PUT AN INDICATOR THAT YOU ARE 18+ IN YOUR BIOS

His first day of his classes were only a little exhausting. He'd at least had the sense to wear something comfortable, loose clothing. It made him feel less displaced in the bustling halls of a college, unnoticeable. For once, he was quite content not being the centre of attention. Instead, he sat quietly at the back of class, bewildered how different from school it all felt. People chattered and relaxed throughout the day. Remus, nervous to admit he felt out of his depth, huddled in a corner with his notebook, sketching outlines and writing notes in one long, pictographic flow.

But overall, it wasn't a bad day. It was surprisingly uneventful, which he supposes he should be happy for.

When he recounts the day to Janus, he explains that the course content is surprisingly easy - that he might even do well, here. He'd had to let his course tutor know about his reading struggles, but as it turned out, it was a surprisingly common experience. "Apparently not being able to read right doesn't mean I won't do well," he'd chattered excitedly, flittering around the kitchen aimlessly. Janus watched him with distant amusement, sipping a cup of tea that Remus had all but abandoned in his excitable frenzy.

"I could've told you that for free."

"Oh...shut up."

Janus smiled, shaking his head as Remus finally came to a halt. He shouldn't have looked as extravagant as he did to the other man, wearing a hoodie that he's half-sure is Roman's, and a pair of black jeans. He did, though, his dark hair curling around his ears and a lively flush to his cheeks. His happiness brightened him in a way, his excitement painting a sheen over him far more beautiful than any amount of makeup could ever attest to. There was something so effortlessly alluring about him as he stared down with that smile of his.

“My smart, academic boyfriend," he uttered in the quiet, his reverence barely concealed. Remus blushed, but feigned annoyance with a roll of his eyes and a scoff.

"Don't get your hopes up."

"You can't stop me!" And this much was true. “I thought you might be a little tired when you get back, so, I figured we'd order in, my treat for your first day."

"I love you."

"Me? Or my wallet?"

"It's a package deal," his voice lifted into a teasing sing-song, spinning around excitedly on the spot. "Pizza!" His hands fluttered with the bout of emotion that ran through him, "...first day of college, and pizza!" Janus only watched with amusement, finishing off the remnants of the cup of coffee in front of him, as Remus began to dissolve into a list of all the things that made him happy. "-Did you know I fed a squirrel today? It just stood there looking at me, and I'm like-" Where had all this joy been hiding? All this excitement? Who in their right mind would have ever deprived this from him? "-but it does not go away, and I'm like here, have some granola, I guess?"

"Squirrel friend on your first day, I'm so proud of you."

"I'm thinking one day I can get all the squirrels to trust me, and raise a squirrel army if I ever have trouble."

"Smart plan."

"I know, right?"

He set about ordering pizza on the phone when Remus' chatter died down. His tiredness began to show through, slowly. The realisation that he would have to go back and do it all again tomorrow clearly started to settle in. There was a flutter of pre-emptive exhaustion at the thought, and he found himself unwilling to move from where he sat on his bed. Paralysed by an onslaught of tiredness, he stared at the fibres of the floor and wondered, distantly, if he was well enough for this.

"I ordered the pizza," Remus looked up to Janus. He hadn't even heard him come up the stairs, but he stood there with a frown as he saw the other man unmoved on the bed. "Are you okay?"

"Tired."

"Yeah, it's like that at first," Janus sat beside him, frowning. "Even I was like that when I first started working, routine changes can be difficult for anyone, the best you can do is keep at it and do what you can to make it easier."

"Anyone?"

"Yeah, I mean, I went from a good three months of not moving to a 9 to 5 job, the first month all I did was sleep when I got back." Remus sighed with some quiet relief. "It's not the difficulty, really, it's just getting used to it, bearing with the uncomfortable until it's familiar."

Remus nodded, resting his head against his partner's shoulder, before nuzzling at his neck. Janus shivered beside him, and Remus felt the way his breath caught in his throat against his own lips, where Janus' heartbeat also fluttered.

"I love you," Remus muttered.

"Pizza's on its way," Janus replied, voice suddenly hoarse and strained. The other man could do nothing other than grin, the heat of Janus' flustered response warm to the touch.

