a winter's tale (chapter 1)
Remus goes to a winter break party... so does his love-stricken brother, his meddling roommate, his nosy-ass friends, and, oh yeah, his totally-not-a-crush. What could go wrong?
Read here on AO3
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“You need to tell him.”
“I’m not gonna tell him. You need to tell him.”
“Well, I’m not gonna tell him!”
“Children, please,” Janus said tiredly. “Daddy’s trying to read.”
Roman glowered at his roommate from across the kitchen table. “Please don’t ever refer to yourself as ‘daddy’ in my presence.”
“Oh, can I call you daddy?” Remus asked, chipper and bright even in the midst of yet another spat with his brother over the breakfast table. He flopped over the back of Janus’ shoulders, wrapping his arms around his chest and making obnoxious kissing noises against the back of his head. Janus patted his arm.
“A tempting offer, but no thank you,” he replied. “I’d rather not become yet another excuse why you refuse to confess your hopeless crush on Logan.”
Remus gagged, moving to step away, but Janus suddenly grabbed his forearms and kept him from leaving the conversation.
“Truly, it’d be such a shame for yet another year of your friendship to come and go without you finding the balls to inform him of your growing romantic feelings for him,” Janus continued.
Remus hissed and struggled against the hold Janus had on him.
“Ah, yes, a perfectly mature response. I’m shaking in my slippers.”
“And it’s not like he’d get mad about it!” Roman added. “Even if Lo doesn’t feel the same way, he has the right to know how badly you want him!”
“And you have the right to ask for what you want from him.”
“Maybe he’ll say he likes you too!”
“Or maybe he’ll reject you, and you can focus your attention on rebuilding your shattered pride and redirecting your emotions toward self love instead.”
Remus stopped struggling. “Oh, I love myself plenty, thank you very much.”
“Yes, I know, we share a wall,” Janus replied. Roman gagged.
“No sex talk at the table, please?”
Remus quirked his head. “Is masturbation sex?”
“You know who would love to have that fascinating debate with you?” Janus interrupted suddenly. He twisted around to catch Remus’ eye without letting him out of his grasp. “Logan.”
Remus groaned. He dropped his head against Janus’ shoulder, banging it softly. “Why are we even talking about me? Roman’s the one who almost sucked face with Virgil last night.”
“We had a moment,” Roman corrected primly. “And… yes, perhaps said moment would’ve been nicely bookmarked with a proclamation of my long-term romantic interest in him, but a bitch is anxious, okay?”
“And if you hadn’t been so distracted eating all of the cookies I literally just baked yesterday,” Janus said to Remus, “then you would’ve heard that Roman actually does intend to profess his love tonight.”
“Bullshit! That’s what he’s said before every winter break party we’ve been to for the last two years!”
“I have a plan!” Roman insisted. “Virgil always leaves parties early, and I know he walks home because he doesn’t want to ask anyone to leave the party to drive him— I’ll find him before he leaves, ask to accompany him home, we’ll have a wonderfully romantic midnight stroll, I’ll time my confession so that I finish just as we’re arriving to his house—”
“Do not make a joke about finishing,” Janus muttered just as Remus opened his mouth.
“Wherein he will have the immediate escape option of going inside if he needs time to process my declaration!” Roman finished triumphantly.
“Is that honestly your plan?” Remus asked.
“It is exactly my plan, brother dear.”
Janus hummed. “And how many times have you attempted to initiate this plan by offering to walk Virgil home, only to chicken out halfway back to his house?”
Roman stuck his tongue out in lieu of answering. And people say Remus is the immature one.
“Well, you have fun with that!” Remus announced, finally pulling himself away from Janus’ grasp. “While you’re pussy-footing around with Virgil, Jan and I’ll be starting our bi-annual semester-ender bender.”
“Unless…” Janus started, before trailing off. Remus froze and looked at him.
“Unless?”
Janus cocked his head and gave Remus an appraising look. “Unless you… follow Roman’s footsteps…”
Remus’ jaw dropped. “Oh, fuck off.”
Janus scoffed, slapping down his newspaper. “Well, at least Roman is trying to pursue his romantic endeavors. You, on the other hand, you’d rather— what? Dance around the subject until you and Logan both finish grad school and your opportunity will be lost to the sands of time?”
“Tonight’s the perfect opportunity!” Roman added. “He’ll be so relieved the semester’s over, he’ll probably start making out with you on the dance floor right then and there. Isn’t that what you want?”
A spark of something hot and sharp burst in Remus’ chest. “You don’t know what the fuck I want.”
He knew of all people, his brother and his roommate were the least likely to be shocked by his outbursts, but even they stopped the ribbing to look at him cautiously. Which Remus hated, because cautious borders on concern which borders on pity, even though he knew that they were just trying to be respectful of his feelings. Bastards.
Because, in reality… Roman really didn’t know what Remus wanted. Remus really didn’t know what Remus wanted. He didn’t know if he wanted to kiss Logan or to hold hands with him, if his fantasies of them two of them together ending with fucking or cuddling, if he even wanted Logan to do anything other than look at him and listen to him and talk with him. That’s all he could think to ask of Logan: he just wanted to hang around him all the time.
Not like he was actually going to ask Logan anything.
“You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do,” Roman said softly, pulling Remus out of his stupor. He rolled his eyes, half on instinct and half to diffuse the tension in the room.
“Oh, don’t get soft on me, Pissy. We all know I do what I want, when I want— and what I want is to get fucking smashed at this party tonight. Not dragged down by a bunch of sappy confession shit.”
Roman snorted, raising his hands in surrender. “Message received, Gross-feratu. All I ask is that you consider your options— can you think of any better time to have an emotional conversation with Logan than immediately after his final exams are over, when his endorphins levels are at their peak?”
“And at the risk of sounding… altruistic,” Janus added, nose wrinkling with distaste, “I believe you owe it to him to tell him how you feel.”
Remus stuck his tongue out. “Since when do you prioritize other people’s feelings over your own self interest?”
“Since the two of you brought Patton home like a stray,” Janus replied drily. “Besides, the only thing I like more than deception is blackmail. Tell Logan you want to pursue a romantic relationship with him, or I will.”
“Me too!” Roman chimed in. Remus fixed him with a glare.
“Want me to snitch to Emo Nightmare about your little crush, Princeypie?”
“It’ll be mutually assured destruction, dear brother.”
“Yeah? Then I guess you won’t mind if I tell Virgil about all the poetry you’ve written for him.”
“Well, then I’ll tell Logan about the drawings you’ve done of him.”
Remus flushed. “That’s— that’s different, you piece of shit—”
“Aw, what’s wrong? You thought we didn’t notice all the times you pulled up his Instagram just to stare at his pretty face?”
“Don’t call him pretty, zit head!” Remus snapped, bounding around the table and reaching for Roman. Roman squawked and jumped out of his chair just in time for the two of them to begin racing in circles around the dining room table like a couple of cartoon characters.
Janus sighed, flipping to the next page of his newspaper. “One day. One day they’ll kill each other and then I’ll be free.”
