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The feeling in Roman’s heart isn’t anger, or rage. It’s not even a milder emotion like annoyance or frustration. It’s sheer, unbridled despair.
Very reasonably, he gets down on his hands and knees in the middle of the street, curls up into a tiny ball, and begins to weep.
Behind him, the source of all of his mortal anguish is swinging a spiked steel bat against a crumpled lamp post to the rhythm of “Cbat” by Scottish DJ Hudson Mohawke. “Oh, lighten up,” Remus cackles, punctuating his words with the harsh metallic clang of metal on metal. “It’s not like we’re going to starve.”
Roman ignores him, crying harder.
“Wow,” Remus remarks, “You haven’t cried this much since you realized that no internet meant no more Disney, like you don’t have the entire discography etched into your sensitive baby soul.” He starts to sing in his nasally, warbling voice, “Someday my prince will come—” before dissolving into hysterical giggling, repeating the word “come” over and over again.
Covering his ears, Roman presses his forehead into the warm asphalt of the street and chokes on a sob. Hot tears stream down his face, streaking through the accumulated grime and dust that he’s given up on scrubbing away. He’s endured five years of apocalyptic torment, five years of struggling against his brother’s best efforts to get them both killed, five years of misery and loneliness and never ever finding a place where both of them fit. Where they aren’t kicked out because Remus set an wheelchair-bound grandma’s tent on fire again; where they aren’t almost executed by a roving gang who was convinced Remus had stolen from them (he had); where they don’t almost freeze to death in the throes of winter because Remus got distracted and forgot to keep the fire burning while they slept.
Really, there’s a common denominator here. If Roman had been by himself, none of those scenarios would have unfolded the same way. He’s charming, he’s handsome and clever, he could have easily talked his way into the good graces of any number of communities that they’ve passed through over the years. But Remus’ presence is a stumbling block and Roman is blind, blind, blind.
And now, five years after the world ended, they’re going to starve to death because Remus fed their last bag of granola to a pigeon.
Said unending nightmare is still yammering on in the background, bastardizing Roman’s favorite Disney songs, which is just slathering salt in the festering wound. Roman wishes that a very large asteroid would plummet to earth and crush both of them, to get it all over with.
Eventually, as Roman keeps his eyes squeezed shut and his hands over his ears, the muffled noise tapers off. The leather toe of a boot nudges his head, none too gently, but he ignores it, curling more tightly in on himself. Remus can fuck off and die for all he cares. He couldn’t be satisfied with destroying his own chances of survival, no, he had to destroy Roman’s too. Well, Roman is done. He’s officially giving up. The apocalypse can take him in whatever manner it sees fit.
He can’t be sure how long he stays like that, but when the world-shattering despondency finally ebbs to little more than exhausted gloom, he finds the strength to lower his hands and slowly uncurl, prying his puffy eyes open as he goes. The fading rays of sun have slipped into dusky twilight, casting the empty street in low shadows; the rows of abandoned houses lining the road seem to leer unhappily in the darkness.
Remus is sitting cross-legged a few yards away, looking uncharacteristically solemn. His bat is spread across his knees. A far cry from his earlier cavalier attitude, his lips are pinched together, eyebrows furrowed—for a long moment, they just stare at each other in silence.
When Remus opens his mouth, Roman holds up a hand to stop him. “I’m not in the mood,” he says, his voice coming out as a thin croak. Ugh, if he sounds this bad, he doesn’t even want to think about what he must look like—his hair must be ruined from lying on the ground for so long. He pushes himself into a sitting position, drawing his knees up to his chest. Remus, blessedly, is quiet for once.
Roman’s mind is blank. He’s always been the one making the plans, plotting the routes, rationing the supplies, but he can’t seem to force himself to focus. He’s stuck on their packs, light with the utter void of food, and the total hopelessness that forms a cavernous gulf beneath him. If only this metaphorical canyon would swallow him up for real.
Nocturnal insects hum in the trees, gathering strength.
“Ro?” Remus tries hesitantly, sounding unnerved by Roman’s continued silence. “Come on, it’s fine. It’s… dammit, Roman, you know comfort isn’t my strong suit! It’s not a suit at all, more like eating fire ants, you know? Extremely pissed off fire ants. Roman. Roman. Roman.”
