#i may or may not have pcos | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

soysaucevictim · 2 years ago

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Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply

Relationships: Intrulogical (QPP), Dukexiety (romantic/QPP), Analogical (QPP), Intruloxiety (QPP) Characters: Remus centric. Logan and Virgil supporting.

Genres: Slice of Life, Sickfic, Hurt/Comfort, Fluff, Vent Fic (sort of)

Additional Tags: Blood, Graphic Descriptions of Menstruation, PCOS, Chronic Illness, AFAB Anatomy, Brief Misgendering Language, Referenced Past Child Abuse, Remus Angst, Neurodivergent Remus, Nonbinary Remus, Trans Man Logan, Logan Is A Good Friend, Virgil is a Mess, Virgil is a Himbo, Virgil Is a Good Friend

Summary:

Remus has a not-quite-monthly visitor arrive. He’s going to make that everyone’s problem.

(Gym Rat AU. One-shot.)

---

What little ability Remus had to focus was shot, which was a little dangerous when he was at the workbench. His guts were feeling all knotted up and queasy. He wondered if it was something he ate, or neglected to eat.

He had a suspicion of what was happening, but he really didn’t want to deal with that mess. He was trying to coordinate some soldering wire and a very hot soldering iron. He just needed to seat this capacitor and-

STAB.

“FUCK!”

He clumsily dropped the iron, it clattered onto the motherboard he was working on and started to melt one of the PCI buses. He was more focused on bracing through a powerful wave of spasming coming from that useless bag of muscle in his guts, white-knuckling the bench and hovering above his chair, as it passed.

Logan was in earshot and rolled into his workspace, “Are you-?”

Remus glared at Logan.

As the wave passed, Remus tentatively sat back down, breathing through his teeth, “… Got any of Satan’s cotton fingers on you?”

“What are you- oh. You mean... menstrual products.”

Remus was back to glaring at Logan some more, “Specs. I love you. But-”

Just like that, Logan was in and out with his backpack and rifling through it. It was times like this that Remus envied Logan.

After a few home invasions from El Primo Rojo on the clock, Logan suggested that maybe Remus’s experiences weren’t “standard”. That they shouldn’t feel like someone gleefully and repeatedly shooting a rusty nail gun into his gut. His tendency for time blindness didn’t do him any favors, when his “monthly gift” took a scenic route to Guam half the time. That he shouldn’t be gushing like a stuck blood-doped pig, when it did.

It was a pain in the so-called “girl nuts” to figure out just how fucked his were.

At that point, Logan had learned to get the big guns out and asked, “Do you need any help?”

The aforementioned bus was smoking at that point, but Remus finally had the presence of mind enough to yank the iron’s plug. He winced and headed to the bathrooms and mumbled, “… probably.”

It was nice not having to explain to someone what it was like to deal with this curse. Not that it really stopped him sometimes. He got a few write-ups for that.

Never mind what was going on in the co-workers’ pants. If he was suffering, he was determined to make it everyone’s problem. Logan was just better able to deal with the gender feelings shit there, though.

Something Remus liked to do with Virgil is visiting his place, watching movies, and snuggling up. Well, more like, Remus wrapped himself around his Emo like the cephalopods he so loved.

Virgil was in for a shock when he started to invite Remus over more and let him stay, one day waking up to a crime scene and a severely anemic looking boyfriend.

It was clear public (and private) sex ed failed him. Virgil was thrown into a panic trying to find a non-existent wound on either of them. All while Remus was just curled up and groaning in pain in front of him.

Virgil went so far as to grope around their waist and back, provoking Remus to ask, “Feeling a little… frisky?”

“What? NO! I’m checking to see if someone broke in and stole a kidney or something!?”

Remus chuckled while that uterus of his spasmed, “Oh-ho, I wish...”

At that point, Virgil realized that, no, it was coming from Remus. And the only maniac here was the guy’s innards. Which then had Virgil panicking again, “Th-that’s a LOT of blood! Sh-should I call 911, o-or something!?”

Remus made an attempt to sit up, but then Iron Deficiency called and said Gravity was feeling pretty clingy that day. Remus might’ve started to feel a little delirious, “What happened to ‘a little bit of the red stuff doesn’t scare me’, last night?”

“That was “ Saw ”! And it was just a MOVIE. And with loads of the FAKE stuff! This-!?”

Remus’s laughter was punctuated by a few “ow”s. Remus knew he wasn’t his usual chatterbox self, “… can’t words, call-Lo.”

“Isn’t he at work right now?”

“Tell him… Code Mangenta.”

Virgil tilted his head, “Oooh-kay?”

Virgil barely knew Logan, but did as bidden. Remus laid there, listening to a one-sided conversation.

