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The afternoon was dripping away, slowly.
In the darkness of his room it was easier to ignore the muffled voices coming from the living room, the argument that threatened to morph into a fight, another shouting match between Virgil and Janus while Patton tried his best to cheerfully boss everyone around. Logan was in his room, having exchanged a look with Roman as they both retreated from the commons approximately five minutes after Janus showed up and Virgil started his sneering and half whispered comments. Roman would have stayed, but then Remus had decided to rise up next to the TV, and that had been enough to make him nope his way out of the room.
Roman had never liked him.
How could he? Remus was… disgusting, at best. At his worst, his brother was a dangerous, demented lunatic. His ideas were always crazy, loud, vomit-inducing. Creativity was better than bad innuendos and murder plots. Roman had learned this lesson a long time ago.
However, Remus was still there, lingering at the edges of his own mind, no matter what he did. For a while, Roman had been able to ignore him, but not anymore. Remus was a permanent resident of the Mind Palace, putting Patton in a bad mood and trying to get Logan to be scared or revolted by him. Virgil had stopped hanging out with them whenever Remus or Janus were around, or tried to, at least.
He heard footsteps in the hallway, and he realized that he couldn’t hear the argument anymore. The sound of a door opening and quickly closing again made him snort. It had been quiet enough that Patton or Virgil wouldn’t hear it, but if Logan thought no one would notice… then again, after what Roman had walked on, a few days prior, he probably figured it made no sense trying to be discreet around him.
After a few minutes of silence, he returned to his previous contemplations, which meant that he also went back to staring at the ceiling and wanting to punch something. He had thought he’d be able to handle having his twin once again in the picture; he’d thought that he’d learned a thing or two from their teenage years, that seeing Remus so casually wouldn’t affect him at all, because, well, he had grown, right?
The bed he was lying in was too hot all of a sudden. He flipped around, burying his face in his pillow. Right.
Their teenage years. Together. As siblings. Kind of. It was complicated enough to say that they were the two sides of the same coin, creativity split in two by the forces of catholic guilt and black-and-white thinking. Thomas used to be a lot more open minded in that regard, and some of Remus input was allowed, before shame took over and Remus had abruptly stopped hanging out. Roman had been happy to take the reins and become Thomas’ main creativity; Remus was starting to get creepy anyway. He’d always known that his brother had merely disappeared into the darker corners of Thomas’ mind, hidden, out of a sheer need for survival. Other than the very occasional glimpse, Roman had barely seen him for the best part of a decade, and yet he’d been able to see the change in him.
Before the Dark Sides had been repressed, Remus had been unstable, a bit crazy-eyed, but Roman wouldn’t have described him as dangerous back then. The darker things that fifteen-years-old Thomas could think of weren’t so linked with murder and gore, but rather of jumping out of buildings or finding out what being beaten up felt like. Remus had been a nuisance, yes, but… it was almost impossible to recognize him now. Thomas had learned more, and his dark thoughts had grown darker, and Remus had changed into something that Roman hated, because there was no other way to describe the despair he felt whenever he looked at his brother.
The alternative was too scary to even consider, anyway.
And yet, he considered it. He thought about the burning on the back of his throat, the anger he felt, because he just couldn’t let it go. There was something about Remus’ weird purple eyeshadow and the way it matched the unfocused look he had on his face half of the time. It was like seeing a ghost, someone who had died and yet walked among them. Neither Logan or Patton could notice; they had never seen him sporting a genuine smile or, well, reeking less. It was the subtle differences that drove Roman crazy, because they were supposed to be twins, and neither of them looked like the other anymore. They had changed too much.
Or maybe it was just the moustache.
His musing was interrupted by distant screaming, which Roman recognized as Virgil losing his patience, again. The emo had been in a terrible mood for the past few days, and could barely stand any nonsense. Roman suspected there was more to it, but he didn’t want to press. After all, he himself was trying to understand what was going on with his mind. Normally he’d pop up in their shared living room and see what the fuss was all about, but he didn’t feel like watching Virgil screaming at a dust bunny for being sneaky. Virgil only screamed either at inanimate objects or at Janus, and he knew quite well that he was spending the afternoon with Logan, not that he’d ever rat them out to Patton or Virgil. What Logan did or did not do with the snake was none of his business, and he knew enough to nope his way out of the matter.