Roman tips his head forward and presses his face into his knees.
“Roman. Roman, even a cock in your mouth couldn’t keep you quiet—what do you want me to say?” Remus’ ramblings get louder, desperation ramping up. “I’m not sorry! You know how I am! You’re supposed to keep me reigned in! You saw how stupid that pigeon looked, can you really blame me? You can’t!”
Oh, Roman can and Roman will. Roman is. But despite himself, he can never shun Remus permanently; as aggravating as he is, as awful and impulsive and impossible, he’s still Roman’s other half, his mirror and his foil. The Cain to his Abel. He would be incomplete without him.
He lifts his head, glaring, and Remus’ stressed expression cracks into a manic, relieved grin. He scoots closer to Roman, pressing their shoulders together and vibrating with all the pent-up force of an excitable golden retriever.
“Are you mad?” Remus asks, eyes wide and face very close to Roman’s.
“Yes,” Roman says. “Furious. I don’t think I’ve ever been angrier.”
“Even more than that time I put you up for sale on Amazon?”
“More.”
“What about when I remodeled your side of the room?”
“You shredded my wallpaper with a rake and painted the words ‘KILL YOURSELF’ in red acrylic paint above my bed,” Roman corrects. “And I’m still more mad about this.”
“Wow,” Remus says. He folds his arms and props them up on Roman’s shoulder, leaning his entire body weight onto Roman and nearly toppling them both over. His expression is open, guileless, but there’s a vanishing hint of real guilt underneath all of it that Roman clings to, his only defense against a storm of fratricidal urges.
He sighs, allowing himself to lean back into Remus. “We need to find a place to stay for the night.”
“What about food?”
“Since you squandered our dinner on a bird,” Roman says through gritted teeth, “we’ll have to cross that bridge in the morning. We’re nearly in the country now, after all. There’s bound to be an abandoned farm somewhere out here that we can scavenge from.”
Remus pouts. “It’s gonna take us so long to find anything like that.”
And it’s not a guarantee either, Roman thinks. In all honesty, he’s out of ideas. He doesn’t know what they’re going to do. He doesn’t know where they’re going to find any more food. He doesn’t even know if there is any viable farmland outside town limits. But now that he’s said it out loud, he has to commit to it, otherwise Remus will sense weakness and it’ll be all over from there. He gathers his strength, both physical and mental, and starts to get to his feet, hauling Remus up along with him.
“Come on, you human trash can,” he groans, yanking on Remus’ limp arm. Dick, purposefully making himself too heavy to lift. “Come on. I’m getting eaten alive by mosquitoes. I can’t walk around covered in itchy welts, I’ll never get a boyfriend that way.”
“You’re never getting a boyfriend.” Remus snickers. “All the hot dudes are sucking and fucking their way through the ranks at the Mormon compounds to earn a dozen wives.”
“Okay! That’s enough out of you.” Roman turns and begins to stomp down the street, leaving Remus to his own devices. Every day, he wonders if it was even worth it to stop Remus from killing himself by sticking a knife in an electrical socket when they were preteens. Would have saved him a hell of a lot of trouble.
Roman sleeps badly on the rotted sofa in the abandoned house they shelter in for the night, which is par for the course, but it does mean he wakes up in the morning even grumpier than the night before.
(Remus kvetches about being hungry exactly once before Roman nearly kills him in a fit of maniacal fury, shutting down that production before it can really get going.)
They pack their bags and set off deeper into the town.
Out here, on the outskirts of a little scuff mark of a place that was probably a shithole even before it was abandoned, there is no one and nothing around to disturb them. The cracks in the streets and sidewalks have ruptured to reveal hardy shoots of weeds and wildflowers, vines coiling around forgotten road signs and crawling up the dusty facades of closed-up storefronts. The blazing summer sun gleams high and mighty overhead. The air is warm and laden with the sweet, wild scents of a June untamed, lifting Roman’s spirits with the promise of more green days to come even as his empty stomach aches.
