An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
Liam’s eyes widened comically as a dramatic gasp escaped him, “Hayden, that’s right! My party, it’s open invitation! So you know… maybe you’ll get on with one of my neighbours.”
“Right,” scoffed Hayden with no real heat behind it, “a gorgeous person will just walk right through that door and fall into my lap.”
Click. Oh damn.
She turned around to see who had walked in, her eyes were graced with the most beautiful girl she’d ever seen in her whole life.
Progression, rated T, written for Dukeceit Week over on @imnotgrimimjustagrumpyreaper
The Muse's Illusion powers grew by the day and Silvertongue—as well as the rest of the newly-minted Mad Lads—were running out of ways to help him contain them. Playlist - [ AO3 ]
Progression brings to life the hints of Janus and Remus' backstory in the dystopian Mad Lads universe of Out of the Machine and Meus ex Machina.
Chapter List
Ready to Play - 4/6/24
Gladiator - 4/10/24
Come Out and Play - 4/11/24
Bad - 4/12/24
Killer Inside of Me - 4/13/24
Eyes Closed - 4/15/24
Traitor - 4/18/24
You've Created a Monster - 4/21/24
Completely on time, of course. Sorry to keep you on edge like this, Logan, dear… 💛
Remus and Sirius try to have a nice Valentine's Day, their first as new parents, but a few things make that a little difficult.
“I’m in the bedroom! Answering a really quick email!”
“Okay! I thought we were banning work today.” Remus adjusted the hold on the bouquet of wildflowers and big teddy bear. He was really going on all out sap. Sirius loved it, and it felt like they needed it as new parents.
“We were, but this was urgent. I’m in a towel though, does that help?” He could hear Sirius coming down the stairs.
“I mean, it never hurts .” Remus went to the bottom of the stairs, grinning up at them.
Sirius was all bundled up in a towel. “Maybe not the most alluring I’ve ever loo—oh my god, Remus. ”
“You’re always alluring. Happy Valentine’s Day.”
“ Caro.” Sirius came down the stairs and wrapped their arms around his shoulders. “These flowers are beautiful.”
“Aren’t they? They reminded me of our wedding.” He kissed them softly. “I know this teddy is going to end up Teddy’s.”
“It is, but that’s okay. It can be his for when he comes and cuddles in our bed.” Sirius smiled into the kiss. “Thank you.”
“You’re very welcome my pearl.” Remus kissed them once more. “Should we get ready? Our class is in in a little while.”
“Yes, come on.” Sirius smiled and started back up the stairs.
Remus followed them up. He let his free hand trail up their arse, feeling playful. Sirius wiggled their hips, laughing a little.
Prev - Come Out and Play - Next - Masterpost - [ AO3 ]
Remus uses his powers to convince Patton the rats he found in the garden are cats.
Written for @imnotgrimimjustagrumpyreaper's @dukeceit-week-2024, Day 3: Cats/Rats
“Well aren’t you just a little cutie patootie?” Patton’s coo carried up to Janus on the roof and he tilted his head, listening. Virge was out on a run with Luc, and Ro held the other end of the new solar panel they were installing. Had Muse—
He closed his eyes and pushed past the electromagnetic field guarding the Muse's room from most of the chaos of the rest of the world's thoughts. No, he was there, in his room. He was listening to music. Likely sharing the melody with his brother, the source of Ro’s rhythmic head bop and faraway eyes.
So who was Patton talking to?
“Yes, come to Papa, little kitties,” Patton called in a song-song. “There you go,” he said, the next words too quiet to make out from the roof.
Ro finally noticed Janus’ distraction and he hurried to latch his end of the panel into place. Nodding to Ro, they moved together to the roof’s edge and looked out to the garden below.
Patton sat cross-legged under the large peach tree he and Virge salvaged from one of their first scavenge runs. Whether through special powers or pure stubbornness, Patton had nursed it to health and this summer promised a bumper crop of warm, heavy peaches.
In his lap was a small furry creature, head dwarfed and obscured by his massive palm. “Yes, you just needed a gentle touch, didn’t you?” he said, laughing. “Oh, are you hungry?” he asked. The creature nipped at his finger and Patton flinched, revealing the long, pointed nose of a rat.
“Padre!” Ro called and leapt from the roof, float-flying down to the ground. “Padre, put the rat down!”