“Hey. Uh. Logan? It’s Remus…”

“I-I’m not sure man, he just said Code Mangenta.”

“Uh-huh. Uh huh. Oh. THAT’S WHAT A PERIOD IS!?”

Remus laughed again, but it came out more like a whimper.

“Shit, sorry. Do I need to take him to the hospital? Alright, I’ll ask him that...”

Virgil muted the phone and spoke to Remus, “Logan wanted a number from you?”

Virgil pulled the phone up to Remus, “ Nueve de - FUCK!”

Logan simply responded, “Ah. I’ll let the boss know you’re not coming in for probably… a week.”

Virgil’s one-sided conversation continued, “Can you text me all of that? Yeah, I’ll keep you posted. You’re a lifesaver.”

Virgil hung up, awkwardly found a non-biohazardous spot on the bed, and ran a hand through Remus’s hair. It was comforting and distracting. “Hey. I’m gonna get a few things that uh. Might help? Try not to die while I’m gone?”

Remus whined, “No promises, Virge-y.”

Virgil snorted, “Still-”

Remus slurred his words, thanks to dizziness, “Mmm… gonna poltergeist you if-I-do.”

Virgil glanced at the browning stain and back into Remus’s face, “… I don’t expect anything less. See you.”

As Remus lay there, waiting for Virgil to come back, he reflected a little bit.

He kind of hated how he only figured out how his mood got all fucky, in time with his broken biological clock. It foreshadowed his doom, and he missed the warnings every damn time. Then again, emotions were the bane of his existence. Words like angry and horny were close enough, a few days ago. But now that the dam burst, he was just angry, restless and tired . And in a world of hurt.

He wasn’t sure how long of a list of things Logan had sent Virgil, nor how long Virgil had disappeared. It didn’t help that he broke his alarm clock by angrily throwing it across the room – everything was getting a bit much. He couldn’t readily see where his phone was, just his luck losing it somewhere. It could be in Virgil’s unit, in his own car, or way back in his unit.

It didn’t help that he didn’t really want to move much. A lot of the times he found himself in this state, his mind asked him, “Is this going to be the Big One?”

He wondered if it was possible to exsanguinate yourself via your period. He mumbled, “That would suck.”

Remus’s thoughts wandered toward Virgil seeing his boyfriend’s corpse in his bed and- Remus groaned and shook his head. A spell of nausea stack overflowed his thought process and he had to drag himself to the bathroom. It felt like his uterus was ripping and tearing at his bowels, and not what he’d imagine to be “the fun way”.

While on the can for the third time in however long, he felt some relief hearing Virgil’s voice again, “You still alive in there, ‘Mus?”

Remus was still indisposed, barely able to project his voice, “I don’t know anymore, check my task manager and find out!”

“Whatever you’re doing, hold on a second. I brought a lot of stuff over.”

After several more minutes, Remus’s innards buffered enough and Virgil got the stuff inside his unit proper. Remus was impressed by just how many items the guy brought back.

“Okay. So. I got into your apartment to see how much of the things you had at your place already. Here-” Virgil pulled out a familiar, neon green octopus plushie and handed it off.

Remus grinned, he wanted to jolt up and bounce about it, but he was too damn woozy for that. “Cthulhu! Oh, how my loins have missed you!”

Remus unzipped the toy and reached inside.

Virgil narrowed his eyes, “Uh... are you going to fuck that thing or-?”

Remus cackled as he pulled out a bag of dry millet from inside and gave it to Virgil, “Pop that in the microwave for… a minute.”

Virgil was momentarily confused before smacking his face, muttering to himself, “Duh, that makes way more sense, alright now...”

As Virgil attended to that, Remus looked inside the bags. He saw some of his underwear, some heavy flow hygiene products, medication…

Beep!

“Hot! Hot! Hot!”, Virgil almost pulled the bag out with his bare hands before grabbing an oven mitt.

Remus chuckled some more, feeling all gooey over his boyfriend being the biggest whale penis ever. Virgil’s cheeks reddened, “L-look. It’s kind of hard to think straight when I’m freaking the fuck out over here!?”

“Aww, you really do care about me!”

Virgil flustered, handed the warm bag of seed to Remus. Remus snorted at the sight and the thought. As Remus got Cthuhu all ready and cozy, his Scare-Amore huffed, “Whatever.”

Remus hugged the plushie against his belly for dear life, feeling some of the tension and pain melt from its soft warmth. He zoned into that feeling, combing the thing's velvety tentacles with his fingers. System checks returned Normal again.

Virgil sighed, probably in relief, before bolting up again, “Shit, I need to go put some of that stuff in the freezer!”