Remus travels the same way he always does, dodging and weaving intermittently around Roman, perpetually unable to settle on a pace. At turns he trails behind or darts ahead, often becoming distracted and forcing Roman to call his name, beckoning him onward.
They break into a shabby little corner store in hopes of finding any food left, but of course there’s nothing that isn’t covered in a thick patina of mold by now. Instead, Roman nabs an area map from behind the counter to guide their way. There are farmhouses out here, but it’ll be a lot of walking before they run across them.
Eventually, the spotty suburbia of the town fades into a rolling sprawl of forested countryside, vast swaths of rustling green pooling away from them in all directions. The gravel drive that stretches out here has mostly been eaten away by the surrounding verdure, so Roman plots out their route based mainly on his own intuition about where the road might have once been.
They reach the four hour mark before his body really starts to complain about him missing breakfast. As meager as their meals usually are, Roman isn’t used to eating nothing—even on their toughest days, they always had a morsel of something to snack on. But now there’s nothing. The growing heat worsens his malaise, forcing him to strip off his shirt and roll up his pant legs to escape the sweltering warmth.
At one point, he catches sight of Remus, also shirtless (ugh) and mopping at his face with a neon green bandanna, reaching down and pulling up fistfuls of grass, which he then shoves into his mouth and starts chewing.
Spotting Roman’s scandalized look, Remus huffs and spits out a glob of dirt. “Oh, come on,” he says. “It’s either grass or mud, and I thought you’d freak out less about grass. I’m hungry!”
“And whose fault is that,” Roman says dangerously, and Remus smartly skips out of immediate grabbing range.
Roman will not lower himself to eating grass. Remus is a freak and a weirdo and Roman will not stoop to his level. No matter how much his stomach growls. No matter how weak and shaky he feels. No matter how much more tempting it feels every second that he watches Remus chewing and swallowing anything.
He won’t. He won’t. He’s above such acts of undignified desperation.
Sometime mid afternoon, while they’re resting and carefully sipping water beneath the shade of a towering tree, Roman eyes a clump of particularly vivid green grass by his ankle.
After glancing back and forth to ensure that his brother is too preoccupied with torturing a grub several feet away to notice, Roman reaches down, tears out the spot of grass, and quickly stuffs it all in his mouth, his whole face screwed up in abject disgust even as he forces himself to chew and swallow.
It tastes… like grass. Not appetizing, but not nauseatingly offensive either.
His hunger doesn’t abate by much, but he feels better to have anything in his stomach at all.
From that point forward, he loses much of his inhibitions towards eating random greenery, which Remus is infuriatingly smug about. He avoids strange plants and berries, unwilling to accidentally poison himself, but he does chew on a few tree leaves as they hike even deeper into the forest, trying to occupy himself with the motions to distract from how hungry he really is.
Looking at the map of this whole area that they’d procured from an empty park ranger station, Roman knows there should be a few old farm houses peppered throughout this hilly section of the state. He just… can’t quite be sure where they are relative to those houses.
“We’re lost,” Remus crows gleefully, peering over his shoulder at the map.
“We are not lost.”
“We’re so lost!”
Roman shoves him so hard that he staggers to the side and trips, hitting the ground still hacking laughter. The sunlight streaming through the trees overhead dapples him in golden spots as Roman snarls, spinning away sharply on his heel to peruse the map on his own.
They’ve traveled at least six miles from the town on foot over the last few hours, which means they should be somewhere in the vicinity of the farm marked with a blue triangle. He doesn’t know what the blue triangle means, or why it’s blue, or why it’s a triangle. He only knows that there should be a house here and he doesn’t see one.
“Did you ever consider,” Remus offers, sprawled out on his back in the dirt, “that maybe you’re just shit at navigating?”
“You should be addicted to shutting the fuck up.”
Remus brightens, grinning. He twirls his mustache around his pinky finger lecherously. “You wanna fuck me so bad—”
Roman snatches up a rotting log and hurls it in his direction with a wordless yell of frustration. He tosses down the map, almost stomps on it before remembering that it’s their only reference, and then resigns himself to just storming off in a huff instead. He’s hot and sweaty and his mouth is dry and he hasn’t been able to taste anything but chlorophyll for hours and he needs some space to clear his head and wallow in his miserable hunger away from his horrible, terrible, no good very bad evil twin brother.
