#ooth

“Logan, honey, volume. And Remus stop being gross we invited you here to study not air our desperation.” Janus’ quiet drawl diffused the situation immediately as both parties screwed their mouths to the side and looked away. Remus heard the librarian huff and stalk away with furious clicks of his heels, no doubt miffed at the missed chance to kick them out for the third time that week.

“Jannie Jan. J-anus. Jan-ass. Jan-assist me with this b-”

“Afternoon Remus. New piercing already?”

Nodding excitedly, Remus leaned over Logan’s books, ignoring the put upon sigh behind him and staring at the redhead with wide eyes. Janus smirked as he watched the other’s eyebrows jump up and down, the fluorescent bulbs of the library catching the two studs placed right at the end of the left brow that morning.

“Looks nice. I like the green.”

“Remus if you keep doing those yourself you’re going to get an infection. Please, I’ve told you so many times I know the tattoo artist down the street, I can get you discount piercings.” 

Remus craned his neck nearly all the way around, a manic grin thrown over tiks shoulder as Logan stared at him in horror. “Awe you like meeeeee.” 

Shooting Janus the “it’s your turn look” while being bumped repeatedly in the shoulder by Remus’ swaying hips Logan pressed zir mouth into a thin line as the return eyebrow raise of “you owe me for last time” was shot right back. Rolling zir eyes Logan shoved back with zir shoulder sending Remus right back in the chair.

“You.” Logan hissed. “Are going to get us kicked out again. I quite enjoy this library, so take this and for the love of god stay relatively quiet!”

So saying a silicone sword on a string was pressed into Remus’ hands, who inspected the obnoxiously green object for a moment before shrugging and shoving it into his mouth. “Long and thick, I like it.”

The undignified snort Janus didn’t quite manage to cover followed by a shriek as his shins were kicked from under the table was enough to teleport the librarian over to them. Glaring down his nose at the two properly chastised of the group and the one currently grinning like an idiot he pointed aggressively towards the door in a way that dared them to argue.

“Out.”

“Yes ma’am.” Logan and Janus muttered as they collected their things. Remus jumped up with a salute that received an icy glare stern enough to freeze if Remus had actually been paying attention- as it was tik merely swung his pack up and over tiks shoulder nearly hitting the man in the process. A final self satisfied huff and a slammed door later found all three of them kicking pebbles on the sidewalk, put out and annoyed but certainly not surprised.

“Remus, I care for you a great deal but at the moment I would like to yeet you into the road.” Logan turned to Janus slightly. “Usage?”

Ignoring Remus’ giggling, Janus nodded. “It’s correct.”

“We could go to your flat?” Logan asked hopefully, wilting as Janus shook his head.

“Roommates are having their own study session and between Remus’...” Janus paused and watched as the other tried to snap a bug into his book, nearly snapping his nose as tik tripped in the process. “...Remus and my more distracting noises I don’t think we’d be welcome back just yet.”

“They could just wear headphones.” Logan muttered, clearly annoyed.

“Yes well, not everyone understands vocal stims and I don’t want to get into another argument with them about it. I rather enjoy my flat and if I could continue to live in it that would be lovely.”

“I know a place!” Remus jumped suddenly between them. “I found it last week looking for-”

“Remus we are not studying in a graveyard or a morgue or a house you think is haunted. I understand your love of ghosts but-”

“This one’s really nice I promise!” Remus interrupted, giving Logan puppy eyes that had zir rolling zir eyes yet again. “It’s in that weird in between of broken down enough that no one wants it but not enough that the government or whatever wants to step in yet...so I think technically no one owns it?”

“Is that how that works?” Janus turned to Logan curiously.

Logan opened zir mouth to argue, finger already in the “in fact it isn’t” position before pausing to consider. “I- I’d like to say no but I don’t know enough about property rights in this state to argue.”

“In this state?” Janus’ question was ignored in favor of Logan blocking Remus’ book from slamming into zir nose.

“It’s safe?” Janus asked instead.

“Yeah! Well-” Remus mumbled around tiks chewelry, tugging the book out of Logan’s grip and stuffing it uncaringly into tiks bag. “Just don’t go on the second floor I guess...stairs look a bit not great. But! It doesn’t have a basement so the first floor is safe! And most of the windows are broken so it doesn’t smell or anything.”

“....and we’re taking those as good points and moving on. Logan?”

Pinching the bridge of zir nose and pushing zir blue tinted hair out of zir face, Logan eyed the man currently bouncing up and down in excitement and nearly jostling the papers out of tiks open backpack. Smiling fondly ze shrugged. “If it's quiet I don’t see why-”

“Yes! Come on, I know a shortcut!”  

