#isaih

“…What’s going on?” Patton repeated, sounding far more awake this time.

“Extremely normal, non-fairy-related things,” Roman answered, visibly sweating.

“Extremely bloody Dionysian orgies,” Remus said at the same time, considerably louder.

Virgil could see just enough of Patton’s expression to watch the way it crinkled in a sort of morose confusion.

“In the kitchen?” he asked, voice pained, as though that was his main problem with the suggestion.

“If there aren’t any knives involved, can any orgy really be called Dionysian?” Remus replied in a faux-wise tone, lifting his arm to make a deeply inappropriate gesture in accompaniment with his words. This technically cleared the way back to the wall, but as it turned out, only for a moment.

Before either of them could get too hopeful about any chance of escape, Remus ended the gesture by quickly clapping his hands over the both of them in a makeshift dome shape.

Next to him, the other borrower only flinched a bit, but Virgil couldn’t help the outright squeak he made at the sudden limbs dropping down over them.

There was another pause from the humans above them, this one distinctly more harried.

“Um, guys?” Patton’s voice had gone from confused to concerned. “What was—?”

“Broken whoopee cushion,” Remus insisted. “Filled it with mayonnaise, you know how it goes.”

“He sneezed!” Roman added, his voice sliding up a few pitches. “Gesundheit, Remus! Totally nothing strange about that— Padre, wait!”

There were big steps drawing closer, now, and Remus’s hands cinched in a little tighter around the two of them. They were forced to huddle even closer together, and the other borrower’s bony elbow collided with his side in a way he wasn’t convinced was accidental.

He shot them a glare, which they returned with an expression that was equal parts indignant and frantic. After a second, they forced a barely-there whisper through grit teeth. “It’s your human. Will he hurt us?”

“How am I supposed to know?!” Virgil hissed back, just as quiet. “I didn’t ever get caught before you showed up!”

Not while the human was conscious enough to remember it, anyhow.

The other borrower’s eyes narrowed into slits, reminding Virgil that he probably shouldn’t be antagonizing the guy that already proved themself willing to try and murder him once. Before they could respond, though, the conversation over their heads continued.

“Guys,” Patton said, sounding stern. “What have we said about wrangling critters in my home?”

“That it was a firmly banned activity after the Great Frog Croak-tastrophe?” Roman guessed sheepishly. “And, y’know, that was certainly a fair and just ruling for that situation, however—!”

“Nuh-uh, I don’t wanna hear it,” Patton replied, unwavering. Virgil could practically envision the way his human was standing from his tone alone: hands on his hips, eyebrows raised expectantly. “Frog or not, I’m sure whatever you two caught will be much hoppier once they’re released safely outside, right Remus?”

“Eh, you might not feel the same after you see them, Pattycakes,” Remus warned. “I know I’m usually the harbinger of pests, wrangler of rats, champion of centipedes, but not even I know what to do about these guys.”

There was the shuffle of clothing, like Patton was shifting in place, and he sighed. “Well, I guess we’ll just have to figure it out together, huh?”

There was a moment of hesitation where Virgil assumed the twins were exchanging a wordless meaningful look, as they so often did, and then the distinct slide of glass across a countertop.

The moment the hands around them twitched, Virgil shifted into a crouched position, drawing his legs under him and preparing to bolt the moment there was space, even if it was probably totally futile. Next to him, he could feel the other borrower doing much the same.

Rather than lift off of them, however, the hands shifted to pinch even closer together, forming the shape of a spade, like a pair of nut shells that had been glued back together at the edges, leaving a hollow space inside. The two of them were forced to scramble upwards into the hold or get limbs stuck in between the sides of Remus’s palms as he scooped them up off the counter completely.

Virgil’s stomach dropped at the upwards movement, completely out of his control, and he reached out and latched onto the side of the other borrower’s shirt with a white-knuckled grip. They were still at least a little concussed, and Virgil wasn’t letting them get separated now, not when he’d already gotten himself into the most terrifying situation in his life saving them. Wherever they were going, they’d at least be stuck in it together.

To his surprise, the other borrower gripped him right back.

After only a few seconds, they were lowered and deposited onto a familiar smooth surface. Virgil grit his teeth at the feeling, resisting the urge to scream in frustration. He’d just gotten out of this stupid glass pitcher!

He didn’t get much time to seethe indignantly, however, because the moment Remus’s hands pulled away, there were much bigger problems to face.

Three of them, to be precise.

Heart in his throat, Virgil slowly lifted his head to look up at the face of his human, warped through the curve of the glass.

With a confused furrow to his brow, Patton moved to take a step closer, and then stopped short as the sight before him properly registered. His hand flew up to cover his mouth, his eyes widening with surprise. “Oh my!”

“I toad you so,” Remus interjected unhelpfully.

Roman cuffed his shoulder, and Remus immediately jabbed two fingers into Roman’s side in retaliation. It was only a firm warning look from Patton that kept them from devolving into another slap fight during the most terrifying moment of Virgil’s life.

Virgil shifted to stand, shuffling back until he didn’t have to crane his neck so painfully to make eye contact. Humans were so big, and it had never been more evident than it was now, staring up at giants.

Staring up at Patton. He was pretty sure he’d had a nightmare that had gone exactly like this. Well, minus the concussed would-be assassin. And the frog puns.

Patton, for his part, had developed a genuinely distressed twist to his features as he took in the sight of the two of them. After a moment of wavering, his gaze settled firmly on Virgil, sending a prickling sense of alarm up his spine.

“Hello again,” said Patton, smiling at him.

Virgil froze. The borrower behind him froze. Even the twins froze for a moment, before their heads both snapped around to stare at Patton with eerie synchronization.

“You know them?!” two voices asked, in two very different tones.

Virgil felt dread drop into his gut like a stone down a sewer grate. There was no way.

“I know one of them,” Patton answered, unperturbed by everyone’s shock. “That’s the little guy who helped take care of me while I was sick!”

He lifted a hand in demonstration and wiggled his fingers, the healing burns on them still visibly shiny.

The twins gaped. “He what?”

Behind him, in a far more bewildered tone, the other borrower echoed them: “You what?”

“You shut up,” Virgil muttered sourly without turning to look at them. His heart was practically shaking in his ribcage, knowing that the human had remembered all along, that Patton had returned home well-aware of the intruder in his walls.

