Work Text:
“You’re afraid of it,” he says; “afraid of me.”
He’s not wrong. He is deep and dark and you don’t know him. He isn’t knowable; not in the way the others are. Not that they’re not also complex semi-individuals (dividuals? They’re you. They’re not) but Remus is different.
The others are fully-formed. The only ones who skirt that edge are Janus, who hides himself away so habitually that you’re not entirely sure he does it on purpose, and Roman, by virtue of being made of that same stuff as his twin. Roman has limits, though. Borders to his existence that you drew with your morals decades ago; the electrified fence to keep the livestock safe from foxes. Remus, though… Remus is a rabid wolf. Remus is infinite.
He usually reeks of battery acid and piss and jism. Not always, though. He wouldn’t want to be predictable. When you breathe him, it’s like second-hand smoke filling your lungs. He’s carcinogenic. That’s what you tell yourself; what you’ve told yourself, always. He’ll kill you. Stare too long into the void. He who fights monsters. Forgive me, father, for I have sinned.
“Come with me.”
His hand is outstretched. L’appel du vide.
You take it.
The dining hall is magnificent, with ceilings so high, so dark, that you can’t even see where the drapes could be attached. They cover walls of grey stone, those thick tapestries, hiding how each block is bigger than your torso. Enchanted fires glimmer golden in their wrought iron sconces, but the main light source is the massive fireplace that sits behind the head of the table. Without it, you’re sure that the room would be absolutely frigid.
Hm. You’re avoiding the crux, aren’t you? There is a centrepiece to this scene. In every dining room, there must be a dining table. There must be something to dine upon. Tablecloths and placemats and cutlery fall to the wayside. There is one core tenement: a dining table is for food.
Remus lies, unclothed, on the dark mahogany, idly tracing the embellished trim with a finger. He looks up at you, and he smiles. It’s a strange little expression, somewhere between bedroom eyes and the steady gaze of a patient teacher. There’s something of Janus in it, you think; something of the way he’ll carry you to your bed and wait, hands in his lap, for you to ask him to rub your shoulders, or to rest his fingers on your lips when he feeds you chocolate liqueurs, or just to hold you tight and tell you that you’re not alone.
This isn’t Janus, though. Alarms should be screeching dissonance in your head, resonating like funeral bells. All you can hear, though, is the crackling of the fire, and the beating of your curious heart.
He crooks his finger. You walk to his side and sit in the closest chair. When you bow your head, trying not to stare at his stubbly thighs, or the way his ribs are barely visible through the little layer of fat you’ve accumulated over the past few years, he runs his hand through your hair a few times, then grips – gently, somehow – and tugs down until you look at him.
“Feast your eyes,” he lazily grins. “Oh, and also, literally feast. This is all for you, you know!”
You shake your head. “Feast? On what?”
But all your feigned ignorance does is cause him to grab you – tug you close. Your chair clatters to the ground as you’re pulled to your feet, clumsily trying to catch yourself on the table. In the flickering glow, you see a metallic glint.
He has a knife.
Of course. Of course. This was always going to be your end. You made all the stupid choices a horror protagonist could make. You stepped off the path. You trusted the monster. You thought, oh, he can’t be that bad, and look where you are now. Dreaming of your death at the hands of your naked nightmares. Just as surreal as always.
The knife meets its target.
There is no pain.
You don’t want to look. If you look, it will hurt. He will have sunk the blade into your sternum, and you will feel it, and you will scream, and it will hurt until Logan or someone else can come to your aid and remind you that this isn’t real. Remus has no real power. Only what you give to him. It’s all play-pretend. Ignore it, and it will go away.
You look down. He is holding the knife in a reverse grip. Only the blunt end of the handle presses against your chest.
“I couldn’t hurt you if I tried, Tommy-boy.”
It’s so soft; so removed from the leering gremlin that you’re used to. Is this actually just Janus, trying to accustom you to the demon at the end of your bed? Would he really do that? Would he betray your trust in such a way?
