I care about to aim for…” There was something in Janus’ tone that made Remus put down the knife and branch that was now going to become a fish-monster rather than a bear-monster, and reached over to nudge his shoulder.

“You don’t sound on board with that.”

Janus shrugged. “They have a point, I guess. If I don’t start making the right choices now, who knows where I’ll end up in a few years? This is the sort of stuff I need to look into.”

Remus frowned. “There’s no harm in taking a year off while you sort things out. You don’t even have to go to college, you know.”

“You don’t understand, Remus. Your parents don’t give a shit what you do - mine do. Besides, I… I want to go to college.”

“Rude, but fair enough.” He stood up and stretched, spine popping, and then scuffed his feet. “And, are you sure? Because you sound like you’re just saying that because they want you to.”

“No, I do. I just… I want it to be my choice, you know?”

“Sure,” agreed Remus, who didn’t have any inclination to go to college and knew for a fact that it would disappoint his parents. So what? He would be eighteen by then. “You want to go on your terms.”

“Exactly. I want to be able to do the research without them breathing over my shoulder, or… Or telling me that this course is for wusses, or that course will end in a degree that professionals are just going to laugh at, or…” He groaned and jerked a hand through his hair, which had been cut short about a week before. It was obvious that Janus had been less than happy about the change, and kept forgetting that he no longer had hair hanging down the back of his neck. “It would be nice if they didn’t expect me to be perfect all the time, you know? I’m a teenager. I’m allowed to make mistakes from time to time.”

Remus squeezed Janus’ shoulder sympathetically. “They must be being really pushy about it, if it’s bad enough for you to complain…”

Janus made a frustrated sound, then nodded. “I’m… It’s like every time I take a breath, they wait for me to exhale gold dust. It’s suffocating, you know?”

Personally, no, Remus did not. But now that Janus vocalised it, he had a feeling that Roman must feel like this at least some of the time. “Is there anything I can do?”

The next time they met up, Janus brought the large stack of shiny prospectuses with him, and they poured over them for hours together, a notebook in front of Janus for him to take notes on anything that looked particularly promising or should be further researched. Remus made stupid comments about the students pictured in the brochures and the quotes from the faculty every time it looked as though the sheer number of things to choose from was becoming overwhelming, and poked and prodded Janus every time he started saying things that sounded as though he were quoting his parents (Janus had a specific voice he used for quotes).

Over several long afternoons, they cut the pile of universities and courses down to only three or four, and then Remus had to watch Janus going to visit the places with his parents.

Watching Janus drive away and return overflowing with enthusiasm for these places that Remus would likely never see struck him with a strange melancholy, and eventually Janus seemed to cotton on to the fact that he was retreating into himself whenever Janus tried to bring the subject up.

“You know you could come with me, right?” They were in Janus’ room, Remus lying on the floor and painting his nails to look as though they were covered in blood, Janus on the bed, flipping through a book on applying for law courses.

Remus looked up briefly, then snorted and returned to adding globs of red varnish to his cuticles. “Even if I had any desire to go to college, Jan, I couldn’t. I’m not smart enough for a scholarship, I don’t have much cash, and my parents aren’t going to pay for me.”

“You are smart, Rem.”

He snorted again, and Janus made a distressed noise. “Okay, fine, I’m smart. But I haven’t worked hard enough for that to show at all, so it amounts to the same thing.”

“I could kidnap you. Make you live under my bed for the duration of the school year - you could pretend to be a ghost and haunt my roommate or something.” Janus turned a page, but from where Remus was lying it looked as though he had only done it to have something to do with his hands.

“So what you’re saying is that you couldn’t last a year without me to help?” Remus rolled onto his back and started flapping his left hand in an attempt to dry the paint. “I’m touched. Nice to know you’re willing to be so vulnerable around me, Jan.”

Janus flipped him off without looking up, then sighed. “I just… I’ll miss you, obviously. And I don’t like the idea of you being here without me.”

“Managed just fine without you,” Remus replied defensively - although he was more flattered than offended.

Janus just raised an eyebrow at him.

“Fine, I’m a mess. But it’s two years away, Jan - don’t worry about it so much. You’ll give yourself a stroke.”

“That’s not how strokes work. And I do worry about it. I worry about you a lot, Remus…”

Remus groaned quietly and sat up. “Janus.” Janus nodded to show that he was listening. “No, Janus, look at me.” Nothing. “Janus…”

Finally, Janus lifted his grey eyes from the paper before him and met Remus’ gaze.

“Do you really think there’s anything keeping me here if you’re gone?” Remus had allowed all of the bravado to drop from his voice, and he knew that Janus could hear how vulnerable he was allowing himself to be. “I’ll find a job or something, the same place you end up. I’ll be there for you when you need me.” He allowed his face to crack into a smile again. “I know you couldn’t really last a year without me, don’t worry.”

Janus threw the brochure at him, but he was laughing. They both were.

Then Remus turned sixteen, and a number of things happened, mostly bad.

About a month after his birthday, Janus texted him at four in the morning with three words.

<Virgil’s place. Now.>

Remus should have been asleep. On most nights, he would have been. But the clouds that had been rolling over their town for the past few days had finally burst into the most spectacular thunderstorm he had seen in a long time, and Remus was awake. He was watching the sky, first and foremost, watching it be rent in two with searing near-purple light that left lines across the insides of his eyelids when he closed them. He was trying to figure out a way to be hit by lightning without actually dying, because that sounded honestly thrilling. And because Janus had put his foot down and said that he wasn’t allowed to just go and get struck with a billion volts of raw electricity because it would probably kill him. The last reason for him being awake was not one liked admitting, even to himself: he was staying awake in case Roman needed him. His twin was terrified of lightning storms and although Remus could never quite figure out why, he didn’t want to leave Roman alone if he woke up to the storm.

Remus was fully aware that he was disgustingly soft for his brother, despite how much of a jerk he was.

Then Janus’ text came through, and suddenly Roman didn’t matter so much. Remus was climbing out of the bathroom window within seconds, wearing only a pair of shorts and a sweater that were soaked through almost immediately.

At a sprint, it took him less than fifteen minutes to reach Virgil’s home, although he could barely see when he arrived. The woods were not meant to be navigated at top speed in a storm in the middle of the night, and it was some sort of miracle that he hadn’t tripped over a root and broken his ankle (and now was really not the time to see bone poking through his skin, as cool as that may be in different circumstances).

All the lights were on.

Muddy, soaking wet, covered in leaves and twigs and scratches from brambles and not caring in the slightest, Remus barreled toward the back door and hammered on it. Virgil’s dad could call his parents later: this was an emergency.

The door swung open with no resistance at all, and Remus swallowed hard. Dread was pooling in his stomach.

Remy was in the kitchen, along with a pink-haired guy that Remus didn’t recognise, and so much grief that Remus could feel it trying to force itself down his throat, to drag him down into its depths. If Remy was like this, the worst had to have happened, right? It was just like in his nightmares. Remus could feel his hands trembling, and it wasn’t the chill of being wet to the bone making them shake.

“Where-”

The guy Remus didn’t know had an arm around Remy, and he had never seen Virgil’s brother look smaller, curled up against him. They were practically on the same chair. Remy looked up with bloodshot eyes, then jerked his chin toward the hallway. “Upstairs.”

It was easy to find Virgil after that. Remus just had to follow the sound of crying, audible even over the way his heart was pounding in his ears. He didn’t care how mad Mr Spince would be at the trail of mud and foliage he was leaving in his wake.

When he saw that Virgil wasn’t dead, didn’t even seem injured, Remus almost put his fist through the wall out of sheer relief. Then the rest of the scene in Virgil’s room came rushing in, and he didn’t feel so happy anymore.

Janus and Patton were already there. Janus was sitting on the end of the bed, squeezing Virgil’s calf gently. Patton was with Virgil at the head of the bed, rubbing his back, looking as though he were about to burst into tears as well. Virgil himself was the source of the crying, curled up into a tight ball as sobs tore through him. His hoodie was draped over his shoulders, presumably by Patton (who had looked up when Remus had entered, paled briefly, and then turned his attention back to Virgil).

Remus had pretty much figured out what had happened even before Janus turned to him and murmured, “Car crash. The rain, wasn’t anyone’s fault…”

Mr Spince wasn’t going to tell Remus off for tracking mud up his stairs and into his son’s room. He wasn’t going to be telling anybody off for anything.

When he climbed onto the bed and slotted himself between Virgil and the wall, on the other side of Patton, who flinched briefly, nobody complained that he was damp and filthy and getting mud and blood onto Virgil’s duvet. It wasn’t all that comfortable, but it wasn’t really a night for being comfortable.

They stayed with Virgil all night. At some point, he and Patton fell asleep, and Janus joined them soon after. Remus didn’t sleep, one arm holding Virgil as close as he could, the other squeezing Janus’ fingers gently.

The funeral was small, with only a handful of guests, mostly middle-aged men and women in business-wear who Remus assumed had worked with Virgil’s dad. They stared openly when they saw Remus, who hadn’t been able to find anything suitable to wear and ended up showing up in a pair of tight black jeans (the least ripped pair he owned) and a black t-shirt (one that actually went right the way down to his waist) under a long-sleeved mesh shirt. Neither Virgil nor Remy had batted an eyelid. Both had hugged him tightly.

He and Janus had spent a lot of time with Virgil over the coming weeks. It got to the point that although Patton wasn’t entirely happy talking to him, he no longer flinched when he came near him.

The second thing that happened when he was sixteen surprised him, and actually in a positive way: his parents had gotten Roman driving lessons for his birthday, and in a fit of generosity had actually done the same for him. Maybe things were going to be better this year.

He should have known it wouldn’t last, of course.

Remus had been on his best behaviour, hoping that maybe he could wring some form of affection from his usually distant parents, hating himself for wanting so desperately to finally gain some form of approval from them.

Roman had had no such concerns - but he didn’t need to, did he? Whenever it looked as though their parents might turn against him, he could just shuffle their disappointment sideways onto Remus; that was exactly what had happened.

When their father had marched him outside to look at the dented, reeking mess that had been his car before Roman had gotten his hands on it, and demanded to know why Remus had thought taking it out was a good idea, Remus hadn’t answered immediately. Instead he had looked up at Roman’s bedroom window (“It’s no good being angry with your brother, he did the right in telling us,”) and found that his twin was staring down at him, his eyes wide. He looked scared.

Remus still should have defended himself. Instead, he just shrugged, swallowed down the fury that was building in his chest, and went back to his room. No more driving lessons for him.

By that night, his anger at Roman had cooled and hardened into fury at their parents, for pitting them against one another like this. He took the easiest, pettiest revenge he could think of, slipping out of his bedroom window with a letter opener and dragging it along the side of their mother’s car.

He had been caught, of course. His parents weren’t about to let him get away with trashing both cars in the space of two days. When Dae found him out there, crouched by the passenger side door and already having left several long, deep scratches in the baby-blue paintwork, he had genuinely thought that she might hit him. She didn’t. Hitting one of her sons would be a bigger mark of shame for her than merely resenting the child’s very existence, and they both knew it.

Remus almost wished she would hit him. At least then he could have some sort of victory, bitter though it would be.

About three months after his birthday, Janus actually called him.

They never called one another, partially because Remus hated the way he could hear his voice echoing down the phone line with a passion that made him want to claw his own ears from his skull, and partially because it was harder to have frequent secret phone calls. (Remus maintained that their friendship being discovered would be very, very bad for Janus’ reputation. Janus hated it, but agreed that his parents would not be at all impressed). It was thanks to this fact that Remus knew something had to be wrong even before he had swiped his finger over to answer.

“Hey, Jan. What’s up?”

Remus was met with silence, and then a noise very close to a stifled sob, and felt his hackles rise.

“Janus. Do I need to kill somebody?” Another sob. It sounded as though Janus was trying to calm down for long enough to say something, but was entirely unable. “I will, you know. If somebody hurt you, I’ll hurt them so much worse.” Okay, so maybe he wouldn’t kill them - Remus wasn’t keen on the idea of being a murderer - but he was more than happy to beat somebody into a pulp so fine that their teeth were the largest recognisable pieces if they hurt his best friend.

“N-No, don’t, don’t do that,” Janus finally managed, his voice cracking again on the last word. Remus slowly moved his sketchpad off of his lap and hid it under his bed. “It’s - It’s stupid, I…”

“Can you get to the log behind your house? I’ll meet you there if you can.” There was silence - well, not silence exactly, but nothing more than a few hiccups and sobs. “If you can’t, that’s okay. Tell me where you are, and I’ll be right there.”

Janus didn’t speak for such a long time that Remus was on the verge of calling Virgil to see if he knew anything (Virgil had an uncanny knack for knowing everything about everyone, or at least guessing very accurately) and then running a solo town-wide search starting from Janus’ house. “I… Yeah, I’ll… Meet you there, if th- that’s okay…”

That was all Remus needed to climb out of his window and dive barefoot into the forest behind the house. (He was still grounded, and his parents seemed to think that preventing him from keeping his shoes in his room would stop him from going out. Ridiculous. He could survive with torn-up feet for a few weeks). (And Janus had lent him a pair of old trainers as soon as he had found out; Remus kept them in a plastic bag under a rock just beyond the treeline). Janus’ house was about half an hour away from his if he were walking fast: Remus sprinted, only slightly less urgently than he had two months ago to get to Virgil’s house, and made it in twenty. Janus was already there, sitting against the fallen tree with his knees hugged tightly to his chest. He had stopped crying but looked as though he might start at any moment, and leaned against Remus the second he threw himself down beside him. Remus didn’t protest. If Janus needed to hug him when he was sweaty and could barely breathe, he could cope with that.

When Remus found that he was breathing more or less evenly again, he wrapped both arms around Janus’ torso and pulled him closer, resting his chin on the top of his head. Janus pressed his face into Remus’ chest. He didn’t really fit in Remus’ lap, being almost a head taller than him, but neither of them really cared. “Hey… You’re… I’m here, Jan, you can cry if you want… I don’t mind… Whatever you need…”

Gently, he lifted one hand to tug Janus’ chocolate coloured beanie from his head so he could start carding his fingers through his hair; Janus’ shoulders started shaking a second later. Remus made a soft crooning noise in the back of his throat, then started murmuring reassuring nonsense, very glad that nobody else was ever going to hear how soft he was letting himself be.

When Janus finally straightened up and took his hat back to wipe his eyes on, Remus squeezed his side gently. “Hey. Do you want to talk about it?”

Janus sniffed and wiped his nose on the back of his hand. Remus didn’t see why he didn’t just use the shirt Remus was wearing, which now had a very large gross patch on it. “‘S stupid,” he muttered.

Remus held up a stern finger. “No. If I’m not allowed to call my problems stupid, Janus Sinclaire, you definitely aren’t. Got it?” Janus nodded. “You don’t have to tell me if you’d rather not. That’s okay.”

“No, I…” Janus sniffed again, and rested his head against Remus’ shoulder.

Remus reached up to rub his fingers gently against Janus’ skull again.

“You remember Phillip Junior?” Remus did. There was no Phillip Senior to explain the name Janus had chosen for the old, stuffed boa constrictor toy, but Janus had admitted that he had only been four when he had named it. Phillip Junior lived on the bookshelf in Janus’ room - it was practically the only thing other than a picture on his bedside table that made the room look as though it really did belong to Janus.

Remus nodded, and Janus took in a long, shuddering breath.

“You’ll… You’ll laugh.”

“No, I won’t.”

Janus looked at him as though he wasn’t entirely sure that he believed him, then sighed. “He wasn’t on my sh-shelf when I got home, an’... I looked for him, I checked he hadn’t - y’know, fallen down the back or anything, an’ he still wasn’t…”

He sniffed again, and Remus ripped a strip from the bottom of his shirt (it had been falling apart anyway, ever since he had gotten caught on a splintered fence, and he had been planning on turning it into a crop top for ages anyway) and handed it over. Janus stared at it as though he had just handed him a live lizard rather than a sandwich (and Remus had actually experienced the expression for that reason, so he knew what he was talking about).

“What’s this for?”

Remus rolled his eyes. “Blow your nose on it. Duh.”

“Oh. Thanks.” Janus snorted faintly, did as he was told, and then cleared his throat. It didn’t help much, given that he still sounded pretty choked up when he spoke again. “Um… I went ‘n’ asked my mother if she had seen P.J. ‘N’ she…” He sniffled again, but this time Remus didn’t take the pause as an opportunity to interrupt. “She said I’m too old for… For, y’know, stuffed animals. So she threw… She threw him out. The trash was collected earlier today - so he’s - he’s gone…”

His voice broke on the last word, and Remus sighed softly before pulling Janus closer to him. It wasn’t as though he needed his shirt to be clean for any particular reason, after all.

Remus wasn’t about to laugh at his friend for this. (Actually, he was a little offended that Janus thought he would be so insensitive, but this wasn’t really the time). He knew how stressed Janus was, how much pressure his parents kept balanced on top of him like the world’s most fucked up house of cards: it didn’t take something big for things to come crashing down. The destruction of a connection to a younger self, though - that felt fairly big.

There wasn’t much Remus could do just then, aside from offering Janus a place to let himself cry and listening to him talk.

When he got home later, though, he started looking at part-time jobs - in the city, of course, where nobody knew him - and eventually landed one lugging crates in the back of a supermarket. Three days a week, he’d get on the bus into the city rather than heading into school (he had been skipping a fair amount anyway, so it wasn’t as though anybody would miss him) and loaded boxes onto and off of the back of a delivery truck rather than struggling through algebra or calculus or history or whatever it was that everyone else was doing. He had had to lie about his age to get the job: they wouldn’t hire somebody that was meant to be in school whenever their shifts were scheduled regardless of whether he turned up or not.

Two months later, he found himself waiting outside Virgil’s house for a delivery box. He had asked Remy if he could put their place down as his delivery address, given that as far as his parents knew he had no money (he was technically still paying them back for the vase he had broken, as well as numerous other things, and didn’t get an allowance like Roman did) and any packages arriving for him would be regarded with immediate suspicion. Initially, he had only been going to order one animal (a snake, obviously) to replace Phillip Junior physically if not emotionally, but he had gotten carried away when the website had shown him a large, fluffy looking octopus as well.