The realization felt chilling, like a thimble of icy water had been dumped down his shirt. Patton hadn’t acted strange at all, hadn’t cast any speculative glances at the walls or scanned any shelves for undersized intruders. The twins and their ghost-hunting equipment clearly hadn’t known the truth, so why would Patton? Virgil hadn’t even suspected.

Who knew what would have happened after Roman and Remus left, and it was only the two of them, with Virgil blissfully unaware of the danger he was in?

Well. Caught like this, he supposed he was going to find out soon.

Patton’s smile faded, carefully watching the way Virgil’s chest was visibly shuddering with too-shallow breaths.

“You thought I froggot, huh?” he said, looking inexplicably sad. “I thought about it while I was in the hospital, and I kinda figured we’re really not supposed to know about you guys. That means it was pretty darn brave of you to try and help me anyways.”

Virgil swallowed, fear sticking in his throat. He didn’t know what to say. He certainly didn’t feel brave.

The other borrower stepped up to be at his side, ignoring Virgil’s reflexive attempt to shoulder them back behind him.

“I suppose the saying is true, then.” They paused, narrowing their eyes in a silent challenge. “No good deed goes unpunished.”

The encompassing flourish they made was a little wobbly, as though their balance was still off, but it got the point across: Patton had recovered from his illness, and they were stuck in a pitcher on his counter.

Virgil’s incredulity at the other borrower was enough to snap him out of the worst of his frozen terror, his head whipping to the side to stare at them.

They were insane. They had to be, using such sharp words and an even sharper tone with a human. This was just about the worst time to instigate an argument. The two of them were stuck in a pitcher on his counter!

Unsurprisingly, neither of the twins looked particularly happy with the accusatory turn the conversation had taken. Patton had been their friend for a long time. They had always jumped at the opportunity to defend him from harm in the past, and Virgil doubted that would change now.

For all their tomfoolery, the two of them could be downright vicious when they were angry. If they were willing to tear fellow humans a new one for messing with Patton, it was gruesome to imagine what they’d do to a pair of borrowers. They’d already been terrifying enough when they’d only been curious about him.

Before either of them could begin to speak, however, Patton nodded once, almost to himself, and pivoted to face his friends.

“Howsabout you two get started on cleaning up the living room so we can settle down and get some proper sleep?” he asked, the request firm enough that it was clearly more of an instruction than a suggestion.

Both twins started protesting immediately, looking extremely put out at the idea of abandoning Patton with their exciting new find. They were talking over each other, the words tangling and becoming an indecipherable mess by the time they reached Virgil, but he was fairly certain he heard phrases like “—but I’ll only lie awake haunted by fairy law and order,” and, “—you can’t keep me away from my new pyromaniac bestie!” in the mix.

“Mhmm, yup, we can discuss all of that later,” Patton replied stoutly, ushering the two of them towards the entrance to the kitchen with insistent sweeping gestures, like a shepherd with his herd. “There’ll be plenty of time to talk over breakfast in the morning, but it’s getting late, so hop to it!”

“We’re being banished with frog puns! This is an amphibian atrocity,” Roman bemoaned.

“Froggin’ unbelievable,” Remus agreed. 

However, even with all their complaints, they seemed to understand that Patton wasn’t budging this time, and reluctantly allowed themselves to be shooed out of the kitchen like the world’s noisiest sheep.

At Virgil’s shoulder, the other borrower took the opportunity to lean in while the humans were across the room.

“You ‘didn’t ever get caught,’ hmm?” they asked, still far too smug considering the situation they were in.

A muscle in Virgil’s eye twitched. Despite everything, he wasted a moment considering the merits of trying to inflict another head injury on his fellow captive. They’d been a lot more tolerable with the beginnings of a concussion.

“Do you want to go back to trying to stab each other?” he snapped instead, stepping pointedly away even as he made the thinly-veiled threat. “Because it seems like you want to go back to trying to stab each other.”

“Oh, I’m so terrified,” they replied drolly, crossing their arms. “Won’t someone save me from the horrible Monoxide assassin and his entirely genuine threats?”

Virgil stared at them for a moment, disbelieving. “You know, I think I actually liked you better when you were trying to murder me in cold blood.”

“Don’t lose hope. Maybe I’ll try again later,” they retorted with a dangerous glint in their eye, and then they were both falling silent as Patton approached once more.

Out of the corner of his eye, Virgil caught the contemplative frown that flashed over the other borrower’s face, the only glimpse of their consternation at facing down a human. They may have had plans aplenty to deal with the twins, but Patton was clearly more of an unknown to them.

…Virgil knew Patton. He’d spent enough time watching the human to get attached, grown familiar enough with Patton’s life to cheer on his efforts and fret over his disappointments. He should be able to find the right words to get them out of this, convince his human the way the other borrower had effortlessly fooled Roman, but… he couldn’t.

It was impossible to think up a strategy for this situation. How could he possibly reconcile Patton, the guy who helped organize weekly PTA bake sales and volunteered to look after kittens he was allergic to and cried when he saw roadkill, with a human who knew, who would keep them trapped, who needed to be pleaded with for their release?

How was he supposed to bargain with a monster if he couldn’t even accept that the monster existed?

“I’m sorry if the twins frightened you,” Patton said, voice lowered to a softer volume. “They tend to be very exuberant, but they don’t mean any harm.”

The other borrower looked as though they were on the brink of scoffing at the very idea that they couldn’t handle Roman and Remus, a defensive slant to their shoulders.

“Why?” The word tumbled from Virgil’s mouth without his permission, his shoulders hunching under the undivided focus of Patton’s gaze.

“Why what?” he asked, tilting his head slightly like a confused dog.

“If you knew,” Virgil forced out, fingernails digging into his palms, “why didn’t you tell them? Or— or look for me?”

Understanding settled onto Patton’s expression, and he hummed thoughtfully, as though considering how to phrase his answer.

“If you wanted to be seen, you would have come out and said hi,” he finally said, simply. “You saved my life by calling for help. If you wanted to stay a secret, the least I could do is make sure to keep that secret safe.”

Virgil blinked up at him, trying to force the words into a configuration that made sense. Humans didn’t just let mysteries exist, especially not ones that were so easy to grab ahold of.

“I won’t lie and say I’m not awfully curious about you,” Patton continued, and his hand was reaching out for the handle of the pitcher and surely, this was the moment that it all came crashing down—, “but you can’t force a friendship. Especially not like this!”

Slowly, in gentle increments, the pitcher was shifted to lay on its side, the open end facing away from Patton. It was practically a straight shot to the closest wall entrance, their freedom waiting where the back of the counter met the kitchen wall.