“Oh, no, Kiddo,” he smiled and held up the squirming rodent. “Look, it’s a little kitty! Can you believe it? I thought they’d gone extinct when…”
-“ Muse !”- Janus reached for to The Muse with the image of Patton holding what was likely a rabies and corona-infected rat. -“It’s biting him, Muse. Drop the Illusion!”-
The Muse grumbled back at him but didn’t really argue. After throwing a hydrophobic tarp over the incomplete panels, Janus rushed downstairs.
Patton’s startled scream was cut off by the slam of the roof’s exit door.
~
“I’m sorry, Jannie.”
Jannie didn’t respond, a thick haze of static around his thoughts. Silent, wordless, shielded, he only frowned at him and latched the door. Jannie sighed, still facing the door, then turned, arms crossed over his chest. His hands were tucked against his ribs, hidden from view. The Muse caught the flash of yellow at his wrists, though, and hung his head.
This was gonna be bad.
“I’m really, really sorry,” he repeated when Jannie still didn’t speak. Still didn’t touch him. Still wouldn’t reach for him. “Is Papa Bear okay? He's never a real cat and he likes them so much from the stories and he was getting bored and lonely down in the garden and… Jannie? Is he okay?”
Jannie’s expression was sharp and he kept his mind shrouded in that damned static. The Muse could probably push through it, but the last time he’d tried, Jannie had noticed. And had not been happy about it. “Please, Jannie?” He stretched and listened to the rest of the house. He caught the shape of Ro’s thoughts, the image of Papa Bear in the infirmary with bloody puncture marks on the side of his hand.
Then Jannie’s static fell over even that.
“Hey!” He recoiled, stepping back from Jannie and stomping his foot. “Don’t do that!” Without conscious control, The Muse pushed back, hard . The static shattered under the pressure, cutting into his flesh, his heart, his head. Jannie shuddered, scars bright and dark against his paled skin. His eyes rolled back, for just a breath, but the door kept him upright and on his feet.
The Muse didn’t wait for him to recover. He followed the cracks in Jannie’s shield, seeping through until he once again felt the familiar fiery warmth of their connection, searching for what Jannie had seen. The static returned and the air around them exploded in light.
Voice and thought bled together and he grabbed Jannie’s shirt, pulling him close. -“That’s not fair! I just wanted to—“
-“ Muse, stop !”- Jannie’s shout filled his mind and drowned the rest of his words, a hand slapped over his mouth and over his mind. He froze, unable to see, unable to hear, unable to breathe. He dropped to his knees, teeth jolting. Wet copper, the tang of that tarnished coin he and Ro had found outside, filled his mouth.
Slowly, Jannie loosened his hold and a trickle of cold air filled his throat, his lungs.
He opened his eyes.
The room was dark, full black. He knelt, curled over himself until his forehead touched the floor, but he couldn’t feel it. He couldn’t see it. Couldn’t even hear it. Jannie stood before him, hands hanging loose at his sides. He closed his eyes and all he could see was Jannie.
-”Muse, no.”- Was that pain in his voice? With everything, with everyone blocked out, The Muse caught every blip and crack in Jannie’s words. He was hurting, a hot, sharp ache shooting through his brain, his veins, pumping molten lead through his limbs and his fingers and down to the ground. It spilled out, sticky, burning tar sizzling as it crawled up The Muse's feet and legs.
It hurt to do this. It hurt to block him from the others like this. To save them from him. It hurt him but it hurt Jannie worse.
It hurt so bad.
-”I’m sorry,”- he sent as gently as he could. Jannie staggered against his whispered thought. -”I’m sorry.”-
Janus helps Remus prepare for a training session. Written for Day 2 of @imnotgrimimjustagrumpyreaper's @dukeceit-week-2024, prompt: Road Trip.
This chapter takes place immediately before an upcoming chapter in Meus ex Machina, Chapter 13: Secrets. You do not need to read the other story to understand this chapter.
Butterflies danced around Janus even before he’d stepped inside the twins’, well… Re’s room.
It had been at least a year and a half since Ro slept more than a few nights in the room the youngest Mad Lads had once shared. It had started small, with Ro knocking on Patton or Virge’s door in the middle of the night. Or with Janus finding him curled up on a pile of blankets near the window of an unconverted room at the other end of the old house. After a while, though, their nights together had taken on the celebratory flavor of a sleepover.