For the first time in years, Remus had money, and friends that he wanted to spend it on - so he did.

Virgil had pretended not to be, but Remus could tell that he was thrilled by the large spider plushie that he handed him almost as soon as he had opened the box. He actually tried to play it cool.

“Oh, nice, Remus. That’s… Real sweet of you,” he had said, clearly trying to hide the way a grin was tugging at the corners of his mouth; Remus leaned in and hugged him anyway, and after a second Virgil returned the embrace tenfold.

To Janus he gave the snake, as planned, and also the octopus. Janus had taken one look and almost started crying, which Remus thought was a slightly over the top reaction but didn’t complain. The feeling of knowing that he had made his best friend so happy was so much more than worth it.

“Keep them under your bed,” he suggested, “that way your parents are less likely to find them.”

Janus hadn’t said anything for a few long moments - or if he had, Remus hadn’t been able to hear it because his face was pressed into the domed crown of the octopus. Then he had straightened up a little, arms still wrapped tightly around the stuffed animals, and smiled broadly at him. “Remus, you didn’t have to do this… You should be saving your money, not wasting it on me…”

“It’s not a waste - besides, I never do anything for you.” Remus punched Janus playfully on the shoulder, and Janus shook his head. Putting the toys down on his bed, he shoved Remus gently, and Remus pretended to stumble. It was only polite.

“You do, though! You’re always here when I need you, and…”

“Look, Jan, don’t make this into a big deal.” Remus was almost blushing now, shifting awkwardly. People never really complimented him like this, and it just felt… Wrong. Nice, but wrong. “You were upset, so I wanted to help fix that. I know they’re not PJ, but…”

Janus held up a hand. “They’re perfect.”

Remus beamed at him.

He hadn’t only bought the spider, the snake, and the octopus, although when he pulled the stuffed lion out of the box to inspect it, he wished he had. This, more than any of the others, had been an impulse purchase. He was being stupid, sentimental, wasting time on the pointless wish that things could be different and that they’d never had to grow up and grow apart - and knowing all of those things had not stopped him from adding the lion to his basket. It had reminded him of Roman, probably because lions were pretty much the only animal Roman would draw, the same way he would always draw an octopus and Virgil a small army of spiders. Remus didn’t know whether he was planning on giving the toy to his brother; the decision was pretty much made for him when he arrived home that evening with it stuffed into his backpack. Roman was talking on his phone and barely glanced up when Remus came in. In fact, he didn’t look at Remus at all, so it took him a few seconds to realise that Roman had ended the call and was talking at him.

“... Cast dinner tonight, probably be out late. You don’t mind if I take the emergency cash mum and dad left us, right? If they call, don’t tell them I’m out - didn’t technically ask permission - they won’t call, they only left this morning, but just in case… That’s all fine, right?”

Remus blinked at him, trying to process the words into something that made sense (Roman talked fast when he was in a rush), and Roman seemed to take that as assent because he scooped the small pile of emergency cash that had been left on the counter into his pocket.

“Have a good evening, Rem, see you later!”

Oh, wait, no. Remus had caught that. “Ro, wait, I was thinking -” Thinking what? That they could do something together? They never spent time together anymore. Roman didn’t even look at him as he brushed past him on his way out.

“Later, Remus! I’m going to be late!” He left without another word, and Remus stared at the closed door behind him.

Well. Well, that was okay. Roman didn’t really need his screw-up of a brother to mess things up for him, did he? It was probably best that he didn’t associate with Remus much. For all Remus knew, the next thing that Roman blamed him for would end up getting him arrested, and it would be better if Roman wasn’t known to be close to him at that point.

No, that wasn’t fair. Roman wasn’t going to do something stupid that would get one of them arrested. Roman would just make little mistakes and shift the blame onto him, because he wanted their parents to keep loving him. That was okay.

Roman probably wouldn’t be able to take it if the disappointment usually reserved for Remus came down on him. He wasn’t built the same way, hadn’t had time to build up a proper roof against the acidic deluge - it would destroy him, and Remus knew it. He was pretty sure that Roman knew it, too, although probably more as a subconscious thing.

So whilst he couldn’t really blame Roman for any of it - he was nine minutes older, it was his responsibility to take care of his younger brother - he didn’t exactly have to like it.

In short, he was keeping the lion for himself.

The fourth thing that happened in the space between Remus’ sixteenth birthday in March and Janus’ in November was possibly the worst of all of them - although that was just what Janus said. Privately, Remus was pretty certain that Virgil’s dad dying was worse, but he wasn’t about to go and argue who had it worse with the captain of the debate team.

It wasn’t as though Remus had even been hurt, not properly. A few busted knuckles were old hat by now, the scabs never really fading between fights. And whilst he had been getting into fewer scraps, it wasn’t as though he were actively trying to stop picking them. It was just easier, when he was still spending four days a week lugging boxes (he had picked up Saturdays now, too) and wasn’t around people that could really do with a knuckle sandwich all the time.

Unfortunately, the fact that he had been trying to show some self-restraint whenever he actually did turn up to school seemed to give the impression that he was now on the table for anybody looking to earn a little fear by poking at a known danger.

Remus hadn’t been paying attention, so it was his fault, really. It had been an unnaturally sleepless few nights - although the Xanax induced paralysis had held and it had been a long time since his nightmares had made themselves known to anybody else - and he was looking forward to getting out of school and disappearing into the woods for a few hours with Janus. They had found a small crate in the stream a few weeks ago, and upon opening it had discovered that it was full of now-soaked fireworks probably left over from some summer carnival or other. They had carefully dried them out, and now that it was autumn and the nights were rolling in earlier they were going to head out to the quarry and see how many would still work.

Remus had only half listened to his morning physics lesson, too focused on decorating the pages of his textbook with a climbing pattern of thorns to take in much about the duality of light or whatever it was they were supposed to be learning, and was looking forward to not having to worry about paying attention in his next class, which was art. His art teacher had more or less given up trying to stop him from depicting gruesome dissections now, and tended to let him get on with it.

He was just leaving the science block, already wondering where he would find some good references for intestines, when somebody charged past him, knocking him off balance. Remus growled a few choice curses under his breath at them, righting himself - and then something hit his shoulder, and he stumbled sideways. In the time it took for him to realise that he had been pushed, there was the sound of a door slamming, and then he was in darkness.

At first, he tried to be rational. Somebody had thought it was funny to push him into a cupboard - fine. That was fine. He could get out, find whichever brat had thought it was a good idea, and make them swallow their teeth. He could do that. Feeling around, he found that the cupboard he was in was full of shelves - and rather smaller than he had been expecting. That was okay, that was okay, there were shelves on his left and in front of him and behind him, so the door must be… There, to his right, in a gap between the shelves. He pushed it, more than ready to be out of the small, dark cupboard.

It.

Didn’t.

Open.

No matter how hard he pushed it, no matter how hard he rattled the handle, the door stayed closed.

Okay, okay, that was fine, that was - he could just take a run-up and bust it down. It was fine. He’d be out in just a minute. Remus could hear his heart beating in his ears, his breathing much, much too loud in the quiet space - he needed to calm that down. What if he ran out of air in here? No, no, that wasn’t going to happen. He was fine.

He took a step backward, and his back collided with the shelf behind him. Stretching his hands forward, he could press them against the door - and was the door closer to the back wall than it had been before? Remus blinked hard, the black of his eyelids indistinguishable from the black of the storeroom, and slammed his fist against the door.

He missed. Something shattered, painfully loud, something damp splashed against his shirt, and then there was an awful, itching, burning feeling across his chest.

With a strangled cry, Remus lurched backward, and there was the sound of more things shattering as he crashed into the shelving.

The door was locked.

The door was locked, and the walls were closing in on him, and nobody was going to find him this time.

It was a Friday - if nobody found him, he could stay in here all weekend, the walls pressing against his chest - only he wouldn’t, would he? He’d use up all the air in the room long, long before anybody let him out.

He was going to die in here.

Between the crushing walls and the suffocating blackness and the way his ragged breathing was refusing to slow or even out, he was going to die.

Remus wished he could have blacked out.

He almost did, in a way: when he forced himself to think back to it, he knew that the rational part of his brain had checked out shortly after he had tried to punch the door and ended up slicing his hand open.

He was only half aware of the hours he spent huddled against the shelves, although they seemed like years upon endless years as he gasped for breath around horrid, wrenching sobs. His knees had given out, although he didn’t remember when, and everything hurt, there was no space, he couldn’t think or see or hear or speak or-

And then there was light, and somebody was gripping his shoulders, and it was too bright too much too loud and they just needed to get off, he didn’t know who this was but they were only going to hurt him more and he just needed them to-

That was when he remembered how to push, how to dive forward. That was when he remembered how to make a fist. That was when he remembered how to swing his arm back and snap it forward, again and again, and that was all he remembered until there were burning, painful, agonising hands around his arms again, and he was being dragged away from the person he had been on top of.

Logan’s glasses were broken, and their nose looked as though it probably was as well. There was blood all over their face, and they looked more than a little groggy as Patton helped them into a sitting position.

Remus just accepted the two weeks suspension he was handed. He couldn’t speak - how was he even supposed to begin to defend himself? He was still trembling, still breathing hard, unable to meet the headteacher’s eyes when she demanded he explain his behaviour. (He didn’t know why she bothered. She never listened to his side of a story). When she finally gave up and asked, frustrated and clearly rhetorically, if Remus just enjoyed destroying school property and hurting other students, he nodded. It was easy.

He needed easy just then.

Whether it was because his father thought he was too shaky to try running away (he was) or because he was just too disgusted to do so, he didn’t take Remus’ arm to drag him out, and Remus was grateful for that. He didn’t think he’d be able to handle any more physical contact just then.

And then he was in his room, where he was able to draw the curtains so that the October sunlight couldn’t hurt his eyes anymore, where he was able to huddle into a small ball on his bed and wrap his duvet around himself and just stare, blank and unseeing, at the octopus relief he had carved into his wardrobe door.

“Remus?”

Remus flinched and jerked backwards. Janus was right in front of him - he hadn’t seen him come in, hadn’t heard him approach, but now he was right there. How much time had passed?

Janus gave him a small, relieved smile. “There you are…” From the expression on his face, Remus guessed that he had been saying his name for several minutes.

He tried to ask him when he had arrived, but all that came out was a sound like a garden gate being ripped from its hinges.

“Hey, it’s okay… Can I touch you? Just nod or shake,” Janus added, clearly reading the frustration on Remus’ face.

Remus considered the question, trying to order his scattered thoughts, and then shook his head slowly. Janus didn’t seem annoyed.

“Can I sit?” Remus nodded, and Janus climbed onto the bed and sat about a metre away from him. “I came as soon as I heard, I… Holy shit, is that blood yours? Remus, can I see your hands?”

Remus hesitated, then held out his arms. Janus looked faintly nauseated, and Remus looked down to see that the back of his left hand and arm were red and glittering. Frowning, he looked closer to see several large cuts along the back of his hand and up his wrist (they had stopped bleeding by now), and a lot of glass splinters embedded in his skin.

He swallowed hard, a distressed sound slipping from him, and Janus immediately reached out to touch him before pulling back. “It’s okay. It’s okay, arms. Do you still have that kit at the back of your wardrobe?” Remus nodded, and he stood up. “Alright. Can I clean you up a little bit?” Nod. “Can we go through to the bathroom, or would you rather stay here?” Remus’ whine of frustration made Janus look up from the open wardrobe. “Oh, right. Sorry. Would you be more comfortable staying here?” A firm nod. “Okay.”

Janus pulled the small metal box out of the hoodie Remus had last wrapped it in and returned to sit next to him, then opened it. He put the lid down beside him, then put the broken razor on top of the lid without a second glance.

“May I have your hand, Rem?” Remus offered it up, and Janus squeezed his fingers ever so lightly before resting it on his knee.

The improvised ‘first-aid’ kit contained a pair of tweezers, a needle and thread that Remus had never had to use but had wanted on hand just in case, a large amount of plasters, several strips of fabric that Remus had torn off of various shirts and used when plasters weren’t really enough, a tube of antiseptic cream that Janus had nicked from his parents’ medicine box for him, and, of course, the razor blades that usually necessitated the use of the rest of the box. It had been Janus’ idea to assemble the kit. It had been a good idea.

Holding the tweezers carefully in one hand and gently gripping the underside of Remus’ forearm in the other, Janus leaned in and started picking the fragments of glass from his skin. They made a quiet ‘plink’-ing noise as he dropped them onto the lid of the box.

As he worked, Janus spoke quietly, and Remus found himself relaxing. “I heard halfway through my last period. Said I felt sick. They sent me to the nurse, so I came here instead… I’m sorry it took so long, Rem.” Remus twitched his fingers against Janus’ knee, and Janus glanced up to smile at him again. “Logan’s going to be fine. Chipped tooth, smashed glasses, broken nose, a few bruises, damaged pride. Nothing serious.”

He let go of Remus’ arm for a moment to pull a water bottle from his satchel and dampen one of the strips of fabric, then offered the bottle to Remus. Accepting it, Remus took a few small mouthfuls, the cool liquid soothing against his raw throat and a distraction from the drag of wet cloth against his skin as Janus started wiping the blood away.

“I was worried when I didn’t see you at lunch. I’m glad you’re… Well, not ‘okay’ - this is going to sting a bit, are you okay for me to use the antiseptic now?” Gritting his teeth, Remus nodded. He still flinched as Janus spread the white cream across his arm, but didn’t pull away. “You’re doing great, Rem. Nearly done. I’m glad you’re safe now. That’s what I mean. Okay, plasters going on now.”

Remus hummed quietly. Now that Janus had managed to catch his attention, he was suddenly aware that his chest still felt as though it were burning, and that his back wasn’t exactly comfortable either.

“Are you hurt anywhere else?” It seemed that Janus was thinking along similar lines. Remus hesitated, then tried to remember how to speak.

“Ch… Chest. ...Mm, back.” The words hadn’t wanted to come out, and it looked as though Janus could tell that.

“You don’t have to talk, Rem. It’s okay. Can I take your shirt off to get a better look?”

Shuffling closer, Remus nodded. Janus would be gentle, he knew. Janus knew how to touch him when he was too overwhelmed to cope with anything around him. He still flinched when his friend’s fingertips brushed the skin of his stomach, and Janus froze. He didn’t move until Remus had nodded at him, and when he did he was careful not to touch Remus any more than he had to.

Remus was so, so grateful for that.

Janus let out a low whistle when he looked at his chest. “Shit, Rem. That looks bad. Can I persuade you to let me take you to the hospital to get you checked out?” He shook his head so hard he could feel his brain rattling against his ears, and Janus bit down on his lower lip. “Okay. Okay, that’s okay. Can I have the water? I want to clean this, but I don’t… I don’t know what else to do. A hospital would be best…” Remus shook his head again.

Sighing, Janus tipped water onto the fresh rag and then leaned forward, hesitating just before the cloth touched Remus’ chest until he nodded. “I think it’s gonna scar. What were you doing in the chemical store, Rem? … Sorry, you don’t have to answer yet. At all, if you don’t want to.”

Remus swallowed hard, trying to force the words around the knot in his chest and the lump in his throat. “Pushed. Mmm… After Physics.” That was good. The words were coming easier than they had before, although not in any great quantity.

Janus swore, finally pulling his hand away from Remus’ chest and getting up. A disgustingly pitiful whine left Remus’ chest, but Janus merely carried the first-aid kit around so that he could start putting plasters on Remus’ back. He was quiet for several long seconds, and Remus pulled his arms into his chest and hunched over. Then Janus swore again.

“Fuck, Rem. You’re telling me you were in that closet for four hours?” Remus shrugged. “Fuck. Text me next time, okay? I’ll come get you out.” Remus nodded, but he doubted it was a promise he could keep. At no point in that closet had he been thinking rationally enough to reach for his phone. “No wonder you went for Logan… Did they put you in there?”

Remus shrugged. Then he shook his head. It didn’t make any sense for Logan to have locked him in. They had never shown him any sort of aggression before. It didn’t feel like the kind of thing they would do, honestly. “Think… Think they were tryin’ to help…” He mumbled thickly.

Janus made a sympathetic humming sound, and the knot in Remus’ chest pulled tight and snapped. The sob that left him was almost silent - Remus had long since learned to cry silently - but Janus must have felt the way it rushed through his body like a tidal wave.

“Remus?” He shifted, and then Janus was in front of him again and Remus allowed himself to slump forward, wrapping his arms tightly around him and ignoring the ache of the cuts in his hand. “Oh, hey… I’ve got you. You’re safe now, just… Just let it all out…”

That was the second time Remus cried in front of Janus, and Janus held him until the last sobs had drained from him. Then, spent, Remus curled up against his friend and fell asleep.

He actually tried to apologise to Logan a few days later, approaching Virgil after school to ask if he knew where they lived. Virgil had cocked an eyebrow at him, a wary expression on his face.

“Why? You planning on beating up my boyfriend again?” Remus supposed he couldn’t blame Virgil for being wary of him, not when he snapped like that sometimes and- Wait.

“You and Patton broke up?” He blurted the question without thinking, then swallowed. “Uh. I’m sorry.”

Virgil smiled faintly. “Nah. I’m dating Patton and Logan. Patton’s dating me and Logan. Bet you can’t guess who Logan’s dating.”

“You can do that?”

Virgil actually laughed at the slightly stunned expression on his face. “Yeah. They’re both coming over later, actually. Why did you want to talk to them?”

“I wanted to…” Remus trailed off, shifting awkwardly.

“Didn’t catch that, dude.”

“I wanted to apologise. For… For last Friday. It was… An accident.”

Virgil raised an eyebrow, and Remus shifted again. “You accidentally slammed your fist into somebody’s face a bunch of times.”

“Yeah.”

Virgil stared at him for a little longer, then shrugged and held the door open for him. “Alright.” Remus followed him inside and sat nervously on the couch. Virgil sat on the coffee table.

The actual apology didn’t go quite as planned.

Patton arrived first, let out a small squeak when he saw Remus, and took several sharp steps backward. Remus sighed. It looked as though he had lost a lot of progress there.

It took several long moments of Virgil whispering in Patton’s ear for the chubby boy to come and sit in the armchair, as far away as he could get from Remus.

