#remusstarter

The Eye had found Renfield first; there had been a hush that fell upon everything when the world was transported back through time. A silence that couldn’t be kept that way for long, not when the screaming had started. Renfield couldn’t contain his form, he couldn’t do anything but lash out as countless memories and thoughts came screaming into his mind. Madness was the drawback to his ability, physically strong in form but his appendages made him incredibly vulnerable. Sensitive, that’s what Remus had first said about them, delicate was another word that the original terror had used. As useful as they were, a cut or a sting was amplified tenfold, and the same could be said for the hollowborn’s mind. It wasn’t as if Renfield felt nothing, he felt everything, he just chose to suppress it and push it all down. For fifteen years though, The Great Old One that had inhabited his mind had gradually expanded, entwining into the bodies of millions, implicating itself into technologies and environments that Renfield had never considered possible. That Elder Evil had wished to consume the world, then when he was done with the mortal realm, he’d have grown further and used Renfield every inch of the way until the entire continent was nothing but a mass of organic, enthralled limbs. 

Broken. That’s what Renfield was when The Eye’s research team scraped him off the floor of the control room. He’d be told later that it was Remus who’d all but torn him out of their arms. He’s my son! Whenever the original terror said that there was never any room for argument, not enough people took Remus seriously, Renfield always had. That unbridled potential and that great capacity for destruction, that was only some of what the hollowborn had emulated, but it was still a part of it. Days blurred together wrapped in the jacket he’d given to Remus years ago, he’d been laid in the other’s bed as Remus and Marius slept elsewhere. Meals that Renfield didn’t eat, water that the hollowborn wouldn’t take. Eventually someone came, a doctor that the hollowborn had worked with, and then little by little the pills closed off the rampant doors in Renfield’s mind that had been forced open. One by one, then dozens, hundreds, thousands, maybe more. 

Three weeks in, and Renfield managed to take a shower on his own before he moved from the en suite to the door to the master. Takeout containers littered the kitchen, the state of a place that looked like someone had been pacing the floor for weeks. Clothes in piles, a tired look in Remus’ eyes when Renfield managed to meet them with his own. For the first time in his life things had gone quiet, he couldn’t change his shape, he couldn’t dilute his mind, he knew the suppressants he’d been given because five decades ago he’d helped develop them. An immortal hollowborn still, but for all intents and purposes he was human. There was no running away from his feelings, no burying them or hiding behind them. Not now. 

“I’m sorry.” 

“It’s the flop era for me.” Thanatos inspected his nails before he looked the terror up and down. It had been forever since the brothers had ended up under his domain, well, one of them anyways. He still wasn’t live, laugh, loving, that cage his nephew built to house all those angels. Family was so complicated. “So, what now?” It wasn’t as if Remus had a very exciting end to look forward to, kind of disappointing all things considered. The brothers had had their fated duel, then they had their reunion and fought again - destiny was settling on another pair of siblings to torment, so where did that leave Remus? 

"Are you sure about this?" It wasn't like Renfield didn't like dogs, he'd grown up with Remus and his hellhounds, but he'd never really thought about getting one of his own. They were supposed to be a good thing, give him a reason to leave the house and think about something other than work. Dogs just felt so... Mortal, human in a way. Still, there was something endearing about their little faces watching him and Remus as the father and son wandered down the aisles of unclaimed dogs. "How am I supposed to pick?"

It wasn’t difficult to assess who was banging at his door, even if Renfield hadn’t grown up with the aspect there weren’t many people who knew where to find him outside of office hours. There was Zagreus, and there was Keket, and then of course there was Remus. It wasn’t as if the hollowborn hadn’t thought about Remus - but Renfield didn’t see a way forward or a point in revisiting the wound. He could compartmentalize like he always did, but his thought processes better disgusted analytical problems than emotional one. Renfield could work over an equation or ruminate over a theoretical problem while dealing with a multitude of other issues at once, but once it was resolved it was done. All things took time and patience and energy, as many tentacles as Renfield had was equal to how many independent thoughts he could hold at once. Which to date, seemed unlimited. 

The issue with emotions and problems like Remus was they never went away, they festered in some dark recess of his mind and melded their way to the surface eventually. His feelings towards Dracula, towards Keket - they were all the same. Renfield’s disposition was despondent more often than not but it wasn’t as though he didn’t feel,he felt everything constantly. Madness was the risk that came with his unique mind, the power that had manifested within the demigod made finding peers impossible. Renfield had abandoned any thoughts towards normalcy long ago, still, he hoped a day would come when he might be understood. Or he might be able to live as others did, forgive as they did. 

Renfield’s door swung open and he noticeably rolled his eyes at the other’s presence as he turned away but left the door ajar for the man to come through. “What do you want, Remus?” He could have confronted him, blamed him, told him that The Eye and soon the world would know what had transpired within the labyrinth. Remus got his revenge, how lucky for everyone else that he hadn’t had to sacrifice anyone along the way. Renfield supposed they’d never know what lengths the aspect might have gone to. 

Work was going well. Zagreus was... Consistent. Mutat Domun didn’t suspect anything. The clinic was open and he was seeing patients regularly. Things were happening as Renfield had predicted they would, all in accordance with his hopes and his desires. A lingering thought remained somewhere in a narrow recess of his intricate mind that he needed to indulge: how was Remus doing? Renfield didn’t think it needed to be said that he worried about the old man, that the man that everyone perceived to be a monster was one that inevitably needed his help. “I was expecting it to be bigger,” Renfield said as he paced the flat before he looked back, and down, towards Remus. The hollowborn supposed it fit the monster’s stature. Did Remus need money or something? “how’ve you been?”

Every fiber of his being hated supernaturals. But, it hadn’t always been that way. There were maybe two in this world that were worth anything, Remus was one of them. The aspect hadn’t won father of the year but he’d done more than anyone else had for Ren, the exception to that was maybe Keket. An infant crawling around the Otherworld, a monstrosity by mortal standards, hideous and grotesque - were it not for Remus’ intervention then Ren would have died a long time ago. The eldritch creature had adapted quickly, learned at a rate higher than anyone else, his physiology was unique in that respect, adaptable. “Your brother’s here, isn’t he?” It wasn’t hard to deduce what might have brought Remus to Rome, “an army of vampires sits between you and him.” And who did Remus have in his corner? “How do you plan on getting to him?” 

"You know those aren't real gold, right? They're just gold-plated." Renfield pointed out, Remus had really gone ahead and signed up for everything, he was probably kicking rocks that Capture the Flag had been a random enlistment that didn't give people much say. Somehow Renfield imagined that Remus would've just turned himself into the flag so he could say gotcha when the opposing team thought they won. "They still look cool though, do you think it's fair though that you signed up for literally all the contests?"