So, Virgil being an anxious mess with fragile nerves it was, especially since he had already had his confrontation of the day with Janus. He had assumed Virgil had gone back to his room, but apparently he’d decided to stay downstairs for a while.
He turned around and stretched his back, trying not to think of what he’d been thinking before Virgil had shrieked in the living room. Maybe he should have gone down and see what he was up to after all; his thoughts were leaving him frustrated and tired. All he could do was try to force himself to find another thing, any topic, fuck, he was considering thinking about how exactly he’d learned of Logan and Janus’s not so discreet affair, which was equally disturbing and intriguing, and he felt like a pervert for even considering it, but the alternative was so much worse.
“Ok, but why a moustache?” He asked to the emptiness of his room. The ceiling did not answer, since ceilings couldn’t talk, and besides, why would his ceiling know the answer?
“Oh, isn’t that an excellent question!”
Roman bolted upright, turning around, trying to find him, and sure enough, Remus was standing in the shadows next to his bedroom door, his creepy smile making him something out of a nightmare.
“What are you doing here?”
Remus chuckled, his face dropping the weird expression, and Roman let his shoulders fall. He wouldn’t get a straight (Ha!) answer out of his brother anyway. Remus took his lack of a violent reaction as an invitation to sit down on the edge of the bed, facing him.
“Can’t I visit my favourite bro?” Asked Remus, his voice soft even with the stupid accent. Roman remembered a time when Remus barely slurred a few words together, before his voice was such a mockery of the affected tone that Roman himself used. Sometimes Roman dropped the tone just to hear what his brother’s voice used to sound like.
“You don’t have any other brothers,” he pointed out, bending his knees and holding them against his chest. Remus was just there, sitting on his bed and taking up all the space of the room somehow.
“I missed you,” was all he said. Remus, always so honest, so painfully unable to lie; there was a strange longing on his face that looked out of place. Roman had seen those same lines of barely contained nostalgia crossing his own features too many times to count. Remus was a mess; Roman could see something that he hoped was not dried up blood around his fingertips, but before he could comment on it, Remus shook his hands and his fingers were clean and pristine again.
The silence around them suffocated even the constant ticking of the clock; it was dense enough to silence their breaths. Roman wondered if his brother was thinking about a time when Roman’s room used to be Creativity’s room, for both of them. Before Thomas had known of the Sides’ existence. Before the Dark Sides had faded away. Before name reveals, before the fights, before Thomas had gazed into stained glass windows and wondered if he could ever be welcome there, among the good people.
He remembered the last night he’d seen his brother before he became what he was now. Their clothes looked so strikingly similar back then, the same royalty style jacket with a sash, only varying in the colours: golden, white and red for Roman and silver, black and green for Remus. They used to be so close, even when Remus took to more violent ramblings and Roman started to get annoyed with him for it. But, oh, that last night. It could have changed everything, and yet it only became a memory Roman desperately wanted to forget.
“I missed you, too,” he admitted, and those four words were enough to shatter the air like it was made of glass, and Remus was no longer staring at him, but all Roman could see was his brother’s face so many years ago, his lips red and shiny, guilt making him choke on his words as he asked Remus to please, please just go.
Roman had kissed Virgil a while ago, while playing truth or dare with the others. Virgil had jokingly said that Roman kissed like it was his first, and Roman had merely laughed, trying not to think about his actual first kiss, or, to be perfectly honest, about the person he’d kissed for the first time.
They had been so young and scared back then. That had been their excuse, their get out of jail card. Roman had been terrified of himself, of his desires, of his wants. Remus had never had the same reservations; he’d been the one to whisper in Thomas’ mind about how delightful those boys looked, and weren’t they so delicious to look at, and wouldn’t it be nice to do some very sinful things about that? Roman often wondered if that had been what had finally pushed the Dark Sides towards the back of Thomas’ mind.
Roman had acted like nothing had happened, like he hadn’t thrown himself into his brother’s arms, desperate and scared out of his mind, like he hadn’t joined their lips in a goodbye that would leave too much to be discussed, because it had been wrong, so incredibly wrong.
It had been wrong when Remus returned the kiss with the same fear humming beneath the surface, his lips moving clumsily against Roman’s, his breath catching on his throat when they finally let go of each other. It had been wrong back then, and it was wrong still, so many years after, because they should know better than to tempt fate by trying to be happy.