They’d been prepared to make a break for it at the earliest opportunity before, but now, with escape dangled in front of them, both borrowers hesitated. Virgil exchanged a dumbfounded look with the other borrower, trying to stomp down the insane hope bubbling in the back of his mind.

“If you ever want to talk, you know where to find me!” Patton finished, making sure the glass was stable and settled before releasing it and stepping back. “Otherwise, my lips are sealed— and I’ll make sure Roman and Remus keep the secret, too.”

He made a zipping motion over his mouth, eyes crinkled with amusement at the edges, and then turned and walked out of the kitchen without a single glance back.

Virgil hadn’t uttered a single plea, and yet, the path back to the walls was right there. He looped the other borrower’s arm over his shoulder and led them, step by faltering step, across the counter, even scooping his bag up as he went. Nobody came rushing in, nobody stopped them from taking those last few steps into the safety of the walls.

He’d expected to face a monster, and instead he’d been offered kindness, unasked for and freely given.

They were both quiet as they shuffled further into the familiar cramped space, as though a single sound would shatter the illusion of this impossible release. The other borrower pulled away after a moment, their pain of their concussion likely more manageable in the dark. The silence stretched, relief and exhaustion weighing on them in equal measure.

Virgil yawned despite himself, absently wondering if they were going to continue that semi-murderous argument about cults and who wronged who, and if the other borrower would be willing to reschedule it to sometime after they’d slept.

Ahead of them, a third figure stepped out of the shadows, quickly looking them over as though checking that everyone was still intact. Oddly enough, they sort of smelled like gunpowder.

Heart racing, Virgil let the rope fall from his grip, keeping a steadying hand on the thin lip of the pitcher as he turned to wait for the human’s approach.

The human, who was still standing there, gesticulating wildly. Had he been talking at them this entire time?

“--realized they were suspiciously well-timed firecrackers, and you know what they always say about timing in my Theater 102 course–,” he continued, before abruptly cutting himself off. “Hey! Excuse you, I’m trying to have a conversation here!”

Virgil turned to see that the other borrower had simply started walking away. They glanced over at him briefly, their carefully faux-casual gait not even stuttering.

“Oh, no, do go on,” they drawled with an eye roll, like they were bickering with an annoying stranger in a colony instead of sassing a human. “I was so deeply entertained by your self-congratulatory monologue.”

Virgil held his breath, feeling slightly faint as he waited for violence to ensue.

Roman squinted at them for a long moment, and then smiled beatifically. “Why, thank you! It’s good to know someone around here appreciates my theatrical flair. Not everyone can pull off the flair required for such a thrilling aha moment, you know.”

“Mhmm,” the stranger agreed, sounding entirely insincere and yet somehow managing to prompt Roman into an entirely new tangent about dramatic reveals and cliffhangers. They met Virgil’s wide-eyed incredulous stare with an extremely smug look.

They weren’t actually walking away, he realized belatedly, but towards the bag Virgil had abandoned on the counter when they’d had their first unfortunate encounter.

His bag held all his recent borrowings, and more importantly, his hook, which was basically the only thing that could feasibly get him down from his current conundrum without endangering the other borrower further.

They weren’t leaving him. Like an insane person, they were actually trying to salvage the situation, and somehow, it was working.

“--believe that they cast me as an understudy for that chronic overactor, it’s practically criminal!” Roman continued.

“That’s not the only thing that’s criminal,” the stranger muttered, looking as though they’d heard this particular speech one too many times before.

“What was that?” Roman asked, and then seemed to process that they’d traversed a good chunk of countertop. “Wait, where are you going?”

He stepped forward slightly, craning his neck to see around the warped glass of the pitcher, and Virgil felt his grip on the glass grow tangibly sweaty. The stranger, crouched next to Virgil’s bag, paused mid-rummage.

“I’m merely trying to multitask,” they replied, blinking innocently. “I’d just love to sit here and listen to you go on and on all night, but I have my own pressing responsibilities to fulfill. Ones that you– or rather, mostly your twin, of course– have already complicated.”

“Responsibilities?” This earned them a dubious up-and-down glance. “Like… catching dewdrops in flower petals, or...?”

Virgil wondered if the human was nearsighted, to miss that vexed eyebrow twitch.

“Contrary to your entirely flattering assumptions,” they grit out, “I am actually here on much more pressing business. The life-or-death kind.”

“No way.” Intrigued, Roman shuffled closer, entirely drawn in by the mystery of it all. “I mean, we knew it was serious, with Patton ending up in the hospital and all, but it really wasn’t just an accident? We thought it had to be ghosts for sure, but if there’s fairy criminals– Are there fairy assassins?!”

Virgil felt his blood run cold, as though he’d just plunged through a sheet of too-thin ice and dropped into freezing waters. And yet even through the shock, the symbol branded on his arm had never felt more searing.

The stranger met his terrified gaze through their own burn scars. The two of them had been marked by the same hands, and both of them knew exactly how spot-on Roman’s guess really was.

The moment they told him what Virgil was, the moment they revealed the bloodstained legacy he’d been born into, it was over. Patton had fallen deathly ill, and a human-murdering cult member had been sneaking around in his walls. No matter how oblivious Roman could be, he was more than smart enough to connect the dots.

They might not be his humans, but Virgil had seen enough of the twins to know exactly how vicious they could be in defense of their friends.

He was as good as dead.

The stranger’s expression flattened out, and they looked away with a sharp jerk of their head.

“I wouldn’t know anything about that. I don’t specialize in assassins,” they lied, voice airy.

While Virgil attempted to remember how to breathe, Roman had uncapped a pen and was frantically scribbling shorthand notes on his arm, apparently vividly inspired by the implication that there were fairy assassins out there.

As casual as anything, the stranger tucked the metal curve of Virgil’s hook into the loop of his belt. His gaze was unreadable as it flitted over Virgil, but this time, it didn’t linger.

“Oh, oh, I’ve got it!” Roman announced. “You two are partners! The grizzled veteran and the bright-eyed rookie, a classic crime-solving set up!”

Virgil didn’t even want to know who had been assigned what role. The stranger seemed to be thinking along the same lines, spreading their hands disarmingly as they responded.

“Oh, so close!” they said, a hint of mockery in their smile. “Actually, the criminal that I’m bringing to justice… is your unwitting trespasser up there.”