Trudging through the undergrowth, probably accumulating a million ticks, he tries to focus on breathing slowly and evenly to calm himself down. It feels like every time he’d forced down his petty side or quashed his more waspish instincts over the years for the sake of pleasing others is catching up to him all at once, leaving him far more ill-tempered than the situation really calls for.
He just needs to find this stupid farm and then the triumph of achieving something will override his unhappiness. What a foolproof plan!
Eventually, his pace slows to an aimless wandering, steady but directionless. I won’t go too far from Remus, he tells himself, picking up his foot to clamber over an old, dead oak. The shade provided by the trees works wonders to cool him down, vastly improving his mood and wiping away the angsty fog clouding his head.
This has just been a bad day. They’ve had worse days before and they’ll likely have worse to come. Honestly, this really isn’t as awful as five years ago, when the lights first went out. Roman will take this over that nightmarish uncertainty any day.
Loath as he is to admit it—because it means admitting that he agrees with Remus—the apocalypse, in many ways, has been an improvement over his life before. Before, he had always been at the whims of his own insecurity, flinging himself into one stage production after another to distract from the gaping hole inside him that no amount of audience praise could ever fill. He’d lived a life as fragile and fake as an origami crane. Enter the end of the world, and suddenly there was nothing left to do but keep himself and Remus safe—abruptly, every hollow social obligation, every soul-sucking burden, every late-stage capitalist structure was simply gone. And what a relief it was.
But Roman does miss aspects of life before. He misses performing for an audience who genuinely cares, and not just Remus, who can’t help but offer running scathing commentary on all of Roman’s ideas; he misses the comfort of air conditioning, of course, and central heating; most of all, he misses being able to ignore the ever-present dread that one misstep on his part could get both him and Remus killed. At least under capitalism there had been a sense of blissful ignorance.
In truth, the constant vigilance of the last five years has worn him down. He craves stability, comfort, a home to return to at the end of the day. Every place he’d tried to secure that for them, Remus had gone and ruined it.
Roman shakes his head in an attempt to dislodge the melancholy, pushing aside a low tree limb as he goes. He finally looks up from his feet and finds himself at the edge of the treeline.
To his surprise, the trees here fall away into a wide, empty plain of grass, rolling away into the far distance. The hill slopes gently upwards, leading to a plateau where he spots… a fence? A trellis of vines weaves up over a wrought-iron gate, beyond which lies—
The farm, he realizes, excitement swelling inside him. He turns back to the denser wood and calls, “Remus! I found it!”
“Huh?” Remus’ voice floats back to him, much farther than he’d realized.
“Follow my voice!” Roman shouts.
After several minutes of yelling back and forth, spooking all the wildlife, Remus crashes through the trees and nearly bowls over Roman, eyes gleaming when he catches sight of the farmhouse.
“Score! Last one there has to eat a live crab!” he crows gleefully, shoving past Roman and bolting up the hill.
“You—motherfuck—” Roman sputters, scrambling after him. “There are no crabs this far inland!”
Thankfully, while Remus dissected tadpoles in the high school bio lab, Roman was running with the cross country team, and he quickly overtakes his brother, laughing triumphantly at the look on Remus’ face as he darts past him, hopping over the white fence and landing hard on the soft grass of the house’s front lawn, breathless with adrenaline. He hurries up the brick walkway, skimming past the beautiful flowering beds beneath the windows and the conspicuously well-maintained facade in favor of reaching the front door and getting his hand around the old silver handle.
“Hah!” he announces proudly, turning back to grin at Remus, who’s gasping and bent double by the gate. “Now you have to eat a live crab.”
“Like—that’s even—a punishment,” Remus heaves, straggling up the steps and joining Roman by the door. Roman sighs. There’s really no winning with him.
“Mark my words, I’ll think of something someday that will defeat you.” Roman twists the handle and pushes open the door, stepping inside. Remus wiggles past him and into the living room of the abandoned farmhouse, wolf whistling when he sees the state of the interior.
