#and fucking ditched him in the zone 3 Fog

[boygirlctommy]

man i cant believe its been almost 2 years since i did kjau

#my post #wheres that 'i abandoned my boy' meme #me but i abandon my boy regularly #should i release the unfinished comics i made #i think i drew like a dozen pages of 3 different scenes #yeahhh there was one for tubb0 and ranb00 meeting #one for tommys exile/limbo equivalent #and one for introducing drm #the drm one doesnt make sense w the current lore because i love my retcons and changes (they dont affect anyone except me bcus i never talk #about kjau) #aw yeah tommys exile/limbo <3 #drm led him away under. vague false pretenses i never fleshed out. #and fucking ditched him in the zone 3 Fog #which is a random thing that i think was dang3r d4ys fanon where people would just disappear into the fog #kinda like The Lonely? anyways he got lost in there for 12 days #and it took him 3 more to find tubb0 again #hes like the second person ever to walk out of the fog. his eyes look fuckin weird now <3 #why am i loredumping down here

[subtlereferencetomyinterests]

I Taste Honey but I Haven’t Seen the Hive - Chapter Six

Ao3,   Masterpost,   C.1   C.2   C.3   C.4   C.5

Relationships: eventual queer-platonic intruality. platonic dukeceit, creativitwins, and dlampr.

Yet again there are no italics. its new years eve sue me. oh also happy 2021 nobody question my priorities thanks <3

Warnings: so much softness, implications of self-isolation, swearing, Lots of Feelings, sympathetic everybody, descriptions of the sides having non-human features.

Word Count: 3,962

Something Remus came to realize was that he, a bit paradoxically, was not used to people being in his space.

It was weird. Not weird in the way that people usually felt when he was the one interrupting- he wasn’t scared by it, or disgusted, or even really annoyed. It was just… surprising, to have somebody else hanging around him, unprompted by anything. 

Remus wasn’t known for having boundaries- or respecting them, for that matter- but he’d at least been attempting to restrain himself just a bit after being accepted by the others. Out of courtesy, if nothing else. 

And apparently he didn’t need to. Not after what happened with Patton, anyway. Now that Patton had deemed the two of them ‘close’- something he was absolutely happy to agree with, for the record- Remus’ world had flipped sort of around. Back to no boundaries, only he wasn’t the one crossing those lines, and nobody was running screaming. Least of all Patton!

Remus ran the thoughts over in his head, feeling like that day was shaping up to be a great example of the change:

He and Patton were sitting side-by-side in the living room, content, with the rest of the sides spread around in different seats and configurations just the same. The unlikely pair were at the fringe of the circle, close enough to be part of things but far enough to zone in and out at will (as both were prone to do). It was nice, amiable.

 But minutes before- forty of them at most- Remus had been up in his own room, happily dissecting some gooish creations and only vaguely aware that there was a meeting that day. His attendance to group meetings varied from week to week- sometimes he was bored and could use an argument, and other times he was having fun on his own and knew that it wouldn’t be all that important if he ditched. He joined more often than he used to, sometimes he was even asked for, but he was optional still. A favored option, suggestions taken now, sure- but still not mandatory. 

He was going to stay upstairs for that one, but Patton had come to get him. Had dragged him down in that sweet, puppy-dog way of convincing that worked so well and, knowing him, was totally unintentional. And even if Remus didn’t care about arguing his way through content production right then, Patton had promised that it was important for him to be there.

That was the word he’d used for Remus. Important.

How the hell could Remus say no to that?

At least the meeting was going by without a hitch, for once. He assumed it was- Remus was honestly paying very little attention- but the lack of anger or tension was practically palpable. These things were usually so spiteful that even Remus, renowned lover of chaos, could almost taste his headache when everybody started shouting and hissing and fighting. It just got sad.

But not that time, apparently.

As Logan went on his third ramble of the evening, smiling widely at a surprising lack of interruption, Remus turned to Patton. He whispered:

“Okay, when are they gonna snap? Did they all finally get lobotomized?”

Patton frowned. “What do you mean?”

“I mean where’s all the screaming and crying? Specs and Prince Priss haven’t had a single one of their horny yelling matches, what gives?”

Patton smiled in a way that said he was trying very hard not to laugh, rolling his eyes.