Remus barely caught a glimpse of Virgil hurriedly putting several tubs of ice cream up. Chocolate anything sounded good, actually. Virgil muttered on about the rest of the things he ran out for and needed to clean up the mess Remus made – but Remus was just focused on the warm and gooey feelings swirling around in him.

Remus was glad to have someone in his corner who had the wonderful experience of having this kind of anatomy. It was an awkward story for another time when Remus found out that Logan was trans.

That said, it was obvious they had different experiences with the gender thing.

Logan was curt whenever discussing the menstruation topic, just enough to get any point he needed to get across before spacing out for a hot minute. Logan was a lifesaver about it, even though he mentioned that he was one of those lucky guys that saw the monthly visitor fuck off pretty much entirely while on T.

Logan was worse about the first time the subject came up. It was a little after Remus’s first month working there. Remus forgot to bring his products with him, which was normal. He was used to resorting to stacking a lot more waddage to stem those heavy currents. It had the secondary benefit of looking like a poor man’s packer, if it held up long enough.

That one went a little easier on him, but one of the next ones after that was a bad one. Despite him playing it off with his typical brand of terrific humor, even Logan noticed something was wrong, “You look ill.”

The stabbings made him pause between each word, “When don’t I?”

“Fair point. My understanding here is that you might need to see a doctor about that. All I can say is that… standard periods shouldn’t be quite so obviously painful, heavy, and irregular. I-I wish I could help more.”

“You haven’t been the first person to tell me that, Specs.”

“My point stands. But now I need to… excuse myself.”

Remus knew Logan would need that breather to himself. Remus had this problem for a few years at that point, but he kind of hated the idea of seeing a doctor.

His tired and anxious mind went back to the old demons telling him he definitely had cancer and he was going to die a miserable death. Cancer or something else just as terrible. He had to use several blocking measures to keep himself from doom-scrolling through WebMD. He’s done it on multiple software and firmware levels; on all his devices, routers, and modems. He tried to call his ISP multiple times, to block him on that level. He was denied, predictably enough.

Annoyed, he recalled Logan saying, “They don’t want to cause a catastrophic failure on their side. They have to serve other people too.”

While Logan had some shared lived experiences, Virgil was a lot more openly fretful around Remus’s cycles. Especially after that first time in his apartment.

Virgil was honestly a nervous wreck about it, which only made that little warm feeling Remus got from the Emo more intense. He probably got a little too used to how fucked up it could get for him.

Just before Remus was in high school, he experienced his first one, a little later than most “girls”. It was relatively mild at first, but things got worse from there. He zoned out during sex ed and didn’t exactly have the social skills or cojones to ask if any of it was normal to any of his girl peers or the school nurse. Esteban didn’t really care and would tell Remus “she” was just making up more excuses. Roman was honestly clueless, but he tried.

Finding a connection with Logan and then Virgil was more than a little nice.

After a few times on the bloody rodeo, Remus had one of his worst ones. It was a bit of a haze to recall some details, apparently his iron levels were critical and he lost a fuck ton of blood. His heart was racing, he felt clammy to the touch, and delirious from it.

Worst of all, he felt like he couldn’t catch his breath. He wondered if he was having a panic attack, but instead of being amped up, he was overwhelmingly tired. He woke up to Virgil frantically shaking him out of some layers of stupor.

“Oh fuck, Remus. Wake up, you gotta wake up!”

The way Virgil’s voice trembled peeled another few layers of stupor, but Remus only managed a confused “Wuh?”

“This is- you are- I can’t-!”

Remus slurred a bit, “Use your wooords, Virgie.”

“I-I’m gonna to call for help. This is just- fucked up!”

Remus was back to listening to a conversation about him, but Virgil put the other side on speaker.

“911, what’s your emergency?”

“My boyfriend lost a lot of blood and-”

“Is he injured?”

“I-I guess? I don’t know! He’s cold and-”

“Was there an accident or-?”

“N-no, I mean- no one did this to him. He just-”

“Okay, ma’am, we’re sending some people over to help. Are you okay to stay on the line?”

Remus snickered at the address, Virgil had more to worry about than that.

“I-I guess.”

“Can you tell me your names?”

Virgil calmed down barely as the call continued and Remus writhed about – exhausted and in pain. It felt like an eternity until the EMTs came over. One of them was preparing a stretcher outside. The other took to assessing Remus’s vitals and asked them more questions as they went.

“So, Remus. Do you know where you are?”

“An adorable raccoon’s warren.”, he weakly chuckled.

The responder from outside moved to fill out their report and blinked a moment.

Virgil clarified, “… he means me.”

“Do you know what today is?”

“Hump Day?”

Virgil fidgeted, “He’s always been bad about dates…”

“Noted. Now, Remus, name the first president of the United States.”

“Some slave owning asshole with bad teeth. I think he died like this…?”