Then Logan had arrived, both eyes blackened behind their glasses - and he had smiled at Remus, albeit slightly nervously.

Remus stood. “Logan, I- I’m sorry. About Friday. I - I guess-” Logan had held up a hand, and Remus had stopped abruptly.

Then Logan spoke, and he was left gaping at them. “No. I should be the one apologising, Remus.”

“Like hell,” Patton spat.

At the same time, Remus said, “What the fuck? I broke your nose.”

Logan crossed the room slowly so that he could sit down on the table beside Virgil, leaning forward to look Remus in the eye. “It was clear that you were having some form of panic attack, and I reacted incredibly poorly. I should not have just grabbed you, and I do not blame you for lashing out.”

Everyone had gone silent. Patton looked as though he had just been kicked in the stomach, and was very obviously mouthing the words, ‘panic attack?’ at Virgil, who just shrugged. Remus licked his lower lip nervously.

“Uh… I mean, it could have gone better, but I still… I turned your face into roadkill, Logan. And you’re apologising to me? Don’t be a fucking idiot.”

“I assure you, Remus, I am not an idiot.” Logan frowned briefly, considering the plaster on the back of Remus’ hand (he was pressing his palms against his knees to stop them from shaking), and then smiled at him again. “I propose a compromise. I will accept your apology if you will accept mine. Does that sound acceptable?”

Remus made a slightly choked noise, then nodded. “Okay. Sorry I fucked up your face.”

“It will heal; you are forgiven. I apologise for no doubt adding to what must have been a particularly unpleasant experience.” Virgil wrapped an arm around Logan’s waist, and they turned their smile toward him before glancing back at Remus.

Remus swallowed. “Um. Yeah. I guess I… Forgive you for that. I… Thank you.”

As horrible as the experience itself had been, Remus had come out of it with something approaching a new friend - so how could Janus be right when he argued that it was the worst thing that happened in the eight months between their birthdays?

A few nights after Janus turned seventeen, they met at the quarry and made a bonfire. It was a little cold for them to be properly comfortable, given the fact that the winter seemed to have arrived early that year and it was now the end of November, but between the fire, the beer Remus had snagged from Remy, and the whiskey Janus had smuggled from his house, they barely noticed it.

Virgil joined them for a while, long enough to roast a few marshmallows and then get twitchy about the fact that there was probably a monster sleeping somewhere in the quarry (“It was a bear, Remus, for the last time!”). Eventually, he had made the decision to leave while he was still conscious: Virgil seemed to be constantly running on caffeine, a trait he had probably picked up from his brother, but when he had a few drinks he got very mellow very quickly.

That left Remus and Janus passing a silvery flask between them, side by side and as close to the campfire as they could get without burning their feet on it. Remus had already set his hair on fire leaning in in an attempt to rescue a fallen marshmallow, and Janus was keen to avoid further injury. He was more than a little drunk: since he had stopped using alcohol to knock himself out, Remus didn’t drink very much anymore and had lost a lot of his tolerance. Janus looked more steady, but he was still leaning against Remus - although that may have been to stop Remus from pitching forward and burning to death.

“How’s it feel t’be seventeen, Jan?” Remus asked quietly, absently picking at some marshmallow that had gotten caught in his teeth.

“Hmm…” Janus handed him the flask, and Remus took a large mouthful from it before trying to hand it back. Janus shook his head. “About the same as being sixteen, dummy.”

“Disappointing. Was hoping you’d get the instruction manual.” Leaning down (and feeling Janus grab the back of his shirt so he didn’t fall), Remus picked a large stone up from the ground and tapped it a few times against the flask, then tossed it in the fire. Sparks flew at them, a few landing on Janus’ hat. He brushed them away.

“What instruction manual?” Remus could feel Janus’ eyes on him as he found a smaller stone, this one with a pointed end, and tapped it against the flask again.

“Do you mind?”

“No, go ahead.”

“The Human ‘Struction Manual.” Remus found another stone, and started using the pointy one as a chisel to carve a line into the flask.

“Oh, that one. Were you looking for tips?”

“You know it.” Janus chuckled, leaning over his shoulder to watch the curved shape that was beginning to appear under his hands.

They were quiet for a while. The silence went on long enough that Janus had leaned forward to throw more wood on the fire twice and Remus had finished his octopus before Janus spoke again.

“Remus?”

“Mm?” Remus swallowed another mouthful of whisky and handed the flask back to Janus, who accepted it this time.

“Have you ever…”

Janus hesitated, and Remus grinned faintly, nudging his side with his elbow. “Y’know th’answer’s prob’bly yes, right? Spit it out.”

Janus elbowed him back. “Okay. Have you… Ever had a crush on somebody you know you shouldn’t?”

Remus blinked slowly at him, his heart sinking. With every bone in his body desperately hoping that Janus wasn’t about to say he liked him, Remus licked his lower lip and then looked back at the flames in front of him.

“I… Told Roman I liked Remy once. He asked me if I liked anyone, so I… Said Remy.” Remus chuckled nervously. “Jerk went ‘n kissed him ‘few weeks later. Rude.”

Janus seemed to have gotten the answer he wanted, because he leaned his weight against Remus again. “So you like Remy? Virgil’s brother?”

He could have just nodded. He could have nodded, and kept the weird part of himself that he was sure was broken out of the light. But this was Janus, and Janus was his best friend, and Remus trusted him with everything.

Besides, lying to Janus really wasn’t easy.

“No…” Remus muttered. He reached for the flask, and Janus gave it to him without complaint. “Don’t like anyone. Never really have. Not r’lly sure if I will ever.”

“Okay,” Janus said, as though that was the most normal thing in the world. Maybe it was. Maybe it wasn’t. Either way, Janus didn’t seem to care, and Remus felt briefly stupid for having worried about it. He wiped his mouth on the back of his hand and passed the flask back.

Silence.

Oh. He should probably ask Janus what that had been about? “Why?”

“Uh…” Janus sighed quietly and took a small sip of whiskey, then seemed to notice the weight of the flask in his hand and raised an eyebrow. “How much of this have you had? It’s gotta be almost empty.”

“Not that much,” Remus replied petulantly. He tugged at Janus’ sleeve. “Why’d y’ask about crushes?”

This time, Janus was quiet for so long that Remus thought he wasn’t going to reply. Finally, he rubbed his fingertips together and held them up to the fire. “Roman.”

“How drunk are you? I’m Remus.” Remus poked Janus’ cheek, and Janus exhaled through his nose before batting his hand away.

“No, Remus, I meant… I like Roman.” Janus shifted a little, and Remus realised that he was trying to look him in the eye. He tried to return the gaze, but couldn’t figure out whether the Janus on the left was more real than the Janus on the right or not. Huh. Maybe he was more drunk than he thought.

“Roman?” He asked stupidly.

“I… Are you mad? It’s just a crush, if you… You know, if you think your best friend and your brother would be weird, I can never mention it again - I mean, I doubt anything’ll happen, it’s just a crush…”

It occurred to Remus then that Janus was probably waiting for him to say something, and he tried to work out what was expected from him. Would it be weird if Janus dated Roman? Well, only because Roman was a self-centred jerk. It would be a lot weirder if Janus had decided he liked him - that would make their being friends really difficult. Or would it? It would probably be just like being friends, but they’d have to do… Other stuff. Nope. Remus would rather not do other stuff with his best friend.

But Roman… Roman could be an absolute arsehole. He had already ditched Virgil when he had needed him most, and Remus had no doubts that he would ignore Janus unless Janus was actually useful to him.

“Rem?”

“Hm?”

“Do you hate me?”

“Why’d I hate you?”

The Janus-es in front of him frowned. “Because… I just told you I have a thing for your twin?”

“Oh. Huh.” That didn’t really explain why Janus thought he’d hate him. Remus shook his head and went to lean against Janus’ side again. “Nah… You c’n like Ro-ro if you want… He’s a dick, though… Lotsa pressure, fr’m th’ parents...”

“I know you don’t get on with him. If you’d rather I didn’t… Talk about this, or whatever…”

“Don’t mind. Jus’... Jus’ don’t want ‘m hurting you… You d’serve better than Ro-ro… You gonna give the flask back?”

Remus made a grabby motion for the flask with one hand, and Janus shook his head and held it out of his reach.

“Gimme.”

“Rem, you’re really quite drunk.”

“Am not.”

“Your eyes haven’t focused on me once in the last half hour. I don’t think you should have any more…”

Remus pouted. “C’mon, Jan… Let’s ‘t least finish the flask?”

“Oh, absolutely not.” Janus tucked it into his satchel, then started collecting the few empty beer bottles and marshmallow packets piled by their feet. “I’ve gotta make sure you don’t die on the way home, and I’d rather it if I didn’t have to carry you.”

“Spoilsport…” Remus complained, but gave up after that. He was fairly certain that the middle Janus - there were three of them now - was the real one, but not certain enough to push his luck. “We goin’ back to yours?”

“I don’t think you currently have the capacity to walk back to your place alone, let alone get in through the window,” Janus replied dryly, leaning down and wrapping an arm around Remus’ waist to pull him to his feet.

Remus woke up the next morning knowing two things. One, that he had never had a worse hangover, and two that his best friend had the misfortune to have a crush on his asshole of a twin.

The latter he could manage - he just had to make sure to warn Janus that Roman would probably just hurt him. The former he could manage as well, given that Janus had handed him some aspirin as soon as he had woken up and kept trying to give him glasses of water, but was a far bigger problem.

“These are really good, Remus.” It was February, and they were in Remus’ room for once. Spending time in Remus’ room had become more difficult now that he no longer had a door that locked or even had a handle, but everybody was out today. Their parents thought that Remus was running errands for a neighbour of Virgil’s - Remy had done an incredibly convincing old-lady impression and had managed to create three afternoons a week where Remus was ‘volunteering’ as payment for breaking some windows - and hadn’t made sure that there was anybody in the house to make sure he didn’t do something stupid.

(Remus wasn’t allowed to be home alone anymore, not since he had succumbed to the overwhelming need to see what would happen when he put various different fruits in the microwave and ended up breaking the thing beyond repair).

Remus was on his stomach, sketchbook open in front of him, working the tail of a cat that was in the process of curling up inside a half-finished open skull, where the brain should be. On the opposite page were several sketches of a possum Remus had found in the woods the other day. Janus was sitting next to him, a psychology textbook open in his lap but clearly no longer of interest to him.

“You really think so?” He tried to keep his voice light, but they could both hear the uncertainty in it. This was the first time Remus had actually allowed Janus to see inside one of his sketchbooks.

“Uh, hell, yes.” Finger hovering just millimeters above the page, Janus traced the curving spine of one of the possum studies, one where the small animal was twisted around and hissing at something behind it. “They’re awesome. I didn’t know you could do this…”

Remus smiled and moved down to add shading to the hollow eye sockets. “You do now.”

“I do.”

Janus squeezed his shoulder gently, and Remus tilted his head to rest it lightly against his hand before straightening his neck and continuing. “I’ve been thinking… When you apply for college, in October… I’ve been thinking about apprenticeships. I’ve borrowed Roman’s laptop and had a look around, and… Well, most places require good grades, but if you look for more arty things…” He knew that Janus hadn’t gone back to his textbook and was staring at him, but he didn’t want to look up just yet. “Well, a lot of tattoo parlours just ask for art portfolios, pretty much. A few basic reading and maths skills, but nothing difficult. Hairdressers ask for similar things, but I refuse to cut hair for a living. Fuck no. God.”

He was trying to deflect from the heart of what he was saying, and they both knew it. Janus didn’t say anything for a moment. Then he plucked the pencil from Remus’ hands and grabbed his shoulders, shaking them gently.

“That sounds brilliant, Rem! Do you know what you’re going to need for your portfolio? Is there anything I can do to help? I will, obviously - and you can get your boss to give you a reference if you need it -” A faint chuckle left Remus, and he sat up. Janus’ enthusiasm was akin to a ball of sunlight, perking him up. It was amazing how much difference it made, having somebody that had faith in him like this.

Things just felt easier, with Janus as his best friend.

When Roman let their dog dash out into the woods and pinned it on Remus, Janus helped him scour the woods whenever he could get free of revising. Although Remus didn’t say a word to Roman, the sudden lack of time in which he could be planning and putting together a sketch portfolio grated on his temper.

He wasn’t about to go and tell his parents that it had been Roman who had let Filo out - but that didn’t mean he didn’t want to sink his fist into Roman’s stomach, his jaw, his teeth, every time he saw him.

Remus had liked Filo. He had really liked her. And now she was probably dead, and it wasn’t Roman’s fault that she had run out (although he could have been more careful) but it hurt that he was taking the blame for it. It hurt that he would get home after ‘school’ - which was sometimes school and sometimes work but never anything more, because if he was late then he ended up getting yelled at again, and it was just easier for that not to happen… - and have to check in with one of his parents, whether by text or in person. It hurt that he was then sent out into the woods behind the house to search until he found the dog, or until it got dark, and not to come back until one of those things happened. It hurt that he had to answer a phone call every hour to make sure that he really was searching (of course he was, and was Roman helping? No, of course he wasn’t) and not just goofing off. It hurt, especially when the long hours of the summer rolled around, that if he arrived home before it got dark then he was sent straight out again, and not allowed dinner until it was properly dark.

When school ended and the holidays began, he spent the mornings working through a never-ending list of chores, and the afternoons still searching for Filo. For the days where he worked at the supermarket, he had persuaded Remy (read, bought Remy coffee every morning for a fortnight) to call his parents pretending to be some irate neighbour demanding Remus help out in his garden as payment for setting his sweet-peas on fire.

It was August when he finally found what remained of the dog.

She was halfway between the quarry and the train tracks, and it was almost impressive that she had made it that far before succumbing to whatever had finally killed her. Remus couldn’t be sure: all that was really left of her was a skeleton, a few scraps of fur and rotted flesh clinging to it in places, and her collar. He hadn’t cried, but it had been a very near thing. Remus had sat with her for almost an hour before finally getting up and heading home to fetch a spade.

He left her collar on the kitchen table when he got back.

It was gone the following morning, as though she had never existed at all - except in Remus’ mind, where her corpse haunted his dreams relentlessly.

Things were quiet after that.

Roman applied to study classics at a number of prestigious colleges. Their parents showered him in praise.

Remus applied to several apprenticeships, all in the same cities as the colleges Janus had applied to (hopefully, when Janus’ first choice accepted him, Remus would discover that he had been accepted to one of the apprenticeships in the same place). He didn’t tell his parents - he didn’t tell anybody other than Janus, although he had a feeling that Virgil knew, and by extension his small collection of dates.

(Virgil knew everything, and it was terrifying. Two days after the bonfire they had had for Janus’ seventeenth birthday, he had turned to Remus and told him to look up asexuality and aromantic to see if either of those helped him. Remus had immediately accused Janus of telling him (although he hadn’t asked him not to, he had hoped that Janus could keep a secret) but both Janus and Virgil denied that that had happened. When Remus had asked how he had known, Virgil had grinned widely and said that his spiders had told him. Creepy. Remus loved it).

The downside of this, of course, was the way that disappointment practically dripped from the walls and ceiling of their home. It wasn’t even as though anybody had been expecting Remus to apply to college, so why his parents were acting as though it was a shock similar to biting into the last candy in a box and discovering that it was coconut (and Remus was always the coconut candy) he had no idea.

He didn’t care. In a year’s time, he would be out of here and away from the twisted, toxic mess that their family had become.

Things didn’t go to plan.

Things never went to plan.

Christmas came and went. Their parents gave Roman a leatherbound collection of his favourite plays, and Remus nothing. Remus, who had started saving money to put toward an apartment, got him a small glass paperweight that looked like a snake, and spent hours on a picture of him, Remus, and Virgil of them that he copied from a picture Patton had taken of them a few months ago. They had been in the woods, leaning over a stream and searching for frogs to poke at. Janus had bought him an encyclopedia of famously gruesome deaths throughout history, and Remus loved it.

Roman got accepted to his favourite of all of the universities he had applied for.

Janus got accepted to his first choice.

Remus, to his great surprise, got an offer from not one but three tattoo parlours, one of which was in the same city as Janus’ course. He accepted that one, ready to start the following September.

A few days before Valentine’s Day, Remus found Janus staring at a box of chocolates in his room when he climbed in through the window. “Are those for us? Bit of a departure from tradition, isn’t it? I thought this week’s movie was accompanied by sushi.” It was Janus’ favourite, and Remus adored the fact that they were eating raw fish. It was so cool.

Then Janus blushed, and Remus wanted to bury his face in his hands.

“Janus, please tell me they’re not-”

“They’re for Roman,” Janus blurted, and Remus groaned theatrically and threw himself down onto the fluffy rug on the floor as though he had just been shot. Janus chuckled.

“I wouldn’t, Jan, I really… Wouldn’t.” Remus rolled over, still clutching the spot on his stomach where he had been ‘shot’ to look at his friend. Janus had stood up so that he was standing over him, appearing to be upside down.

“You’ve said that before, Rem. And you won’t give me a good reason not to - you’ve told me on multiple occasions that you don’t care that -”

“Correct, I don’t mind care that you want to fuck my brother.” Janus rolled his eyes, and Remus knew he had been planning on saying it a little more delicately. “But I give you the same good reason every time, Jan - he’ll hurt you, and I don’t want to have to kill my own brother. My parents will kick me out for good.”

“Don’t joke about that.” Janus’ voice was suddenly stern, and Remus sighed, sitting up.

“They won’t really. That would bring too much attention, you know that…” Accepting the hand Janus was offering him, Remus got to his feet and followed his friend over to his bed. Sitting down, he waited for Janus to join him before leaning forward to pick up the laptop. Their usual boxes of sushi were on the bedside table. “If you really want to do it, I’m not gonna stop you, I just… I want you to know I’ll pick your side, when it goes wrong and he hurts you. I’ll pick you every time. You’re my best friend.”

Janus had beamed at him. “You’re my best friend too, arms. Now pipe down and pick a movie - I think the eighth one in that zombie series is on Netflix? The one with the gratuitous guts?”

“You know I’m always up for gratuitous guts, softie.” Janus had elbowed him, and Remus elbowed him right back.