  “These meetings have calmed down a bit, I guess,” he shrugged.

Remus glanced around the room with narrowed eyes. While that certainly seemed like the truth, he couldn’t buy it. 

“Yeah, I give it until one of them vaguely insults the others,  and then everybody’s gonna shut down for the next week. That kinda tension doesn’t just go.”

Patton didn’t say anything. Half-gazing at the carpet, he didn’t look like he’d even heard. He was smiling, but it was one of those jumbled up expressions, the type that tried to span a hundred different feelings. He had so many expressions like that, that seemed bottomless and swirling and so intricate on a humanoid face that, in reality, wasn’t built to display something like that. It was uncanny- not like an eerie doll, but like something with unearthly beauty. This face, though, had tones of upset.

“It’s been a while since you’ve been around everybody,” Patton said.

It wasn’t a question and it didn’t need to be. While Remus wasn’t exactly known for keeping to himself, he couldn't be called sociable either. He dropped in to say something, usually random, and then he was gone as soon as he’d visited. Even before the first Patton incident, fuck, it had been weeks since he’d actually stuck around through something.

Since The Acceptance, now that Remus thought of it, he’d been spending more time alone than ever. Not all of  his time- he remembered being surprised at Logan talking to him, willingly, like friends, and after that had even come Virgil and Roman. He saw people, talked to them, yeah. The time spent was friendlier, more welcoming, but it was so much less. 

Well, it was obvious why: they visited him, but- like he’d mentioned, he’d been trying to give them some space.

“Sure, it's been awhile,” Remus admitted, “But I never expected shit to change so much around here, still.”

The haze on Patton’s face thickened like fog on the moors, a soft and sympathetic mist over his eyes that Remus knew was aimed at him (even if it was pointed more to a sort of middle distance). 

“I don’t think I did, either,” Patton’s mouth barely moved, his voice less of a whisper and moreso a fragile breath. “I was hoping for it, but… I’m still trying to get used to stuff being allowed to change, you know?” He picked at a loose thread along the seam of the couch. “I haven’t done this stuff in a while, either.” 

Remus’ head shot up, and he almost forgot that they weren’t the only two in the room. Somehow, he stopped himself from shouting:

“You- it has?”

A tiny smile. Something built up behind Patton’s eyes; a wave, dark and lonely and filling his bright blues with cloudy gray. “I just needed some alone time, after everything changed so much so fast. I still feel, I dunno, weird. I don’t know what’s wrong with me- but…” he swallowed, his head lifting. “I’m really happy for them,” he was staring- so very loving- first at Logan, then Roman, then Virgil and Janus. It was a wonder none of them felt his gaze on them, Remus thought, because he was sure if anyone looked at him that way, he’d burn up like a fae upon iron. “They deserve it so much. I know that not everything is perfect still, but, I’m just so proud of us anyways. I- I think maybe-”

He cut himself off, blinking rapidly. Remus gave the room a quick once over to make sure nobody was looking their way- and nobody was: Virgil was very resolutely trying to get everyone to stay on topic despite Janus and Logan’s continued tangenting, and Roman was scribing furiously on several different pieces of paper- before he inched close enough to curve his arm around Patton. Touching like that had steadily become familiar to both of them, and it didn’t take long for Patton to fall untense against his side. He leaned into him, muttering: “I mean, they’re all doing a lot better than me, that’s for sure. I- I don’t even know what I’m for anymore. Maybe that’s why I’ve been… ditching, really.”

Remus squeezed his shoulder. There were so many things he could’ve said and done, but all of them loud and fervent and definitely not subtle enough to go unnoticed by everyone. So, for the sake of Patton’s privacy, he settled on this:

“That makes two of us, Morey.”

 The meeting that was planned to take two or three hours took the entire day, just as always. Hours and hours were spent in a room filled with excited conversation, of which the subject oscillated wildly between relevant topics and complete nonsense- which Remus and Patton did, eventually, tune back into (and contribute to as well, mainly in the nonsense department). Eventually, even Virgil gave up on trying to keep anything in order. 