Creativity was a force to be reckoned with, there was no denying that. Every thought that defied logic and reason and fear was a thought to be scared of. Roman had tried to tell himself that he could survive keeping Remus away, because Thomas didn’t need the darker parts of his own mind. Remus was dangerous and bad, because only a bad person would let themselves be kissed like that, with so much sorrow and shame, and even if neither Roman or Remus were persons, not quite, the end result was the same. They didn’t share a drop of blood, and yet ever since they existed as two separate Sides the others had called them brothers, twins. They hadn’t cared back then, but Roman cared now, because a brother should not want what he wanted.
It was enough to make him push himself up to his knees and reach almost blindly for the unusually quiet Side, and Roman knew they were thinking about the same night, and maybe Remus didn’t care in the same way, but Roman was tired of being himself.
Remus followed him, as he did back then, and Roman almost wanted to scream, because someone had to stop them, and if Remus let him, Roman wasn’t sure how far he’d go.
“Please, tell me you don’t want this,” he muttered at the same time his hands found leverage on Remus’ shoulders. They were face to face, and Remus was staring at him with open curiosity, his pupils wide, the stupid eyeshadow only making his eyes (identical to his, so exactly like his own) look wider and filled with an innocence that Roman knew just wasn’t really there.
“Are you asking me to lie to you?” was all Remus said before he leaned in and Roman crossed the few inches that kept them apart.
The first kiss had been clumsy and awkward. This kiss was nothing like its predecessor. It was full of unspoken anger, of years of repressed memories, of closed doors and unanswered questions, and Roman let himself kiss and be kissed because he’d rather stop thinking than to continue living with the guilt.
Remus pushed him backwards until Roman was laying where he’d started, with Remus kissing him like his life depended on it, like all he needed to survive was the taste of Roman’s lips underneath his own. Roman’s hands were still gripping his brother’s shoulders as he willed his legs to part and Remus took place between them, and perhaps Roman was the one calling the shots after all, because only once he hooked his legs around Remus’ waist the other dared to move, their kiss turning filthy and messy, and only then the hands that had remained pressed against the mattress started exploring Roman’s body. There was fire, there was shame, and there was the familiar taste of forbidden mixed in with their saliva and sweat. Remus broke the kiss to push at Roman’s jacket, and the dynamic changed; Roman did the same and started undoing the buckle of his brother’s belt. It was not a competition to see who could undress the other faster; it was more of a team effort in getting them from clothed to unclothed as fast as possible. Roman felt like if they stopped, even for a second, they would remember who they were and why they shouldn’t, and after years of pretending, Roman wanted just a few moments before they had to return to reality.
Their clothes fell to the floor in between kisses and bites and whispered affirmations. Remus was leaving a trail of red and wet bite marks on his chest, physical proof of their actions, and Roman loved how well they fit together, their bodies finding each other’s weak spots. Their skin was hot to the touch, and they were kissing, making a mess out of their lips, and it was good, it felt good, and when Remus looked at him, a question clearly about to leave his lips, Roman nodded, because he knew what he was about to ask.
“There’s lube in the top drawer,” he whispered, and Remus’ creepy smile was back, a lewd expression that made Roman’s spine tingle with desire. Roman didn’t dare look as his brother fumbled around, barely disentangling himself from Roman’s limbs. Part of him was still screaming that this was wrong, and the other part was screaming a loud “fuck off” back.
Remus took his time getting him ready, adding too much lube and making a slippery mess out of Roman’s thighs and lower back, but it was good, it felt right because it was their mess. Every time Remus’ fingers pressed inside him, a moan left his lips. His skin tingled with want every time he felt Remus’ hard cock brush against his thigh. Beneath him, he could feel the bedsheets, damp with his sweat and sticking to his back, but as disgusting as that should have been, he liked it. Sex was not a thirty seconds clip in some low-budget movie. Roman had never stopped to consider this version of sex, where limbs crashed against each other and there were awkward moments. It felt real, it felt… almost human. Neither of them was human, not exactly, being figments of the same person’s personality, but what they felt was close enough, or so Roman hoped.