In the end, it probably wouldn’t have mattered whether Remus had warned his friend again or not. Janus had been too nervous to give Roman the chocolates and they had ended up eating the box together the day after Valentine’s Day.

And then Remus was eighteen, which meant that in two or three months he would be free of school, and a few months after that he would be starting a new life where people didn’t know him as Roman Wang’s screw-up of a brother.

He was so, so close to getting out, to being free of this hell-forsaken town -

But Roman had to fuck up again, just one last time.

Remus hadn’t even had time to prepare. Usually, he would see the aftermath of hurricane Roman and at least be prepared for his parents’ wrath; this time, he got home after a double shift at work to find Hyun-ki sat at the kitchen table and his mother leaning against the sink, arms folded, both clearly waiting for him.

His voice died in his throat.

He wished it wouldn’t - but it had gotten to the point that whenever he saw the hateful disappointed creases between his father’s eyes, whenever his mother folded her arms and pursed her lips in just that way, his voice fled and it was all he could do to keep his body from following.

“What is this?” Dae’s voice was ice cold as she pointed at a small, clear bag on the table.

As though he were in a dream - no, not a dream, Remus knew what dreams and nightmares were like. As though he were a ghost, Remus approached the table and stared down at it.

The dark green flakes in the bag were easily recognisable as pot. It was as though Remus had gone back in time to the few weeks when he had tried using the stuff to help him sleep - but he had gotten rid of it as soon as he had decided to try to find something better. Which meant that this had to be…

“Roman’s.” He hadn’t realised that he had said it: the words had left his mouth without permission, and oh, wasn’t now just the worst time for his voice to show up?

If it had been just his mother, he might have gotten away with it. She was far enough away, and his voice was so quiet… But his father was right beside him, and he heard the word as clearly as if Remus had shouted it.

“Don’t you dare blame your brother for this!”

Oh, the irony, Remus thought, and, I guess we’re going straight to shouting.

It only took a few minutes for the words his parents were shouting to cease making any sort of sense. After that, it was just Remus, just Remus and a wave of sound that hurt his head, and then he was nodding, because what else was he supposed to do? Tell the truth and be accused of making more excuses?

He opened his mouth to try to force some words out - anything, anything from “I’m sorry” to “I’m a rather well known drug dealer by now, please call the cops” - and nothing came.

What was going on? Now Roman was in the doorway to the kitchen, and the shouting had stopped.

Remus blinked hard, and intelligible sound returned to his surroundings.

“-sweet of you, saja saekki, but he brought this on himself.”

“But - but he’s… He’s your son,” Roman protested. What a strange thing to say, Remus mused. Roman had never bothered trying to stick up for him before.

“Not anymore.” That was his father, and Remus must have heard wrong, because that just didn’t make any sense.

Then his parents turned back to him with twin glares, and Dae made a flapping motion toward the door with one hand. “Why are you still here? We told you to go.”

Roman was staring at him, stricken, and Remus could suddenly hear his own heartbeat in his ears. “G… Go?” He whispered, and his mother looked even more irritated than before.

“Get out of here, Remus! You’re not welcome here - you bring shit like this under our roof, and you expect us to welcome you in with open-” And then the shouting was too much again, and Remus didn’t hear anything else.

Instead, he turned and headed back toward the door. It felt like walking through treacle, thick, sticky, unreal. His father was standing by the doormat, one hand outstretched, and Remus stared at him for a long second before figuring out what he wanted. Digging in his pocket, he dropped his house keys into Hyun-ki’s palm, and watched his fingers close around them.

Then the door was open, and he was outside.

Now what?

Remus made it a few steps, then found that he was sitting down.

It was getting dark. Could he walk over to Janus’? He didn’t think his legs would carry him that far. No one part of his body felt like it was connecting to any other anymore.

There was a snap in front of him, and he flinched back. Roman was right in front of him. How long had he… It didn’t matter.

Roman was saying something, and Remus nodded, because what else was he supposed to do? Nodding was easy. If he could just go along with whatever was happening now, maybe it would be over soon.

Maybe he would wake up, screaming, and find that this was all just a nightmare.

There was something cold in his hand. Looking down, Remus found that Roman had pressed something black and oblong into his palm - his car keys. Roman had given Remus his… Car keys?

Now he was pulling Remus to his feet, and suddenly there was a blanket in his arms.

Then Roman had gone.

That was… Weird.

Remus just stood there for several long seconds.

Then it occurred to him that if Roman had given him his car keys and a blanket, maybe he meant for Remus to spend the night in the car. That didn’t seem unreasonable - a little out of character for Roman, but maybe he was changing. It wasn’t as though he had ever tried to stick up for Remus before, either.

Even so, the inside of the car was cold and lonely, made even worse by the numbness filling Remus’ stomach.

Eventually, it occurred to him that he should probably tell Janus what had happened. Not because there was anything Janus could do, of course, but because… Well, Remus didn’t really know. Janus was his best friend. He’d probably want to know.

It was only a few seconds before his phone beeped in response.

<I’m coming to get you, you can stay at mine>

<Where’s the car? You’re not walking alone>

Remus bit down on his lower lip.

He didn’t want to - and he wasn’t entirely sure his limbs would last that long, either. Janus seemed to know he wasn’t being entirely truthful. It wasn’t easy, lying to Janus.

Then time did that strange skip again, and Janus was knocking on the car window. Remus scrambled for the handle to open the door, and he slid into the passenger seat beside him and hugged him. Remus hugged back. Janus smelled faintly of alcohol - wine? What day was it - Friday? Remus wasn’t sure.

“Are you alright?” Remus nodded, and Janus raised his eyebrows.

“...No,” he admitted.

“Let’s get back to mine. We can figure out what to do long-term from there, okay?”

Remus nodded slowly, allowing Janus to pull away from him to walk around the car and slide into the driver’s seat. Key in the ignition - and then Remus’ hand on Janus’ shoulder. “You sure you should drive? Don’t mind walking…”

“Rem, you look like it’s taking all your energy to keep speaking right now. I’m not making you walk. I’m not really drunk, okay? It’ll be fine.” Leaning over, Janus took the blanket that had fallen by his feet and wrapped it around Remus’ shoulders, then squeezed his hand gently. “You hold tight. It’s going to be okay.”

Remus nodded, too tired to care anymore. It was easy to just lean back in his seat, let Janus put the car into gear, and pull out from the kerbside.

Janus made light conversation as they drove. Remus found that he didn’t listen to most of it, focusing instead on the comforting sound of Janus’ voice itself and allowing the warmth in it to melt the numbness filling him into a deep, cool wave of misery.

He had just been kicked out. He had never thought that that would… He had never thought they would actually kick him out. He had been planning on leaving in a few months, yes, but… Didn’t you already need an address to get an apartment? And he couldn’t just live at Janus’ place full time. His parents would find out, and he’d get in trouble… Maybe Remy would let him stay with him and Virgil?

Remus lifted a hand to rub at his eyes, and found that his face was wet. He was crying. The second he realised it, he couldn’t stop realising it, couldn’t stop the tears dripping down his cheeks or the sobs building in his throat. He tried to stay quiet, but a hand on his knee suggested that he hadn’t done a very good job. That was the third time he cried in front of Janus Sinclaire.

“Remus, Remus, I’m so, so sorry…” Remus turned his head to find that Janus was looking at him, one had on the wheel to keep them going straight, the other rubbing his leg gently. “It’s going to be okay. We’ll sort something out, I promise… You can let yourself cry, it’s-”

That was when

the world

ended.

Remus awoke to the smell of smoke and something burning, and the feeling that he had just been slammed face-first into a wall. Everything hurt. Everything was much too warm.

Groaning, he opened his eyes, and found that there was a strange, red tint to the world. Wiping his hand across his face revealed a cut on his forehead that throbbed painfully and had been dripping blood into his eyes - when had that gotten there?

Then he realised that he was still in the car, and that an orange, flickery light was illuminating the cracked windscreen before him. Had they… Had they crashed?

Fumbling awkwardly, Remus undid his seatbelt and scrabbled for the car door, pushing it open. There was a crackling in his ears as he crawled out of the wreck that had once been Roman’s gorgeous car, and it took him several long seconds to realise that it wasn’t just his brain. It was coming from the mess behind him.

Remus turned his head.

The car was burning.

How had he not noticed that before?

Where was Janus?

The driver’s side door was still closed - he could just about see it through the flames feasting on the car’s bonnet. Did that mean -

When he saw the dark shape still in the driver’s seat, Remus felt his heart stop.

He was moving back toward the car before he even knew what he was doing, feeling his fingers blister on the hot metal as he jerked the door open.

It wasn’t just the car that was on fire, the grass around them. Janus’ clothes were on fire, that stupid hat he was always wearing was burning away merrily on his head, and the side of his face nearest Remus was already scorched and blackened, and Remus was certain he would never forget this image for as long as he lived.

He was glad for the hours he spent hauling boxes at the back of the supermarket. It meant that he was strong enough to carry what he really, really hoped wasn’t his friend’s corpse away from the acrid-smelling bonfire.

Janus’ phone was in his pocket, miraculously untouched by the flames, and Remus stared at the lockscreen for a long second. It was a picture Janus had taken when he had gone to visit his college, long before he had applied, when he had decided that that was where he wanted to be.

If Remus didn’t get an ambulance there fast, he didn’t think Janus would see it again.

Janus was breathing now, he could tell, but only just. It sounded painful, and Remus looked down as he dialled the emergency number to find that Janus’ eyes were open, one of them reddened and stark against the burned skin around it.

“Don’t worry, Jan, you’re - you’re gonna be okay, it’s -”

“Emergency services, how can we help you?”

Remus was crying again. He could see the tears dripping down onto Janus’ face - and Janus didn’t seem to be able to feel them. It didn’t look as though his eyes were focusing.

An ambulance wasn’t going to get there fast enough.

“P-Police! And an ambulance - I just saw two boys hit a - a telephone pole, the - the car’s on fire, I think the - the passenger, I think he’s seriously injured -” Remy had been teaching him to disguise his voice.

Janus was frowning beneath him, mouth moving and only strains of air whistling between his teeth.

“I - I think the driver was that kid - that kid, the bad one, Wang, Remus Wang, I think he’s killed somebody-”

Now Janus was shaking his head, and those horrible, silent tears were still coursing down Remus’ face.

“We’ll have somebody with you as soon as possible, sir. Could you give us your name and location, please?”

Remus looked around desperately, and was lucky enough to see a street sign almost immediately. He rattled it off, and then hung up, attention returning to Janus.

It looked as though Janus was struggling to breathe. It looked as though he were only seconds from passing out again, but he must have been conscious enough to hear the conversation, because his mouth formed the single word, “why?”

Remus let out a shaky laugh. “Police’ll get here faster. Ambulance’s gonna be too slow. You’re gonna be okay, I promise. Not letting anything bad happen to you - ‘n they’re gonna want to arrest someone. You just gotta sit tight, okay? I’m gonna handle this. ‘S all gonna be okay. You’re gonna be fine. It was my fault, it was all my fault, jus’ tell them that, okay? You’re gonna be fine, Jan. You’re gonna be fine. It’s gonna be okay. It’s all…”

Janus’ eyes rolled into the back of his head, and Remus had never been more terrified than he was in that moment.

And then he could hear sirens in the distance, getting louder.

They were going to arrest him - but Janus would be okay. They would take Janus to a hospital, they would make sure he was okay, and that was all Remus needed. As long as Janus lived, as long as Janus got to keep his future, Remus didn’t care what happened to him.

When the police car arrived, ambulance in tow, releasing Janus’ still form and allowing himself to be cuffed was the easiest decision Remus had ever made.

Taglist:

@bloodymari-0666

#roman sanders #remus sanders #janus sanders #virgil sanders #patton sanders #logan sanders #AccidentsHappenAU #drug and alcohol use and misuse #suicide attempt tw #referenced self harm tw #nonbinary logan #trans patton #this was meant to be 6k #why is it so long #i was possessed by the spirit of writing

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and-it-freezes-me · 3 years

Text

Accidents Happen - Playing With Fire

Summary: Roman works to get closer to Janus, and finds that he isn’t sure how much he likes this new side of himself.

Content: food mention, panic attack, vomit mention but only very briefly, fire mention

Words: 5,936

{Part 1} {Part 3}

Janus was a surprisingly decent study partner.

Well, the fact that he was a good study partner was not the surprising part. He was a perfect student, one of the very few people in their year with better grades than Roman over all of their subjects, and had won several debate competitions over the last few years, both solo and in a team. If Roman had been surprised that Janus was a good student, he would have been even less observant than the main character in one of the books he had read once. That guy had managed to live in the same dorm room as somebody for seven years and managed to misinterpret the intense attraction between the two of them as hatred and rivalry. And had managed to miss the fact that he was his own worst enemy. Roman wasn’t that unobservant.

The surprising part was that Roman had failed to prepare himself for the fact that Janus might actually be good at pretending to be a good person, and that it was more difficult than he had hoped not to actually like him or appreciate his good qualities, like being a good study partner.

Fortunately, Roman was a good actor. He had plenty of practice at keeping the line between real life and a role.

When, after they had been staring at Roman's notes for an hour and Janus made some comment about how he should have chosen a study buddy with better handwriting, one with handwriting he could actually read, Roman only laughed because that was what Janus expected of him. It wasn’t as though the snake was actually funny, or anything.

“I’m serious. The only reason I believe that this is your real handwriting is because I’m watching you produce these illegible scrawls as I speak.” Janus had leaned back in his chair, staring with some kind of fascinated horror at the fountain pen in Roman’s already ink stained fingers.

“It’s not that bad! If it were illegible, I wouldn’t have passed any of my exams,” Roman pointed out. Although he sounded amused, irritation had flickered to life in his gut. If his handwriting was that distasteful, maybe Janus should go and find somebody else to help him catch up.

“It is that bad,” his companion drawled. “It’s almost bad enough to think that you’re deliberately trying to sabotage my attempts to catch up! How you revise from those things is beyond me.”

Again, Roman had laughed at that. Perish the thought! Him, sabotage Janus? Never! Well, not until he found proof that he had actively had a hand in Remus’ fate. Until that time came, he would just have to wait and watch, gain the snake’s trust until he was ready to spill his guts, and be a minor inconvenience from the shadows.

For example, when a tall man wandered into the kitchen and gazed in mild surprise at Roman before going to the fridge and returning with a pack of chocolate biscuits to offer around, Roman took two, rather than one.

"I didn't know you had friends over, Jan. Should have said something." The man had to be Janus' father. They had the same slender build, the same delicate grey eyes, the same narrow hands. A silver band was around the man's left ring finger.

"It's one friend, Dad -" Roman was a master detective "- and he's helping me catch up on the work I've missed."

Well, Janus was definitely lying there. They weren't friends - they barely knew one another! And if Janus could lie about something like this, he could definitely lie about why he was in the car with Remus. (Yes, Roman was aware that he was probably making slightly too big a deal out of absolutely nothing at all. No, he was not going to stop. Any reason to be hopeful was a good reason to be hopeful).

He was brought out of his triumphant musings by a hearty chuckle as Mr Sinclaire patted Janus genially on his shoulder (the unscarred side, Roman noted). "That's my boy, nose to the grindstone as ever! Alright, you kids have fun."

"Studying, sir, is the epitome of fun,” Roman deadpanned. Well, it wasn’t as though he could just sit there and say nothing - but from the looks that both Sinclaires were now giving him, he rather wished he had stayed silent. Janus was looking as though he rather wished that Roman would crawl back into whatever drain in which he had originated. His father looked as though Roman was something a barely tolerated cat had dragged in through the door after finding it already dead on the side of the road.

Then Mr Sinclaire let out a brief laugh and clapped Janus on the shoulder again. “A funny one! Well, I’ll let you get back to your thrilling pastime.”

Janus chuckled briefly and waved his scarred hand in a shoo-ing motion, and his father left as Roman began to wonder if he had imagined their distasteful expressions. To quell this line of thinking, he took another two biscuits and added them to the two sitting beside his notebook.

By the time Janus was glancing at the clock and telling Roman that he should probably leave now because he had dinner in half an hour (Roman could smell whatever it was coming through from the kitchen. It was probably more worms, maybe with beetles mixed in, but damn did it smell good), there were eleven biscuits stacked neatly beside his elbow. Janus raised an eyebrow at them, pushing the small stack of notes he had been deciphering back toward Roman. “You know, you weren’t going to get kicked out for refusing them if you weren’t hungry.”

Rather than bristling in irritation, Roman chuckled and picked up one of the cookies. They were raisin - squashed fly biscuits, Remus always called them. “Who said I wasn’t hungry?” It was like sawdust in his mouth, but he forced himself to swallow anyway. Janus didn’t look impressed.

Actually, Roman wasn’t sure he’d ever seen Janus look impressed.

“Ah, I must be mistaken. Where I come from, stockpiling cookies rather than eating them is not the mark of the hungry.”

“Then you, sir,” Roman replied, pointing his half-eaten biscuit sternly in Janus’ direction, “have a lot to learn.”

Janus chuckled his serial-killer chuckle and gestured toward the door in a motion that was almost a mockery of a bow. “I shall look forward to my next lesson, then. For now, Princey, I shall bid you adieu.”

Roman looked at him. “What?”

“Adieu. A - D - I - E - U. It’s French, means-”

“I know what it means,” Roman said, interrupting Janus’ exaggerated eye-roll. “It was the Prince part.”

Now it was Janus’ turn for confusion to slip over his features. “I… Sorry. It’s just, you know, your surname meaning ‘king’ and everything, it just slipped out.”

“I didn’t know you spoke Korean.”

“Oh, I… Just a few words.” The burned side of Janus’ face had gone a strange blotchy red, and it took Roman a few seconds to realise that he was blushing. Huh. It seemed that Janus wasn’t always as smooth as he seemed from a distance.

What would Janus do if Roman pressed the point? He seemed flustered. It didn’t make much sense for Janus to just happen to know the meaning of his surname - had he researched him?

Janus was rubbing the back of his neck now, trying to make the fact that he was avoiding Roman’s eyes seem natural rather than bizarre as he showed him to the door, and a peculiar idea struck him. Most people - especially not ones as reserved as Janus Sinclaire - didn’t come up with nicknames after just a few hours studying together, during which they had hardly exchanged more than a handful of words each. Nor did they research the names of random people they had just met.