But the meeting ended on a good note anyway. Lots of good notes, actually, if the stacks upon stacks of paper they’d scribbled up were any indication. Mess, the sides had come to believe, was usually a measure of their productivity: if crumpled pages were strayed across the room, if forgotten pens and pencils balanced on every surface from coffee table to TV stand, and if- in the process of snacking- they’d accumulated enough dishes to fill the sink for days on end? Shit. Got. Done.

Remus stared over the chaos with unfocused eyes. He felt distantly proud of the stormish state the living room was in. Draped over the back of the sectional, he gnawed idly on a wood pencil, stripping its yellow into beige. The paint fell off in bitter chunks, and the taste made him think of grabbing some non-acrylic dinner before closing the night off. Maybe he’d steal some of whatever saccharine sweet Patton usually made in the late evenings, and then spend the rest of the night with him, anyway. Remus debated what would be the most fun (or if he was tired enough to sleep yet), partially aware as he did so that he’d chewed and swallowed the metal-eraser end of his pencil.

“Ugh,” a drawn out groan broke his thoughts, petulant and whiny. “Do you have any intention of helping us clean up this, the common area?” 

Roman was kneeling beside Janus on the carpet, the pair surrounded by papers and binders and trashbags, the former of which they were sorting into either of the latter two, depending on how useful each page was. Roman had stopped working, however, to stare up at Remus indignantly. Remus glared right back.

“I’ve never had an intention in my life,” he answered.

Janus shrugged, smiling in that I-told-you-so way at Roman. But Roman, ever the nuisance, wasn’t letting it go. 

“Come on! It’s not like you’re even doing anything!”

“I’m doing something,” Remus’ words were wide and wobbly as he stripped another line of paint off the pencil, breaking some splinters off into his teeth.

“Oh, really?”

“Yes,” another chunk of wood, down the hatch. “I’m flaying all these leftover pencils until they’re lead-sticks.”

Roman hopped up from the floor and dropped himself onto the couch, shoving himself into the way so jarringly that it reminded Remus of himself. 

“Well, now you’re going to help us clean.” 

Janus rolled his eyes, not even glancing up. “Roman, just leave it alone, we-”

“We are all parts of this whole now, including him! Remus-” Roman rounded on him again, “If you’re going to come down here and help us make all this mess, with all of your numerous contributions that we have to write down, you’ll help clean it like anybody else. Do you think that I like any of- of-” he gestured, flamboyantly, at the room, “This? Ugh, please, I’m a prince! But, fair is fair, and fair means everybody.” 

And that was the point of the conversation in which Remus would cackle, push Roman backwards off the couch, and proclaim how much it’d go against his very being to clean a mess instead of cause it. He’d tell Roman how funny it was that he thought he could boss him around, because it always had been- that full-of-it Older Brother kind of attitude that had never worked. The Prince had never once managed to get him to do anything, and each attempt only got funnier than the last. 

He didn’t say any of that, though. 

Roman was bitching at him, not to go away this time, but to stay. Stay and help the group, because he was a part of said group. So he was asked to help them, the group that he was a part of, because he was part of it. That group. 

“Okay,” he blurted, “Okay, I’ll- alright.”

Roman blinked at him, a look of disbelief spreading across his face. “You- oh!” he smiled, utterly baffled. “That was- very easy?”

Janus, too, was looking up at Remus with bewilderment, his task of paper-sorting all but forgotten. Remus couldn’t blame either of them, but he still huffed, trying very hard not to be embarrassed by that whole… moment.

He shook it off, rolling off the couch and standing up, jittery. 

“Whatever, just- tell me what to pick up, okay?” 

They seemed not to hear him, the gawking continuing on until he started working unprompted, and longer than that still. Each time he (begrudgingly) shoved something into a trashbag, it earned him another Exchange of Glances from the pair. 

They got over it eventually, though, because there was a fuck-load more to clean than there was room to stare. So they cleaned.

Remus thought it would get old after a minute, and he’d finally gather up the guts to bail on them, but it just… never happened. It felt unnatural to be getting rid of a mess- like an animal having its fur brushed the wrong way, continuously- but by some point the sensation was distant. The rest of him was still busy processing, experiencing, maybe possibly overthinking this kind of recognition he’d never gotten before. It was handed to him now like it was something normal. The three of them worked together, and it was normal. 