With a suitably shocked gasp, Roman turned to stare at Virgil. The stranger also turned to stare at Virgil, but at a considerably slower pace, wearing the sort of malicious glee that one typically saw in a cartoon cat that had successfully caught the canary.

Oh, you lying snake.

The scornful words tangled up in his throat the moment the human’s heavy gaze landed on him, years of deeply-ingrained instincts keeping him entirely mute.

So instead, he lifted up his free hand and flipped them off with as much vitriol as he could feasibly work into a single gesture.

“See how the miscreant wounds me even now,” the stranger said, pressing the back of their hand against their head as though they might enter a swooning faint from the offense. “Clearly, a human as quick-witted as you can understand how important it is that I complete my task and make them pay for their crimes.”

Roman nodded emphatically, completely taken in. “That’s why you were helping them out of the pitcher! Not to help them escape, but to prevent them from escaping the firm hand of justice!”

“I knew you’d understand,” the stranger agreed pleasantly, taking a few steps towards Virgil and his makeshift glass prison. “In that case, if you’ll just stand aside while I retrieve the culprit in question…”

“Oh, of course!” Roman replied, and then cast a considering look at where Virgil was dangling. “Actually, since it’s our fault— really, more Remus’s— that you have to go to the trouble in the first place, let me just—,”

“There’s no need for that, truly,” the stranger tried to cut in, clearly having caught on faster than Virgil. Their words were rushed, but still not fast enough to prevent Roman from reaching out and plucking Virgil off the edge of the pitcher, easy as anything.

Easy for Roman, anyways. Personally, being abruptly lifted into the air by a hand bigger than him was causing some difficulties for Virgil.

Mostly the fact that if this kept up, the heart palpitations were going to take him out before the humans or murderous victim of his former cult could.

“There we are,” Roman announced grandly, holding Virgil slightly aloft in front of the stranger in offering, like he’d grabbed them a tissue instead of an entire living person.

Virgil made eye contact with the other borrower, who looked mildly chagrined, and then gave in to the feral raccoon that lived in the back of his mind and twisted around to bite the human.

“Jiminy fucking Christmas,” Roman swore, immediately dropping Virgil as though burnt. “You bit me!”

Virgil made a sound like a deflating air mattress as he hit the ground backfirst, the impact knocking the wind out of him.

“Did you see that? They bit me!”

He ignored the sting of rapidly-forming bruises to roll to his hands and knees, his breathing coming in wheezing stops and starts as he tried to refill his lungs. There were borrower-sized steps approaching, and Virgil snapped his head up to glare furiously at the stranger. “Don’t.”

They stopped short, holding their hands up in a mockery of nonaggression.

“I can’t believe you bit me, and not Remus!” Roman had never sounded more offended.

Right. That was a cue to leave if Virgil had ever heard one.

He got to his feet, attention already locked onto the nearest wall entrance, and staggered the first few steps forward before a hand latched onto his wrist.

“Stop right there,” the stranger said, the words demanding but the tone of voice closer to a warning. “You’re not going anywhere like that.”

Virgil was tempted to take a swing at the guy, since apparently the first concussion hadn’t knocked enough common sense back into their head. He yanked his arm away with a scowl, but then froze mid-motion at a flicker of movement overhead.

“Don’t try me.” Roman had overcome his affronted shock long enough to move a hand to hover ominously over Virgil, clearly prepared to intercede if he tried to make a run for it. “Remus has brought over seventeen feral rats into our home, I am extremely well-trained in grabbing without getting bitten.”

“How convenient for me,” the stranger said, their gaze fixed squarely on Virgil. “If you would turn around? I obviously can’t take you back until you’re properly secured, and it’ll make things easier on all of us if you just play along.”

Virgil glared back in silence for a long moment.

It wasn’t that he didn’t understand their scheme. It was an insanely risky ploy that required extensive knowledge of the human in question, but the end goal was clearly to get the both of them back into the walls and safely out of human hands.

It was just that the last time he’d turned his back on this particular borrower, they’d literally attempted to run him through. Virgil found he wasn’t too keen on putting his undefended back to a guy who had tried to test out the structural integrity of his internal organs less than thirty minutes ago.

Unfortunately, the alternative was testing the structural integrity of his internal organs against a human who had dropped him less than thirty seconds ago.

Virgil turned around, his entire body drawn taut with tension, and let the stranger wrap some twine around his wrists in an ineffective parody of handcuffs.

“Perfect,” the stranger said, nudging at Virgil’s heels until he got the hint and started their trek towards the wall. “And now, thanks to your gracious interference, our villain can be tried for their crimes in front of a judge with the appropriate legal representation. The system is unimpeachable, the punishment will fit the crime, good triumphs over evil once more, et cetera.”

“‘Et cetera’?” Virgil muttered incredulously.

“You shut up,” the stranger whispered back.

“You know, when I heard about fairy courts, I was kind of envisioning something entirely different,” Roman mused, before visibly refocusing. “Wait wait wait, you can’t just leave! You haven’t even revealed the dastardly crime, or how they almost got away with it, or how you figured them out!”

“Oh, I really can’t delay. Fairy court is just so very time-sensitive, I’m afraid,” the stranger lied without hesitation, continuing to march Virgil forward as smoothly as possible. “I’ll have to return to tell you all about it later– of course, you’ll have to keep this little encounter to yourself. We aren’t typically supposed to disclose such sensitive information to anyone, let alone humans, but I’ve found myself irresistibly charmed by your moxie.”

“Aw, you’re just saying that!” Roman flapped a hand in faux-modesty, and then gasped. “Was I the bright-eyed rookie all along?”

Before the stranger could answer, Remus slid into the kitchen on socked feet, with so much momentum that he slammed against the counter. The painful thud of torso meeting marble did absolutely nothing to deter the grin on his face.

“Okay, bad news, I totally biffed my half of the divide-and-conquer plan. Good news, the other little guy is cool as hell and I’m calling dibs on hanging out with that one in advance,” he announced, and then visibly focused on the two borrowers in front of him. “Woah, what did I just walk in on?”

“You can’t call dibs in advance,” Roman instantly retorted, and then smacked Remus’s shoulder. “Stop being gross, the handcuffs are because they’re being taken away to fairy jail. After facing a trial required by fairy due process, I guess.”

The stranger’s grip on Virgil’s arm tightened, and they sped up their pace for the first time since Roman had entered the room. Virgil would feel more reassured if they weren’t still moving at a very ‘definitely-concussed’ sort of rate.