"We've got at least an hour," his hand rested on Janus' spine, where a shiver trembled through him, pressing his body into the touch without so much as a conscious thought. "That's some time to kill."

"Re-"

"Please."

"No." Remus stopped. He looked up at his lover with poorly concealed hurt, his eyebrows pulled into such a pointed frown that Janus could only assume he'd just punched him in the gut. "I'm not rejecting you, Re," he uttered, sighing, "...If we're going to do this, we're going to talk about it first."

"Talk about what?"

"About how you're feeling! About how I'm feeling! But not on a time limit and not on a whim, because I don't want that." Remus' frown deepened, trying to grasp an idea of why Janus felt the need in the first place. "I'm not comfortable doing anything that could possibly hurt you, Re, I won't do it if I think for a second it will, it's not fuckin' worth it."

"Why are you uncomfortable? I was the one that was raped." Janus flinched at the curtness.

"Because I care about you, what the fuck else do you think?"

"I should get to decide what I do!" The quick rage that seemed to fly through him was abrupt and uncontrollable. He forgot on some instinct how to curb the fire as it lit in his throat and poured out of him. At the moment, he couldn't have ascertained where it came from, why he suddenly felt helpless and furious.

"You should! But this isn't just your choice!" Whilst Janus simply felt hurt. His voice shook with a more managed anger, measured and weathered to something close to sadness; the raised voice hadn't scared him, but it did wound in one way or another. He hated to upset Remus, even more so when he felt it was a perfectly reasonable request. It would take another few minutes of back and forth and raising voices and the inevitable slam of the door as Remus - now angered beyond anything that made sense - left his own room and stormed downstairs. A few seconds for Janus to catch his breath before he would offer himself an explanation that made enough sense for him to flop back on the bed and groan dejectedly.

The silence in the house consumed them both as they waited and waited. Neither ready to face the other - for shame, or heartache, or just plain sorrow - so they remained apart, until the doorbell rang, and the pizza was there. Janus let the pizza go cold for half an hour before he swallowed his pride and returned to the other man. Remus had hardly touched the pizza, peeling sweetcorn off of the surface and dropping it into the cardboard box.

"I wasn't trying to control you," Janus muttered, "...I know, I figured...afterwards that was probably why you were so angry, I wasn't trying to control what you do with your body, and I'm not making decisions for you - but I am making them for me, Re, I couldn't live with myself knowing I hurt you." He sat down in silence and picked at the abandoned sweetcorn, eating it and wincing at the cold grease and rubbery cheese.

"I don't know why I - I just got so angry."

Janus nodded. "I think, maybe, because you don't want to feel like anyone has any input over you, and that's fine, that's normal, and that's good, but when it involves both of us..."

"Yeah," Remus nodded, "...yeah, I get you." His eyes were shining with tears. He stared down at the mangled and uneaten pizza so hard that Janus wondered if the thing might burst into flames from concentration alone. He slid closer to the other man and offered him an arm. Remus sank against his shoulder and shook with the exhaustion of his own feelings. The anger, residual from the pain he'd suffered for too long, the fear that remained ever present beyond his conscious thought, the shame of existing with all these overwhelming feelings. 

"I love you."

"I love you too."

There's an odd feeling when Remus sits down in Logan's office this week. He's done it so many times by now, and usually the second he steps inside he has a complaint on his tongue. It had been his routine for months now. Today, though, he sits down and feels a stillness wash over him. No words form easily, no thoughts come pressing, and no anger lingers on the surface of his week.

Recovery - Logan had said before - is not linear. It's more like a rollercoaster, it has peaks and pitfalls, twists and turns. Though effort and work goes into it, sometimes the best thing a person can do is see where it goes. Like floating along a river in a hurricane, waiting for the storm to pass.

That river had carried Remus to places he'd never dreamed of before. The water he'd known was cold and deep and rough - and beneath it's surface he'd found a tide dragging him against rocks as his drunken body tried to remember how to swim. Now, it brought him to quiet. The sound of birdsong. A gentle hush as he lay on his back and gazed into a sky that is suddenly so very blue.

