#platonic Demus

[loganslowdown4]

Remus: I’m off to do something stupid!

Janus: Hold the fuck up—

Remus: :(

Janus: Not without me!

Remus: :D

[xandriagreat]

BEACH TIME!!!!

This is for @platonicsidesweek

Janus and Remus went on the beach vacation. Janus just relaxed while Remus runs and have fun into the water.

[theycallmeaspen]

*In art class, drawing stickmen*

Janus: Hmm, which dictator's face should I draw on mine?

Remus: I'm drawing my favourite communist dictator, Hatsune Miku

[noblest-roman-of-them-all]

A Mask

Thanks to @januskin for the inspiration.

Janus paused, staring a moment at human skin on the back of his right hand and the faint blue lines pulsating beneath the skin. It was sharp contrast to the olive-y scales that covered the other half of his body. He sighed glanced away for a moment before taking another breath and going back to peeling the loosen scales from his middle arm.

"Whatcha thinkin' about, Jan-Jan?"

Janus half glanced over his shoulder to where Remus sat, dutifully avoiding eye contact and carefully peeling Janus's back. "Nothing," he answered.

"Good thing you're not wearing pants," Remus taunted. "They'd have gone up in flames with that one!"

Janus sighed. "Remus-"

"I'm just saying no one sighs 15 times in 20 minutes and not have something on their mind. Hold still, let me get behind your ear."

Janus sighed yet again and let Remus pushed his head down to clear away the shed skin there. "No, I suppose they don't."

"You can tell me to stick a sock in, but I know you better than to believe you when you say nothing's wrong, Janus."

He almost sighed again, but stopped himself. He didn't want to add to Remus's count. "Since when are you so insightful?" He questioned, a biting edge to his voice. A hand rubbed up and down his spine, and Janus tilted sideways, knowing Remus would catch him.

"We both know the answer to that," Remus answered softly. "What's wrong, Jan-Jan?"

"You're going to make fun of me."

"I'm gonna make fun of you whether you tell me or not, you little tree snake. Might as well spill the beans."

Janus chuckled faintly, his head still rested on Remus shoulder. "I suppose that's true. I don't like my skin. And it's bothering me more tonight than usual."

"Well, that makes sense. You're shedding-"

"No. The human skin. I don't like the human skin. It feels...wrong. Like an ill fitting costume." He tilted one of his left hands back and forth on the dim light of the cave and watched the light dance across the slightly iridescent scales. "These are beautiful. This?" He held up a right hand next to it. "This dull. It's like a mask I didn't want to be given. It's constraining. I don't like it."

"I do," Remus replied. "I like both sides of you."

"Of course you do. You're my best friend, you're obligated to say those sorts if things."

"I'm also not a liar," Remus retorted with a smirk. "When have I ever done any of that softening the truth for other people's feelings?"

Janus smiled faintly. "Fair enough, I suppose."

Remus kissed his head. "You ready for me to skin for face?"

Janus rolled his eyes. "So much for that touching moment."

Remus giggled and lightly jabbed Janus in the ribs. "Lay down so I can pull your eye out too."

Janus scowled. "I'm so glad I have such a thoughtful friend to help me with this uncomfortable experience," he deadpanned and laid down with his head in Remus lap.

"Lucky too!" Remus chirped "Now hold still, Two-Face."

Janus closed his eyes and tried not to think as Remus peeled back a layer of scales and use scissors to carefully separate it from his human skin. Deep in his chest there was an ache and he wished the scissors were not necessary. The unpleasant snipping sound aside, it would just be better if all of him was scaled. Perhaps it would look monstrous to some, but to him, they were beautiful.

It wasn't that he saw the human half of himself as ugly, he was very fond of his similarities to his Whole, but perhaps it was the distance that Thomas had put between them that made it feel...like those features didn't truly belong to him.

The thought made him frown. He didn't want to lose his scales if Thomas accepted him. To Janus his scales were a reflection of his purpose, his human side was a disguise of it. He loved Thomas and loved his connection to him, but the human half of his face, the side that looked most like Thomas, was uncomfortable to look at some days. Janus sighed. He doubted it was something he'd every fully be able to put into words.

He opened his eyes, suddenly noticing the lack of the sound of scissors. Remus looked on him with a gentle expression.

"Just waiting for you to be ready for your eye."

"What would I do without you?"