“I leave for five minutes, and you hand our puny poltergeist over to the cops?” Remus demanded, stretching his arm forward to block their way. “Ro-bro, it’s like you want me to disown you.”

“I would so disown you first, and you know it,” Roman hissed back. “Besides, they’re not a cop, they’re like, the fairy version of a hardboiled detective!”

“I don’t care how gay the detective is, that still counts as a cop!”

Unable to progress past Remus’s flesh barricade, Virgil glanced back at the stranger; they were pinching the bridge of their nose with visible irritation.

“Aren’t you going to say something?” he asked, keeping his voice low.

“Like what?” they snapped back, voice equally quiet. “Anything I would say to fool Roman, Remus will rebuff! Anything I would say to convince Remus, Roman will reject! There’s no winning with these two!”

“Oh, great, so we really are screwed,” Virgil bit out.

“Not necessarily,” the stranger replied, unconvincingly. “They’re still distractible by nature. If we contribute to the argument, rile them up–,”

“‘Rile them up’?!” Virgil twisted around further so they could get the full effect of his disbelieving expression. “That’s the worst idea I’ve ever heard. That’s insane. You’re insane. We’re going to die.”

“Oh, I’m sorry, I suppose you preferred being stuck in the pitcher?” they retorted sharply. “Far be it from me to inconvenience the cultist who fractured my skull!”

“I’m not– You tried to stab me first!”

Whatever they said next was entirely drowned out by the twins, who had escalated their own fight into near-shouting territory. Virgil was only catching every other word, but it sounded like they were yelling about a completely unrelated topic.

Every time Remus responded, his arm lifted slightly further off the counter, like he was only barely resisting the urge to put his brother in a headlock. Virgil locked onto the movement, a spike of anticipation filling him.

“Shut up, shut up,” he interrupted the stranger, ignoring their irritated scowl. “Look!”

The moment they noticed the potential escape route, their displeasure instantly fell away in favor of smugness. “See? I told you they were distractible. My plans always work out perfectly.”

The kitchen light flicked on and off a few times, startling the twins into silence and drawing every eye to the figure standing in the doorway.

“Hey, kiddos,” Patton said, rubbing a hand sleepily over his face. “It’s called a sleepover, not a shoutover. What’s going on?”

Stranded out in the open with three humans looming over them, the stranger endured Virgil’s scathing look with a pained grimace.

Now that he was squarely in the palm of a hand big enough to crush him in one motion, he was admittedly having some regrets.

“Woah there, Goth Thumbelina, no need to panic,” said Remus, hurriedly moving his other hand close to form a wall as Virgil attempted to duck away from the fingers curling over him. “A guy as small as you does not want to fall from this height, trust me. We’d turn the kitchen into a total splatter zone.”

And here Virgil had thought his heart couldn’t beat any faster. Life was always surprising him in the worst ways possible.

“Hello? Can you hear me, little guy?” Remus asked, lifting his hands to face level in a motion quick enough to shake what little balance Virgil had left. “You’re not dying of shock, are you? If I accidentally murder a fairy in Patty’s house, I’m pretty sure I’ll legally have to commit some kind of elaborate ritual suicide to atone.”

Well. His parents would probably be happy to know that he’d taken one last human down with him, at least.

Virgil drew all his limbs in until he felt more pillbug than person, his mind too full of mindless panicked shrieking for anything resembling a plan to form.

He couldn’t get away. He couldn’t fight the human off. He couldn’t even say anything, not unless he wanted to make this even worse for every other borrower in the world.

In the end, for all their malice and arrogance, a borrower from the Monoxide group was the same as any other borrower. There still wasn’t a single technique that would save them when they were in the clutches of a human.

All he could do was wait and see what the human decided to do with him.

… At the moment, Remus mostly seemed to be intent on poking him, over and over.

“Hey, c’mon, don’t kill us both in the world’s bizarrest murder-suicide! I haven’t even gotten to third base with a ghost yet!” The finger prodded lightly at the curve of his back again. “If we both die here, we’ll have to haunt this house together. Is that what you want? Because I will inevitably make it weird.”

Do not bite the human, Virgil reminded himself. Do not bite the human. That is a one-way ticket to getting thrown against a wall. Do not bite the human—

“Wow, you are way more polite than most of the small creatures I’ve held,” Remus noted enthusiastically. “On a completely unrelated note, are you venomous?”

Maybe one bite would be fine.

“Remus, if you’re cavorting with rodents in Pat’s kitchen, I swear—,” an annoyed grumble came from the entryway.

“Au contraire, less fair brother of mine,” Remus replied as he spun around to face his twin, “Any true rodent would have given me rabies twice over by now.”

Roman, who had a blanket cape draped over his shoulders and a cranky expression draped over his face, didn’t even glance down at Remus’s cupped hands. “Well, unless you’ve found a mouse-sized poltergeist, my beauty sleep—,”

“Huh.” Remus tilted his head, as though considering Virgil from a new angle. “Actually… maybe this is Patty’s mystery polterguest! Come look!”

He beckoned his twin over with a jerk of the head, and Roman’s suspicion deepened immediately. “Remus. If you are about to throw a cockroach at me, the repercussions will be severe and without mercy.”

“Heh,” Remus looked as if he was indulging in a fond memory. “Nah, I don’t want to ruin my intact-window streak by making you scream like an opera singer in a saw trap.”

Roman edged closer, eyes narrowed. “I still don’t see what kind of ghost would be that small—,”

“Tsk, tsk! Don’t judge a home invader by their size, RoBro!”

Virgil barely bit back a yelp as the human promptly stuck his cupped hands out, nearly knocking his kneeling form right back over. He ducked his head slightly, as though he could somehow prevent them from seeing what he was when he was literally being displayed at that very moment.

Roman’s eyes went wide as quarters as he peered down at him. “Holy Heracles. Is that a fairy?! Patton really is a Disney Princess!”

“That’s what I thought, too, but check it,” Remus nudged Virgil onto his side, revealing his back more clearly. “No wings, or even wing stumps. Plus, they live in the walls.”

Great, he’d noticed that. Still halfway to a panic attack, Virgil spared a pitying thought for all of borrowerkind.

“I feel like there was a Barbie movie that addressed the validity of wingless fairies,” Roman mused, before pausing to frown. “What do you mean, the walls? Tell me you didn’t try eating drywall again. This is not our house.”

“Nobody ever wants to try my fun sleepover activities,” Remus pouted, before rolling his eyes at Roman’s glare. “Don’t get your crown-patterned boxers in a twist, I caught them pre-wall entry.”