Was it possible that Janus had a crush on him?

Roman knew he was fairly easy on the eyes. Not in a conceited way - he didn’t think he was conceited, anyway. It was hard not to get used to the fact when every relative commented on how attractive he looked these days, or when his brother had been calling him the handsome twin for years. He was intelligent, kind, outgoing, sometimes funny, and usually a fairly good friend. It wasn’t impossible to believe that Janus could be interested.

On the other hand, it did seem fairly improbable. Thanks to a few too many fistfights and biking accidents, Roman and Remus weren’t exactly identical anymore; even ignoring Remus’ chipped teeth and the scars on his face and hands, Remus was about an inch shorter than Roman and rather more muscle than him. But they still looked similar enough that it was very hard to look at Roman and not see Remus lurking behind his eyes (and vice versa), and Roman couldn’t quite believe that Janus was stupid enough to have a crush on somebody so reminiscent of the person that had (supposedly) lured him into a car and then nearly killed him.

Janus could be faking it, of course. What would he gain from that? If he was guilty of anything more than being in the wrong place at the wrong time, creating openings for Roman to poke around could only lead to the truth being discovered. Maybe he thought that he could outsmart Roman - maybe he thought that Roman was stupid. Maybe he was planning something else, something devious, something that this time the other Wang twin would take the fall for.

He would have to keep a much closer eye on Janus than he had originally thought.

On Monday, Roman found Janus in the library toward the end of lunch, and ended up helping him find a book on some long-dead philosopher. He accidentally-on-purpose allowed their fingers to brush when he handed the book over, watching Janus’ face out of the corner of his eye for his reaction. No blush. No stammering. He barely even seemed to notice the lingering touch.

Janus

Evidence for crush: 0

Evidence against crush: 1

On Tuesday, Roman’s fountain pen exploded halfway through his calculus class, covering not only his hands in black ink but also his favourite scarlet sweater and the page of exercises and notes he had been working on. He missed the rest of class trying to wash the stuff off in one of the bathrooms, but when he arrived at his locker to collect his script at the end of the day he found a page of notes in neat calligraphy had been taped to the metal door. At the top of the page was written ‘Thought you’d need these. J.S.’

Janus

Evidence for crush: ½

Evidence against crush: 1

Evidence for being a creepy stalker: 1

Roman deliberately ignored the fact that he knew where Janus’ locker was as well, and for far more devious purposes than handing over missed notes.

On Thursday morning, Janus was waiting by his locker.

(Evidence for being a creepy stalker: 2)

Roman didn’t look at him, unlocking the door and depositing half of the textbooks he had brought with him that morning. “Wasn’t expecting to see you here, Sinclaire. Don’t you have Chem first? On the other side of the school?”

“Memorising my timetable, Princey? Most people would call that stalking, you know.” There was a playful note in Janus’ hoarse voice that made Roman’s eyes dart sideways toward him. A small smile was lingering on the edge of his lips.

(Evidence for crush: ¾)

“You must be lucky, then. Most people don’t have such a handsome stalker.” Roman closed his locker, shouldering his rucksack again, and leaned against it to look Janus in the eye. Did this count as flirting? Roman hoped so. If flirting with Janus got him closer to the truth, Roman would happily take the snake out to dinner and a movie.

Janus’ smile widened almost imperceptibly, and his eyes flicked away from Roman’s. Did the burned side of his face grow ever so slightly redder, or was Roman imagining it?

(Evidence for crush: 1 ½)

“Or one so inept as to admit they’re a stalker, stalker.”

Roman flushed. “Did you want something?”

“Hm?” Janus looked briefly startled. Then he brought his hand up to adjust the chocolate coloured beanie on his head until it was no longer covering his ears. He was wearing what looked like thin leather gloves. “Ah, yes. It has been brought to my attention that I have missed a lot of practice time for our oral presentations for Espanol, and I-”

“Español.”

“Exactly. I was hoping you wouldn’t mind studying with me again tomorrow?” Janus didn’t look that perturbed by the fact that he had been interrupted. Maybe he had bungled the pronunciation deliberately to give Roman the opportunity to show off and correct him. Roman had no doubt that he was capable of it. Manipulative jerk.

(Evidence for being a creepy stalker / manipulative jerk: 3)

There was a few seconds of silence as Roman just stared at Janus, who was beginning to look somewhat uncomfortable by the time it occurred to Roman that he had just been asked a question. He shook his head, and Janus’ face fell. Then he nodded, and the small half-smile returned to Janus’ lips. “Oh. Uh. Sure, yeah. That sounds good. I’ll… Bring my notes.”

“Awesome.” Janus nodded once, as though they had just completed a low-risk business transaction, and then hitched his satchel back onto his shoulder (it had slipped down his arm whilst they had been talking) and turned to walk away.

When he got to Janus’ house on Friday afternoon, there was already a plate of biscuits in the middle of the table, and a second empty plate in the place Roman had sat the previous week. Janus greeted him with a nod toward it: "For your galleta hoarding needs."

Roman flipped him off, then chuckled and sat down. "I appreciate the compensation for the vicious mockery you give my handwriting, in any case."

"My mockery is justified. You write as though you were taught by racoons. Rabid racoons."

Roman hid his snort by leaning down to dig his notes out of his bag. "Sit down, Sinclaire. It's Spanish time."

When he straightened up, Janus was still standing next to him, staring absently at the table. Roman waited for him to move, and when nothing happened, he reached up to poke his cheek.

"Ah!" Roman jerked his hand back as Janus flinched away, one hand coming up to cover his face; Roman realised much too late that he had just prodded his still-fresh burns.

"Oh, fuck, dude, I'm so sorry! Are you alright?" Standing, Roman reached out automatically to try to do something - what, he had no idea - but Janus batted his hands away. He was still wearing the gloves from earlier that morning.

"Fine. I'm fine. Sit down, Roman. Sit down." Janus rubbed his cheek again, walking around the table to his own seat.

Roman obeyed, forcing himself to ignore the guilt rising in the back of his throat. He could feel guilty later, if - and only if - Janus turned out to be completely innocent. If he wasn't, which Roman was almost completely certain was the truth, then he deserved every little inconvenience that Roman could give him.

They sat in silence for a short time, Janus staring at his gloved hands, Roman staring at Janus. There was a clock somewhere in the kitchen, and it filled the quiet air between them with a rhythmic ticking. After a total of ninety-four seconds, Roman cleared his throat. "Um… Janus? Are you okay?"

Janus nodded slowly, rubbing his fingers against the palm of the opposite hand, and then looked up. "Yeah. Burns are still pretty sore to touch. I'm… Heh. I'm gradually reducing the number of painkillers I'm on, so…"

"Got it. No more poking." Roman offered Janus a nervous smile, which grew when it was met with the semi-amused half-smile. "So… Spanish?"

Would Janus have opened up to him like that if he thought Roman was investigating him? He must trust Roman at least a little to share that much information about his injuries. There was no way Janus thought Roman was a threat to him, or likely to come close to uncovering the mess of lies he had wrapped around Remus.

Of course, he could also be innocent.

But he wasn't: Roman knew it. There was no way the snake sitting opposite was innocent of anything that had happened in Roman's car that night.

He wished he hadn't hurt him, though. Roman didn't want to hurt people. He didn't want to be like Remus, and have the crowds of people at school part for him as though being closer than two metres was a death sentence.

It was another week until Roman tried his luck and asked about the gloves. They had started spending lunchtimes together, usually in the library, meeting after Janus had eaten to study. Roman was beginning to suspect that Janus wasn't as behind on his Spanish as he was claiming to be: on Wednesday, he had left to find a reference book for his biology class and come back to find Janus correcting part of his essay.

(Janus

Evidence for crush: 5

Evidence against crush: 8

Evidence for being a creepy stalker / manipulative jerk: 7

Reasons not to trust: 11)

Roman had ended up coming over to his house on Tuesday and Wednesday, both times to revise for their exams, which had started that week and would continue into the next. On the Wednesday, Janus had left his phone on the table while he went to the bathroom, and Roman had seized his chance.

Unfortunately, his attempts to gather more information on his study partner were fruitless: Janus had password protected his phone, and Roman didn't know him well enough to even attempt to guess it. His lock screen offered no clues: a picture of a building made of pale brick, with ivy climbing the sides that could be anything from an old home to a stock photo of a museum. It showed the time, and there was an 'If found, please call' message underneath that, with a number just below. Roman studied the number for a moment before taking a picture with his own phone and returning Janus' to the table.

By the time the brunet returned, Roman was nose-deep in deciphering his own notes on the future perfect tense.

An image search of the photograph he had taken showed up only adverts for different phones, and he couldn’t find anything about the number when he had searched it online (not that he was expecting to - it was probably for one of Janus’ parents). The picture of the building had seemed promising at first, but Roman quickly discovered that the sheer number of pale brick, ivy-covered buildings that appeared when he tried searching online would take until Remus’ sentence was up to comb through.

Friday marked the end of their first week of exams, and the first time that Janus invited Roman up to his bedroom to study. “No biscuits this time, I’m afraid. But that means we can go upstairs, which is more comfortable,” he had said, gesturing up the sweeping staircase with one hand.

Janus’ room was just as neat as Roman had expected it to be. A single bed was pushed against one wall, looking as though it had just been made that morning (Roman felt a stab of embarrassment for his own bed, which looked as though half of Simba’s pride had been using the duvet for hunting practice) (as opposed to Remus’ mattress, which actually had stuffing leaking out of it from an ‘accident’ with a bow and arrow); an oblong fluffy brown rug took up a large amount of the floor in the middle of the room, and Roman wasted no time in throwing himself down upon it as Janus crossed to the large desk by the window. There were no posters or pictures tacked to the pale yellow walls, but a single photo frame stood on the bedside table. Roman craned his neck to see it and found, disappointingly yet predictably, it contained a picture of a younger Janus clutching an award. A book was resting beside it, a brown tassel poking out from somewhere near the middle. There was a wardrobe against one wall, a chest against another, and a bookshelf containing what looked like every psychology and law textbook ever written.

Maybe neat had been an understatement. Janus’ room was practically spartan; it could have belonged to anybody. Take away the picture frame and Janus would completely disappear, leaving it free for anybody to use. The thought made Roman a little sad. Janus was pulling papers from his rucksack; rolling over, Roman glanced toward the door - and as he did, something under the bed caught his eye. A smile spread over his face.

“What should we start with? I’m thinking Chem, given that we have that on Monday, and then-”

“You do have a soul!” Roman’s voice was positively gleeful as he got up and crawled toward the bed, and he had to admit that his enthusiasm was genuine. Maybe the room wasn’t so spartan after all.

“What? Ro, wh- oh. No, put those back, we're studying here, not…" Janus trailed away, exasperated, as Roman straightened up clutching a stuffed snake that had to be over a metre long, and a cuddly green octopus.

"Not that your room isn't charming in its utilitarian-ness, but these add so much, don't you think?" He squeezed the octopus thoughtfully before positioning it carefully beside Janus' pillow. "Did you hide these because you knew I was coming around? Because that's just sad, Sinclaire. You never have to hide your stuffed toys." Roman gestured emphatically with the snake, then moved a little closer and used its blunt snout to ease Janus' hat off of his head as the other buried his face in his hand.

"...your obsession with stuffed animals…" Roman heard him mutter, and then, "Stop it, you oaf, stop…"

"Make me," he replied maturely, and started bopping Janus on the head with the yellow animal.

With a theatrical groan that Roman was almost impressed by, Janus started half-heartedly batting at the snake. Roman responded by chuckling and hitting him again. "You'll have to try harder than that! Come on, Jan…"

"Listen, you…"

The next time the snake went near Janus' now messy hair, he grabbed it and tried to jerk it out of Roman's hands. With a cry of laughter, Roman pulled back harder, managing to jerk his nemesis off his chair.

Which would have been fine: Janus would have stood, pulled harder, the snake would have been his for the taking, and that would have been the end of it.

Only Janus managed to trip on the edge of the rug that Roman had been so enjoying a moment ago, and the momentum from their tug of war pushed him off balance. He crashed into Roman, who stumbled from the unexpected weight, and then they were both on the floor.

Or, more accurately, Roman was on the floor with an aching head and tailbone, and Janus was lying on top of him, wincing. "Fuck, Wang, how are you so boney?"

Roman made a (highly dignified) squeaking noise, too winded to speak. Janus' scar went that same blotchy red as it had the other day.

"Oh. Sorry, let me just…" He rolled himself off and sat up, and Roman took a deep breath as air rushed back into his lungs. "You alright?"

Roman waved a hand. "Fine, fine… Just gonna lie here… a second…"

"Here." A hand wrapped around his, and Roman felt himself being pulled back to his feet - apparently Janus was stronger than he had thought. "You're lighter than I expected. All good? Happy to go back to studying now?"

"Why do you wear those things?"

They were still holding hands, and Roman was staring at the yellow glove against his brown skin. It was smooth to the touch. He didn't realise that Janus was staring at him until the silence became uncomfortable enough for him to look up; shaking his head, Roman pulled away with a nervous chuckle. "Sorry. Sorry, that was… Don't worry about it. You're right, let's…" he gestured helplessly at Janus' desk.

Janus rubbed the back of his neck slowly, then shrugged and sat down. He handed Roman a stack of flashcards. The top one read 'endothermic reaction'. "Layer of protection against infection. Only one glove is weird. Besides, people stare less at the glove than they did at the scarring, and they already stare enough at my face. I think I'll spare the hands. Quiz me."

Roman stared at him. Janus was facing the window again, not looking at him anymore. His back was perfectly straight, the sun shining bronze through his shoulder-length wave of hair, and Roman was struck with the urge to rest a hand on his shoulder, to comfort him. "Janus… If-"

"Quiz me," Janus interrupted, insistently. "Chemistry test on Monday. Final grade. Flashcards. Go."

So Roman quizzed him, telling himself that it was for the best. He didn't want to get too close to Janus, didn't want to feel sympathy for him. Janus was hiding something about Remus' and his accident, which meant that Janus could have kept Remus out of jail, which meant that Janus couldn't be trusted no matter how nice he might pretend to be or how high the guilt rose in Roman's throat.

On Monday morning, they sat their chemistry exam in the sports hall, and Roman could only find one question that he didn't feel confident with. Janus, he knew, must have aced it. He hadn't gotten a single flashcard wrong on Friday.

Then they had a written Spanish exam, and then lunch. Roman toyed with his bento for ten minutes or so, then put his lunchbox away again and went to join Janus in the library to revise for their practical assessment that afternoon.

Roman wasn't paying attention when everything had gone wrong. His focus had been solely on the copper sulphate solution he was attempting to crystallise, checking the timer to make sure he noted down the temperature of the solution every fifteen seconds; the first he knew of a problem was a hoarse cry, a few screams, and the slamming of the heavy classroom door.

He looked up apprehensively, although he thought he already knew what he was going to see.

Sure enough, Janus was missing from his station; Virgil, his lab partner, had his back pressed against the window a full three metres away from their work and was looking as though he had been on the verge of jumping out. The pairs at the stations around theirs were all staring at him, and Roman was willing to bet that his had been one of the screams. Their teacher was staring at the door with an expression of great concern on his face.

Roman was out of his spot before he had thought it through, shrugging off his lab coat and ignoring the whisper of annoyance from Melanie, his own lab partner. "Sir, Mr Sanders? Can I go make sure he's alright?"

Their teacher nodded gratefully at him. "Thanks, Mr Wang. Tell him he doesn't have to come back to finish, alright? The rest of you have… Eighteen minutes until the end of the test."

Roman closed the door on the sound of people scurrying to get back to their experiments, and looked up and down the corridor. Janus was nowhere in sight. Where would he go? Not his locker: that was too public, and Roman had a feeling that Janus wouldn't want anybody to see if he was freaking out. The gym? No, there was a French assessment happening in the gym at the moment. So… The bathrooms, maybe. Roman took off at a brisk jog toward the toilets by the science staircase.

He knew he had the right place the moment he opened the door. The sound of strangled sobs and gasps was coming from the middle toilet cubicle, and when Roman closed the door they stopped briefly, as though Janus was holding his breath, before starting again in a rush. Roman winced.

"Janus? It's me."

"Go - Go away!" Janus' voice was more strained than usual, and Roman sighed quietly before moving forward to knock gently on the cubicle door. It swung open under his touch - Janus hadn't locked it.

"Can I come in?"

"Can - can I st-stop you?" Janus tried to snap the words, but they came out unsteady and breathless.

He was curled up on the closed lid of the toilet seat, knees pulled to his chest and one arm wrapped tightly around them. The other was braced against one knee, hand fisted in his brown beanie as he hyperventilated, face and eyes red. The smell of burnt fabric lingered around him; the left sleeve of his lab coat was blackened and burned.

Roman took a small step forward, then knelt down in front of him. "Can I touch you, Jan?"

Janus shook his head, then unwrapped his right arm from around his knees and held out his hand. Roman took it and squeezed gently, and was met with a vice-like squeeze. He didn't pull away.

"Do you want to try a breathing exercise?" A nod. "I'm going to count, but no pressure. Ready? Breathe with me. In for four, yeah? Two, three, four, and hold for four, two, three, four, that's it, and out for two, three, four, five, and six. And in, two, three, four… You're doing really well, Jan. You're here, you're safe… And out, two, three, four, five, six…"

“I - This - I shouldn’t-”

“It’s okay, Jan. With me, in, two, three, four… Hold, two, three, four, and out, two, three, four… That’s it…”

That wasn’t it, actually. Janus’ breathing was still ragged, only slightly calmer than before, but Roman kept up his gentle stream of encouragement until he spoke again.

“The - the fire, my - my sleeve, I couldn’t, I…” He broke off in a dry sob, and Roman ran his thumb gently over his knuckles.

“You’re safe now. You’re safe. I promise, alright? All you need to worry about right now is breathing, and squeezing my hand. You’re here, buddy. I’m here. It’s going to be okay…” He might never have done this for Janus before, but Roman was hardly a stranger to helping his brother through panic attacks like this one. Remus had had problems with enclosed spaces ever since they were nine and he had managed to lock himself in the cupboard under the sink, and sometimes got overwhelmed in large crowds, but whilst the triggers were different the end result and the care needed was usually the same.