"You're clever enough, you'd figure something out. Or. Yknow, just get infected shed build up and have to find someone else to skin you. Ready?"

"Not really, but if I must be."

Remus carefully held Janus's eye open by the outer edge and found the edge of the eye cap on inner corner and peeled it out with practiced ease.

Janus let out the breath he'd been holding in his chest and Remus thumbed little circles on his temple.

"You okay, little snake?"

Janus nodded. "Thank you for taking care of me."

[st7arlight]

1/4

[firewolf111]

Prompt from @jesterbilly Someone trying to bring in a pet without someone noticing

Remus: *crawling on the floor towards his room*

Janus: Remus. What are you up to this time?

Remus: Nothing.

Janus: Mhmm. Sure. Stand up.

Remus: *stands, trying to hide an obvious squirming lump in his shirt*

Janus: *sighing* What is it this time?

Remus: *pulls out an octopus* This is my son.

Janus: Please tell me it doesn't have rabies.

Remus: Silly, Jan. Octopuses can't get rabies.

Janus: First off, octopi... I think. Second, I know that. Yet somehow you've given a fish rabies before. So...

Remus: ...

Janus: So that's a yes. Go put it back where you found it.

Remus: *pouting* fine. *leaves*

Janus: *to the now empty room* ... it's going to end up in my bed tonight, isn't it?

[keter-class-anomaly]

Instead of doing the art rec that I JUST asked for, I drew this

Based off of this Pinterest comment about some fan art which I was unable to find the source of.

[sanders-sides-uncorrect-quotes]

Janus: Walking out of court after beating the rakish foppish dandy allegations.

Remus: Walking? Not traipsing gayly?

Janus: Certainly not. I do not want to be brought up in the same charges so soon after I narrowly escaped judgement.

[doughbrainer]

Headcanon: Remus And Janus Have Been Friends Since Childhood. Couple Of Goof Balls Being The Odd Ones Out. (Also Let Me Know If You Know What The Hat Janus Is Wearing Is Referencing ;) )

Keep Reading For Art + Sketches + References

Audio From Bluey Episode Season 2 Episode 8, Daddy Dropoff

[loganslowdown4]

Janus: *on the verge of tears* Remus PLEASE for the love of GOD get down! You have to go to bed!

Remus: *swinging on a chandelier* Ok boomer-

Janus: WHAT DOES THAT EVEN MEAN???

[canonically47]

did YOU enjoy that one 2.9k words oneshot of logan spanking remus with the paddle? for. whatever reason??!!

WELL GUESS WHAT!! A SECOND PART HAS HIT AO3!!!!

READ HERE !!!!!! :D

and stay tuned for when they fuck confess. who said fuck. who s- YOU. GET BACK HERE (chases after myself)

THIRD PART HERE !!!

[theycallmeaspen]

Remus: Because of pregnancy, the average number of skeletons per person is more than one

Janus: Remus, it's three in the FUCKING MORNING

[edupunkn00b]

Progression, Ch. 1: Ready to Play

Photo by edupunkn00b

Ready to Play - Next - Masterpost - [ AO3 ] - Playlist

Day 1 of Dukeceit Week 2024: Sunflowers… totally not posted late

-

The Muse lay sprawled in sun-warmed soil, bright yellow and orange sunflowers towering over him, blocking most of the sun. Tiny hairs grew out of the thick green stalks surrounding him and he reached out, feeling their soft prickle like he could read the stories they had to tell by touch alone.

Now wouldn’t that be interesting?

But the stalks kept their secrets.

His fingers closed around the nearest stalk and he squeezed, sticky, acrid juice from its xylem seeping between his fingers and running up his sleeve. He laughed, tight and sharp and just this side of hysterical. Papa Bear was gonna be so mad if he stained his shirt.

The Muse laughed again, rusted nails in his throat.

Tears pricked his eyes and he squeezed them shut until his ears roared and his cheeks and neck were wet. When he opened them again, the sunflowers were gone, the sticky sunflower residue gone from his hands. The carpet by the door was rough against his cheek, textured to collect any stray dust or debris any of his visitors might track in from the outside.

Lucas had left him laying in his bed but he didn’t want to waste a moment of his visit with Jannie, so the second that damned door had closed, The Muse had scurried over to wait.