Bafflingly, it’s pristine. Roman stares in open disbelief at cream-colored walls, sleek spruce floorboards, various paintings and framed portraits hung in pleasing arrangements upon every vertical surface, a rustic fireplace with a rich, dark mantel, sconces nailed into the walls where half-melted candles are nestled—it’s a miraculously untouched paradise.
“Holy shit,” Remus says, smiling in a way that screams trouble. He creeps over to the dining room around the right corner, swinging his bat merrily in his left hand as he dances his right over the dinner table. He plucks a glass bowl from the center and lifts it up with a gasp. “Roman, there’s those strawberry grandma candies!” He merrily pops some into his mouth in demonstration, wrapper and all.
Roman is frozen in the doorway, unable to believe what he’s looking at. The air in here smells deliciously savory, like simmering spices, and from his vantage point he can see that each of the adjoining hallways are similarly decked out in the memorabilia of those who lived here before. The photographs on the walls all feature different combinations of the same three people, perhaps the previous owners. Remus’ clatterings grow fainter as he ventures deeper into the house, leaving Roman alone in the quiet foyer.
Pulling his shirt back on, Roman frowns. Something doesn’t feel right about this. Where’s the dust, the mold, the nesting animals? None of this is in line with his knowledge of post-apocalyptic houses. He crouches down, swiping his fingertips across the ground, but they come away clean.
As if they’ve been swept very recently.
Just as Roman is about to call Remus back, someone in the house screams.
Roman’s blood runs cold. He hurries after the noise, skidding around the corner and down a hallway where he spots Remus in an open doorway, his bat raised threateningly at someone inside a room that Roman can’t see.
He grabs Remus by the shoulder and yanks him back, ignoring his loud protests, and quickly maneuvers in front of him.
The room is baby blue and cozily decorated, all soft stuffed animals and plush carpeting, but his attention is drawn immediately to one man cowering against the wall, eyes wide with fright, and another standing protectively in front of him, a pocket knife in his hand.
“Woah, woah,” Roman exclaims as he instantly throws his hands up. “Easy there, friend. We come in peace.”
“Peace?” the man with the knife says harshly, face cold with fury. “You and your companion have invaded our home and threatened my partner. I think I have every right to defend my family in such a situation.”
Roman lowers his hands, turning to glare at Remus. “You what?”
“Don’t look at me,” Remus argues, voice pitched with faux innocence, “they surprised me!”
“That doesn’t mean you draw a weapon on a stranger!”
“How was I supposed to know they weren’t serial killers? We still don’t know!”
“I cannot believe you—!” Roman starts to shriek, before the knife-wielding stranger abruptly straightens in his periphery and clears his throat, silencing the twins.
“Excuse me,” he says, instilling hitherto undreamt levels of curt displeasure into three short syllables. “I’m going to have to ask that you either calm yourselves or promptly exit this house.”
Roman takes a deep breath, clapping a hand over Remus’ mouth before he can continue. He forces a small, strained smile. “You have my sincerest apologies,” he says, bowing his head briefly. “For the behavior of my brother here, as well as for my own less-than-polite conduct. We hadn’t realized this abode was still occupied when we arrived, and came seeking only to replenish our meager provisions.” He takes a step back, giving both of the homeowners more space, and not-so gently nudging Remus back as well. He makes eye contact with the other man, the one in the incredibly soft-looking sweater who’s still peering over the knife-clad one’s shoulder, and allows his smile to grow wider and gentler. “Again, I’m very sorry if my brother frightened you. He can be overwhelming, but he’s harmless.”
“It’s okay,” the man replies, returning Roman’s smile. He puts a hand on his partner’s arm, pushing the knife down so it’s pointed at the floor and not at the twins. “I admit, I didn’t expect all bat when I woke up this morning, but you didn’t actually hurt me.” Remus snorts.
The one with the knife turns and gives his partner an exhausted look. “This is not the time for puns, Patton.”
“If it were up to you, it’d knife-r be time for puns,” the man—Patton—laughs, winking at Roman in a way that makes his knees weak. He takes the pocket knife from his partner and closes it with a snap before stepping in front, sticking out his hand for Roman to shake. His smile could outshine the sun. “I think we just got off on the wrong foot, kiddo. My name is Patton, but you can call me Dad!”