Well, yes. He absolutely would. He’d do anything if he thought it would benefit you, up to and including, well, whatever this is. Still, you don’t think that’s the case. This really is Remus.
He pushes the knife into your chest again. Then again. And again and again until you wrap your hand around it and he lets go, just like that, and lies back down.
“It disturbs you. I get it! I really do! But you can’t live your life like that, afraid of every little thought that crosses your mind.”
He bends one knee, running his toes along his other calf as he does. They splay out, pressing against the long curve.
“I like going at it raw, but you’re scared. I guess it’ll be easier if you cook it, first, so- oi! Don’t drop the knife!”
Your hand is shaking.
“There’s less fat here-” he circles the outside of his calf with the big toe. “-so you can pretty easily scrape off what bits are there, and just… roast it over the fire. You know?”
“What if I don’t want to?” You lower the knife, holding it loosely between your fingers. It’s not safe, but who will it hurt, here? “What if I want to leave?”
Remus shrugs. “The door’s behind you.”
You turn around. He’s telling the truth. Nestled in an archway is a little wooden door. It could lead anywhere, though. Maybe into some deeper hellscape that your brain is so fond of constructing. There’s only one way to make sure.
The hinges creak.
You can see your apartment. It’s the same as it’s always been. You managed to clean up a couple of days ago, so all you’ve got to do for housekeeping is the dishes. Maybe you should wash your sheets, too, at some point.
If you’re so disturbed by what Remus is saying, you could do that. You could just ignore him, and go back to your normal day.
You click the door shut, turning your back on it.
Remus smiles like you hung the fucking moon.
You perch on the table by his feet. Remus, leaning up on his elbows, watches over you as the serrated blade splits the skin.
“Yeah, you’re gonna have to keep sawing for a little bit. It gets really good, next to the bone. All juicy!”
He’s doing jazz hands, isn’t he? You can’t fight back a grin, but you don’t look up. Instead, you keep cutting into Remus’s flesh, back and forth, back and forth. You pull the knife out; change angles. It’s easier going downwards, but not as satisfying as splitting the muscle fibres under your blade. Not that you get through all of them – when you think you’ve done as much as you can, you pull the chunk of meat from Remus’s leg with your bare hands. It oozes, weirdly enough. You’d have thought that most of the blood had already pooled on the table, but no. As you retrieve the meat, warm and wet between your fingers, a few strands of it get caught, where you hadn’t cut through the muscle as deep as you’d thought. With a few gentle yanks, the flesh tears apart.
It’s been a moment since you heard Remus talk. Part of you worries – did he die? – but no. Of course not. He never will. His breath has been hitching a little, but he never said to stop. You probably should have checked on him earlier.
His eyes are wide, staring at you as though you’re the only thing in the world. You shift a little in place, face flushing.
“You good?”
Even though he swallows a few times before he answers, his voice is still a little raspy. “Yeah. ‘S all good.”
Then he scrabbles at his side; offers you a toasting fork. You set the knife down for a moment, just long enough to spear the meat onto the fork and to wipe the worst of the blood off on your jeans, before you use it to peel off the skin. You force your hand to be steady. It’s all in your mind.
“Can’t cook fatty meat on an open flame, because you don’t want it dripping. It’ll make it all pop, and, I mean, we can do some arson-immolation stuff, but waste not, want not, you know?”
He sits up to watch you as you walk around the table. The fire burns inside its grand mantelpiece, slowly ruminating over a few thick logs atop a bed of charred wood and coal. You extend your arm, holding the toasting fork in a delicate grip, and let the flames lick at the flesh.
It’s slow. The meat does not bubble – there’s neither enough heat nor fat for that to happen – but you could swear that it’s starting, ever so slightly, to brown at the edges. Just at the bottom, where the heat barely reaches. You turn your head, twist your torso, to look over your shoulder. Remus stares back, gazing at you with pupils blown wide enough to swallow you whole. Absently, his fingers brush against the exposed bone, wiping it clean of blood. It’s pretty Sisyphean. Like doing the dishes.