Jannie was now getting the same treatment he had, Lucas’ hands splayed over his skin, pressing in calm and peace. Pulling away the ache and hurt and panic that could set him off. Again.

It had been three fucking days since he’d last seen Jannie, last heard his voice, last touched his hand. His scars—the latest ones—were almost totally healed up the last they’d been together and Lucas and Papa Bear had even left them alone for a whole hour. But three fucking days?

It had been even longer since he’d last seen Ro.

The Muse closed his eyes and saw the sunflowers again. And waited.

~

“It is a temporary setback,” Janus murmured, relaxing against Lucas’ warm hands. He closed his eyes and let Lucas’ power buff away the edges of his disbelief.

But Luc couldn’t hide from him and his doubt rasped Janus’ mind. - “Temporary?”-

Janus covered Luc’a hands and nodded. “Yes,” he said aloud, wary of breaking his fragile concentration. He’d finished with Re and gone right to where Janus waited outside the twins’ wing. They only had four hours before Patton returned with the other two. That didn’t leave them much time. Especially if something went wrong.

“None of that now, love,” Luc murmured and a warmth washed over him, drawing away the worry and fear filling his lungs. “You’re right,” he said with more certainty than Janus heard in his thoughts. Janus clung to it anyway. “His last break was just a setback. This will work.”

~

Wrapped in the wisps of Luc’s power, Janus barely jumped when Re’s door flung open.

“Jannie!” A ball of noise and heat barreled into him, Re’s skinny arms wrapped tightly around him. The wave of fear and need and relief stole his breath and he held Re just as close.

“Jannie, you’re here! You’re here, you’re here, you’re here!” Tears thickened Re’s voice and the room around them grew dark and warm. Technicolored sunflowers shot up around them, leaves reaching for them and dusting Janus with their pollen.

“I’m here, Re, right here,” he said with words and thoughts. Gradually, the flowers around them shrunk down to a soft carpet of honeysuckle and mint.

Re nodded against his shoulder, fists twisted in his shirt. “You just came from work,” he said instead of asking.

“I did.” Janus kept his voice low and let his thoughts flow freely. Re was so much more coherent this visit, and the control of his flowers had been… different from before. “Ro reached out to me.”

Dandelions sprouted around him, tendrils creeping over his ankles and up his legs. Re trembled in his arms, shaking his head. “It didn’t hurt! It didn’t hurt either of us, I promise! Ro stayed outside the room the whole time, we just talked and played music and—“ His words fell into a babble, leaving only the fear in his thoughts as the flowers tightened their grip on Janus’ legs.

-“Re, I know,”- Janus didn’t bother with words, not with Re so close to the edge. -“I know,”- he repeated, carding his fingers through Re’s hair. No-one wanted to keep the brothers from each other but when Patton and Luc had needed six hours to calm Ro enough to stitch up his wounds from Re’s thorns…

Separation between the brothers had become increasingly required.

“No-one’s in trouble,” Janus promised. “Everything’s alright.”

“Really?” Re’s eyes were impossibly big.

“Really,” he said, smoothing back his hair.

Re’s eyes slipped shut and the ground softened beneath their feet. “Wanna cuddle?” he asked, smiling when Janus nodded.

Janus blinked and he was on his back, Re curled over his chest. “We could actually lie down, if you like,” he chuckled. “Not just in my mind.”

“Everything’s in your mind, Jannie,” he laughed, rich bells ringing out. “We’re just skipping the middleman.”

-

@imnotgrimimjustagrumpyreaper

[wolfprincesszola]

Echoes of 50 Chapter 9

As always, check the TWs and CWs in the masterlist. Logan reading the Communist Manifesto as a coping mechanism has to be one of my funniest character headcanons I've had about him. And again, the platonic Analogical takes my heart. Enjoy <3. ——————– Now Playing: I Knew You Once by Hollie Allen

<Masterlist>

<Previous Chapter> <Next Chapter> ——————–

It had been three days, four hours, fifteen minutes, and seven seconds since Logan had last talked to Patton. Since their last fight. Since Patton had walked out of the apartment with no answer.

After Roman and Virgil had walked back to Logan’s apartment, Logan had gotten a lot of stern yelling from Virgil for leaving them behind, but upon seeing Logan as a wreck, they both let up. Instead, they let him be. From what Logan had heard from Virgil, no one had contact with Patton since their fight. No one except Roman.