Logan leans back in his chair, watching the flicker of confusion at his own loss of words. "Anything pressing for this week?" He asks Remus, tilting his head to the side to make some eye contact before the other man sinks into his thoughts.

"Uh…" Same old, really, but not. His life has a rhythm to it now.

"What are you thinking of?" So little and so much.

"I...don't know, it's...peaceful, I guess."

Logan gives him a small smile, nodding his head briefly. "That's good, I would even say that is the general outcome we're looking for." Remus gives a short laugh, not sparing a roll of his eyes.

"I just mean that...I don't know what to say, I mean, I've got nothing, everything's...okay?"

"We can talk about the okay things too, you know, those are also important."

"I know." A small pause as he looks for the threads of a sentance, knowing what he wants to say but not at all sure where to start. "I'm cooking a lot, I think I actually like it, when it goes right anyway, I still get impatient," he lifts a hand to scratch the back of his neck slightly, his leg bouncing as he tries to think of what else to say. "I'm studying for the course I've enrolled on, but I'm struggling a bit with the reading."

"Have you made an appointment with your general practitioner about your reading difficulties?" Remus shakes his head. "Remember that one, the sooner you get some clarification, the better." He nods in response, still a little stunned.

"Uh, and well...I guess everything's fine, I've not had a bad episode in a few weeks now, not even had a proper episode at all in a few days."

"This all sounds very positive."

"It is, so..." he frowns, eyebrows furrowed.

"...So why does it feel uncomfortable?" Logan asks him.

"Yeah."

"I think the general opinion is when you get used to living a certain way - even when that way is painful - it's a large shock to the system to change; your comfort zone was discomfort, you were used to it, and you're now likely very afraid of all the change because it's irregular and unpredictable."

"Like my life was predictable before," the sarcastic lilt doesn't hide the sadness in his laughter.

"No, but you were predictable to yourself, in some ways, although it may not have felt that way, you still were familiar with your own peaks and troughs, learning to mediate those and control them can be difficult, and presents new challenges for you to confront."

Remus only hums in response, cracking each of his fingers slowly and deliberately as his eyes drag towards the window. The sun shone through to the deep blue carpet, creating a spotlight on absolutely nothing at all. He stared at the patch, wondering absently what the warm carpet would feel like against his skin.

"How are things with you and Janus?" He looks up at the question, a small smile on his lips.

"Good, he's as sweet as ever, too fuckin' sweet."

"What makes you say that?"

"He just-" he gestures loosely, a deep sigh pulling from his throat. After a moment, he simply shrugs. "-Everytime things get a little heated, he pulls away and I get why, but I just...miss him."

"Intimacy is often important to quite a few people, and you've learned from a young age that sexual intimacy is-"

"-No, it's not that, doc, I miss him...not sex, not with just anyone, I miss the way he touched me before all this."

Logan pauses a moment, thinking on the words, before he nods. "You miss the way he previously treated you?"

"Somtimes, I mean, don't get me wrong, all this is real sweet, but sometimes a guy just wants to get fucked."

"Oh boy," the other man utters under his breath.

"Sorry."

"No it's-it's quite alright...I think these are normal emotions to have, to miss a previous dynamic even with the worry that resuming that would re-ignite unhealthy coping mechanisms." He gives a small nod, looking down at his notebook in apparent thought for a long moment. "What do you want? I mean entirely, even if you have contradictory emotions on the matter."

"I don't know...before it was like he couldn't get enough of me and now..."

"So this is a rejection issue?"

"I don't feel rejected-"

"But you feel as though he wants you less?"

A long, static pause. Remus frowns. "Yes."

Logan nods, the sound of his pen scratching into paper filling the sudden silence. Remus shifts a little in his seat, his eyes going back to the window. It's such a lovely day outside. "I'm not officially a relationship counsellor, but what I would often recommend when there's a conflict in desire in a relationship, is that the two of you sit down and have an honest discussion."

"Your wife must be happy," Remus snorts, bringing his gaze back to the other man with a half-hearted smirk.

"My partner actually finds it very annoying, but this is your therapy session, not mine."