He knew what it was like to be in Janus’ position, too.

Janus' grip on his hand never decreased in ferocity, but gradually the other boy's shoulders slumped from their hunched position, and he closed his eyes in exhaustion. They continued the breathing exercise for another few minutes before Roman broke the flow of counting and reassurance again. “Hey. Do you feel up for a hug?”

The tired silver eyes opened and studied Roman for a second. Then Janus shrugged. Roman hesitated until he actually nodded, standing to wrap his arms loosely around his shoulders. Janus rested his head against Roman’s chest, exhaled a long, slow breath, and murmured so quietly that Roman would have missed it had he not been right next to him, “Thanks.”

It was evening, and Roman was in his room, staring blankly at his notebook.

Janus

Evidence for crush: 9

Evidence against crush: 11

Evidence for being a creepy stalker / manipulative jerk: 12

Reasons not to trust: 16

He had stayed with Janus that afternoon, stayed until they heard the tramping of feet in the hallway outside that meant that the school day was over, until Janus had pushed him away and stood, muttering something about not wanting to keep his parents waiting. Roman had showed him how to splash water over his face to reduce the redness in his eyes, and then watched him walk away, his mind in turmoil.

He couldn’t keep investigating Janus. Not after that. Roman had observed and had enough panic attacks to know a genuine one when he saw it: Janus had been really freaked out by the small fire in their chemistry assessment. The crash had clearly had far more than just a physical impact on him. The guilt in Roman had risen so high that he had found himself doubled over a toilet, retching what little lunch he had eaten until only bile would come up. How could he have suspected Janus of deliberately doing something to get Remus locked up? Janus didn’t even know Remus. Roman was definitely in the wrong here.

He should put this whole mess behind him. Janus actually seemed like a nice person - and Roman couldn’t just ghost him now, not now that they were almost friends. If he just stopped speaking to Janus now, he would surely assume it was because Roman had been too freaked out by seeing Janus panic like that, and that wasn’t fair at all.

None of this was fair on Janus.

Roman should do something as an apology. Not that Janus needed to know it was an apology, of course, it just needed to be something they could do as friends. They hadn’t actually hung out together yet, unless studying counted - which it most definitely didn’t. They could see a movie, or something. Maybe Roman could host, and they could watch something lighthearted - a Disney film, or something similar. Nothing too violent or firey. It would be a good break from revision, if he could schedule something in for the weekend.

Not wanting to wait to see Janus the next day, Roman pulled his phone from his pocket, and had gotten as far as opening the messaging app when he realised that there was one minor flaw in this plan: he didn’t have Janus’ number.

Oh.

What did he have? He knew they all had school email addresses, but also knew that nobody ever checked those. Besides, who sent emails to ask friends to hang out? If he asked Virgil for Janus’ number (and Roman had no doubt that Virgil would know it), he would end up owing the most twitchy guy in school a massive favour - and he’d probably never live down the teasing. Virgil would tell Patton, because he told Patton everything, and as lovely as Patton was, he had no idea how to keep a secret.

Roman lowered his phone slowly, frowning. Now what? It wasn’t as though he had any favours he could call in or -

Call! He had one of Janus' parents' numbers in his camera roll from when he had taken a picture of his lock screen! Pulling his gallery up, Roman scribbled the number into his notebook and then dialled it, slapping the phone to his ear as soon as he had hit the last letter and waiting for the dial tone to go away. He would explain that he was Janus' friend, that he had managed to lose Janus' number, and could he please-

Then the voicemail message started playing, and the colour drained from Roman's face. He waited for the beep, then hung up, lowering his phone slowly.

It looked as though the investigation was back on.

"Who the fuck calls people these days? Send a text like a regular dickhead, sheesh! Whatever, if your voicemail boner is really that hard, just go ahead. This is Remus' phone - but you already knew that."

Taglist

@bloodymari-0666

#roman sanders #janus sanders #virgil sanders #remus sanders #AccidentsHappenAU

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and-it-freezes-me · 3 years

Text

Accidents Happen - All You Can Do

Summary: A final apology is made.

Content: Discussion of bad parenting, discussion of drugs, thunderstorm, wine

Word count: 5,491

{Part 6} {Epilogue}

Nobody answered the door when Roman finally arrived outside Janus’ home two hours later. That confused him somewhat: even if Janus didn’t want to talk to him, surely one of his parents would come out to see who was there, or at least tell him to go away. Their manners had always seemed impeccable when Roman had been there to study with their son.

Then he remembered that, on Friday before he had ruined everything, Janus had said something about them going away for the weekend. They were probably still out, and Janus probably wasn’t in the mood to come down to open the door to random people.

Although Roman was fairly certain he would be able to use the bins to climb onto the roof of the garage, and from there make his way into what he assumed was an open upstairs bathroom window, he felt that breaking and entering was unlikely to endear himself to Janus. And he probably wasn’t strong enough anymore, now that he actually thought about it.

Roman pulled his phone from his pocket and winced at how low the battery was, then made to text the number he had marked as Snake. There was a skull and crossbones emoji next to the name. Frowning, he changed it back to Jan Sinclaire.

<I’m outside. I’d like to talk to you. I’m here to apologise.>

A few seconds passed, and then a small blue tick appeared beside the message - but no answer was forthcoming. Roman bit down on his lower lip.

It was the same as before: the small blue tick appeared to show that Janus had read the message, but he didn’t send an answer.

This time, the message-read indicator never appeared. Roman kicked angrily at a large pot of begonias next to him, then let out a strangled cry as pain spread up his foot. The plant pot sat there smugly, undamaged, as he hopped around.

<I’m going to sit here until you - No, that sounded too much like blackmail. Roman didn’t want to force Janus to talk to him if he’d prefer not to.

Oh.

<I’ll wait until you want to talk. I’ll sit out here for a bit, and then I’ll go home, and if you decide that you’re okay for me to apologise to you, please text me. I’ll text you when I leave. I’m sorry, Janus.>

He had almost finished the text with “I’m sorry, Jan,” but had decided at last minute that he probably shouldn’t act as though they were close anymore.

Favouring his throbbing right foot, Roman moved back toward the front porch and sat down on the step outside, then closed his eyes. What was he doing here? Despite what Remus had said, Roman highly doubted that Janus was likely to forgive him. The more he thought about it, the more certain he became of that fact. He had been entirely awful to him.

Roman remembered the way Janus had clung to his hand on Monday - had that really only been Monday? It felt like years ago, not just a week - and pressed his palms together again. If he hadn’t tried to get into Janus’ phone and discovered Remus’ number, that would have been the end of it. He would have stopped digging, just allowed the two of them to be friends… Or would he? Roman hated to admit it to himself, but he had a feeling that he would have just dropped Janus as soon as his investigation had been over, the same way he had dropped Logan and Virgil. Maybe they would have remained in contact for a short amount of time, but he doubted he would really have made an effort after Janus was no longer interesting, useful, or a threat.

Wow. He was a really, really bad person.

No - he had been a really bad person. Now, he was trying to do better. It was like Emile had said, like Remus had said: he was working to fix things, and that was the important thing. (He may have been paraphrasing a little).

He should have arrived with cookies, the way he had with Virgil. Maybe a small peace offering would help smooth things over, or make Janus more willing to hear him out. But would that count as trying to bribe him into being friends again? Bending in half at the waist, Roman pressed his face into his hands. This was… Difficult.

Trying was difficult.

It was another stiflingly hot day. Even just sitting on the bus on the way back from seeing Remus had been almost unbearable: Roman had had to move from where he was sat by the window because the sun had been threatening to burn him right down to the bone. Clouds had begun to gather as he had walked from the bus stop to Janus’ home, but the day had only gotten warmer. Apparently, it wasn’t just the sun trying to turn him into soup, but the entire weather system. It was enough to make him dizzy again. He probably should have stopped at home to get some lunch before coming out here, especially given how Remus had just threatened him about skipping meals.

Roman supposed he could get up and go now. He didn’t have to go home, where his parents would probably be waiting with another faux concerned lecture. He could find a shop nearby, grab a cheap sandwich, and then come back.

He wanted to stay here for maybe an hour before going home. Roman wasn’t sure why that length of time was so important to him, but it was. He wanted to be there if Janus suddenly decided that he did want to talk, and whilst he couldn’t just camp out forever, he didn’t want to leave immediately.

At least he wasn’t about to get sunburned. The cloud coverage was nearly complete now, making the early afternoon far more gloomy than it should have been.

Maybe that was fitting. Maybe the heat was just a byproduct of the weather trying to show Janus how sorry Roman really was.

When he rubbed his knuckles against his eyes in an attempt to get his vision to sharpen up again, they came away covered in sweat. Gross. At least the outlines of the shapes in front of him were no longer fuzzy, although he wasn't sure how long that would last.

He should go home.

Sitting out here until he collapsed was probably the least helpful thing he could do. Not only would it prevent him from apologising, but there was a high chance it would make Janus feel as though he were being guilted into accepting any apology Roman offered.

Roman was done with blackmail, verbal or emotional.

Standing, he fished his phone out of his pocket to see that his messages had been read at some point over the last half hour, and then been ignored.

<I'm going to head home now. If you want to talk, please let me know.>

He had gotten half way down the short driveway when a rumble of thunder echoed overhead and was followed a split second later by no less than six ocean worth of rain.

In less than a minute, Roman was soaked through by raindrops the size of bullets. He hadn’t moved in that time, still standing in the middle of Janus’ driveway and staring in disgust at the sky.

It responded to his indignation with a bright flash of lightning. Roman flinched, eyes snapping shut.

Then came the accompanying roar of sound catching up with light, and he looked around again. At least it was no longer sweat sticking his hair to the back of his neck and his shirt to his skin, but the rain had its own downside: it took approximately another ten seconds for Roman to start shivering.

If he hadn’t already been about to go home, this would have made up his mind. Pushing his hair out of his eyes, Roman hunched his shoulders against another bolt of lightning before forcing his feet to carry him away from Janus’ house.

“Roman, wait!”

He had made it about two metres further when Janus’ voice brought him to a standstill.

Turning, Roman squinted through the sheets of rain at the house. He was just able to see that the front door had cracked open, and Janus was standing just inside. Roman made his way slowly back up to the porch.

“I was just going…”

“I know.” Janus was positively glaring at him, but stepped back and pulled the door open wider. “You can’t walk home in this. You’ll drown.”

“Thank you,” Roman murmured. Hurrying forward, he heard Janus close the door behind him and then stood, dripping, on the doormat.

It was as he was wiping his hair out of his eyes - again - that Roman finally saw what Janus was wearing. He goggled at him, and Janus’ scowl only deepened. A lemon yellow dressing gown was wrapped around him and tied neatly at the waist and matching headband was pushing his wavy bronze hair away from his face, which was largely covered in a pale green, creamy looking facemask. His feet were bare, toenails painted a similar bright shade of yellow.

“If you keep staring at me, I’m kicking you back out into the rain,” he snapped, and Roman jerked his eyes back up to his face. Now that he was barely a metre away from the other, he could see that Janus’ eyes were bloodshot. “I’ll give you a towel. You can leave as soon as it stops.”

Roman nodded quickly, and Janus turned and led him deeper into the house with remarkable poise for somebody in a fluffy dressing gown showing a drowned rat into their home.

As they passed the kitchen, Roman glanced briefly inside and saw a small stack of what looked like empty takeout containers balanced by the sink. A large tub with an ice cream label on it and the handle of a spoon visible over the rim was next to the stack.

Then they were going upstairs, and Janus pointed at the door opposite his bedroom. Opening it, Roman found a large bathroom. When he turned back to thank Janus again he had disappeared, bedroom door closing behind him. Roman sighed.

The towel rail was heated, so when he pulled one of the soft, white towels down to wrap around himself, it was so warm it made him want to melt into a puddle on the floor. He was genuinely considering just turning himself into a burrito and lying down when he heard Janus’ door close again and looked up. A small pile of dry clothes were sitting out in the hallway, neatly folded. A lump rose in Roman’s throat again, and he pushed it down.

When he was dry and dressed in a pair of sweatpants that he had to roll up several times so that he wasn’t treading on the cuffs (he hadn’t thought that Janus was that much taller than him) and an orange hoodie that was definitely too large, Roman found himself hovering outside Janus’ room, fist inches from the door, too nervous to knock. It was clear that Janus didn’t exactly want him there.

Maybe he should borrow an umbrella and leave anyway. He could wash Janus’ clothing and return everything tomorrow.

He dropped his hand and turned away.

“You might as well come in. Leaving now won’t do much good, and I’m not sure I can trust you to just wander around my house.” Janus had to be able to see through the door, because he spoke almost before Roman had taken a step. Maybe he was just really quite predictable - or maybe Janus was uncannily good at guessing what people would do.

Roman didn’t argue against Janus’ assessment of his trustworthiness. He hadn’t exactly done much to suggest that he was a particularly honorable person.

Janus was cross-legged on his bed when Roman finally gave in and entered. He wasn’t looking in Roman’s direction; instead, he had the large stuffed octopus sat in his lap, and was hugging it with one arm while staring blankly at his laptop, which was near the end of the bed. Roman could hear the jangly tune of a sitcom, but couldn’t place it. There was an open box of chocolates sitting next to him, and two takeaway boxes and a half-full glass of red wine on the bedside table. He allowed Roman to stand there uncomfortably for a full five minutes before glancing up at him and pointing at the chair by the desk. Janus wasn’t wearing his gloves.

Of course he wasn’t wearing his gloves. He was at home and had been on his own until Roman had shown up.

Roman crossed the room and sat down at the desk. “Janus, I-”

“You said I got to choose when we talk - if we talk,” Janus interrupted, holding up his scarred hand. Roman fell silent, and he nodded once before turning his attention back to his laptop.

Lightning arced across the sky, making the shadows in the room jump briefly, Roman wrapped his arms around himself.

Janus ignored him almost aggressively, his arm tightening around the toy cradled against his stomach and his gaze fixed on whatever he was watching - although it didn’t seem as though he were really paying attention. Roman was watching his face, and his blank expression didn’t change when the tinny voices that Roman assumed were attached to characters yelled at one another, or made up, or when the annoying canned laughter played.

The rain hammered against the window, making the world outside bleed into itself and become an indistinct grey blur.

When the sitcom jingle played again, signifying what Roman assumed was the credits, Janus actually looked back at him. Roman lowered his hand from his mouth. He hadn’t realised he had been chewing his nails.

“Have you eaten yet?”

“What?” Janus just raised an eyebrow at him, and Roman nodded. “Breakfast.”

Rolling his eyes, the other grabbed one of the takeaway boxes and tossed it at him. Roman caught it, then turned it the right way up and opened it to find that it was full of avocado maki. He looked at Janus again, but Janus had picked up the second box for himself and wasn’t looking at him anymore. “Eat.”

“Than-”

“Don’t talk to me. Just eat.”

Roman ate.

Janus started the next episode of whatever he was watching - or pretending to watch, in any case. It looked as though he were just zoning out.

Another bolt of lightning, and Roman flinched so hard he dropped his now empty takeout box. Janus ignored that, and the muffled curse when Roman hit his head on the desk trying to pick it up.

When the ending credits played again, Janus leaned forward and closed his laptop before slipping from his bed and padding silently over to the door. Roman half expected to be told to leave, but Janus didn’t say a word to him as he left the room, propping the door open with the octopus. Roman watched as he went into the bathroom across the hall and used a damp cloth to remove his facemask, glancing into the mirror every few seconds to make sure that Roman hadn’t left his desk to do something devious. The hair pulled back from his forehead was damp when he returned.

Collecting the octopus and allowing the door closed, Janus returned to his perch on the bed. This time, however, he didn’t open his laptop. Instead, he turned to face Roman, picking up the half-drunk glass with his free hand. “Okay. Now you can talk.”

Roman swallowed hard. “Janus, I…” He trailed off. Where did he begin?

Janus didn’t look remotely impressed, which wasn’t surprising. “If that’s all you have, I’ve changed my decision about letting you stay.”

“No, no, I -” Straightening his shoulders, Roman forced himself to take another deep breath. “I have been… Awful. In general, but particularly to you over the last few weeks. I’ve… Well, you know what I’ve done.”

“I still want to hear you say it.”

Okay. Okay, this he could do. If Janus wanted him to grovel, then he would get down on his belly and grovel. His gaze fell to the bright yellow of Janus’ toes. “I pretended to be your friend. I abused any and all trust you placed in me, snooped through your stuff, spied on you, took advantage of the fact that you were vulnerable, and hurt you. I’ve been really selfish, Jan. I got so caught up in my own head - there were things about the accident that didn’t make sense, and I chose the worst possible way to try to figure out what really happened.”

Roman hesitated, looking up to see that Janus was nodding slowly. After a second, he paused to take a sip from his glass.

“I got paranoid, started making connections where there weren’t any, I… I guess I was looking for someone to blame, and you were… Easy. I’m really sorry for how I acted, Janus.” Roman shifted again. His hand was halfway to his mouth to gnaw at his cuticles again, and he forced it into his lap, then pressed his palms together to distract himself. Janus had stopped nodding and was just staring at him now, still hugging the toy in his lap.

“I really hurt you, and that was… Awful. I wish I could take it back, you know? I… I actually hate how much I hurt you.”

That actually earned him a chuckle, albeit an empty one. “Funnily enough, I hate how much you hurt me, too.”

“I’m sorry. I… I spoke to Remus this morning, and he said… Well, he told me a little bit about you guys, and… Things have been really rough for you, and I pretty much did everything I could have done to make it worse. I realise that now. You said something the other day, about how you were probably my only friend? I didn’t realise how true it was. I know it’s a little late now, and that you have every reason not to want to talk to me again, but I needed to apologise to you.” Roman caught his lower lip between his teeth, casting around for something else to say, and came up empty. He could continue to describe how bad a friend he had been, but… Well, that probably wouldn’t be helpful.

Light flashed, the shadows jumped, and the coppery taste of blood filled his mouth. He released his lip abruptly and pressed his fingers against it, wincing.

Janus was still watching him, his handsome face mask-like. Slowly, he brought his glass back up to his lips and tilted it, drank, and lowered it once more. “Sounds like you’ve done a lot of apologising over the last day or so.”