Acceptance, as it turned out, wasn’t synonymous with ‘soulless assimilation’. In fact, it was pretty fucking great, getting to watch his brother and best friend find documents from the floor with his ideas on them, then tucking them into a binder marked important, instead of a trashcan marked to burn. It was… surreal. 

But the tidying was over in just an hour and a half- oh wow, never in a million years would Remus have thought an hour and a half of cleaning would be too little for him. He made a note to absolutely destroy something big and important later, to balance the universe out again. 

Roman sank through the floor as soon as they were done, complaining loudly about how very exhausted he was. Remus teased him on his way out, but it was just for the habit- he was way too mushy to think of anything properly mean at the moment. 

Janus watched him go, silent. He sat beside Remus on the couch, and despite his obvious tiredness, he waited a good few minutes before saying anything. 

“Thank you,” he murmured. 

Remus shivered. Janus pulled him up into a hug (one that maybe dragged on for a little too long, but who was counting?), and it spelled out all the pride and care that he’d never been good at verbalizing. With that, he gave Remus a short nod, and then was gone as well. 

Which made everyone else upstairs, probably in their rooms and halfway asleep. Then there was Remus, antsy in the living room, itchy with feelings. 

Everyone but Patton, of course, who could still be heard humming in the kitchen; who never went up until he knew everyone else was in their rooms, true to the protective parent persona. Remus suddenly didn’t think he wanted anything else but to see Patton after what had happened, to talk to him, to… 

He walked to the kitchen.

“Pat.”

Patton looked over his shoulder at Remus, up to his elbow in sudsy sink water. A smile fell naturally across his face.

“Hi,” his voice was low, delicate. “You about to head up?”

Remus watched his friend work, trailing into the room slowly.  He grinned, “Are you kidding? I could stay up all night, if I wanted.”

“Do you want to?” Patton asked him.

Remus thought on it for a moment. He shrugged, iunno, leaned against the counter by the sink. Patton turned away again.

It was so quiet. No wind. No footsteps. Not a muffled voice upstairs, even- just the sound of water and ceramic hitting ceramic. Everything was still.

Remus hated it. Silence was fragile, and he crawled with the need to break it. He felt it get tense as it stretched out, and he just wanted to tear the air apart with sound. It felt like nothing mattered anymore, when peace was so easily able to drown it all out. Cold and alone. He hated it.

Sometimes, Remus imagined that if the silence went too long, he’d never be able to make a noise again. There were few things that made him so unhappy, but the quiet… 

“What’s on your mind?” Patton asked.

Remus jolted. Patton was staring, concern gathering in his eyes the longer he did. Remus took a deep breath- he remembered something, something small and unimportant that Janus had told him once. 

When one is so intensely happy, they can fall to agonizing upset even quicker than if they’d been mildly perturbed in the first place, because of the ferocity of the feelings. Something like that. 

“A lot more than I’m willing to throw on your shoulders, Pops.”

Patton pouted. Actually. Fucken. Pouted. The worst part was, his puppy-face was actually working.

“Ugh,” Remus rolled his eyes, “Just- could I- I dunno, have a hug, or some shit?”

If Patton was surprised, he hid it well. God knew, that wasn’t exactly the kind of thing Remus would ask for. He almost never asked to get attention- taking it was much easier, and much more entertaining. Besides, if he’d ever asked before that point… well, he already knew what answer he would’ve gotten. 

Patton’s smile only widened, until it was positively melting. “Of course you can,” he shut the sink off. “Of course.”

He reached haphazardly for a hand towel, to dry his arms. Remus, riding the high of that enthusiastic permission, absolutely could not wait that long. He latched his arms around Patton’s middle before the side had even finished talking, burying his face between his shoulder blades and hugging tight. 

Patton went still, like he didn’t know what to do. After it became clear that Remus had no intention to move, Patton laughed, dreamy and soft, and shook his hands as dry as he could. He patted Remus’ forearm; bead-bracelets clattered under the Duke’s sleeves. 

“Hey,” Patton said.

“Mmh?”

“Not that this isn’t lovely,” he laced his fingers with Remus’, squeezed them, “But I’d like it better if I could hug you back, ya know?”

Remus let go, reluctantly. In the true fashion of intrusive thoughts, there was a second he was so convinced Patton would run, now that he was freed. Make an escape from him, an escape from his claws.