Janus and Logan watched as Remus took off at a sprint, using the momentum to throw his pack over the fence and picking up half the papers that flew out of it before hopping it tikself. Scooping most of his things back up he continued running across the residentials backyards and turning out of sight around the far corner.

Holding his hand out Janus smiled wryly. “I know which house he’s talking about, it isn’t far. Sidewalk or yards?”

“The sidewalk is better- I can’t hold your hand trying to hop a fence.” So saying Logan slipped zir hand into the others’, but not before smugly observing his reddening cheeks.

“Sap.”

“No, a flirt?” Holding in his laughter, Janus tugged Logan along, walking faster than normal in the hopes that the wind would cool his face. 

-----

“Ta-da!” Remus twirled in the entryway, flinging his bag to the side of the hall as tik did. Sneezing in the resulting dust he quickly shuffled back further into the house. The space had probably been a living room before the previous owners moved, though as it stood now it seemed even the house had forgotten what it once was. Old, warped floorboards held only water damage as memories, groaning and giving slightly when anyone stepped on them. As it was they protested heavily as Remus uncaringly rocked back and forth on his heels, waiting for the others to actually step inside. 

“You’re sure this is safe?” Logan cautioned as ze stepped gingerly around a pile of plaster that had long since crumbled off the wall by the door.

“Oh absolutely! Nothing’s fallen on me yet that wasn't already on the floor when I got here.” Tik paused as tik glanced towards the stairs- rickety, broken things that looked like blowing a fan in their direction would collapse them- and winced. “Just...don’t use the stairs. I put my foot through the first one by accident trying to explore the other day.”

“Of course you did.” Janus sniffed, looking them up and down before he stopped to squint at the top. It looked like they led to a hallway that turned a corner to the rest of the second floor, a small window letting in a meager amount of sunlight through the dirty glass. The hallway and resulting corner was shrouded in half shadow that made shapes dance around the edges and goosebumps race up and down his arms. Only half paying attention to whatever Remus and Logan were currently arguing about, he took a step closer to the staircase, back tensing even if he couldn’t make anything out that could be triggering such a response. 

Squinting harder he tilted his head trying to get a better angle from his vantage point at the very bottom of the steps. The shadows seemed to shift every so slightly right at the turn of the wall that would lead into the hallway, making him blink and step back in surprise. Hackles raised in earnest now he frantically searched up and down the stairway and everywhere he could see of the upper landing but there was no more movement in any direction. The top of the steps however was brighter now, as if the dirty panes had only been a trick of dust in his eyes. Now it was simply slightly smeared glass- nevertheless letting sunlight through cheerily and letting it shine halfway down the steps- hardly a trace of shadow to be found in what he could have sworn was a dingy landing only moments before. 

“Hey Jannie Jan you good? You look like you saw a ghost.”

“...Remus, you’re sure this house is empty? You never heard anything or saw any- I don’t know empty wrappers or anything?” Stepping fully away from the stairs Janus turned towards Remus and gripped the straps of his backpack tight enough to bruise his fingers.

“No, why? I mean- no one else is here. I’ve spent a few days exploring this place and hanging out, there’s just the first floor which is pretty clean other than well,” he gestured around at the wallpaper, plaster and dust littering the floor, along with the broken glass shoved carefully back underneath the windows. “And the second floor I already said I couldn’t get to and I doubt anyone else could even if they wanted to. I never heard anything other than what I think is a mouse or squirrel or something in the wall over there.”

“That doesn’t completely eradicate the possibility of squatters in the building but considering the state of the place I’d say it’s very unlikely.” Logan nodded at Remus before turning back to peer at Janus curiously. “I would assume that was what you were implying, Janus. Are you alright?”

Janus screwed his mouth to the side, considering just dropping the subject or lying to save face somewhat. Just as he was about to snark out something about watching too many of Remus’ cheesy ghost hunting shows, a wave of dread so solid it left him breathless slammed into him. Ice filled his veins and his legs tensed as every reflex in his body told him in no uncertain terms to run before it was too late. 

“I want to leave.”

“What, why?” Remus quickly jogged over to where Janus was reaching for the door handle, Logan hot on his heels.

“I don’t want to get arrested for trespassing! And this place-” He turned around and glanced to the stairs again. “It doesn’t feel right. I’d rather brave my roommates.”

“Are you scared?” Remus asked incredulously.

“No!” Whirling around the other man locked eyes with Logan. “You agree with me right?”

Logan twisted h=zir fingers for a moment, not looking at either of them. “It does feel odd I suppose.” 

