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He doesn’t know when he started feeling like this.
When he began floating through the halls like a ghost, barely aware of the passage of time or the other sides around him.
He remembers what Roman called him and Janus: The Dark Sides. It implies a degree of separation, some invisible barrier that prevents the pure Light Sides from everyone else.
He almost wished there was a barrier. Then he could wander as much as he liked, truly exist as a ghost in his surroundings without anyone around. Instead, he was here. Stuck. Being ignored was so much worse when he could see the people actively ignoring him.
They all lived together—always had. One identical copy of wherever Thomas was living(it had been a nightmare in college, trying to fit everyone in that dorm room) with doors leading to more identical copies of the space—their “rooms”. For the most part, everyone hung out in that one main space, only retreating to their rooms when they needed to be alone. So, they were all usually occupying the exact same space and forced to interact with each other.
In theory.
In reality, Remus was barely acknowledged when he passed someone in the hallway or stepped into the shared kitchen to get something.
Janus had ever so subtly hinted that Remus should make himself known to Thomas, become accepted, and Remus had leapt at the opportunity.
Unfortunately, Remus never was one for subtlety. He had been loud and chaotic and just given the other sides more of a reason to hate him, to keep him apart from everyone else.
He disgusted them—he was sure of it.
Remus drew a line in his skin, the first of many. He was sitting on his bed, legs crossed, pants down to his ankles, knife poised in his hand to continue tallying all the ways he fucked up.
His legs were a mess of scar tissue and bruised, almost blackened, skin where he hadn’t had the time to properly carve into the soft skin of his inner thighs.
I wish I was more like Roman.
Another line, another tally. If he was like Roman, maybe the others wouldn’t hate him as much.
They’re scared of me.
Virgil certainly was. Logan wasn’t, but that just meant he was even more ignored by the logical side than anyone else. Logan made it a point to pretend Remus wasn’t there, as if him being harmless made him invisible.
Logan thinks he’s so much better; I should tie him up and cut him instead. See if he bleeds red like the rest of us fucks…maybe turn it into an experiment, he’d like that.
Three more lines were carved, the last of the set crossing over them all to denote five completed tallies, red blood running down his thigh.
I wonder what that blood would look like as makeup. It could look so pretty as eyeshadow—blood dripping into your eyes, flooding the eyesockets until all you could see was red—
Remus kept carving, having to get creative as he started to run out of room for new tallies. He liked to keep them neat—the only thing about him that was neat and tidy.
Blood ran down and began to stain his bedsheets, mingling with the other brown stains of dried blood before it. There was no point changing or washing the sheets—they would end up covered in blood the next day, anyways.
He couldn’t die—and not for any lack of trying. For whatever fucked up reason, Thomas’ brain had decided Remus was necessary. And necessary things couldn’t die.
If Remus was so necessary, though, he’d be listened to instead of ignored. Only let out like a rabid dog when Janus wanted to prove a fucking point.
Janus’s scales seem like a nice texture. If I plucked them out, would there be skin underneath? Would he bleed? What’s underneath a snake’s scales, anyway?
Remus finally ran out of room on one thigh and turned to the other, the scarred slashes on this one much less orderly and more chaotic. It was usually by this point he stopped caring about the actual number of tallies and more about the feeling of release every time a new cut was made.
Janus and Logan think they’re so much more superior than the rest of us, they should fucking die together in a pit of snakes. No, actually, Janus might befriend the snakes. I need something else…
He twisted the knife as he pondered, turning what was meant to be a straight line jagged and uneven. Another side might have a prettier metaphor for what it looked like, but all that Remus felt, seeing it, was shame.
I can’t even cut myself properly.
Remus laid back on his bloodstained sheets, knife falling out of his hand and onto the floor.
He just wanted these thoughts to be gone.
He wanted to be part of Roman again, having the nice, pretty, acceptable thoughts as a distraction instead of the fucked up mess inside his own head.
If I scooped out my brain, what would it taste like? There’s no nerves in there, I wouldn’t even feel it if I damaged something in the process.
Nothing ever felt right. No matter what Remus did, everyone hated him.
He couldn’t recall a time where he actually had felt loved, where the others didn’t flinch when he got too close, taking a step back and wrinkling their nose in disgust.
If Remus was being honest, he didn’t blame them.
Even he hated himself.