He didn’t. He spun right around and pulled Remus against his chest- one arm linked around his torso, the other winding into his tangled hair. Anyone, at a glance, could see that Patton was huge- but up close the difference was dizzying: his wide chest, encircling arms that seemed to be made of nothing but muscle and padding, and that height, all made him so… comforting. Big and strong, a body that disguised power in soft edges and fat. If he squeezed just a little too tight, in fact, Remus wouldn’t be surprised if Patton could make splinters out of his bones. Which Remus definitely, definitely wouldn’t mind, but the knowledge that Patton not only could do that but also wouldn’t ever do that- that was what really did him in. 

And he’d hugged Patton before- months ago, and somehow Patton had seemed so small then, when everything had started- but being hugged? Properly, too, not underwater while one of them was drowning- it was a world of difference. No panic, no breakdowns, just a real, solid hug.

He could just ask for this and then have it. He could smell sugar cookies and candle wax, and feel somebody- a willing body- pressing in. It was weird. He thought that someday, he might get used to it. He wanted a chance to get used to it. 

“Do you wanna talk now?” Patton prompted, forcibly reminding Remus that he had a bloodhound’s nose for emotional distress. 

“I don’t know.”

Patton hummed, his fingers scratching through Remus’ hair. “Today went better than I thought it would.”

“You didn’t have to bring me, if you thought it was gonna be bad.”

“I wasn’t worried because of you! I was worried because of me. Things have been… a lot for me, lately.”

“Oh,” Remus angled his head to the side, looking up at him. “Yeah. I feel ya.”

“But they were all so much more patient, weren’t they,” Patton’s eyes went a little misty, the way they always did when he talked about his family. “Everything’s different now, and I guess that scared me, but I think that now… it’s a good different, you know?” 

“Like us, right?” Remus laughed, “This is the craziest difference, if ya think about it.”

Patton chuckled, the sound reverberating in his chest so that Remus felt it more than heard it. 

“I don’t think I would’ve gotten through with today without you, you know that?” 

It was deeply honest. There was a beat. 

“I-” Oh fuck, Remus was choked up, when did that happen? “I wouldn’t have even had a day like today, without you, so. Do with that what you want.” 

Remus buried his face in Patton’s sternum, just to avoid the sad understanding in his eyes. 

He- he wasn’t exactly made for the care he was getting, not the kind of softness in that face. Not when Patton was still patiently untangling his matt of hair while they hovered in the stillness of the dark, empty kitchen, and Remus desperately didn’t want to cry. 

Patton gave him a minute to breathe, at the very least, before:

“They like you, though. Janus loves you.”

“Yeah, okay, but it’s not-”

“I know how you feel,” said Patton, and did. “Like they couldn’t actually care about us, even though it doesn’t make sense for them not to. It’s one of those things that’s easy to forget,” Remus could hear the smile in his voice. “So it’s good we have each other, when we need to get out of our own heads. At least, it’s like that for me, I don’t know if you even-”

“No,” Remus curled his claws in the back of Patton’s shirt, something dark and emotional flooding like tar through his chest. “Nah, you’re right, Morey. This is good for us.” 

Remus shook his head at nothing in particular. He forced his hands unballed, pulled back, and wormed his way out of Patton’s hug after way too long. 

His skin felt like paper from the affection, like he’d been electrocuted, and while that was fun- was amazing- for a while, he didn’t think he could handle much more in one sitting. 

Patton let him go, smiling warmly, leaning back against the counter. His eyes were shiny and wet, but he was content. 

“Thanks,” Remus said.

“What for? The hug?”

“No- I mean, that too, but I was saying ‘thanks, for caring’. For giving enough of a shit about me to try and help.”

Patton smiled, solemnly.

“I told you so,” he breathed, “I promised I would like you when I got to know you, and then I did. I do!” 

Remus felt a grin returning to his face, sliding across his lips more naturally than anything else he’d had to deal with that night.

“Yeah. You aren’t too bad yourself, Pat.”

Chapter Seven

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#sanders sides #ts #fanfiction #fanfic #sanders sides fanfiction #ts fanfic #intruality #qpr intruality #platonic intruality #remus #patton