Some of that vulnerability must have shown on his face, because Remus paused the movement of his fingers, which Roman had been enjoying immensely, despite his gloomy thoughts. They had barely spoken a few words to each other since Remus had interrupted the problematic peace of Roman’s room, and despite knowing that they had to talk about this, about the mess they were making, Roman only wanted to feel. He was tired of putting up walls between him and his insecurities, and he wanted those walls to come crashing down on him, he wanted the bricks he’s laid one on top of the other to fall down, to bury him in the rubble. Remus was the only one who knew, the only person he couldn’t hide from. Virgil had tried, he’d tried his best, and Roman had tried as well, but he knew he would never be able to tell him everything, because Virgil was terrified of anything he couldn’t explain. Roman had never been able to explain the deep ache he felt whenever he thought of those hands he hadn’t held in so long, or those eyes that he knew better than anyone else’s. Remus had always been meant to be next to him, even when it became obvious that it could never work that way.
“This is wrong,” he whispered. Remus used the hand that wasn’t covered in lube to push Roman’s hair out of his forehead, and gave him a tiny, apologetic smile.
“Well… yes,” he whispered back. Roman chuckled, because he already knew that. Remus was staring at him like he wanted to commit every detail of Roman’s face to his long-term memory; the intensity of his eyes made Roman melt underneath him.
“I want you, “ he said, and it sounded like a confession of the sort that people whisper while looking down at their feet, hoping that the priest won’t judge them, and praying that God still loved them. Roman knew that it would never be easy, that the conflict would always be frightening, but as long as Remus kept looking at him with so much raw feeling, he could be brave. For them. Creativity shouldn’t have to fight itself, and darkness could be more than an empty abyss, a void of misery. Darkness could be warm and welcoming, a place safe from the loud, suffocating weight of the world. Remus was proof enough of that. They were balance; chaos cannot exist in a vacuum.
“Oh, Roman,” said Remus, taking his hand and placing a soft kiss on his knuckles, which was so simple yet so powerful that Roman’s heart stuttered in his chest. The moustache tickled against his fingers, making him grin. It was liberating, not having to pretend anymore, at least not there, in the privacy of his room.
Maybe, if Roman still felt brave afterwards, the room could become less his and more theirs .
Remus pushed Roman’s thighs up and out of the way as he lined himself up. Roman held his breath for a moment before relaxing. He felt the blunt thickness of Remus’ cock pressing against his rim, hard and unforgiving. Their eyes met as Remus pushed inside, the stretch burning a little despite all the lube. It felt good, to be spread open on his twin’s cock like that, so close, as close as they could be without fusing back into each other.
And wasn’t that a thought.
He moaned deep in the back of his throat when he felt the trembling of Remus’s thighs against his ass. Remus was fully inside of him, and it was undoing him in more ways than one.
“Roman, please,” he said, his breaths short and uneven. “Please, tell me what you need”.
When had he closed his eyes? He opened them, searching for Remus’ face, hoping to find him as undone as he himself felt. He wasn’t disappointed: Remus was staring, open-mouthed and with desire and longing written all over his features. His chest moved as if he was putting all of his strength into holding back and it was killing him slowly, like venom making its way through his veins.
“Move, please” he said, as soon as he remembered how to speak, momentarily overcome by something he didn’t dare to name.
Remus obeyed, pulling back, the drag of his cock setting Roman’s nerve endings on fire, a soft groan of pure pleasure escaping from his lips. The first thrust of his hips had Roman closing his eyes again, because it felt too fucking good, too fucking much.
There was no rush in the rhythm of Remus’s hips, pleasure building without urgency. Roman’s hands twisted on the bedsheets, enjoying the stretch and the heaviness of the act, the way the bed creaked under their combined weight.
“God..”
Somehow, hearing how broken Remus sounded snapped him out of his calm. Suddenly, just laying there wasn’t enough. He raised himself on his elbows and grabbed at Remus almost blindly, hoping he would get the hint. Their mouths crashed together, and the air shifted, no longer suspended. There was fire and desire and skin against skin.
Remus pulled out of him and pushed him back to the mattress before Roman could protest, grabbing his hands and bringing them above his head. Catching on, Roman fumbled around for a pillow, passing it to Remus and lifting his hips for him to place it underneath them. Roman brought his hands back above his head, holding onto the headboard for leverage. Remus guided himself back inside Roman slowly, the change in the angle making it so his cock pressed against Roman’s prostate, which had him gasping. Remus started moving again, and suddenly there was an urgency to his thrusts, the force of his hips. The drag of his cock set Roman on fire, and he arched his back and pressed back, joining the rhythm of Remus’ movements.