Roman shrugged. “Yeah. I went to see Remus to apologise… Over the few months, it’s started to dawn on me that I’m not a particularly nice person, you know? Friday… Friday was just the tipping point where it all came rushing in. I’m sorry it happened like that…”

Janus was quiet for a few moments, head tilted, considering him with his silver-grey eyes. One hand was moving slowly forward and backward across the crown of the octopus’ head, as though it were a very quiet, tolerant cat. Then he sighed. “Okay.”

Roman blinked at him. “Okay? Okay what?”

“Okay, yes, whatever. I accept your apology - sort of. It helps that you went and made peace with Virgil yesterday, but it’s going to take me a while before I can trust you again.” Janus drained the last of his wineglass and set it gently on the bedside table again. “And it’s nice to know that you can see what a jerk you’ve been.”

“Yeah. I understand that, that’s…” Roman tailed off, a small frown creasing his forehead. “Wait. How did you know I spoke to Virgil yesterday?”

Janus snorted quietly and picked up his phone, waving it briefly at him. “It may surprise you to learn that I have more friends than just you and Remus. Virgil talks to me. I also,” he smirked broadly then, dropping his phone back onto the bed beside him, “know what you did Friday night. You’re a dick sometimes - but from what Virgil says, Remy already told you that.”

Groaning, Roman pressed his face into his hands, feeling his cheeks burn. “He told you about that?”

“He did.” Janus leaned back against the pillow behind him and closed his eyes briefly. When he spoke again, his voice was almost forcefully lighthearted. Roman winced at it. “So… Remy’s your type, huh? The laid-back, flirty front?”

Roman thought about it for a second, then shook his head slowly. “... No, not really. He was just… There. There was a party when I was thirteen, and I tried kissing him, and he told me to come back when I was older. I don’t… I don’t even know why I did that, to be perfectly honest. He was older, he was cool, I don’t know.” He shrugged, then flinched again lightning cracked and thunder rolled.

“I know why.” Janus was watching him, reclining lazily backward but barely seeming to blink. “Or at least, Remus was complaining about you deliberately going for Remy when you knew he had decided he liked him.” Roman hissed sharply, and Janus smiled thinly. “Yep. Just another competition, was what he said. He was pretty drunk at the time. Probably doesn’t remember telling me. Close the curtains if the lightning’s bothering you that much, Ro.”

Standing to close the curtains gave Roman the opportunity to hide the self-disgusted expression on his face. “About Remus…”

“Yeah?” There was the sound of shifting behind him.

“How did you end up being friends? He’s only in school half the time, and I can’t imagine you met at debate club or a rave.”

When Roman turned back to face Janus, he saw that he had turned on a small lamp beside him, and moved the laptop from the end of the bed to the floor. Janus spread one hand toward the empty part of the bed in an ‘if you want’ gesture, then closed his eyes again.

“After Patton fell down those stairs -”

“He didn’t fall, Remus pushed him.”

Janus gave him a scrutinising look. “Did he? Did you ever actually ask Remus about it?” Roman swallowed, shook his head, and sat down by Janus’ feet. “Didn’t think so. Anyway, after Patton fell, Remus started going for walks at night a lot. I found him in a ditch at some point, practically covered in barbed wire from god knows where, and dragged him back here to get cleaned up.”

He smiled again, and this time there was nothing sarcastic or empty about it. Janus seemed genuinely happy thinking about having to drag a scratched up and likely incredibly pissed off Remus out of a ditch. “Later, he found me - ah, this is embarrassing.”

“You don’t have to tell me,” Roman reassured immediately, but Janus just waved him away.

“I get quite stressed. About school stuff, you know? My parents… There’s a lot of pressure there. So there’s this quarry, maybe an hour’s walk in the woods, and I used to go there and just scream at it. Remus just joined in when he found me doing that.” He chuckled. “It was nice.”

Roman tried to imagine a time when anybody other than Janus had called Remus ‘nice’, and came up short. Janus seemed to know what he was thinking, because as he reached out and selected a chocolate from the box by his knee, he added, “You know, a lot of the things he used to do was just because nobody listened otherwise. Sure, he’s pretty wild, but he’s not… He’s not bad.”

“I know. I’ve been really unfair on him, too.”

Janus nodded. “True. But just beating yourself up about it doesn’t help anyone. Sure, the grovelling’s nice at first, but…”

“The important thing is that I’m trying to do better. I’ve heard that a few times over the last day or so, too.” Roman grimaced ruefully. “How come nobody knows about you two?”

“Virgil knows.” That made sense.

“Virgil knows everything.”

“Yeah. We mostly met in the woods, you know? Or in the city. We only spent time here or at his - yours - when there was nobody around.” Janus rubbed the back of his neck slowly, then stretched out until his feet were in Roman’s lap. He really did have long legs. “When he wasn’t allowed home, I’d wait until my parents went to bed and then let him in through the window. You can get in over the garage roof…”

Roman nodded. “Did he still have nightmares when he started staying with you?”

“His nightmares never stopped, Roman. God, he must be going through hell at the moment…” Janus passed a hand over his face, worry suddenly dripping from every angle of his body.

“Yeah. I meant… Was he still screaming?”

A chuckle - well, not quite a chuckle. A miserable sound approaching a mirthless chuckle was probably more accurate. “Oh, hell yes. The first time, he kicked me out of bed and I had to wake him up and get him to hide before my parents came in to see whether I was being murdered. He didn’t find that Xanax worked until about a month after he first stayed over here. Spent all the time before that alternatively making himself sick or just screaming. Or both.”

“The Xanax doesn’t fix anything, either.” Roman sighed quietly. He rested his hands gently on Janus’ ankles.

“It stopped the screaming, which was all that mattered to him. Everyone else got to sleep, so he was… Well, not happy, but… Satisfied to feel like less of a problem.” Janus twitched his toes briefly. “I did try telling him that was possibly the most unhealthy attitude I could think of, but when he’s made up his mind…”

“Do you know where he gets it? I just…”

“He’s not doing anything illegal. Don’t worry about that.” Janus smirked again - and it was a smirk, hard and not particularly happy, but determined. “I wouldn’t let him. My mother has a prescription for the stuff, so I just help myself and hand it over…”

“He’s willing to let himself rot in that place for you.”

“I know. I tried to tell him not to, but…” Janus sighed and selected another chocolate. “He refused to hear me out. Plus I was barely conscious when he made the call, and by the time I was well enough for the police to come asking questions, and for my parents to have hired a lawyer… I visited him the day before the trial, said I’d turn myself in - well, I used a whiteboard, but it’s the same thing - and he refused point blank. Said he’d tell the jury he was blackmailing me if I even tried it. That… The last two months have been the worst in my entire life.”

The words were broken by a small sniff, and Roman squeezed gently at Janus’ calf.

“I’ve just… I’ve just felt so guilty, you know?” Roman nodded. He knew - he knew exactly how Janus had felt, and then some. “He texted to say he had been kicked out, and I said I’d come get him. I’d already started drinking before he texted, but - but I told myself I was good to go anyway. And I was, mostly, only - well, he started crying. Remus… Remus never cries. Other stuff, sure, but he doesn’t… I’ve only seen him cry three times, including then. So I took my eyes off the road to try to… And yeah. Telephone pole. Fire. Everything’s patchy from there until I wake up in hospital looking like a shitty horror movie villain.” He laughed that harsh, unhappy laugh again, and reached up to wipe at the tears on his unscarred cheek.

Despite the fact that Roman had thought that exact thing about Janus’ scars in several uncharitable moments during the last month, he found that the next thing he said was entirely true. “I don’t think it looks that bad, you know?”

“Sure. You’ve got a real track record for honesty.” Janus dug around under his pillow and pulled out a small square of fabric, which he blew his nose on. Roman could see flecks of blood on the cloth when he lowered it, and he winced.

“I mean it. The scarring takes a bit to get used to, and it’s certainly not ideal, but… Well, you’re still handsome. And you’re nice to be around. Despite everything going on, and all the shit I put you through, I… I’ve really enjoyed spending time with you.” A hug would probably be too far, but Roman spread his arms anyway, just in case.

Janus smiled again then, the corners of his mouth still trembling, and shuffled forward to lean against Roman’s side. Roman wrapped an arm around his waist, keeping the pressure deliberately very light to avoid risking hurting him, and shifted so that Janus could rest the octopus toy beside them. Janus did so, resting his head on Roman’s shoulder.

Roman dropped his voice a little so that he wasn’t speaking loudly into his ear. “Does this mean you want to be friends?”

Janus didn’t say anything, and for a second Roman thought he was going to refuse. He jostled him gently. “Janus?”

“Hm?” Sitting up again, Janus looked in askance at Roman - and it occurred to Roman that the last time Janus had just ignored something he had said he had been on his burned side, too.

“It’s easier for you to hear me out of your right ear, isn’t it?” Maybe he should have made that connection in his head rather than just blurting it out, but Janus didn’t seem hurt. Embarrassed, sure: his cheeks went red (and a little blotchy) and he glanced away, but not hurt.

“Yeah.”

“Okay. I’ll bear that in mind.” Roman offered him a nervous smile, and was relieved to see it returned. “I just asked if we were friends again.”

Janus considered the question, then nodded and leaned back against Roman’s shoulder. “Yeah. Friends sounds good.”

Roman found that he was happy with that solution, too - for now, at least. They could get to know one another without a mess of lies and suspicion between them. Janus could figure out if he forgave Roman enough to want to get close to him again, and Roman could figure out exactly what it was that he did feel for Janus. Just then, all he could really tell was that he was so relieved that they were on speaking terms one more that he wanted to burst into song.

They had time to figure these things out.

It was three months later that Roman asked Janus out. They had gone to pick up Remus, who had gotten out of prison three months early for good behaviour, two days before. He had been planning it for weeks, visiting Remus frequently to get his advice - and to ignore his slightly gorier comments, because there was no way Roman was giving Janus a real heart, human or not, even if it was fitted with some sort of circuitry to make it appear to be still beating - and made Remus swear not to say anything to Janus. The two of them were spending the day together, and although Roman knew that Remus was able to keep a big secret, he still wasn’t entirely sure that this one counted from Remus’ perspective. The morning of, Roman turned up outside Janus’ house with the biggest bundle of red and white carnations he could buy.

Janus took one look at the flowers before throwing himself at Roman.

He later received a message from Virgil - who had apparently been tipped off by Remus:

Attached to the message was a picture of him supporting Janus (something he wouldn’t have been able to do a few months ago; it had taken Roman a while to regain enough weight that he stopped getting dizzy after long walks in the heat) with his arms around his waist as they kissed. Janus’ bare hands were cupping Roman’s cheeks, and both had their eyes closed. They were both smiling so widely it had almost been difficult to kiss - almost. The bouquet had exploded at their feet.

Roman couldn’t remember ever being happier than he was at that moment.

Taglist:

@bloodymari-0666

#roman sanders #janus sanders #remus sanders #it's the last one of the main fic #epilogue will be coming though #apologies are important friends #AccidentsHappenAU

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and-it-freezes-me · 3 years

Text

Accidents Happen - Mothers, Maggots, and Manacles

Summary: Roman finally visits Remus in search of answers, and doesn’t like what he finds. Ah - if anybody is fluent in Korean and wants to correct me on anything, please do!

Content: Discussions of drug and alcohol use and misuse, some bad parenting, mentions of skipping meals

Word count: 5,433

{Part 2} {Part 4}

Janus knew Remus.

Roman didn’t remember standing up, but he was definitely glad for the fact that he was pacing. He felt that his brain was about to explode.

Janus, the ideal student, the one with perfect grades and a small fleet of academic awards (they were in a glass-fronted cabinet in his home - Roman had seen them when he had been trying to find the toilet), who headed the debate club and had every teacher at their school eating out of the palm of his hand, knew Remus the walking hazard.

Roman turned sharply in front of his dresser, caught sight of his notebook still lying open on the bed, and scowled.

Not only did Janus know Remus, but he knew him well. Well enough, at any rate, to have Remus being the person to call if he lost his phone.

He was back beside his bedside table, turning to pace the room again.

What did that mean?

Did it mean that they spent a lot of time together? No, that couldn’t be right. Roman would know if Janus and Remus were friends. Remus had no filter, was incapable of keeping a secret - he was almost like Patton in that regard, Roman reflected. The fastest way to make sure that everybody knew something was to tell Remus or Patton. And if Remus and Janus were friends and did spend time together, why didn’t one of them say something at the trial?

Maybe Roman had typed the wrong number. He was so used to calling Remus in fruitless attempts to find out what exactly the substance in his slippers was, or whether he should be concerned about the red smudges on his brother’s door handle, that maybe he hadn’t typed the number he had thought he was typing. His fingers had fallen into a pattern they recognised, the same way his feet had done, carrying him from bed to dresser and from dresser to bed and back again.

That made sense, didn’t it?

“No! No, it doesn’t!” Roman gave his phone a vengeful glare, as though it were the one at fault here. He never dialled Remus’ phone number, preferring to do what any self-respecting person born since the invention of a contacts list did and simply stab the name he wanted to call with his forefinger.

The tips of his fingers felt stiff and tingly, and he paused by the bed to take a long, slow breath. Letting stress overwhelm him now was not going to be productive.

“Roman? Everything alright in here?” There was a soft tap at his bedroom door, and Roman had the foresight to flip his notebook to a blank page before his mother’s floral scent and tired eyes entered the room.

“I… Yes? Is something the matter, Mum?”

“I just…” She paused, covering her mouth with one hand to catch a yawn, and then continued. “Thought I heard you shouting.”

Roman winced. Had he woken her up? Dae Wang’s short hair was matted against one side of her head, and she was wearing a rumpled nightshirt and sweatpants despite it being the middle of the afternoon. “Oh… Yeah, I was just practicing for a part in the play. I know I’m not actually in it this year, but I… Enjoy being able to coach the younger students.”

The lie had rolled from his tongue almost without hesitation, and his mother’s eyes softened slightly. She reached out and ruffled his hair affectionately, and Roman batted her away automatically, the static feeling spreading up to his wrists. “Try to keep it down, Ro? I didn’t get home until around one, and I’ve got another shift this evening…”

“Sorry. Actually, I was just thinking about going for a walk - it’s such a nice day, and I can take some flashcards through the woods. Might be nice to revise with a bit of a change of scenery, huh?” More lies. Sure, Roman was used to lying a little bit, but now it felt as though every other thing that came out of his mouth was deliberate misdirection. First with Janus, and now with his parents…

“You work so hard… I’m so proud of you, Roman.” Those were words that Roman was used to hearing; usually, he revelled in them. Now, however, they only made him feel more guilty. What about Remus? Yes, he was a screw-up, but… Roman couldn’t remember the last time either of his parents had said something positive to his brother. Worse, he couldn’t remember the last time he had said something properly positive to him.

The words were out of his mouth before he had made a proper decision about them. “Can I borrow your car tomorrow? I’d like to visit Remus.”

Dae looked at him for a second, apparently stunned by the fact that he wanted to visit his identical twin. Then she nodded slowly. “You can, but… Roman, saja saekki, are you sure you want to?”

“He hasn’t hurt me, Mum. He’s my brother.” And he shouldn’t be left to rot, Roman added silently. There’s something we don’t know yet.

“I know. You’re always so kind to people, even when they don’t deserve it, I just… I don’t want him dragging you down, Ro. He’s only going to get worse, and maybe… Maybe this is the time for a clean break for you.” Roman stared at her, the shock clear on his face. She sighed. “Being associated with Remus… It’s not going to be good for your future, is it?”

It looked as though she was waiting for him to say something now, and Roman refused to give her anything. Was this what his parents really thought of Remus? Sure, he knew that Remus had been getting into more and bigger problems as he had gotten older, but… It hadn’t quite sunk in, when they had asked Remus not to come home, that they didn’t want him to be part of their family any more.

What sort of family were they? Why hadn’t Roman tried talking Remus out of his chaos sooner, rather than pinning all of his own misdeeds on him? It felt as though his torso had been emptied out and refilled with ice cubes.

Eventually, his mother seemed to translate Roman’s silent staring as something less than what she had been hoping for. “Okay. Don’t stay too late, though. It is finals week, after all.”

Roman nodded stiffly. “Of course.”

He leaned forward to allow her to kiss his forehead, then watched her leave, numb, the breath frozen in his chest.

He needed to get out of here. All of the colours had leached out of the world around him. Usually so spacious, his bedroom seemed to have shrunk to the size of a broom cupboard, and Roman was so much too big for it, and everything inside him was threatening to brim over, to spill from his fingertips and his mouth and his eyes in a burning torrent of… Of what?

As he moved, he started counting in his head, trying to focus on just getting the numbers in the right order. One, two, three and he was groping under his mattress for his re-hidden supply of weed, purloined from the kitchen table when nobody had been looking. His parents had just been going to burn it, after all.

Four, five, six, seven, phone in his pocket and taking the stairs two at a time, eight, nine, not stopping as he grabbed Remus’ keys and threw the back door open. Ten, and he was down the steps; eleven-twelve-thirteen brought him across the backyard, and by fifteen he was in the greyscale woods behind their house and running as fast as he could.

Maybe if he ran fast enough, he could turn back the hands of the clock, back the four weeks - six weeks? How long had it been since Remus had turned his car and Janus into a fiery wreck? Turn the clock back past that, back to when things were okay. But three weeks wouldn’t do it, would it? Things hadn’t been okay for a long time before that. When was the last time he had had a real conversation with Remus?

When he hit thirty-nine, Roman skidded to an abrupt halt. Small black spots decorated the trees around him and he realised with a start that he hadn’t eaten breakfast that morning either, too preoccupied with his raging internal debate about Janus’ moral standings to feel hungry. It didn’t matter. Just then, his whole body was too frozen in black-and-white, fizzingly numb static to even think about eating. He wasn’t sure if he could even swallow just then.

Putting his back to the nearest pine and sliding to the floor, Roman took a few deep breaths to steady his hands before pulling the clear plastic bag from his pockets.