Logan felt hopeless for once in his life. He loved Patton, so much so that he was willing to change to express himself more. Patton clearly did too. There should be no reason that they were in the situation they were in now, but there was always something else underlying. Because of that, Logan stopped looking too much into anything. He repeated the same mundane schedule he used to repeat before he met Patton. Sleep. Coffee. Work. Cook. Prepare for tomorrow. Repeat. Logan began sleeping for longer times too. Logan stopped researching and instead, turned to reading books in his spare time. He read the Communist Manifesto and the Declaration of Independence 5 times within the same week. His condition had gotten so bad that one day, Virgil dragged Logan out of the apartment only to plop him down at Roman’s apartment.

“Fix him. Now.” Virgil demanded his boyfriend.

“How am I supposed to fix Mr. Info Dump here?” Roman scoffed, “I don’t even know what’s going on with him!”

“Exactly! Fix him.” Virgil sputtered out, staring at Logan. “You’re the only one that has contact with Pat.”

“He’s just as bad as Logan! How am I supposed to fix Logan when I can’t even fix our dear Pop?” Roman huffed as he stared at Logan.

“I can hear you two, you know.” Logan rolled his eyes, “And for your information, I am perfectly fine.”

“Are you reading the Communist Manifesto for the sixth time this week?”

“Seventh, thank you very much.”

“Good god.” Roman stared in horror, “At least Pat’s coping through stress-eating ice cream. This seems unusually worse.”

“It is.” Virgil deadpanned, “Did you two break up or something?”

“I assumed we were in a fight, but considering the fact that Patton is not reaching out to me, nor is he reaching out to anyone, I guess you could assume that much. Maybe there is some truth to it.”

“But why? You two love each other!” Roman gasped, “I told Vir that if you two had split up that I’d never believe in true love again.” “Do not be so dramatic, Prince. We will both move on from this.” Logan rolled his eyes.

“Are you two cursed to be Mia and Sebastian? Summer and Tom?” Roman lamented.

“Must you be so theatrical, Roman?” Logan sighed, “I have already reported that I am fine.”

“Are you though? Are you?” Virgil began to observe Logan before shrugging, “Yeah, I’ve got nothing. Ro, call your brother. He sees L during work. Maybe he’s different there.”

“I can still hear you two and no, Virge, I’m fine during work. I have always kept my personal and work life separate. You know that about me.”

“Let’s leave that up to Remus, shall we?” Virgil narrowed his eyes at his best friend.

Logan sighed as he let the couple do whatever they wished. He just continued to read. Remus and Janus came to Roman’s apartment not too long after.

“Now why have you called us up, Roman?” Janus sighed. Outside of work, he was different. He didn’t have his gloves on like he normally did and preferred to wear a more comfortable outfit than a suit.

“I didn’t ask for you! I asked for Remus.” Roman scoffed.

“Do you really want Remus’ help?” Janus raised an eyebrow at his husband, who was currently trying to hang upside down on the fire escape.

“Good point.” Virgil remarked before pointing to Logan reading in the corner, “Fix him.”

“Goodness gracious.” Janus sighed as he turned to see Logan, “Are you reading the Communist Manifesto again? Do you not find joy in other books? Any other book?”

“I simply have not bought any new ones yet.”

“What an awful coping mechanism.” Janus rolled his eyes as he grabbed a book from Roman’s bookshelf and placed it in Logan’s hands in place of the Communist Manifesto. “Read that instead.”

“A picture book?” Logan scoffed, “I am not 5.”

“You are also not a communist.” Janus pointed out, “Is this about the fact that he has yet to reveal the information needed about his boyfriend to me?”

“What information?” Roman raised an eyebrow.

“Of course you haven’t told that idiot.” Janus groaned, turning to Virgil, “I assume you know.”

“Patton has to be Patient 50.”

“He’s not sure about the evidence leading up to it.” Virgil stared at Logan before continuing, “But I don’t think it’s too important.”

“Of course it’s important! Have you seen the news about the convention?”

“With the mysterious sickness that took the Medeis by storm for a day? Of course I have.”

“Medeis said that there were ringing in their ears and that they all wanted to go to the same place. There was nothing shown besides the fact that some Medeis were shown to temporarily have no powers.”

“I am betting Logan knows more than he lets on about what happened. He’s just staying silent.”