"So much about you has never made more sense than it does right now."

"Remus-"

"Yeah I know, I'm avoiding the subject." He flops back against the back of the chair, sinking into it slightly. "Do I just say...hey, actually I wouldn't mind getting abolutely railed by you? Is tonight okay or...?"

"You can approach it any way that you desire, but I suggest with less nonchalence and more genuine emotion." Remus wrinkles his nose, leaning his head back with a quiet groan, before finally sitting upright once more.

"I'm still not great with that."

"I've noticed - but like all the skills you have been building so far, it takes practice, and I think Janus is a good person for you to practice with, given that you feel safe with him."

Remus doesn't respond for a second, picking at the seam of his jeans as his gaze drifts towards the window once more. He doesn't know how Janus would react to that conversation, and he's tired of their relationship changing. He's tired of things changing in general.

"I'll think about it," he finally offers. Logan nods.

"That's better than nothing." Remus gives him a tight smile. "...You seem eager to be outside today."

"Sun's out."

"Yes, better enjoy all three minutes of sunlight before winter comes back," there's a slight playfulness to Logan's eyes as he says this. Remus relaxes with a small laugh, nodding. "Well, I think we just have to review how the week has gone for you and then book in for our next appointment, unless you have more to add?"

"I don't think so."

Logan nods "...Alright then, so first let's take a look at your medication..."

Remus feels like he needs a coffee when he leaves the building. His mind feels as if he's having hundreds of thoughts at once, and yet thinking of nothing in particular at all. The caffeine, he imagines, won't help this in the slightest, but at least he's made a decision on something.

He sits at the bus stop with the sun beating down on him, soaking through his leather jacket as he holds a hot coffee in his hand. Distantly, he thinks he probably should've gotten a cold drink, and that he's already quite a bit dehydrated. Oh well, there's no law to say that a person can't have a hot coffee on a hot day, and it's growing steadily more lukewarm by the second regardless.

He can't sit still on the bus. His knee bounces as his head twists to look out of very window, before finally settling on staring out of the front, watching the bus consume the road. He crosses and uncrosses his legs, shifting his weight from one side to the other, before residing himself to simply tapping against his coffee cup. This feeling lingers on him, restlessness, to the point where he's seeing shadows where shadows shouldn't be, and movement where everything is still. Sucking in a breath, he drinks his coffee, closing his eyes for seconds at a time.

The jerkiness doesn't fade, sudden jolts of placebo fear causing him to look over his shoulder as he walks the path from the bus stop to his home. His chest feels a little tight, his hands clenching and unclenching. He throws his coffee cup in the bin and cracks his knuckles as he walks. Every few steps the hair on the back of his neck began to stand, and every person walking by him felt like a trained laser to his chest. He swears everyone's eyes feel bigger all of a sudden, keen to stare. The way a horror protagonist feels, Remus is all too quick to unlock his door and slam the thing behind him, sucking in a deep, shaky breath.

He tries to do some work, but distraction takes him away from his sketchbook. It's another hour at least until Janus is here.

"Need to do something with my body," he mutters, only half believing the things Logan tells him calms an anxiety attack. Didn't he feel fine this morning? He can hear Roman's voice in the back of his head reminding him that caffeine isn't great for him, but he'll be damned before he lets his brother be right.

With a sigh, Remus pulls open one of his drawers, full to the brim of clothes he hasn't got around to wearing since he'd been in hospital. He doubts much of these would even fit him with the extra two kilograms he's put on, but fondness prevents him from throwing them away. Curious, he picks up one of the more flexible pair of leather trousers, stripping down to pull them on. There's a bit of struggle, but they'd already been loose at some points, now they were quite tight on his larger thighs. He looks in the mirror, standing to the side, admiring the curves he'd started to gather.

"Oh, I look good." He whistles through his teeth, turning so that his back is to the mirror and looking over his shoulder, "…holy fuck, I look really good." He turns again, running his hands over his stomach to the bulge of his cock in the trousers, squeezing lightly. He's not intending to turn himself on, it's more a curiosity at the flutter of excitement that enjoying his reflection brings.