“Then that’s that then! Stay in your creepy house if you want Remus, we’re leaving.” So saying Janus grabbed up Logan’s hand and bag, practically dragging zir out the door. 

Remus stood inside the doorway for a moment before tiks shoulders slumped and tik turned back inside. Of course it wouldn’t be that easy to fix them getting kicked out of the library...again. The house was creepy sure but it had been abandoned for who knows how long and was falling in on itself, what had they expected?

Idly he kicked at a loose nail and sent it skittering across the floor towards the stairs. Tik hadn’t ever felt scared in this house- not even when his weight snapped the first step and he thought he’d be stuck in the house until tiks body rotted through the hole he’d made. A less favorable thought sure but not one tik wasn’t familiar enough with to hold it against the house. Huffing he flopped down against the far wall and drug tiks bag over to tik, fishing around for his phone so he could apologize to Janus and Logan and hope they weren’t too mad at tik...again.

He nearly dropped his phone when something bounced off the back of it, clattering to the floor between tiks feet. He leaned forward to see...a nail? Raising his eyebrow tik looked up to the stairs while flicking the nail towards them, searching for the one he had kicked but seeing nothing other than dust. The one tik flicked bounced off the bottom step and spun for a minute before stopping suddenly just a few inches away. Remus slowly lowered his phone and watched it curiously, the hairs on his arms standing in alarm but refusing to eat tikself actually be scared. It was a nail- an old rusty one at that- and the house was old with its windows smashed through. The air currents were probably playing around with-

There was a slight pain in his outer ear and tik flinched to the side to see what bug had bit him. Instead he saw a nail embedded into the wall, still quivering slightly with the force it had apparently been shot with. Swallowing nervously tik glanced back to the stairs searching frantically for the one he had seen not five seconds ago only to see nothing but dust once again. 

“Okay.” He exhaled shakily and stood up, pocketing his phone and grabbing up tiks bag. “Yeah, okay. So- ghost right? Listen, I love being nailed as much as the next person but-”

He was cut off with small, unassuming jingling sounds, almost sounding like hail hitting the outside of a window. The sun was still shining brightly however, despite the rapidly declining temperature inside and he began to look around in earnest to make out what the sound was. Tik had always told himself that if tik ever had an experience like this he’d be sure to catch it in camera- and none of the shaky handed blurry footage shit everyone else tried to pass off thank you very much Logan- but at the moment his phone was forgotten in a white-knuckled grip. He watched as bits of glass slid over the worn floors with enough force to gouge the wood, jingling merrily on their way to a rapidly darkening staircase with shadows dripping like black mold from the second floor above.

Tik could do nothing but stand frozen even as every instinct and shred of common sense he had ever had screamed at tik to turn and run while he still could. The glass whirled around a shape in the middle of the stairs, a ball of shadow descending step by step that seemed to stare through him though tik couldn’t see any indication the thing had eyes. His vision tunneled and distantly he was aware tiks breathing had picked up- mildly concerning considering the microscopic pieces of glass ripping through the air- everything narrowing down to this one moment. This one entity that without a shred of doubt in Remus’ mind he knew wanted him dead. 

“G̸̮̗̘͔͔̖̕E̴̛͚̣͖͇̗͙̺̭̔̈́̂̀̈́̔̕͠͝͝T̵̨̜̹̲̬̦͕͇͒̓͒̀͑ ̵͕͖̳̱͎͕̝̥̐̉͗̃Ǒ̵̡͎̥̣̳̙̜̜͓̠̲͍̿̐͐̎́̓̽̊͘͘͜͝͠Ṷ̶̢̟̠͙̯̱̝̠̹̪͚̠̽̇̄́͌̔̀̌͠͝T̸͎͐̆̐!̵͉́̅̋̑͑̈̀̈́̄!̷̰̈́̀̑̾͌̊” 

The force of the distorted voice rattled the walls and sent plaster raining down onto Remus, who finally felt his legs twitch just as tik felt the first pinpricks of glass against his face. Wasting not a second more he turned on tiks heel and tripped tiks way through the entry hall and out the door, hearing it slam shut behind him as he hopped the fence and took off down the road faster than tik had ever run in his life. Shocked gasps rushed past his lips as tik just kept pumping his legs and let tikself be led on autopilot all the way to his apartment, bursting through the door and slamming it behind him. Heavy breaths filled the short hall and he slumped to the floor, mildly surprised when his phone thunked to the floor in front of tik. 

“Holy shit.” He whispered, tiks head thumping heavily into the door behind him.

“Holy fucking shit.”

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