Telegraphing his movements so Patton’s frowning partner doesn’t blow a gasket, Roman reaches out and firmly grasps Patton’s hand, shaking it. “It is an absolute pleasure. I’m Roman, and my brother here is Remus. We’re very sorry for invading your lovely home.”
“Aw, shucks. A lot of hard work has gone into this old thing!” Patton looks up at the ceiling fondly. “Me and Logan,” he gestures to his glowering, bespectacled compatriot, “have been living on the farm since before the electricity went out. We’ve had to change a lot of things, but we’ve made a good life out here.”
“It’s wonderful,” Roman says sincerely. “And very impressive. I wouldn’t mind a tour, if you were amenable.”
“Oh, of course!” Patton starts to move towards the hallway, but Logan grabs his sleeve, pulling him back.
“Patton,” he says tersely, “we don’t know these people. It would be inadvisable to wholeheartedly trust them at this point.” He locks eyes with Roman, who tries not to quail under their deep blue intensity. It’s wrong to be attracted to people who hate you, he reminds himself, but the reminder has a net zero effect on his growing interest for every second that Logan stares at him like that. “You said you arrived seeking to replenish your supplies. What exactly do you need?”
“Ah—well, food and water, primarily. Medical supplies wouldn’t be remiss either.” Roman tries for another smile, but he knows this one falls flat.
Logan’s gaze is critical and searching. Then, finding whatever he was looking for in Roman’s face, he nods once, sharply. “I will restock whatever supplies you may require. After that, you can leave in equanimity.”
“Logan,” Patton protests, but the man simply shakes his head, silencing him.
“Follow me,” he instructs, pushing past everyone and disappearing down the hall. Remus trails gamely after him, but Roman lingers for a moment in the room with Patton, shuffling uncertainly.
“I’m sorry about him,” Patton says, flapping a hand in the direction of where Logan had stalked off. “He’s really protective over us. Our third, Janus, I think he’s by the lake—well, let’s just say we’re lucky your brother didn’t pull a bat on him.” He laughs, then adds in a conspiratorial whisper, “His cane unfolds into a sword.”
Roman’s eyes widen. Okay, that’s it, he’s in love with all of these people. “I would be deeply, deeply honored to meet him.”
“Here, I’ll walk you to the kitchen, then we’ll see where Jan’s at.”
They go to the kitchen, where Logan is assembling a plethora of canned foods; beside him, Remus is perched on the countertop, swinging his heels and watching Logan move throughout the small space with abject fascination. Uh oh. That can’t bode well.
“Logan,” Patton calls, drawing the man’s attention, “I’m gonna go get Janus, okay?”
“If you believe that’s a good idea,” Logan replies without turning around.
Patton smiles at Roman, pats him on the shoulder, and then vanishes into the house. A moment later, they hear the back door clang shut as he goes into the backyard.
Leaning in the doorway, Roman inadvertently joins his brother in watching Logan. His hands are deft and careful as he pulls items off the shelves, calluses on his fingers marking where he’s done frequent manual labor; an outdoorsy man, Roman can get behind it. Unfortunately, it seems like Remus can also get behind it—he’s leaning into Logan’s personal space, who doesn’t seem to notice the intrusion, and eyeing him like a particularly intriguing piece of meat. This is the same look that Remus gives roadkill, as well as his spiked bat when he’s polishing it, so Roman shudders to see it directed at a person.
“So,” Remus drawls, waggling his eyebrows, “you’re into men.”
Roman buries his face in his hands.
“Yes,” Logan says. “Is that a problem?”
“Oh, no. Not at all. In fact, it’s the opposite of a problem.”
Logan seems confused. “I fail to see how my sexuality is beneficial to you.”
The gleeful look on Remus’ face would terrify anyone who knows him, which Logan doesn’t. “I can think of a few ways it could be beneficial to both of us.”
“Ah. You’re trying to express that you are also attracted to men. Is this an attempt to find commonality between us in hopes of establishing a friendship?”