With all the planning that entailed.
Their training excursions with Patton or with Lucas had recently begun to function the same way.
Re pulled him into his room, shoulders shimmying to a beat Janus now shared with him. “They’re still here, right? Ro and Lucas haven’t left yet, have they? I’m not ready yet but I won’t take that long. I already shaved and I’m feeling really—”
“Yes, Re, they’ll wait for you.” Janus soothed, brushing back his hair as he let the truth of his words flow through his thoughts. “Everything is alright.”
Re melted into his arms and nodded. “Mmm…” A wave of wordless anxiety crashed into Janus, belying the outward calm of the moment. “Jannie?” he asked in a warbly voice.
He hid his request behind a flurry of sensations in the room, the weight of his new boots, the scritch where he’d missed a spot shaving with the new bladeless device Virge had crafted. Janus held him tighter and smiled with his mouth and his thoughts. “What do you need, Re?”
“Will you call me ‘Muse?’” He pulled back but pushed the shared sensation of their embrace into his mind, giving him the dual sense of seeing his own eyes staring back into Re’s and the twitch in the younger Mad Lad’s jaw. Like he feared his request was… too much. “It feels good,” he said simply. The wave of warmth and ease Re, well, The Muse sent to him revealed the many facets the single word ‘good’ could mean.
Janus smiled again and stroked his hair. “Of course, Muse.”
The name tromped and skipped and danced through The Muse’s brain, bouncing against his skull until he thought his head might pop. Or just scatter into a million billions bits like a giant dandelion in the wind.
MUSE
It sounded right in Jannie’s voice and the electric buzz of unspoken thoughts sloughed away his worry at asking.
MUSE
The others called him Re. Well, and Papa Bear liked to call him Kiddo, too. The name rolled from their tongues fuzzy and soft and warm, pulling him close and safe even when he was alone in his room and everyone’s words started to meld and blend into a slurry in his mind and—
-“Muse!”-
The Muse’s eyes snapped open. Jannie was cradling his face between his palms, gold and brown eyes staring into his, worry spilling out from his touch, his face, his thoughts. -“Muse, are you alright?”-
The Muse grinned and patted his hands. Jannie had taken off those awful gloves and The Muse traced the even awfuller scars under his fingertips. I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, his fingers spoke, pressing his eternal apologies into Janus’ skin.
-“I’m alright, Jannie,”- he nodded, fear choking out his voice. If Jannie thought he wasn’t in control, he might not get to go to train. Lucas had promised a road trip out to the deserted coast. The drowned cities had long since been abandoned and with the lead acid and PCB ashes in the air, even the garbage pickers stayed away. It left him and Ro a perfect playground, new smells and textures and sounds to fill their banks.
Lucas had even caught capo chatter on his comm feeds, the ones no-one was supposed to know about. There might be some rentacops snooping around the wreckage he and Ro could get some extra practice on.
They weren’t supposed to tell Jannie that part and he cut away the thought like a bit of charred meat. Or rancid cheese. -“I’m okay, Jannie, I swear. Just… excited!”-
He didn’t need powers to read the doubt behind Jannie’s eyes. “Look, look, look…” He forced his throat and tongue and teeth to behave and push his silent words into spoken ones. He released one of Jannie’s hands and grew a tiny cactus in his palm. “I really am! Full control, Feel… Feel the spines—they look sharp but they’re really soft, aren’t they? Try it!” he urged, petting the tiny potted succulent in his hand.
Lowering the hand that had cupped his cheek, Jannie brushed delicate fingers over the tiny spines along the edge of the plant. They flexed with his touch, like his—
“They feel like your mustache,” Jannie smiled, burning away a bit of the churning worry from his gaze. The Muse wasn’t really sure who thought it first, but the words bloomed under his skin, following the heat and and light in his chest the way the books say flowers would turn to the sun.
“Do you like it?” The Muse laughed, letting the cactus dissolve and bringing Jannie’s hand up to trace the soft growth on his upper lip. “I can’t wait to show Ro for real!”
Jannie stroked his mustache and laughed, low and rumbly. Bubbles in deep water. “I’m sure he’ll like it, too.”
