#Why does the ableist song have to be catchy | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

maybedefinitely404 · 4 years ago

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Not Your Typical 2

Genre: college AU, hurt/comfort

Pairings: romantic Demus, background Logicality, and Prinxiety

Content: autistic characters (Logan and Janus), arguments, panic attack/anxiety, ASL, talk of pretty bad ableist parenting/manipulation.

Song mentioned is Electric Love by BØRNS

Word count: 3.3k

“BABE!”

Janus’ head shot up seconds before Remus barreled into their room, clearly having run there, possibly all the way from his night class. He dropped his load of textbooks onto the floor, hopping from foot to foot.

“You have a backpack for a reason,” Janus sighed affectionately. His boyfriend shuffled the empty bag off his shoulders so it fell to the floor with his school supplies and resumed his hopping.

“Listen to this!” He held up his headphones, clearly holding himself back from just popping them on Janus’ head himself.

“New song?”

“Just listen!”

Janus snorted but put the offered headphones on, watching as Remus restarted the music from his phone.

It began quietly, a lilting melody that was quickly underlaid with a sharp beat. He raised an eyebrow at Remus; it was catchy, but did not seem like his boyfriend’s type of music. There was a surprising lack of… screaming. Or profanity. Or yodelling .

He had interesting taste in music.

But Remus just bounced on his toes, nearly wiggling until an electric guitar riff made Janus jump a bit. It wasn’t necessarily a bad jump, more one of surprise, but he gave a thumbs up anyways to reassure Remus. He closed his eyes as the verse began, relaxing in his chair and shutting his brain off.

Janus hadn’t even noticed he was tapping his hands on the arms of the chair until he peaked an eye open to see his boyfriend’s excited expression, not unlike a child on Christmas morning.

A bit after they’d started officially dating, Remus had accidentally discovered Janus’ once-least-favorite neurodiverse trait in himself; happy stimming. It was overly vulnerable and had gotten him teased too often when he was younger, so he had made a habit of masking the excited movement. It had only taken one date to the animal rehabilitation centre, and an hour long detour in the reptile area, for that barrier to break. But Remus had taken him for the sole reason of showing Janus the snakes, what was he supposed to do?

The first time he’d been totally natural around Remus (due to finding a green tree python, because oh my god Remus look at it!), bouncing and tucking his cheek to his shoulder and flapping his hands, his boyfriend had solemnly taken his hands, leaned far too close, and uttered something along the lines of ‘What the fuck was that and how do I make you do it again?’ Apparently he thought it was cute.

Preposterous.

And judging by the slow rising in the song’s pitch, that was exactly what Remus was attempting to trigger. Janus could feel a smile forming against his will as the music crescendoed, and with it came a floating sensation. It felt like fire shooting up his spine, or pop rocks in his skull, an addictive rush of joy that filled his body with adrenaline, the best possible butterflies in his stomach. His hands flapped in an effort to release the energy and for now he let them, the grin now making his cheeks hurt.

All at once the beat settled back to it’s verse tempo and Janus pulled the headphones off somewhat sheepishly.

“Hell. Yes.” Remus whispered, a matching wide smile stretching across his face. He cradled Janus’ face between his palms, as if he were something fragile, and edged forward until their noses booped, “You’re so. Goddamn. Cute.”

“Am not,” Janus forced out between his squished cheeks. It would have been much more convincing if he weren’t fighting off more happy wiggles.

Remus snorted and pressed a peck to Janus’ lip before whirling on his heels, more or less skipping to the common area.

“Logan, I did it!” He sang grandly. He twirled around the living room with a whoop, startling a laugh out of Janus. Virgil and Roman, who must have been situated on the couch, yelled as Remus splayed across them just out of Janus’ line of vision.

“Get off us, you oaf-”

“Jesus, Remus!”

“Oh Logaaaaan!”

Janus leaned against the doorway of their room to watch the scene unfold. Remus finally gave in to the pushing from their roommates and rolled onto the floor with a brilliant thud and a cackle.

“Get him off my foot!”

“He’s your brother.”

Remus snickered and promptly attached himself to Roman’s leg like a koala, digging his teeth into his shin.

“REMUS!”

“Yeth?” He asked around his mouthful. Roman freed the leg not being eaten and, with no preamble, delivered a solid kick to his brother’s side.

“I’ve been shot!” Remus wailed dramatically, rolling onto his back.

“I’m going to need a rabies shot!”

“I see the light-”

“Am I bleeding? Virgil, get the first aid kit!”