“‘Caught them’?” Roman echoed, glancing back down at Virgil, whose body had decided to start trembling hard enough to hopefully vibrate him right out of existence. “Oh my god, you traumatized the fairy. We are so gonna get cursed.”

“Awesome!” cheered Remus. “I hope it’s something with boils.”

“I am not re-enacting the Princess and the Frog as the more amphibious role!” Roman snapped, and lunged forward as though planning to snatch Virgil right out of Remus’s grasp.

Virgil had managed to keep his screaming internal thus far, but the strangled noise of terror that escaped him at the motion was entirely involuntary. Luckily, it was also probably high-pitched enough to bypass human hearing entirely.

“Woah!” Remus recoiled sharply, his hands cupping together to completely surround Virgil, like a child holding a firefly. “Do you even know how breakable itty-bitty creatures are? If I wanted to play tug of war with someone’s guts, I’d kidnap a politician!”

“If I shouldn’t be trusted with delicate creatures, you definitely shouldn’t be,” Roman shot back, though going by the distance of his muffled voice, he’d aborted his grabbing attempts. “Just put them down, they can’t even fly!”

The two of them exchanged some petulant, mostly-indistinct muttering, and then Remus shuffled to the side before placing his clasped hands down on something solid and slowly shifting them out from underneath Virgil.

Rather than fight the motion, Virgil pulled himself upright and let tension coil in every muscle, prepared to take off the instant he felt stable countertop under his feet again.

Sure, running hadn’t worked out for him the first time, but the first time, he’d been dragging the majority of a concussed stranger’s weight along with him. Seeing as Remus had barely caught him even with that handicap, he was more than willing to give fleeing for his life another shot.

His weight dropped onto a surface that was distinctly smoother and slicker than a kitchen counter, and his heart dropped along with it.

Sure enough, when Remus’s hands pulled back, he found himself standing at the bottom of a glass lemonade pitcher, no closer to escape than he’d been when a human hand had been the only thing between him and a fatal fall.

The twins were looming close enough to make his heart stutter, but they were also currently too preoccupied bickering with each other to pay their captive too much attention. Virgil backed up until his shoulders met glass, and slowly slid down into a sitting position, tucking his knees up against his chest.

He was never getting out of this.

–

“Janus,” Logan started, from where he was peering out the wallpaper doorway. “Haven’t we always agreed that we wouldn’t wish our humans on our worst enemy?”

“I don’t recall agreeing to that,” Janus countered halfheartedly, squinting past his near-blinding headache to follow Logan’s gaze. “Really, if you think about it, our worst enemies deserve to be faced with our least merciful weapons.”

In the kitchen, Remus cheerfully put his brother in a vicious headlock.

Also in the kitchen, the borrower Janus had totally and utterly screwed over flinched and flattened themself further against their glass prison.

Logan hummed in a way that did not make Janus feel like he was winning the argument. “And is this solitary borrower our worst enemy?”

“They could be,” Janus replied, indulging in as much of a sulk as his dignity would allow. “They have the mark, they knew what I was talking about. This could all be part of a long con.”

“A long con,” Logan echoed, “to get captured by humans.”

Humans that could have easily caught Janus instead, he pointedly didn’t say.

Janus felt the phantom pressure of a pair of hands shoving him to safety at the last moment, and nausea bubbled up in his throat. He felt fairly certain that it was only partially because of the alleged concussion Logan insisted he absolutely did have. “Anything’s possible.”

Logan turned from the nightmare scene in the kitchen to give Janus the look that comment deserved. “There were no passages to window box gardens or stores of harvested poisons in their home. All of the equipment I found was intended for borrowing, not assassination. There’s only signs of a single borrower residing here, when Monoxide members favor traveling in pairs or trios.”

Janus hissed under his breath. “We can’t just dismiss the possibility that they’re an outlier. A really strange, ineffective, idiotic outlier.”

“Perhaps, but looking at the current evidence offers us a far more plausible conclusion,” Logan said, and then paused, taking in Janus’s grim, hunched-over posture. “... Of course, we can’t truly confirm any theories without investigating our suspect further.”

“Our humans seem entirely too willing to interrogate them for us,” Janus replied bitterly.

Logan turned away from the doorway, dragging his oversized pack in front of him and rummaging through one of the side pockets. “In my experience, our humans have also been very susceptible to distraction.”

Janus perked up, recognizing something familiar in Logan’s tone. That was the tone that preceded a scheme risky enough to make typical borrowers faint just thinking about it.

“Of course,” Logan continued, pulling what looked like miniature explosive prototypes out of his bag, “a distraction loud and flashy enough to divert the twins would only worsen your concussion. I, however, am not concussed.” He paused to give one of the prototypes a dubious glance. “Yet.”

Janus leaned forward to try and inspect one of the devices, and received an armful of coiled thread and a meaningful look from Logan instead.

“Oh, sure,” he complained. “Leave the guy with the head injury with the job of convincing the stranger he tried to stab to participate in the rescue attempt, that makes perfect sense.”

“I have utmost faith in your persuasive abilities,” Logan said in that deadpan way that always made Janus doubt his claim to not understand sarcasm. “Be ready to move as soon as the twins are lured away; I haven't tested the new formula and I’m not sure how long they’ll burn.”

With that extremely concerning statement, the borrower tucked a pair of matches under his armpit, turned, and vanished around the nearest corner.

Janus pulled the thick loop of thread over one shoulder, crouched by the kitchen entrance, and waited.

To Logan’s credit, he worked fast. A series of crackling pops went off, distant but distinct, and their humans only exchanged the briefest of glances before haring off in an unspoken competition to get to the mysterious noises first. Truly, they were predictable in the most amusing ways.

Running had proven to be highly disorienting, so Janus speed walked across the counter to where the borrower’s prison sat. Undignified, but effective.

It hardly mattered; the stranger had crossed the width of the pitcher to peer after the twins and thus was facing the entirely wrong direction to notice Janus’s approach.

They did notice the weighted end of the thread clunk onto the glass behind them, going by how high they jumped and their vehement, half-wheezed swear. They glanced between him and the rope several times in bewilderment.

Janus waggled his fingers in an obnoxious little wave, just because he could. “Any day now. Unless you prefer your current accommodations, I suppose.”

“You’re… helping me?” they asked, with far more dubiousness than Janus felt was warranted. He hadn’t even managed to actually stab them.