“I’d like to find something else between us—”
“Okay!” Roman interrupts loudly, cutting off his brother with a murderous look. “Logan,” he says desperately, “tell me about this house. How long have you all lived here?”
“Nearly two decades now.” Logan stacks a few cans of beans into a neat row. “We were married relatively young, and bought this farm soon after. We didn’t meet Janus until a year and two months after the geomagnetic storms first overloaded the global grid.” His flat, guarded expression doesn’t change as he talks, but the tenor of his voice does shift slightly, gaining a tender edge that reveals the depths of his affection for the other two. Roman, ever the hopeless dreamer, almost swoons at the romanticism of it all.
Then his vision goes strange and spotty as he realizes that he’s swooning for a totally different reason. He unsteadily grabs the nearest surface—a shelf—to anchor himself, ears ringing; turns out, nearly five hours of hiking non stop in the sun with nothing in his stomach but grass might have some adverse effects after all.
Mouth dry, he takes a step forward to do—something? Get someone’s attention? Cry out like a fainting Victorian maiden? Regardless of his intentions, he doesn’t make it past that first step before everything goes dark.
Whatever scene Patton had expected to walk in on when he finished fetching Janus, it certainly hadn’t been this: Roman, laid out on the couch in a sprawl of long limbs and looking utterly disoriented; Remus, still shirtless as when he first sauntered in (Patton isn’t blushing), rifling through one of their drawers across the room, totally uninterested in his brother; and most surprising of all is Logan, who had been so aloof and cold with them earlier, kneeling by Roman’s side with a water bottle, forehead creased in ill-disguised concern.
“My, what has everyone in a tizzy?” Janus murmurs behind Patton, mismatched eyes scanning the room. He’d been fishing by the lake when Patton had told him about their new guests and it shows—he’s wearing a wide-brim straw hat, a long, flowing yellow skirt, and a white cotton button-up that has the top three buttons undone in a distinctly intentional way.
“Hey, what’s going on?” Patton asks, stepping forward to peer down at Roman worriedly. “What happened?”
“He collapsed,” Logan says shortly. “I believe it’s from low blood sugar.”
“Oh, yeah, we ran out of food yesterday,” Remus snickers in the corner. “I fed our granola to a pigeon.”
“I hate you, and I’m fine,” Roman mutters, waving them off as he struggles to sit up. “I’m—I’m terribly sorry, I don’t mean to—impose—”
Before Patton can do anything, Logan firmly places a hand on Roman’s chest and forces him back down into the couch cushions, scowling. “You cannot possibly impose any further than you already have.” He turns to Patton, jaw set. “Patton, please get me a wet washcloth. Janus, if you feel up to it, would you mind getting me as many high-sugar items from the kitchen as you can? Enough for both Roman and Remus, please.”
“Sure, order me around like a lowly foot soldier,” Janus sniffs, but he goes.
Patton hurries off to the bathroom to grab a washcloth, which he then dips into the ice water they keep in the cooler beneath the sink. Gosh, he hopes Roman is okay! He doesn’t know him very well just yet, but he thinks they could be really good friends if they tried; his brother might be a different story, but Patton is willing to try no matter what. And he has a sneaking suspicion that Logan won’t be able to say no to letting the twins stay now that he’s getting to play nurse; there’s no quicker way into Logan’s heart than letting him take care of you.
When he returns to the living room, he finds Remus also curled up on the couch, crammed in between the arm and Roman’s folded knees. Now that he can really see both of them, they don’t look too hot. Roman is trembling, eyes still dazed, while Remus looks pale and slightly sick. Patton’s instincts tell him to smother them with affection, but he holds himself back for now. They don’t need mother henning right now, they need Logan’s medical knowledge.
He hands the wet rag to Logan, who nods at him in thanks, and then sits down cross-legged by the couch. Logan folds up the rag and presses it to Roman’s forehead, sternly instructing, “Hold that right there.” Roman obeys with a shaky sigh.
Patton suppresses a smile. Oh, yeah. They’re here to stay.
Janus comes back into the room bearing an armful of dried fruit strips, a pitcher of apple juice, and a bottle of honey. He sets all of this down where Logan can reach it. “Your grace,” he says sarcastically, bowing as he retreats, but Patton grabs the hem of his skirt and beckons him to sit instead of leaving. He sighs but capitulates.