“Alas, the world goes dim! What an end, what an end…”

“What if they have to amputate?”

Janus’ hand could no longer muffle his laughter, and his laughing distracted Remus enough to get a dazzling smile from where he was laying half under the coffee table. The diversion seemed to remind him of why he’d come into the living room in the first place.

His face fell into a pout and he shrieked, “LOGAN!”

The door to Logan and Patton’s room flew open and the latter poked his head out with a violent shush.

“Logan is on the phone!”

True to his word, Logan was pacing their room behind him, stimming anxiously while he spoke into his phone in a completely neutral voice.

Virgil sat up straighter, earning a concerned look from Roman, who gave up on nursing the bite mark on his sweatpants. However, Remus was oblivious to the sudden tenseness in the air, kicking his feet onto the coffee table.

“Who is he on the phone with?” Virgil asked, slowly getting up from the couch.

Patton shut the door after a quick glance into the room. The rest of the dorm stayed silent until he’d clicked the latch into place, as if all holding their breath. Logan’s voice became just a murmur behind the wall as Patton met Virgil’s eyes nervously.

“It’s his parents,”

“WHY-” Patton shushed Virgil wildly, hands waving up a flurry. The man continued in a hushed tone but with just as much fury, “Why is he talking to his parents?”

Roman jumped up, probably to try and ease an almost-spitting Virgil but only succeeding in stepping on Remus.

“Ow!”

“Then why are you on the floor!?”

Virgil took a step toward Patton. “He hasn’t talked to them in a year-”

“I will eat your whole leg off!”

“I’d like to see you try!”

“Oh? OH!? When you wake up tomorrow with no legs, you’ll regret that!”

“Remus, just get up!”

He froze from where he’d been pushing himself up from the floor, gingerly lowering himself back down and crossing his arms. “Well, now I’m not going to.”

“Why don’t…” Janus faltered as every eye in the room settled on him, fighting his instinct to shut his mouth. They want to hear you, they want to hear you- “Why don’t we like Logan’s parents?”

Virgil and Patton answered at the same time.

“They’re assholes.”

“They’re not great p- language!”

If Janus remembered correctly, Virgil and Logan had known each other far longer than any of the others, though it wasn’t hard to surmise from Virgil’s reactions. He’d never seen him get so worked up.

“They’re ableist, homophobic pieces of sh-”

“But!” Patton interrupted, “We probably shouldn’t say more without Logan here.”

Virgil grumbled under his breath and dropped back onto the sofa, followed by Roman, who placed an arm around his shoulders. It did nothing to placate his anger, but he did lean marginally into his boyfriend’s side.

“We don’t like them,” Remus said in a falsely bright tone as he squirmed out from where he’d been trapped. “How long does he have to talk to Tweedledee and Tweedledick?”

“Language…”

“What do they want from him?” Virgil demanded. Was it Janus’ imagination, or were his eyes shinier than they’d been a minute before?

“I don’t…” Patton glanced at the closed door, “I’m sure Logan can tell you later. I’ll tell you as soon as he’s ready to talk, okay?”

They were given one more reminder to hush, and then Patton disappeared back into their room. The group fell into silence as soon as he was gone.

Remus broke the lull with a loud knuckle crack and a, “So, American Horror Story, anyone?”

No one complained, which Remus took as affirmation. Virgil had turned to burrow his face into Roman’s shoulder, which smartly, no one addressed. The opening credits flashed across the scene as Remus scrambled onto the loveseat, patting the spot next to him.

“Snakey, sit.”

Janus shook his hands briefly to dispel his nerves before taking the spot next to his boyfriend, leaning into his side. Every bit of contact that he initiated excited Remus to no end. He swung his arm over Janus’ shoulders and pulled him even closer and then, to Janus’ revolt, began to run his thumb lightly over his hand.

“Yuck, no, no no no, stop,” Janus squirmed, stilling Remus’ thumb with his other hand, and nestling even further into him.

“Oh, right. Forgot.”

“No harm done.”

They’d barely gotten through an episode of the show when the door opened behind them. Roman wasted no time shutting the TV off, and the four of them watched with rapt attention as Patton and a slightly disheveled Logan emerged.

“I hear there was some commotion over the content of my phone call.”

“Abso-fucking-lutely!” Virgil snapped.

“Your concern is noted but unnecessary,” Logan replied curtly, “My parents called because I was not answering their messages.”

“They’ve been messaging you?!” Virgil hissed, pulling away from Roman’s hold to stand.