“Do you really have the luxury of suspicion right now?” he asked back, shaking the rope for emphasis.

That seemed to snap them out of it. In the next moment, they were wrapping the end of the rope around their wrist and planting their feet on the glass wall, hauling themself up with impressive speed.

Janus leaned back, planting himself as a firmer counterbalance, and then paused.

He could still hear the muted bangs of borrower-sized chemical warfare going on in the other room, but that was it. For a space inhabited by both twins at the same time, there was a suspicious lack of shouting.

Unless…

A chill ran up his spine, and he resisted the urge to yank pointlessly on his end of the rope. “Hurry.”

“I’m trying,” the stranger bit back, grunting as they got a grip on the edge of the pitcher and pulled themself up. They lifted their head and froze in place, all the blood draining from their face.

Janus knew what he'd see before he even turned his head. 

He lifted his head from where he’d been pressing his forehead blearily against the cardboard of the shoebox in front of him, and felt the abrupt pressure of cool metal along the side of his neck.

“Well, well, well,” a low, borrower-sized voice murmured from close behind him. “It looks like this house wasn’t as unoccupied as we thought.”

Suddenly, Virgil felt very, very awake.

He tried to slowly turn his head, get a look at his assailant, but the metal– thin diameter, no edge, probably a sharpened needle or pin– pressed down firmer in a silent threat.

“Now, now, we certainly don’t want any trouble. So long as you cooperate, there’s no reason for anyone to get hurt.” The voice hardened slightly. “Disarm yourself, slowly.”

Virgil’s fists clenched, but at this distance, all the other borrower would have to do was pull back slightly and stab, and he’d be done for.

He carefully lifted his hands to the strap across his chest, lifting it over his head and setting his bag down beside him with care. His belt followed suit, both of his weapons still sheathed in it.

With each movement, his dread grew. Raiding a house like this, threatening other occupants right off the bat, that condescending, superior tone– it wasn’t typical borrower behavior. Not at all.

“Very good,” the voice crooned, “now let’s continue our chat back in the walls, shall we? It will take us a while to get familiar with the layout, but I’m sure you know the way.”

The pressure against his neck lightened slightly, and Virgil got to his feet and allowed himself to be maneuvered so that he was facing towards the kitchen, and by extension, the entrance he’d built there behind the toaster.

His thoughts were racing nearly as fast as his heart, his steps slightly unsteady as he unwillingly led the way across the countertops. Clearly, they didn’t want the confrontation happening out here, where a human could notice any lingering evidence of a fight. Raising suspicions was the last thing any borrower wanted to do, let alone a potential Monoxide member.

Obviously, then, he couldn’t let himself be shuffled into the walls, where his captor could spill his blood as they pleased without worry.

Virgil took a too-large step, the resulting stagger only half-faked, and the moment the needle wavered away for a moment to prevent accidentally stabbing him, he ducked and twisted under it, scurrying backwards to put space between him and his attacker while also getting a good look at them.

They were surprisingly short, with heavy burn scarring along one side of their face, and dressed in a style of clothing that seemed to mimic human formal wear. The sleeves of their white shirt were rolled up, and Virgil couldn’t help the way his eyes immediately flitted to the back of their forearms.

Nothing. One arm also had those same burn scars, but there wasn’t a trace of tattoo ink in sight.

He started to inhale a little deeper, the beginnings of a sigh of relief– and then nearly choked on that breath the moment his gaze caught on the other borrower’s neck.

The mark was simpler, more stylized than his own, but the two circles linked by a thick straight line were unmistakable. A visual representation of carbon monoxide, rumored to be ripped directly from a human textbook by the group’s founder, along with the real meaning behind the name: a silent, invisible killer.

“Oh?” The borrower’s lips curled into an unsurprised smirk. “See something you recognize?”

Virgil mentally cursed himself for staring so blatantly. He’d spent most of his childhood with his parents or their extended family, had associated that symbol with the back of the forearm, where he himself saw it every time he rolled his sleeves up. Like an idiot, he’d forgotten that the location of the mark varied, depending on which colony or bloodline one was from.

He’d always thought that if anyone was going to track down and punish a deserter like him, it’d be someone who’d already known him. His family, or someone from the colony they hailed from.

His mistake for assuming.

“What do you want from me?” he asked, just barely curbing the outright hatred in his tone. “You’re not welcome here.”

The other borrower jerked, just the slightest amount, their calculating eyes narrowing.

“Oh? Are you going to throw us out?” A considering pause. “Or perhaps there’s another Monoxide borrower here, and the victims of this home are already spoken for? After all, the only claim our organization respects is that of a fellow member.”

There was something testing in the way their gaze swept over both the humans and Virgil on the word ‘victims’, a double-edged meaningfulness that Virgil couldn’t quite parse.

He couldn’t waste any time trying to puzzle it out. His mind had already latched onto a new opportunity, one that the stranger had unwittingly dropped right into his lap.

“There are no other borrowers here,” he said firmly, straightening his shoulders and ignoring the nervous sweat prickling along his sides. “But this house is claimed nonetheless.”

He shoved his sleeve up in one harsh motion, displaying the mark that he swore he’d never affiliate himself with again.

To keep human-killers out of Patton’s home, he’d do a lot worse.

—

Janus barely managed to keep the hateful triumph off his face, staring down at the symbol of the cult that had made his life a living hell for so long.

For a moment there, faced with the wide, panicked eyes of a stranger, he’d doubted his judgment. He’d worried that this wasn’t a cruel and sadistic killer, but an unwilling accomplice pressed into service, perhaps even the one who’d tried to save Patton.

He couldn’t afford to drop the act, couldn’t let a misplaced sense of empathy drag his guard down when it was him and Logan both at risk.

Instead, he set up a trap, and the cultist fell for it without hesitation.

They’d offered up the proof that would seal their fate with laughably misplaced confidence, their chin raising up, shifting to that familiar arrogant posture that Monoxiders wore like a second skin.

Janus’s hand twitched with the urge to stab forward, again and again until there wasn’t even a ghost of a chance that the assassin before him could hurt anyone ever again.

Patience, patience. He’d gotten this far with relative ease, there was no point in taking any needless risks by engaging in direct combat. Not when backstabbing would serve him much better.

“What a surprise!” he exclaimed, raising his eyebrows dramatically. “I do apologize for my hastiness, I would never have threatened you if I’d known.”