Logan pours out a glass of apple juice and thrusts it into Remus’ hands. “Drink,” he orders, then hands the fruit strips to Roman along with the honey. “Fast-acting carbohydrates are the best immediate remedy for hypoglycemia,” he says, popping the honey cap and drizzling a generous amount onto a piece of dried pear. He holds this piece up to Roman’s lips, waiting until he opens his mouth, and then perfunctorily feeding it to him by hand, not noticing Roman’s steadily darkening blush or adorably bewildered expression.
Leaning back on his palms, Janus smirks up at Remus, who gazes back at him with equal challenge. “I hear you broke into my house and frightened the living daylights out of our dear Patton,” he says airily. “I don’t suppose you have a satisfactory explanation for such impolite behavior?”
“Oh, I never do,” Remus says after a generous gulp of apple juice. “There is no rhyme or reason to what I do, I just do.” Janus looks delighted.
“There really isn’t,” Roman says tiredly. He opens his mouth and accepts another honeyed piece of fruit from Logan, looking so bashful and small that Patton very badly wants to pinch his cheeks and maybe give him eyelash kisses.
Beside him, Janus seems to be thinking along similar lines, briefly glancing over at Patton before a careful smile creeps across his face. He slips his hand into Patton’s and squeezes once, purposeful, then says, “Logan, dear, I don’t think Roman is well enough to leave before dinner. They should at least stay for a full meal before we send them on their way.”
Logan looks at Janus, then at the twins, considering. “Well, I suppose that would be reasonable,” he concedes, drawing back, much to Roman’s obvious disappointment. He clears his throat and dusts himself off, rising swiftly to his feet. “If you begin to feel faint again, do not hesitate to call for me,” he tells Roman. “Continue to snack on the food we have provided and try not to overexert yourself, either of you. I need to harvest the zucchini for dinner.” With that, he turns on his heel and leaves, clearly maxed out on his empathy meter for the day.
“Bye Logan!” Patton calls.
“He loves that zucchini more than us,” Janus laments, putting a delicate hand over his forehead in abject grief. Patton giggles and picks up his hand, kissing his knuckles.
“Yuck,” says Remus, grimacing at them. “Pfaugh.”
“Ignore him,” says Roman, chewing smugly on a pear slice. “He genuinely cries over werewolf-vampire erotica and his favorite scene in Edward Scissorhands was the ice sculpture scene.”
“Shut your mouth before I cut out your tongue and taxidermy it.”
“Your knowledge of taxidermy is cursory at best—”
“Your mom is cursory—”
“We have the same mom you absolute bitch—”
As the twins start to sling insults back and forth with vibrant familiarity, Patton chuckles and leans into Janus. “Whaddaya think?” he asks, knocking their heads together gently. “Can we keep ‘em?”
Janus raises an eyebrow. “Well, okay. But you’ll have to promise to feed and water them, and take them outside even when it’s snowing, and—”
“Jan!” Patton scolds fondly, lightly smacking his shoulder.
“Alright, alright, I’m done. But yes,” he muses, “I suppose we have to keep them now, since Logan’s gone and gotten himself attached.”
“Just Logan, huh?”
“Mm-hm.” Janus cuts his eyes away, avoiding Patton’s knowing gaze. “In any case, we could always use some extra hands around here.”
“Extra hands?” Remus jumps in, excited. “Imagine what I could do with extra hands. Brand new levels of orgies, unlocked! Untold possibilities!”
“No,” Roman groans, “don’t give him ideas.”
“I would never,” Janus says, but then continues behind his hand, at the same volume, “Remus, do tell about these ‘untold possibilities’.”
Roman and Patton both plug their ears as Remus starts on another sordid tangent, Janus leaning forward to listen raptly with keen interest, chin propped up in his palm. Patton shares a long-suffering look with Roman that quickly melts into something tentatively affectionate, something full of budding potential that sets his heart racing with a new and careful hope that he hasn’t felt since he first met Janus all those years ago.
He smiles. Roman smiles back.
Oh, yeah. This is going to be so much fun.