“Do they ever stop?” Logan rolled his eyes and finally released his death grip on his cell phone. He slid it into his back pocket instead. “For some reason they insist I come back home this summer.”

Him and Patton did that bizarre communicate-silently thing they did often, as Logan lifted his arm and his boyfriend attached to his side immediately. Perhaps one day, him and Remus would have that level of intuitiveness that puzzled him so. The thought made his face grow hot. A glance at Remus confirmed he hadn’t noticed, though.

“You haven’t gone back since first year. Why now?” Roman asked. His twin hummed in agreement.

Logan turned his gaze to the floor, taking a while to answer. “I don’t understand their timing. But they are threatening to withdraw financial assistance towards my schooling if I refuse.”

The room exploded into chaos.

“Are you fucking kidding me?!”

“That’s not fair, after all they’ve done to you-”

“Would anyone notice if they went missing?”

“Remus-”

“You can’t go back there, Lo…”

“I wasn’t planning to! But now I may not have a choice, Patton.”

“When do you have to decide?” Roman asked, earning a glare from Virgil.

“It’s not a choice, he can’t go!”

“This is my choice, not yours, Virgil! Either way, the due date is in a week. I’ll have made my decision by then.”

Janus stiffened as the air was pulled from his lungs. “Wait, what due date?”

No one seemed to notice his question, however, as the volume in the room raised another octave. His words were lost to the level of shouting, completely invisible to everyone. He tried to pretend it didn’t hurt as much as it did.

As easy as it would have been to just fade into the background, as per usual, the unanswered question was burrowing a hole in his chest. Janus tugged on Remus’ sleeve.

“What due date?”

Finally, Remus turned sharp eyes from the conversation to him. The slightly manic glint to them softened as soon as he saw Janus’ panicked expression, and he shifted their hands so their fingers locked.

“S’when we gotta let the school know if you’re staying on campus for summer break. Didn’t you get the email?”

“What email?!” Janus hissed just as the arguing reached its peak. Logan had pulled himself away from (a decently distraught) Patton and was gripping his own arms with white knuckles.

“Why do you even care?! I’m fine!” He said through grit teeth.

“You’re clearly not,” Roman retorted. Virgil had pulled up his phone and was scrolling through it with purpose, clearly trying to find something.

“I’ll figure it out! This doesn’t have to be an event for everyone!”

“That doesn’t mean you’re-”

“Will you just drop it, Roman?!” Logan yelled, voice cracking.

Janus nearly bumped into Remus with the way he flinched. The other’s arm immediately tightened around him, a grounding pressure across his shoulders.

“I think we’re all tired,” Patton broke the tense air with a pleading tone, “Can we come back to this tomorrow? Please?”

Logan was gone without another word, followed by Patton after a round of strained good-nights.

---------------------------------------

As clingy a couple as they were, sleeping was a different matter. One time, one time only, they’d tried to cram onto one of their puny twin beds and that had lasted a whole half hour before they decided to never try it again. Janus needed his space if he even wanted a chance at a peaceful sleep, and Remus had the lovely habit of embodying a starfish with a caffeine problem, even when unconscious. How he fit on the tiny dorm beds by himself astounded Janus, what with how he splayed. Janus had gotten two full hits to the face before he’d leaned against the wall and pushed Remus to the floor with his feet. The man hadn’t stirred.

The next morning Remus had suggested (without thinking) that one day they’d just get a bigger bed, and Janus had turned a bright crimson at the easy way he had discussed their future together.

Either way, for now, they stayed in their respective beds, but at that moment, Janus was missing the distinctive feeling of being Remus’ teddy bear. His mind was a whirlpool of thoughts, or perhaps a tornado. It was a flurry any which way, one that kept his eyes wide open, staring at the ceiling he couldn’t even see in the dark. Across the small room, he could hear Remus shifting, his breath catching every time he moved, meaning he was probably still awake as well.

“Remus?”

“Yeah, snakey?”

Guess he was right, then. Janus rolled towards him, even though he couldn’t make out anything in the pitch black.

“I can’t sleep.”

There was a chuckle from across the room. “Have you even tried?” It was a valid question; it hadn’t been more than five minutes since they’d turned off the lights.

“I mean, I won’t be able to sleep.” Janus sighed. He gnawed at his fingernails as louder shuffling came from Remus’ bed.

“Why not?”

There were a few things, if he was honest.

“Does Virgil get mad like that a lot?” Not what he’d meant to lead with, but oh well.