You twist your wrist to brown the second side of the meat. It’s taking too long. Your arm will get tired if you keep holding it out like this, so you lower it a little. Fire dances around it, like a hand dipped in a stream of water. Remus’s gullet twitches.
It smells like a barbeque in here. Tender meat, slowly burning. You’d think it was pork if you didn’t know better.
“Pigs are the most similar creatures to humans. That or bonobos. Eh. Bonobos are about the fucking, though, while pigs? They’re built like us. They’ll eat anything. Ben and Jerry’s send their failed ice cream flavours to a nearby farm to feed them. They love it.”
This time, you have to adjust your grip on the fork to turn it.
“It’s something about their diet, yeah, but also, the organs are pretty similar. There’s that thing about how they can use pig hearts in human transplants, right? It’s not a perfect fit, but it does the job. You get what I mean. It’s all meat, in the end.”
It is.
“It’s just pork.” His voice shifts back to something more like his usual rasping screech. “Oink oink, motherfucker!”
It’s pork. It's meat. You’ve eaten worse at kebab shops. Who knows what they put in those? And sausages! Guts and plastic and gristle. How often have you thought about what really goes into them? It’s a wonder you haven’t done this sooner.
You pull it out of the fire; lick your dry lips. The meat is smoking a little, charred at the edges, so you blow on it in the hopes of cooling it down a little.
Then you bite down.
At first, it splits under your canines – a little stringy; you weren’t exactly cooking it to the best of your abilities – but your teeth catch on a new, unexpected texture. Warm. Soft. Tough. Your tongue flickers, licking; pressing muscle against tender, supple muscle.
You’ve heard so much about fallacies, over and over again, but all you ever remember is that the phrase ‘slippery slope’ just sounds like so much fun.
You dig your teeth in, incisors and canines and premolars grinding to rip and tear into the raw flesh. Blood spurts into your mouth, hot and metal. It’s like a rare steak, but it doesn’t taste like steak. It tastes of pork.
As you chew, you keep your mouth closed. Nevertheless, your lips stretch into a thin smile as you chew the meat into shreds; into mush. Heat spreads when you swallow the first mouthful, all the way down your oesophagus; all around your heart; into your stomach. There’s something different about the flavour that still envelops your tongue; different from any other cut of meat you’ve tried. Well, obviously. It’s Remus. It’s you. This meat is your flesh. This blood is your blood. It tastes like the best thing you can imagine.
The worst thing about good food is that it makes you want to eat as quickly as possible. It would be better to savour it, to enjoy every mouthful, but something animalistic in your brain takes over. Maybe some vestigial fear that someone will take your meal away, from all the way back when humans hunted and gathered for every single desperate calorie. Lick the bones clean and make sure nothing goes to waste, because every sweetly savoury mouthful is a matter of life and death.
You take it slow. There’s no need to rush. Another mouthful, the same as the first. Close your eyes: in the dark, every sense is elevated. The taste on your tongue, raw and unseasoned but still so perfect; the texture under your teeth, tearing down, deeper than a love bite. This is what meat was meant to be.
The last mouthful is the worst. You’d burnt all the flavour out of it, shrinking each muscle fibre to a bit of dried thread. That doesn’t mean you don’t eat it. It just makes you dream of it raw.
“Yeah,” Remus breathes, voice rough. “D’you like it?”
Your eyes flutter open. He’s watching you, flickering from your eyes to your mouth to your empty, bloody fork. You were hungry, and he fed you. You bite your lip. It’s not the same – not as good, even with the remnants of blood encrusted.
The big bad wolf turns to the girl in the bloody hood, extending a clawed paw. How big his eyes are; how big his teeth! Their fates are in flux, blurred with grandmothers and woodcutters and a many-forked path in the woods. What haven’t they done to each other, over and over again? The story is written anew. He is her, and she is the wolf, and who really killed who when they will always come back; back to each other? They don’t need to forgive each other for the pain and terror they’ve inflicted. There’s nothing to apologise for.
“Could I have some more?”
His eyes widen. A small, loose grin spreads across his lips as he leans gradually back. He never looks away from you.
“Anything you can dream of.”