He turns his attention to his drawers after a second, rummaging through to find a fishnet shirt and leather jacket (the former of which he has some semblance of a struggle with). None of them look the same on him any more, no longer as if they're hanging off a wiry frame, but fitting the developing curves and softnesses of his body.

"Fuck me," he mutters, shaking his head, "…I have an ass and everything." Not an ass like Janus, who is clearly on his feet a lot, and certainly not like Roman, who could still probably lift Remus up with one arm. But he doesn't look so much like a walking skeleton any more. He can see his stomach instead of his ribs. He can see a person instead of a ghost.

He dips his fingers beneath his jacket, tracing the warm skin with his fingers, ocasionally catching the strands of the fishne shirt and releasing them against his skin. Remus studies is own reflection the mirror with something akin to fascination, stepping close to examine the freckles on his less-pale skin. His heartbeat flutters as he nicks his nails through the darkening hair on his chest, down to his stomach. He can't remember his cheeks ever looking so flushed, and he doesn't recognise the look on his face as his energy melts from panic to something more proactive.

"I should do some makeup," he finally utters to himself "...who needs an excuse to look pretty?"

He pulls out the makeup shoved haphazardly into the back of his wardrobe, sitting down at the base of the mirror.

For a long moment, Remus just watches his own mind work in slow motion, calculating what style to try with this new, warmer, rounder version of himself. What would look good? What would feel good?

So much of his makeup is in dark shades, so he starts with those familiar tones - the ones he'd done a thousand times over, black eyeliner, black mascara, a trail of eyeshadow that falls just short of him looking like a distressed racoon. But it looks incomplete, unsatisfactory, it lingers too much in a version of himself that rarely cared what he really looked like - the inevitable was always that his makeup would end up ruined.

Remus flips through palettes, chewing at his lip as he mulls over his thoughts. It needs a highlight to it, something bright as the explosion occuring in his chest today, something frantic and unstable, much like himself.

He lands on an electric green looking lonely in a palette of moss and foresty colours, a strike of lightning perfectly untouched amongst its surroundings. With a grin, he grabs his brush and gets to work. For once, he jut allows himself to play, the way he'd always wanted to as a child - alone with a paintbrush and a canvas with nothing but gut instinct and time to pass. A slow grin crosses his lips as he works, a flutter of his heartbeat spurring him on.

When he's done, he rests the makeup down on the floor, standing just to grab his boots - the thick, heeled ones that make him look so much taller than he is - just to see what it all looks like together. He's supposed to be discovering himself, right? That surely didn't mean he completely forsakes the person he was? He should be allowed to take the parts he liked.

He hears the front door opening and tilts his head towards the hallway, a small flush crawling up his cheeks. Had he really lost track of time that much? He looks at his clock on the wall - a force of habit despite the fact the batteries had died months ago - and sighs, bracing himself for...he isn't sure. But his heart sinks like he'd been caught doing something he shouldn't be doing.

Janus appears in the doorway, lips parted as though to say something, but whatever it was dies immediately. His breath sucks in visibly, eyes tracing Remus' body with barely concealed starvation. After a slow second he swallows and clears his throat. "Christ, Re, wh...what's the, uh, occasion?"

Remus' tense shoulders relax; his arms, which had been folded tightly across his body, fall to his sides. It's been so long since Janus had looked at him like that - breathless with flushed skin - and it makes him feel somewhat...powerful. "I felt like it," he whispers, biting the inside of his lip as he basks in the second. "C'mere." Obediantly, Janus crosses the short distance to stand in front of him, peering up at his boyfriend in something that is so very close to awe. Remus leans down to kiss him, their lips meeting gently, he feels Janus' breath shake at the impact, like something new had happened to him.

Maybe something new has happened to them both.

His lips part against his lover's, not hungrily, not yet, but his tongue slides against the other man's, tasting him slowly, sensually. Quietly, Janus exhales with a gentle moan, his body leaning to Remus's.

"I have to make dinner," Janus utters, pulling back so that he can still feel breath against his lips. Like a nicotine addict grasping at second hand smoke. Remus squeezes his wrists gently in his hands, not at all missing how the other man shivers.