The cultist grunted and shoved their sleeve down roughly, face still set in a stony mask. “Easy mistake. Now, I have a schedule to keep, so–,”

“Oh, come now,” Janus cut in, gesturing airily with the needle, “don’t be so hasty! You simply must show me what you’re using on your human, it’s been ages since I’ve run into a different branch and I’m exceedingly curious about how our poisons vary. You do have a garden, don’t you?”

A strange stiffness ran through the cultist for a moment, before they nodded jerkily. “Naturally. And it’s humans. All of them are under claim.”

The cold rush that swept through him was equal parts terror and rage. One night, and the serial murderer already had designs on the twins. Janus didn’t want to imagine what could have happened if he and Logan hadn’t put the pieces together in time.

“How… ambitious!” Janus smiled sharply to conceal the way he was forcing every word through clenched teeth. “I’m even more intrigued to see what you have in store for them. By all means, lead the way!”

He gestured to the entrance he’d left open, just barely visible from this angle, and the cultist’s face pinched for a moment before settling back into a frown.

“Sure. After I go grab my stuff.”

They began retracing their path across the countertop, and Janus felt his composure begin to fracture. He wasn’t willing to allow them to reclaim their weaponry, even if it meant stabbing them out in the open. A few blood stains here and there weren't out of place in a house Remus was in, anyways.

He kept his steps light and casual as he approached the cultist from behind, lining his strike up, hefting the needle back, and–

The moment he jabbed forward, the cultist threw themself to the side, twisting around quicker than Janus could follow and lunging with teeth bared.

The tackle took them both down, Janus’s head smacking against the marble counter hard enough that sharp pin pricks of white blinked in and out of his vision.

“I knew it,” the cultist snarled, taking advantage of the close quarters to grab Janus’s wrists and pin them down. The needle clattered free of his grip against his will, and Janus felt a rising surge of mindless panic threaten to overwhelm him entirely. "How many others? How did you find me?”

“As if it was hard. I saw the signs, the trail of evidence you left behind,” Janus snapped with a glare, ignoring the pain radiating through his skull and the way his eyesight blurred more with every blink. “You cultists all think you’re so clever, but your tricks are always the same.”

“What–?” their grip loosened slightly, and Janus managed to yank a hand free and swing it sloppily at the cultist’s face. Miraculously, the punch landed.

The cultist recoiled with a choked-off yelp, giving him just enough space to draw his legs up and kick viciously, driving them further back with surprising effectiveness.

“Wait, stop–,” they started, swerving away from Janus’s next strike. “What did you just–?”

“I’ll kill you,” Janus hissed, trying to find the silver glint of his needle as he scrambled unsteadily to his feet. “Whatever sick, twisted game you had in store for the humans, it ends now.”

His vision had to be getting worse; the cultist almost looked as though they were holding their hands up defensively, trying to back away.

“Hold on, so you– you’re not actually a member?” The voice sounded off-balance, unsteady. Kind of like the vertigo currently building up in Janus’s skull. “You said– Were we both pretending–?”

“I’m never going back,” Janus said, cutting off whatever inane nonsense the cultist was spouting. Each word felt clumsy in his mouth. “You don’t– don’t get to take anything else from me, ever. Not Logan, not the twins, not even Patton. I’ll kill you first. I’ll die first.”

He might be dying already, going by how horrible his head felt.

“Listen to me, okay, I’m not actually one of them,” the cultist was skirting around Janus like a circling hawk, flitting out of reach every time he managed to gain any ground. “I mean, okay, technically I was, but I left. I deserted.”

“Liar,” Janus accused. “You poisoned Patton!”

“Shhh! No I didn’t!” The cultist glanced over their shoulder, worry creasing their face. “Look, I promise I’m not going to hurt anyone, this was all just one big misunderstanding. Can we save this argument for when you’re a little less concussed?”

“I’m not concussed,” Janus informed them, completely truthfully and with no slurring to his words whatsoever. “I’m going to stab you to death.”

Wait, where had he put his needle?

“This is what I get for trying to be nice,” the cultist was muttering to themself. “This is the karmic retribution of not simply minding my business like usual.”

Admittedly, at the moment, they sounded a little too pathetic to be a Monoxide member. But that could be exactly what they wanted him to think!

Janus shook his head stubbornly (earning himself another jolt of agony) and then paused as he noticed a dull, rhythmic thumping, the kind that was heavy enough that it was more of a vibration than a sound.

The cultist went completely still for a heartbeat, and then there was a tense hand locked around his wrist.

“Run.”

Janus didn’t argue or try to pull away, a burst of adrenaline urging him onward as a long-ingrained reflex informed his pain-addled brain that this noise meant danger.

Despite his best efforts, it was far harder than usual to keep himself steady as he ran, his path wavering and occasionally bumping directly into the side of the cultist next to him.

Within moments, the wall entrance was within view, only a short sprint away–

A bright light flickered into existence above them, fluorescent bulbs humming audibly, and Janus couldn’t help but cry out as the pain in his head spiked to an unbearable intensity, his eyes squeezing shut automatically.

“Woah!” A nasally, too-large voice gasped.

“Move, move, movemovemove,” a much smaller voice demanded, accompanied by a string of muttered curses, yanking Janus back upright and pushing him until he stumbled blindly forward.

Another dozen harried steps, the sound of far too large movements growing far too close, and then firm pressure shoving against his back with enough force to propel him almost off his feet, right into the blessed relief of darkness.

Even between painful, narrow-eyed blinks, Janus could tell he was back within the protection of the walls, the air cooler and more tightly circulated amidst the narrow nooks and crannies. Heady relief swept through him; They’d made it.

“Gotcha!” A tangibly human voice crowed from alarmingly close.

They’d made it, hadn’t they?

There were no longer fingers wrapped around Janus’s wrist. Dread sank into him like a stone plummeting into a river. He reached out hopelessly, finding only empty air at his side, unable to block out the curious, awestruck exclamations of the nearby human.

He was the only one in the wall, despite the fact that the other borrower should have been able to outstrip him with ease.

There had been two hands against his back, pushing him clear at the last moment, when they had no reason at all to defend him.

It didn’t make any sense.

Janus buried his fingers in his hair, his head full of pain and misery and confusion alike. If he could just think for a moment, just remember what they’d said while he was half-delirious with pain…

Through the still-open entrance, Janus could see Remus peering down at his cupped hands with open fascination. His stomach twisted with nausea and guilt alike.

He’d set out to send a stranger to their death, and that’s exactly what he’d done.