Logan didn’t say anything to that, but he could tell that Janus was already reading him.

“Lie of omission.”

“Virgil, would you mind being a dear and staying here with Logan for me? I need to talk to Roman and Remus in the hallways.”

“I need to tell Roman about the research and get him on board. If I can get him to get the door open with Patton, I might be able to convince Patton to tell us the truth. Maybe that’ll fix Logan too, with whatever fight he’s having with the man.”

“Sure. Whatever.” Virgil rolled his eyes, “Just come back soon, okay?”

“No promises.” Janus sang as he walked out of the room. Roman and Remus followed suit, though Roman looked confused to say the least.

“You know what Janus is about to do, huh?’

“Not fully. They’re going to see Patton though.” Logan murmured as he glanced around for another sufficient book. Logan had been done with the picture book for a couple of minutes now and Janus had unfortunately taken the manifesto with him.

“I see.”

“How is he actually doing?”

Logan sighed as he realized that Roman didn’t read enough books for Logan to pick one that was even mildly interesting to read. He leaned back on the sofa he was sitting at and turned to Virgil, “I’m okay, Virge. Seriously.”

“I know, but you always say that.”

“I mean it this time, Virgil. Patton’s going through something right now and I can’t be there to help him through it. I told him I loved him. Maybe I scared him off, or maybe he’s scared of showing that back to me. I don’t believe we’ve broken up yet. I think he just needs some time to process what happened at the convention.”

“What happened at the convention?”

“I got confirmation that he is in fact Patient 50, though I have no idea what correlation he really has to the weapon. We ran into the man in the orange suit once more. His name is Phobus Graves.”

“Phobus?”

“Yes, like the god of fear and terror. At least the Latin spelling of the god. I guess it’s quite fitting considering how terrified Patton had been of him.”

“I feel like we should have seen it.”

“How could you? We were in a time manipulation void. Of course you wouldn’t have seen it.”

“Why didn’t you tell us sooner? Or at least me? I’m your best friend.”

“Because I wasn’t sure what to make of it.” Logan admitted, “To be honest, I’m not sure what to make of it now. I was really scared.”

“You? Scared?” Virgil raised an eyebrow, “I didn’t know you could feel, let alone feel scared.”

Logan rolled his eyes, “I lost my powers for a bit too. It ripped away a part of me.”

“Well, I’d assume so, considering the magic is literally within your blood.”

“Yeah.” Logan cleared his throat, “I just think Patton needs some time.”

“How much though? I hate seeing you like this.”

“Well, you are my best friend. It’s only natural to feel that way about someone you care about, especially platonically. But as for a timeframe? I’m not sure. I’m not even sure if Patton wants to bother me again.”

“I think you just need to wait and see, even if it’s really hard now. He loves you.”

“I know.”

“Then believe in that love, dumbass.” Virgil snorted, “Now come on. What’s another way we can get you to cope besides reading another dumb book for the umpteenth time?”

“Books are far from dumb!” Logan scoffed.

“Oh, sorry, forgive me.” Virgil mocked, “Come on, L, let’s do something.”

“I’d really like to see the jellyfish.”

“Let’s go then.” Virgil stood up, grabbing the keys to Roman’s apartment. He dragged Logan all the way to the aquarium until they had reached the jellyfish exhibit. Once they were there, Logan sighed as he stared at the jellyfish moving around.

“Thanks, Virge.”

“Don’t even mention it.” Virgil grinned as he nudged Logan, “That’s what best friends are for, right?”

“Yeah.” Logan let out a small laugh. “You’re right.”

He leaned his head against Virgil’s shoulder as they began to watch the jellyfish swim.

[fangirlwriting-stories]

Before I Go

Summary: Remus doesn't have a lot of time left, but he wants to give living his best shot anyway, and that includes fixing things with someone he never thought he'd see again.

Author's Note: Hi, yeah, if you couldn't tell from the death and noncon tags, this isn't exactly going to be a happy one. No false pretenses here, characters will die, nothing is fixed except for the things the characters fix themselves with their bare hands. That is not to say there is no hope involved, this is a story by me after all, but don't expect all good feelings from the ending.

Honestly I blame Rent. I saw Rent for the first time and it fucked. me. up. (positive), so I had to make my own catharsis. If you're looking for something to be mad at, be mad at the Rent musical. It's not my fault. Except for all of the ways that it totally is.