"We'll order take out," his own voice comes out deeper than expected, gravelly, he'd worked himself up just enough that he's not taking no for an answer. The type of hunger he's experiencing is not one that can be satiated by mere food. He requires something spiritual, something that makes his heart and body and mind tremble. He needs the sort of ecstasy not given by drugs, or alcohol, but by Janus.

Which is precisely why he grips the other man's wrist in his own and shoves him towards the bed. "Re-"

"My turn."

"Okay," Janus breathes, eyes wide as his boyfriend looms over him, hands pressed to the bed, sliding between his thighs like he was born to take up the space there.

For a brief scond there's an everlasting stillness. Their foreheads resting against each other as almost every other part of their bodies pressed in the sort of pull experienced only by magnets and anchors to the bottom of the sea. Their breaths - panted already against each other's lips - waited in hesitance. Janus' eyes flutter closed, and Remus surges forward.

Their lips meet, not painfully, but desperately, leaning into each other at an almost suffocating pace. Janus' hands twitch in his lover's grasp, whilst Remus rocks down against him, needing every inch of his body intertwined with his own. They gasp into each other's mouths as they try to remember what it means to need oxygen underneath the reawoken feral desire.

"Re-" Janus whispers, no, whimpers against his lips. He pulls away to look down to see his partner staring up at him dazed, flushed, aching against him.

He feels all at once like a god, being witnessed by a devotee. Because nobody has ever looked at him the way Janus looks up at him, waiting for his command, trusting his guidance. It reminds him of the glassy-eyed stares of the church-goers when he was a teen, worshipping a painted ceiling.

Well, he won't be nearly as absent, if Janus wants, he'll give.

But the sound of the front door opening shatters the moment, the tension dissolving. Remus grimaces, but laughter passes his lips as he exhales a breath he hadn't known he was holding. Janu laughs too, accepting a gentle kiss to his collarbone as Remus buries his head in his shoulder. Then, he pushes himself to his feet, wincing at the friction to his hard cock through the tight leather.

Roman?" He shouts.

"Yep!"

"Why the fuck are you here?"

"I live here, you cheeky bastard!" Remus snorts, rolling his eyes "...and I forgot my overnight bag." There's a series of footsteps, small thuds, and drawers opening and closing, heard from the other bedroom. Remus waits, arms folded as he trades amused looks with Janus. "Got it! See you tomorrow!"

"Have fun!"

The front door slams shut again, leaving Remus to look down at the floor in the sudden silence. "Are you okay?" Janus asks softly as the other man sits beside him, giving a small nod and resting his head to the man's shoulder. "That was a little intense." Another nod, but Remus isn't sure what else he can say, only that now the dust has settled he'd glad to have a breather. The air pulls smoothly into his lungs as he tries to remember what it was that was supposed to calm his heart rate. Was it in for eight or four? He shakes his head.

"I love you," he mutters.

"I love you too," is replied softly to him, accompanied by a gentle kiss to his forehead. "Shall I start on the dinner? You can choose a film to watch?"

"Yeah," Remus nods, running a hand through his hair "...yes please, I'd like that, first I'm going to get changed though, I have no idea how I used to wear these things all the fucking time, I can't breathe." The sound of Janus' laugh causes him to smile without even thinking about it. He tries not to think of his expression as he lay beneath him. How it had felt.

The black rope feels silky against his skin, though a terse friction is felt as he twists his wrists half-heartedly in their bindings. The sensation flutters his heartrate alone, but Remus' grinning face is nothing short of a nail in the proverbial coffin.

The tentacles curl up his bare legs, teasing at the skin of his thighs in such a way that his cock can only twitch helplessly in anticipation. "Re..." he whispers, not one to beg - though the other man certainly means to make him do so.

"Say please," Remus grins, eyes bright with fascination and joy as he stares down at Logan. Tasting all of the power he has over him in just those two words.

His blush deepens, sure that the floor may as well as just open up and swallow him whole.

"...please," he whispers after a moment. The suction of the tentacles against his skin sends a jolt through him, his breath stuttering, cock now half-hard, waiting to be touched.