“Oh,” Remus replied lightly, “He wasn’t mad. He probably sounded real pissed though. He was just worried about Logan. They grew up together and all that shit, so Virgil got like a front row seat of all the shit they did to him. Taping his hands to tables so he didn’t flap ‘em, all that.”

Janus was speechless.

“Is that all that’s buggin’ ya?”

“Not really.”

“Spill the tea.”

In a familiar moment of self consciousness, Janus curled his knees into his chest. He wants to hear you, he wants to hear you. The blankets pooled around his waist as he sat up, hoping the position would somehow grant him more courage.

“I started thinking about… what Logan said, and now I don’t know if I want to go home or stay on campus over summer. I didn’t know that was even an option. But it would be so much easier to not have to pack up again, and I’m just getting used to it here, but what if my parents are mad, like Logan’s?”

The fairy lights that encircled their room flickered to life, revealing Remus had stretched to reach the switch from his bed.

“I didn’t get the email and now I don’t even know if it’s possible for me to stay on campus, what if I missed a due date? It’s my fault, I should have checked every folder and now I don’t know what to do, I…” Janus’ sentence bled into a hum from the back of his throat. The swirling flotsam of thoughts thickened, a swarm of bees being swallowed by their own honey; worries still existing, but now infinitely harder to reach and express.

“I don’t know what to do- I… I don’t, I can’t think, my brain’s too busy-” He wrapped his fists in his blanket to keep from gripping his hair. All of the sudden, he was a coiled spring and there was nothing he could do to loosen the pressure. He needed a release, he needed to move and to be held still, his chest full of helium but his arms filled with a colony of ants under his skin, every molecule separating and floating away. Janus shoved his fists into the blankets, pushing and pushing and begging for the awful pressure to disappear.

“Hey hey hey, take a breath, snakey. I’m right here.”

The bed dipped under Remus’ weight and his first reaction was to reach out but no, no the ants were still there, in his hands, and he bent them backwards at the wrist to kill the itch. Curl curl curl, and his fists were jammed against his jaw, pressure push stop stop-

“I’m trying, I am, I just-” He cut himself off with a sob that was more of a cough, drawing in a wheezing breath. Remus must be freaking out, he could tell, and god he wanted to stop but the cycle continued, cough and breathe in and try to squish the fucking ants.

“Do you want me to get Logan? Or Patton?”

No, no, no. Janus shook his head vigorously and pushed his fists under his legs, leaning forward to force his whole weight on the limbs. Yeah, yeah that felt better, more weight, he needed more-

“Pressure,” Janus gasped, interrupting whatever Remus had been saying but finding he couldn’t care less. He removed one hand from the safety he’d found and hit the heel of it to his chest. “I need- I need pressure, weight, I can’t-” Cough. Hum.

“Weighted blanket? Is that it?” The worry in Remus’ voice was so clear it was almost embarrassing, but Janus would never admit how much he adored it; it was a level of softness no one else was privy to.

“No-” The weighted blanket would have been his go to before, when he was alone, but it was never enough.

Deep pressure therapy, he remembered Logan calling it. A way to regulate the nervous system when it was going nuts, something about resetting the ‘fight or flight’ reflex. He couldn’t remember the details. But he could remember Logan’s explaining different forms of it.

“Hug?” Janus pleaded, rocking forward onto his hands once more.

“I- What…- Are you sure?”

Janus let out a broken sound. He nodded quickly, freeing a hand to circle it over his chest, palm flat, over and over. Please. Logically, he knew there was no time pressure, but there was an undeniable feeling of ‘hurry, hurry, hurry’ rushing through him. Fight or flight, maybe.

Remus opened his arms and Janus was scrambling across the gap immediately, curling sideways on his lap. The only thing he could compare it to was dumping sand on a fire as Remus’ arms wrapped around him, pulling him closer to his chest and pressing his nose into Janus’ hair. Remus swayed them back and forth like he was reading Janus’ damn mind, and he finally took a deep breath. All the stress trickled from his tense muscles bit by bit, and the younger could have cried from relief.

Janus was quickly finding it hard to keep his eyes open as Remus kept rocking them, listening to his heartbeat and following his breathing in the rare quiet of their dorm that had come to feel like home.

“Feeling better?” Remus whispered.

Janus tensed immediately. “Don’t let go.”

“I won’t, I promise.”

And he didn’t.

Taglist:

@max-is-tired

@joylessnightsky

@marshymoop

#lywrites #sanderssides #sanders sides #sanders sides fanfiction #sanderssidesfanfiction #dukeceit #prinxiety #logicality #autistic janus #autistic logan #sanders sides college au #anonymous

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