Anyway enjoy!

AO3 Link

Chapter One:

It is 3:00 on a Wednesday morning and Remus is hacking blood into the sink.  Janus woke up when he leapt out of bed and followed him into the bathroom, and is now rubbing his back, obviously just as exhausted as Remus is.  He has told Remus to shut up the few times that he’s actually tried to apologize, so even if Remus could speak around the blood coming out of his mouth, he wouldn’t say anything.  Or maybe he’d say “I love you.”  Because he does, he loves Janus so much sometimes it hurts almost as much as the actual physical pain that’s coming with the stupid blood he’s coughing up.

He manages a couple gasping breaths in between coughs, but he’s still weak in the knees by the time everything stops and he’s leaning his weight on the edge of the sink.

“Everything done coming out?” Janus murmurs from behind him.

“Never,” Remus says weakly.  “I’m gay, Janus.”

“Not at three in the goddamn morning, Remus,” Janus says, reaching out and pulling Remus’ arm over his shoulder.  He leads him to the toilet and helps him sit down, then heads back to the cabinet under the sink and pulls out disposable gloves and a washcloth.

He spends the next ten minutes wiping the blood from Remus’ mouth like he’s a toddler who got mush all over his face, and Remus is too exhausted to even feel embarrassed.  Finally, Janus helps him up and supports them both back over to the bed, then heads over to the other side of the room and grabs the bucket they’ve kept here since the coughing up blood started.  He sets it on the nightstand next to Remus and climbs into bed, immediately wrapping his arms around Remus from behind and starting to run a hand through his hair.

“I love you,” Remus murmurs, not having the strength to turn around.  Janus just hums in acknowledgement and replies “Go to sleep, Remus,” sounding halfway there himself.

Remus, however, lays there with his eyes open, despite the exhaustion begging him to shut his eyes.

This isn’t the first time he’s woken up in the middle of the night to cough up blood.  It is, however, becoming more common, and Remus is beginning to dread the day he’ll have to move into a hospital full time.  The idea is nauseating for more reasons than the actual nausea in his stomach.  Hospitals mean round-the-clock care from nurses who won’t stop looking at him like dying is his fault.  It means restricted access to Janus.  It means he’s that much closer to actual death.

And yes, he and Janus had agreed to focus on something else until it’s impossible to do so.  Remus doesn’t want to wander around like he’s already a ghost.  He wants to continue living while he’s still around to do it.  They cook fancy dinners and Remus writes songs, writes stories, kisses Janus until he can’t breathe.  They go to bars and drag shows and spray paint slogans on the side of the highway.  Remus refuses to die before he’s dead.

But this is the third time this month he’s coughed up blood, and one of these days he’s going to ruin the sheets.

Remus pulls himself gently out of Janus’ arms, and shushes him with gentle reassurances when Janus shifts and starts to wake up again.

Thankfully, Janus is tired enough to fall back asleep.  Remus looks down at him for a second before heading out of the bedroom, through the hallway, past the living room, and into the kitchen of their tiny ass apartment.

He picks up the phone and stands for a minute, listening to the dial tone as he catches his breath from the short walk from the bedroom.  Finally, he dials, pushing and pulling his finger in and out of the wound up cord as he does.  It’s only as he hits the last number that he remembers it’s three in the morning, but he also doesn’t care.

The phone rings four times, and Remus has almost resigned himself to leaving a “see ya, I’m dying” voicemail when someone picks up.

…

Roman hadn’t been excited to be woken up by a phone going off in the middle of the night since it had meant a snow day, but tonight was an especially bad one.  He was laying in bed in the t-shirt and boxers he’d pulled on in order to not have to sleep naked, curled up on the opposite side of the mattress from Clarissa.  He’d wanted to wait to process thoughts until he could get up and shower the next morning and shove all of last night into a box in the back of his head.

But then he was woken up by the ringing phone, and he groaned, rolled over in bed and buried his head back in the pillow.

“I’ve got it,” said Clarissa, who was much more awake than he was at any time of day.  She climbed out of bed and walked towards the kitchen, leaving the bedroom door open in her wake.

Roman vaguely heard her say something about “what is the meaning of this do you know what time it is” before he slipped back into sleep.

Unfortunately, it seemed Clarissa wasn’t able to handle it, because suddenly Roman was waking up again to her shaking his shoulder.