Virgil shrugged, “I- uh, don’t think that Rushmore guy was trans.”

The responder attending to Remus didn’t acknowledge Washington getting roasted.

Remus whined a bit, “Tough… audience, eh?”

The responder relayed everything back to his dispatcher and spoke to Remus again, “Can you walk?”

Remus’s muscles were too noodle-y from fatigue to right himself, let alone stand. “Not happening.”

“Alright, we’ll carry you out to the stretcher. Jim, over here?”

It didn’t look the most graceful or particularly gentle, but they were pretty careful. Tim supported Remus’ torso and Jim took up his legs. Remus just wanted to take a nap, once he rested on the stretcher.

Remus lost a good chunk of time from there.

The next thing he remembered was being in a hospital bed with IVs in him. He was feeling a bit more cognizant, yet very, very off.

He yelled at the nearest nurse to him, “W-where’s Virgil? Can I see him?!”

“We’re still trying to get you more stable, pushing some fluids mostly. Virgil is in the waiting area, but he told us some of your history. This is a recurring problem for you, yes?”

“System records indicate that is correct.”

The nurse blinked before continuing, “Do you have any experience using birth control?”

“No? The idea of carrying a kid kinda wigs me out… so uh…”

“When taken as prescribed, the pill has a very high effectiveness in preventing that.”

Despite his sense of humor, he admitted, “I… don’t exactly have plans to be sexually active anyways.”

“Alright, hon. The pill isn’t only good for preventing pregnancy. We’re going to give you some hormonal birth control to manage your bleeding for now. And some iron supplements, your levels came in very low there.”

Remus hated feeling small and stupid, “Don’t call me that… please.”

“Apologies, we don’t have your full history. You’re… nonbinary?”

It was the simplest language for Remus’s weird gender feelings. “Yeah.”

“Are you on HRT?”

He kind of wanted to be, but, “… no.”

“Would you be comfortable being referred to a gynecologist?”

Remus shivered, unsure if it was the blood loss or the hospital being too cold or something else, “D-do I have to?”

“We don’t recommend you rejecting the option, but we can’t force you.”

Some of the liquid coolant started leaking out of Remus’s eyes. Having seen how stricken Virgil was earlier finally hit him, “I... don’t want to put my boyfriend through this again. What’s wrong with me?”

The nurse took a breath, “There are a few possibilities that come to mind, a very common one is something called polycystic ovarian syndrome. We’re waiting for more of your bloodwork to come back to us. But, some specialists would have to assess you for that and give you more treatment options than I can say at this moment.”

He wasn’t sure about having someone rooting around in there or the potential bad news the exams could bring, “Can I think about that some more?”

“Of course. Right now, we’re just going to focus on getting you well enough for discharge.”

The ICU doctor managing his care was not a specialist, Remus was still on the fence on having that referral done.

The doctor talked to him about the lab work, “Well, we have one point toward a potential PCOS diagnosis here.”

“What?”

“You seem to have abnormally high values for testosterone and other androgens.”

Remus blinked, “Wait, what? Really?!”

“Yes, that’s one of the criteria.”

Remus found himself weirdly excited about that part, “S-so could that be why I started growing a mustache when I was in high school?”

“I understand how facial hair can be distressing for some.”

Remus cackled for the first time since he woke up nearly in hemorrhagic shock a couple days ago, “Distressed?! I’m trans, as all fuck, man! I thought it was really cool, even if the other kids bugged me about that a lot. Don’t worry about it. I took care of them. If you know what I mean?”

The doctor looked at him with a strange expression, “If other tests confirm this diagnosis, do you realize it could mean fertility issues?”

“Even better!”

“… you’re taking this better than a lot of patients I’ve worked with.”

“Well, the bleeding and the pain sucks all the ass. But, you just mighta convinced me to take that referral.”

Really, Logan and Virgil planted that seed in his head first. But this information could have explained so much of the shit he just put up with for the past several years .

He just hoped he wasn’t going to be treated like a girl or some weird shit like that.

Or that it could get in the way of some of the things he really wanted to go forward on, in talking about transition stuff with Logan.

Or that it turned out to be something worse, or better than this PCOS thing.

#sanders sides #remus sanders #virgil sanders #logan sanders #gymrat au #spilled musing #dukexiety #intrulogical #intruloxiety #(remus is a gd nERD)#(next thing i think i want to finish up is that muse!patton fic and get going on the begotten!au thing next)#(i don't think i personally have pcos... and i think my hormones are still within a standard deviation of average level...)#(but sometimes think i may have a modestly elevated baseline t level... :'D )#(kinda thinking abt this in terms of shit like my bp - which is a few points lower than average/healthy benchmark pretty consistently)#(i love thinking about a&p variations man)

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