Remus leaned above him and buried his face in the crook of Roman’s neck. It was slightly awkward, but it was worth it for the way it allowed him to suck and bite the skin there, his teeth sharp and painful and somehow tender, all at the same time. Roman hoped he was leaving bruises; he wanted to carry his love bites as evidence where anyone could see them. He was close, and he could tell Remus was as well, judging by the noises he was making, like he was trying his best to not fall apart.
Roman wanted him to fall apart.
“Let go”, he muttered, bringing one of his hands to Remus’s hair, holding him in place as he did his best to meet his thrusts. “Remus, come inside me, please, please ”.
Time seemed to slow down in the few seconds before Remus reacted to his words. With a broken moan, he came, and Roman felt the rush of fluid inside of him. It was filthy. He held his brother through it, petting his hair, the sensations making him a bit dizzy with lust. For a moment they just held each other while Remus trembled, until he seemed to recover enough to sit up, still inside of Roman’s body.
Remus brought a hand to Roman’s erection, and started jerking him off. Roman closed his eyes and surrendered to the feeling of his twin’s experienced hand pulling him closer and closer to the edge.
“Come for me, Roman”, he said, and that was it. Roman came with his brother’s name on his lips.
He opened his eyes when he felt Remus carefully pulling out of him, making him shiver. While not exactly unpleasant, it felt a bit weird, and it dawned on him that this was technically his first time. With Virgil, the one time they’d had sex, he’d been the one topping.
He reached for Remus, unable to spend another second away from him. Remus went easily, covering Roman’s body with his own, still between his spread knees. It was Roman’s turn to hide his face against Remus’ collarbone, breathing in the scent of sweat and cheap deodorant. He hadn’t realised he was crying until Remus pulled him in even closer.
Somehow, they managed to rearrange themselves until they were laying on their sides, facing each other, their legs intertwined. Remus didn’t comment on the tears in Roman’s eyes, focusing instead on playing with his hair until Roman felt a bit more like himself.
What had they done?
He couldn’t regret it. It had felt right, after all, but there was still a part of Roman that was screaming that it had been a mistake. They were covered in their own filth, and Roman’s lower back felt slightly sore. Something must have shown on his face, because Remus stopped petting him, and instead let his hand fall between them. The silence in the room became thick and uncomfortable, not unlike when Remus had first come into the room.
After a couple of minutes, Remus must have decided his lack of words meant he was no longer welcome, and moved away from their embrace. Dread manifested itself deep in Roman’s stomach, and he grabbed at his brother so fast he almost hit him. Remus froze.
“What now, Roman?”
Good fucking question. What did Roman want? If he let him go, they could pretend it had never happened, and nothing would have to change. They could go back to being mildly antagonistic towards each other. No one would ever suspect a thing. Maybe Roman would go give it another go with Virgil, and maybe this time it would work, except Roman would keep a secret that could undo his entire existence, worsening every day he lied to everyone, including himself.
It hadn’t been just sex. It could never be, just like that kiss so many years ago had never been just a kiss. Remus was his literal other half, his mirror, his perfect counterpart. For so many years, the best way to describe what they were to each had been brothers, but it had never quite fit.
Maybe it was time for a change.
“Stay?” he whispered, reaching for Remus’ hands. He didn’t want to let go of him, not after they’d finally found each other after so long. It was his chance to be brave. He wouldn’t kick Remus out like he had before.
Remus layed back down on the bed, letting Roman pull him close, until they were so close their noses almost touched. Roman could feel Remus’ shallow breaths, and he finally closed the gap between their lips.
He wasn’t sure he could put his feelings into words, not yet, so he tried his best to convey them with his lips. The kiss was sweet and lazy; there was no need to rush. They would have time for difficult conversations later.
Remus broke the kiss, a tiny, pleased smile on his mouth. He reached beside him and pulled the bedsheet they had discarded earlier, and covered them both. The warmth of their bodies made Roman’s eyes feel heavy, and right before he closed his eyes, he felt Remus press a kiss to his forehead.
“I’ll stay”.
The afternoon was dripping away, slowly.
Everything would be okay.