It took longer than usual to shake some of the dark flakes onto one of the small paper rectangles and roll it shut; with his numb hands, it took several tries to get a flame on the lighter attached to Remus’ keychain, and when he did manage it he burned two of his fingers before managing to light the joint. Finally, though, Roman closed his eyes and focused on inhaling, exhaling, just breathing, allowing colour to bleed first back into his own body, and then the forest floor, still strewn with pine needles from last autumn, and then back up to the blue sky. The ice in his torso warmed, thawed a little, and then melted completely as calm washed over him.

He didn’t talk to Janus the next day.

It was the opposite of everything he had told himself he would do yesterday, going against all of his thoughts and notes about not making Janus feel as though he had scared Roman away or that Roman was tired of him or thought he was a freak. It was the opposite of what he wanted to do, which was concerning. Maybe he was getting too close to the role he was playing, because he kept finding himself wanting to go to find Janus, to make stupid little jibes at him and watch them be passed effortlessly back to him. He even thought he might have enjoyed studying with him. No matter how much he told himself that it was just nerves, that he was just worrying that he was losing time on getting closer to whatever truth Janus had been hiding, there was a small part of Roman arguing that that wasn’t the truth.

Janus didn’t try to talk to him, either, which only reinforced his guilt.

He saw him once, on his way out of his Physics final. Janus had half raised his left hand in what could have been a nervous greeting, but dropped it when Roman caught his eye but walked passed without responding otherwise.

He felt like an arse for doing it.

It didn’t help that he had been feeling slightly lightheaded all day. It had been hot in the exam hall, and halfway through his English paper that afternoon Roman found that he couldn’t read anything he was writing. The printed text at the top of the page had blurred into a wavy black bar, and his own ink had become a colony of spiders, crawling over the page in unintelligible shapes. He had blinked hard, then ground the bases of his palms into his eyes and counted (one, two, three… All the way up to thirty-nine). When he looked back at his paper, his handwriting had returned to its usual semi-legible scrawl.

He blamed it on the stress from his afternoon plans.

The previous evening, once he had calmed down a little, Roman had taken a long, meandering walk through the trees, pondering his situation. Eventually he had reached the conclusion that he should go ahead and visit Remus anyway, and that he could ask about Janus then. Remus wouldn’t lie to him.

Or would he? How much of his brother had become a mystery to him?

When he walked into the visitors room and saw Remus, Roman had to admit that the answer was probably a far higher proportion than he would have liked it to be. He actually had to stop and ask himself how long it had been since he had taken a good look at the man that was supposed to be his mirror reflection, because Remus looked almost nothing like him anymore.

The crooked nose was still there, and the pale scar that ran across its bridge, and the jaggedy line down one of Remus’ cheeks from a barbed-wire sledding accident, but there were other marks too, smaller but still there. Roman could count no less than seven piercing holes in Remus’ right ear (Roman’s right, Remus’ left), for example, and another in his left eyebrow. There were several acne scars that looked as though Remus had picked them until they refused to heal properly, and what looked like a burn was poking out from the next of his jumpsuit. His hands and knuckles were littered with mostly healed scabs, easy to see because they were pressed palms-down on the table, a nervous habit that Roman remembered from when they were small. Deep bags hung under Remus’ bloodshot eyes.

All in all, it was a bit of a surprise when Remus opened his mouth before Roman got a chance to say anything, and commented, “You look like shit, brother mine. Come to trade places with me?” There was another piercing hole in his tongue.

The statement startled a chuckle out of Roman, and he sat down across the table and smiled weakly at him. “I look like shit? Have you checked in a mirror lately, dude? It doesn’t look like you’ve slept since… You know.”

“Since I drove the fine piece of ass that is Janus Sinclaire into a telephone pole and turned him into crispy bacon? What’s a little more nightmare fodder, huh Ro? At least I still look like I’m getting a decent meal.” Remus cackled briefly and lifted a hand to rub at the empty shell of his pierced ear while Roman tried to figure out which part of Remus’ statement to poke at. Since when did Remus think Janus was a ‘fine piece of ass’ - since when did Remus even think about Janus? And what right did Remus have to talk about him like that, anyway?

In the end, he just blurted, “You’ve been having nightmares again?”

Leaning back in his chair so that its front legs left the ground, Remus raised an eyebrow. “That’s how it’s gonna be, huh? This is a fucking welfare check? Did the right honorable parents send you?” He lifted one hand to inspect his nails - nails that Roman could now see had been bitten until the cuticles bled. He winced.

“The right honorable… I’ll answer your questions if you’ll answer mine. You’ve been having nightmares again?” Roman had a strong feeling that he wouldn’t get anything out of his reflection unless he bribed him; his deal was met with another cackle, and Remus tipped further back on his chair.

“Fine. Want to shake on it?”

“Thanks, but I’d rather not, given the unspeakable places those hands have been. So, nightmares?”

Remus looked up from his nails, flicked his middle finger up, then turned his attention to the ceiling above them. “You know the nightmares never stopped, Ro-ro. Did the spawners send you?”

“The what? Oh - no, I’m here on my own.” Roman glanced over his shoulder briefly. There were only three other people in the visitation room - discounting the two guards, one on either door - and they were on the other side of the room. “What do you mean, never stopped? You stopped having nightmares when we were thirteen.”

He felt as though he were being watched. Was this how Remus felt all the time? No wonder his nightmares had gotten worse.

“You’re yanking my dick, right? Of course they didn’t stop. I just figured out how to stop screaming. If you’re not here for the womb and the sperm, why are you here?”

Roman wrinkled his nose at that, then shrugged. “You… Figured out how to stop screaming? How? Nothing we tried ever worked. And I’m here because I wanted to ask you some stuff.”

“About my nightmares?” The incredulity in Remus’ voice was so overdone that Roman had to laugh again.

“No, you idiot. And you didn’t answer my question.” Roman brought his thumb up to his mouth and bit down on the nail, realised what he was doing, and laced his fingers together in front of him.

Remus was still addressing his nails. “What did you want to ask me? Because I can tell you any number of better places to hide your pot - didn’t know you did that, by the way, since when? - and can probably hook you up with a cheaper dealer if that’s what you need.”

“No, that’s not - maybe a year now? Helps with the…” Roman waved a hand, and Remus nodded wisely.

“The ball-twisting stomach-gnawing digit-freezing stress-moths.”

“That’s… Not how I would have phrased it, but… Wait, why am I answering all the questions?” Remus finally looked at Roman again, meeting his look of frustration with a shit-eating grin.

“Don’t know. Why are you answering all the questions, Ro-ro?”

“Because you keep -” Roman started automatically, then clamped his mouth shut and glared.

Remus threw his head back and cackled so hard that his chair teetered precariously on its hind legs. When he finally stopped, he flicked his fingers briefly at Roman in a gesture that he took as ‘continue’. Taking a deep breath, Roman opened with the question that he had finally decided was the best one to start with.

“Did you know Janus well?”

For a heartbeat, he thought he saw Remus’ face, bold despite its scars and hollowed eyes, crease into something he didn’t recognise. Then the grin was back, and the chair was tilted so far that Remus was practically horizontal in the air, face to the ceiling.

“Alcohol. Started getting wasted.”

“What?”

“To get the screaming to stop. If I clocked out pissed, I didn’t scream. Didn’t wake up all night, actually. Did start getting headaches, felt sick all the time. It sucked. Did that for about six months, if I recall correctly, which I do, because my brain hasn’t been eaten by maggots.”

Roman was staring at his twin with his mouth hanging open. “What?”

“The nightmares, Ro-ro. To stop screaming. Is this hard for you to follow?” Remus’ head lifted to look at him, then his wild eyes shifted to something behind Roman. The front legs of his chair returned to the floor with a snap.

“I asked about Janus, Rem. The guy you just described as crispy bacon?” The words grated against Roman’s conscience. Janus deserved better than being mocked like that.

Remus nodded slowly, then continued as though Roman hadn’t said anything. “So I quit drinking myself to sleep and started trying to stay up all night instead. Did a lot of coffee. Who needs sleep, I said. Very wise, me. Started hallucinating, though. That was an interesting few days. Eventually I just collapsed, and then I started screaming again, so no go there.”

Roman groaned quietly, resigned to listening to the tangent that Remus had apparently decided was more important than Janus was. He vaguely remembered that his brother used to jump between conversations with the rapidity of a highly skilled traceur. His verbal parkour had never been anything but annoying.

“So I started playing with drugs. Nothing major, obviously. Nothing fun. Bit of weed, didn’t help at all. Sure, helped calm me down, but once I fell asleep, poof. Screaming.” Remus snapped his fingers a few times, and Roman nodded slowly.

“So then, after a lot of experimentation that didn’t -”

“Wait.” Roman held up a hand as the maths fell into place, and Remus paused obediently, tilting his head to look at him. His hand had returned to tug at his pierced ear. “You’re telling me you started drinking when you were thirteen?”

Remus gave him a look that he recognised as one Janus had given him several times. It said “You’re not really the brightest here, but that’s alright, I’m still fond of you.” Actually, it probably said “You’re a fucking idiot, but I tolerate you.” When he spoke again, his voice reminded Roman very faintly of the sound a thin sheet of ice across a pond makes when it gets trodden on.

“Yes. Keep up, Roman. Sheesh. As I was saying before you so rudely interrupted, I eventually found that Xanax works fairly well for me - no hangovers, no puke, no spikes through my skull or pissing blood, and no screaming. Just nightmares and sleep paralysis, but y’know, I was getting more sleep.”

“Xanax,” Roman repeated stoically. “Where did you-” His question was interrupted as Remus steamrollered on.

“Then I got here, and obviously they don’t let us screw around with that stuff without a prescription, so I’m back to the old scream’n’stay-awake-’til-morning routine. Happy?” Remus tilted his chair back, seemed to remember that he wasn’t supposed to, and compromised by tilting it sideways instead. He allowed a couple of seconds to pass before raising an eyebrow at Roman. “Or are you just going to leer? You a gargoyle now?”

Shaking himself, Roman rubbed a hand through his hair and glanced at the clock. It was later than he had thought it was, and he was certain that visiting hours were going to be over soon. Licking his lower lip, he nodded slowly, then shook his head. “Happy, no. You should’a said something, Rem? We could have…”

“Could have done what?” The brittle quality was still there, but now Remus’ voice was sharper, colder. Roman knew he had said the wrong thing. “Could have helped? Found some pill that would’ve lobotomized me so I’m just a cud-muching sheep?” There was another crack as Remus’ chair legs returned to the ground, and then his palms were pressed to the table once more. He was leaning forwards, voice so low Roman had to crane his neck to hear it, and for the first time Roman actually saw a shadow of something truly frightening on Remus’ face. “Our parents were too busy wondering where they went wrong with me and rewarding you for being perfect. Too busy trying to erase me from our fucked-up family. And you were too busy letting them, getting me to take your falls for you, using me to wipe away all the shit stains on your perfect little bubble. And look where I am now! Just where you always expected me to end up. So fuck off with your empty regret, Ro. I don’t expect anyone from our house to help me, got it?”

Remus’ voice cracked on the last word, and he jerked to his feet, one hand rising to scrub roughly across his dark eyes. “We’re done here. Fuck off.” A guard had started moving toward them the moment he had stood.

Roman stood as well, expression frozen to one between shock and horror, something hot and painful rising in his throat. It wasn’t vomit - he’d been too stressed to eat lunch. “Remus, I…”

“Save it,” his twin snapped. The guard was right beside them now, ready to escort Remus away again, and Roman had no idea how to make anything right. “And Roman?”

His heart rose, but his hopes were dashed almost immediately by the raw expression on Remus’ face. “Leave Jan alone.”

Roman spent almost thirty minutes just sitting in the parking lot, racking sobs forcing their way from his body. He wasn’t even sure who he was crying for, only that the emotions were going to force themselves from his chest whether he liked it or not. It was probably safer not to drive and cry so hard the world was blurry around him.

He could have been crying for Remus as he had been, thirteen and aware that their parents had chosen Roman as their favourite, wracked by nightmares and trying to teach himself to stay silent at night to avoid disturbing anybody, repeatedly told that he was a bad kid until he truly became one.

He could have been crying for his own blindness, his refusal to see that he was trading Remus’ pain for his every time he was too panicked to own up to his own wrongdoings, the damage he had done to their relationship - the damage that Remus had pretended he hadn’t minded. Why? Why hadn’t he said something?

He could have been crying for their parents, not sure what to do with a son that skipped school and went shoplifting, drinking, setting things on fire, foulmouthed and reckless, their confusion turning to regret and then something approaching neglect.

He could have been crying for Janus, eighteen and burned, his once honey-like voice raspy and hoarse. It hurt for Janus to swallow now - he had noticed it over the last few weeks, the slight wince after every bite.

He could have been crying for Remus as he was now, just as lost as he had been at fifteen, at thirteen, at ten, but now his pain was manifesting in bigger and bigger disasters. Remus, the scape-goat, who didn’t trust their parents, who didn’t trust him.

It wasn’t as though he deserved Remus’ trust, though. As far as his twin knew, Roman would probably have taken the trust Remus placed in him and turned it into more ammunition to make himself seem ever closer to heaven and demonise Remus even further.

No - no, he shouldn’t be crying for Janus. It had taken him until now, but as Roman’s sobs finally subsided he realised that he did recognise the expression that had passed over his brother’s face when he had asked about Janus.

It was fear.

Remus was… Remus was afraid of Janus. (Roman hadn’t thought that Remus was afraid of anything - but he clearly didn’t know his brother at all anymore.) What could Janus have done to inspire fear in somebody as wild, as dangerous, as bold and brash and reckless as Remus?

But if Remus had done what he had out of fear of Janus doing something worse, an attempt to be free of him, why hadn’t he at least spoken up at the hearing? Janus couldn’t have hurt him from all the way across a courtroom.

The answer came to Roman as a cold fist around his heart, the icy fingers making him gasp in shock. That was why Remus was so afraid - “Leave Janus alone”, he had said. Leave Janus alone, because Janus was holding something over him, and whatever it was could ruin Remus for good.

Janus was blackmailing his twin, and Roman wasn’t going to stand by and let it happen now that he knew.

No, Janus didn’t deserve his tears. Janus deserved everything he had gotten, and more, and Roman was going to make sure that karma was delivered right to his door.

When he got home that evening, he found that somebody had left a voicemail on his phone (he had left it in his room, not needing it while he was visiting Remus). He thought he knew who it was even before the worm-ridden chainsaw-murderer voice curled into the room with him.

“Hey, Roman. Didn’t see you much at school today. Uh.”

A second of silence, as though Janus was awkwardly trying to work out what to say. Masterful. Janus had played him like a master.

“We were both pretty busy, I guess.”

Another pause. How had Janus gotten his number? Maybe he was blackmailing Virgil, too, and had forced him to give it over. (Or he could just have asked. Virgil probably had Roman’s number, and would probably just hand it over for a price.)

“Anyway, I was wondering if you’d… Um, want to do something on Friday. Y’know, to celebrate the end of finals, and… Stuff. Not much point us revising once the exams are done, eh, Princey?”

The nervous, teasing tone was making Roman’s teeth grate. I’m coming for you, you snake. You viper.

“We could… See a movie, or something. Or just hang out. Pat gave me the recipe for his toffee cookies, we could try making them!”

Yet another pause. Roman wanted to throw his phone across the room - but if Janus was asking to see him, that probably meant that he didn’t know that Roman was onto him, and that he was going to continue his sinister plans. Only now, Roman knew what was going on.

Janus’ voice lost it’s jovial quality, becoming possibly slightly sad. There was a chance that he was a better actor than even Roman. “Of course… If you don’t want to, that’s… I mean, I know yesterday wasn’t ideal. I’m… Really sorry you had to see that. If you don’t want to hang around me now, that’s… That’s okay.” There had even been a slight hitch in his breathing as he spoke, as though the idea of not talking to Roman anymore had pushed him to the verge of tears. He really was putting on a whole performance for him, wasn’t he?

“Um, anyway. Call me, or… Whatever. Text. Leave me a note, stalk me to my locker. Or don’t, if you’d rather not. I won’t bother you if you don’t want to see me anymore. Um. I’m going to hang up now. Oh - this is Janus, by the way, but I… I’d hope you’d already figured that out now. It just occurred to me that you probably didn’t have my number. Yeah. I’m hanging up.”

The call lasted for another few seconds, the only sound being Janus’ breathing - which Roman suddenly noticed had a laboured quality to it, the breaths sounding dry and scratchy. Then there was a click, and the automated voice asking Roman if he wanted to delete the message.

Well, then. He should get back to work. He wouldn’t mention having visited Remus to Janus - not yet, anyway - just in case he went ahead with whatever threat he had hanging over him, but he could make up some excuse for why he had all but ignored Janus that day. As much as he wanted to slam Janus against the wall the next time he saw him, hold him there by the front of his shirt and force him to explain, to apologise, to leave him and his brother alone, he couldn’t do that, either.

If Janus already wanted to hang out on Friday, he probably wouldn’t mind if Roman suggested they did something. Now that he knew just how evil Janus was, Roman pushed away shrieks and squeals from his moral compass with almost no regret. All he had to do was get Janus to talk, hopefully enough to get something on him to make him drop his case against Remus - and whilst Janus was usually so guarded with his words, Roman knew a way to get people to relax. There was nothing to feel guilty about, he told himself firmly. It wasn’t like he’d force Janus to do anything, of course - he wasn’t going to stoop to his level. He’d just mention that the woods were a good place to smoke and blow off some steam, and invite Janus to join him.

It had taken him a while to compose the text; when he was finished, he threw his phone back on his bed and went downstairs to have dinner with his parents. They had already removed Remus’ chair from the circular dining table: it was sitting out in the hallway, holding his dad’s briefcase and his mum’s coat, and the remaining chairs had been arranged in a triangle. Neither of his parents asked how his visit to Remus had been - in fact, Remus wasn’t mentioned at all. Already, it was as though he may as well not exist.

Janus had done this, Roman told himself, and that fact did something to calm the slimy ball of worms writhing inside him. Yes, he had contributed, but it had been Janus who had dealt the final blow to erase his twin from their lives. Janus was going to pay, and Roman would spend the rest of his life trying to make it up to Remus.

Taglist:

@bloodymari-0666

#roman sanders #remus sanders #janus sanders #AccidentsHappenAU #drug use #alcohol mention

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