Roman jerked upright into a sloppy resemblance of a seating position and looked blearily at Clarissa.  Her mouth was pressed tight into a line and her face showed barely concealed disgust.  Roman was about to ask her what was the matter and why she looked like that, but then she answered both questions at once.

“It’s your brother,” she said, pointing behind her back towards the kitchen.

Roman blinked a couple of times, trying to make sense of her sentence.  “Calling at three in the morning?” he managed.

Clarissa just nodded, lips pursed.

Roman shook his head a couple times to try and wake himself up, then pulled himself out from under the covers, headed out through the living room and over towards the kitchen.  If it was Remus, and Clarissa hadn’t hung up on him as soon as she realized, that meant it was bad.

Roman picked up the phone from where it had been laid on the counter and put it up to his ear.  “Remus?”

“Roman, hey,” Remus said.  His voice sounded rough, like he’d swallowed sandpaper, which, knowing Remus, was very possible.

“Remus,” Roman repeated, trying to gather up some sort of disgust or anger in case Clarissa was listening from the other room.  It wasn’t that hard, it was the middle of the night and Remus had called him out of nowhere.  “What the hell are you calling me for?”

Remus was silent for a second, which was so unusual that Roman looked down at the phone, almost concerned.  “Remus?”

“So uh,” Remus said, and suddenly his voice sounded weak, which was definitely not like Remus, and now Roman was actually concerned.  “You know how you always said being openly gay was gonna get me killed one day?”

“What?”

“Well, you were, um, you were right.  Just… not in the way you thought.”

Roman gripped the phone tighter.  “Remus, what’s going on?”

Remus was quiet for another moment.

“…I’m dying,” he whispered finally.

Roman squeezed the phone so hard he heard it squeak in his hand.  “When?”

“Couple months, probably.”

Neither of them said anything for a minute, instead standing there listening to each other breathe through the phone.

“Roman?” Remus said finally, and Roman hated the shake he heard in his voice.

“Yeah?” Roman whispered.

“Can you come here?  Please?”

“Where are you?” Roman said before he really thought it through.

“New York.”

Roman huffed a laugh.  “Yeah.  Yeah, that… that makes sense.”

“I’ll give you the address.”

Roman grabbed a pen and paper and wrote it down as Remus said it to him.  “I’ll be there as soon as I can,” he said.  “Probably later this week.”

“Thanks,” Remus said, and his voice was still shaking and Roman wanted it to stop.

“Remus,” Roman said, but stopped after that when he realized he didn’t have anything else to say.

Remus was quiet for a minute, then seemed to realize this too.  “I’ll see you,” he said, and hung up.

Roman pressed the phone to his forehead and listened to the dial tone.

“You’re going?”

Roman squeezed his eyes shut without moving.  “He’s my brother, Clarissa.”

“Since when?”

“I don’t know,” Roman said.  He’d say something about ‘since now, since he just told me he was dying,’ but that would be a lie, because Roman was pretty sure Remus had never stopped being his brother.  No matter what he’d said to their parents.

“Roman,” Clarissa said, and Roman heard her footsteps walking forward and he did not want her to touch him right now.

He turned and walked quickly past her, back towards their bedroom.

“Roman!” Clarissa said, starting after him.

Roman went straight for their closet and pulled out a suitcase, then dragged it over to their dresser and pulled open drawers, starting to shove clothing inside.

Clarissa’s voice came from the doorway a second later.  “Roman, I think you’re being a little ridiculous.”

“I’m being ridiculous?” Roman snapped, turning to glare at Clarissa, which seemed to surprise her.

She recovered quickly.  “Yes!  You’re rushing off like it’s the end of the world!”

“He’s dying, Clarissa,” Roman said, standing and realizing in a way he often didn’t that he was several inches taller than her.

Clarissa rolled her eyes.  “Well, whose fault is that?”

Roman’s eyes widened slightly, though he wasn’t actually that surprised.  He still didn’t say anything though, just stared at Clarissa for a couple seconds.

Eventually, she seemed to find it a little uncomfortable, and took a step back.  “What, am I wrong?” she asked, trying to glare up at Roman and falling short.

Roman just looked at her for another second.  “Shame on you,” he said quietly, and this time Clarissa’s eyes widened in what was an obvious shock.

Roman turned and started packing again.

...

Chapter Two